Note: I wrote this originally in response to Art Cullen’s “Vilsack’s exit interview for the Beltway.” (See column to the right.) I’ve always said I should write a book about the “goings on” at USDA during the years I spent there. Maybe this is the start.
Bravo, Art Cullen! I spent 12 years serving as a senior appointee – 4 Clinton/Dan Glickman and 8 Obama/Tom Vilsack. The difference was night and day.
Dan Glickmen had this way of saying, “I’m tired of getting complaints about ‘X,’ get me a bunch of gurus, and let’s figure out what we can do.” This is how Food Safety became a mission area, how our legislative proposal for crop insurance earned $400 million in subsidies for farmers, and how we developed about a hundred new insurance products for crops. We also led the way on the ag-related promises made in the “Gore-Mbeki” BiNational Agreement between South Africa and the U.S. at USDA, and we settled the Black Farmer agreement and got it authorized.
But for Obama/Vilsack, we just kept passing up on opportunities. Michelle Obama was committed to solving hunger … could we even talk and connect farmers and the solving hunger advocates about how farmers grow food, which solves hunger and offers opportunities for new farm markets? No! (Only the lobbyists do that.)
As the Clinton Administration left the government and Bush became president, Bush killed the money for Africa and the commitments the U.S. had begun under the terms of the BiNational Agreement. I thought we would surely pick up the stranded projects when Democrats won—in in one case only a step or two of parliamentary action was needed—but no, Vilsack chose to go to a country where John Deere could make instant money instead. That decision was out-loud pandering to BIG AG.
The Black Farmer agreement needed new appropriations, but Vilsack refused to act. Then, when he finally did, the Court threw out the deal he fostered, and no wonder. Only 13% of the money would have gone to Black Farmers if it had been allowed. Now, almost 24 years later, Vilsack is bragging about helping Black farmers … and we Democrats wonder why the rural Black vote is fading away.
Would of/could have/didn’t! Numerous Vilsack actions related to racism/sexism/ageism almost always resulted in women being blamed, giving women’s accomplishments to young white men and protecting men’s affairs with lower-level staff. This! I could write a book about it, but so far, I resist in favor of reminding our family farmers of missed opportunities.
For example, the USDA began in the 1960s to teach farmers to use farm chemicals and move to mono-crop practices. The USDA told farmers they needed to get out if they couldn’t get bigger. Have we seen one word of push-back from Vilsack on the “Get bigger or get out” practices that repeatedly favored BIG AG? No!
Not even now, when Vilsack and his team are busy talking the “talk” of climate change but not using all the tools they have to help farmers change their growing practices and adapt to the possibilities of new crops? These are missed opportunities.
BIG AG does not want change, so there is no urgency. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) has rarely updated growing practices for its many insurance products; the FPAC folks, whose newer responsibilities include keeping data records, have only succeeded in creating new systems that result in dirty data. The last time we saw real creativity was at the end of the Clinton Administration when RMA developed 100+ new insurance products, and I led the first-ever data collection process for insurance products for organic growers. At the same time, REE worked to establish organic standards.
Politico’s exit interview with Tom Vilsack can be found at the end of this column. It kicked off Art Cullen’s comments, and my comments are partly in response to Art’s.
If we expect family farmers and their communities to vote for our candidates, the changes must begin with respect and continue with USDA listening and putting farmers and community leaders first. No more beginning with BIG AG. No more only popping into rural communities during election season. We need to be there 12 months a year.
BIG AG has pushed many of our rural communities back to almost nothing. BIG AG is where most of the food dollar goes, and BIG AG is what continues to demand the disastrous policies encouraged by USDA’s advice that producers must “Get bigger, or get out!”
[Disclosure: I served as RMA’s Chief of Staff under Clinton and under Obama as RMA’s Associate Administrator. I was co-owner/manager of an Iowa farm for 17 years and have been deeply involved in family farm politics all my life. I have had a personal stake one way or another in almost all the issues addressed here.]Barbara M. Leach, Founder and Editor of MY RURAL AMERICA’s blog
Jonathan Martin, Politico: Tom Vilsack: Why Democrats Don’t Get Rural America
