Imagining a new USDA

Top USDA official gets serious about local/regional food systems 8

merriganHope and fresh produce: Kathleen MerriganWith the climate bill gutted by Big Ag and stalled in the Senate, with health-care reform on the verge of collapse, prospects for real change in national politics are looking grim. Well, here’s some hope from what’s traditionally one of the executive branch’s most retrograde agencies: the USDA.

USDA deputy secretary, Kathleen Merrigan recently released a memo (PDF) called “Harnessing USDA Rural Development Programs to Build Local and Regional Food Systems.” (Below right, see a characteristic fragment.)

Now, this is no revolutionary document. It commits no new funds, lays out no bold new plans. USDA officials have no power to do those things; their funding and broad policy mandate is essentially laid out in the farm bill.

But the memo merriganA characteristic bit of the Merrigan memo. does signal the intention to execute policy in a smart and progressive way. And it comes from an official with the clout to make it happen. The deputy secretary position is traditionally a powerful one within USDA—the person who cracks the whip and gets the agency’s vast population of bureaucrats dancing to the same tune.

During the Bush administration, a veteran industrial corn man named Chuck Conner held the post. Kathleen Merrigan stands in a sharp contrast to Conner, who spent his pre-Bush Admin days doing stuff like trying to force Mexican consumers to experience the wonders of high-fructose corn syrup. http://www.corn.org/web/rels0200.htm

Merrigan, for her part, is a longtime champion of organic agriculture. Before joining USDA, she held a post as a academic, directing the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts.

In her food-systems memo, Merrigan lays out an agenda for how existing USDA programs could be used to bolster emerging local and regional food networks.

On Obama Foodorma, the well-connectted blogger Eddie Gehman Kohan claims that Merrigan and her boss, USDA chief Tom Vilsack, has been working closely with First Lady Michelle Obama’s “food policy team.” Her what? According to Gehman Kohan, Ms. Obama does indeed have such a team, “led by White House assistant chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass, and also includes Senior Adviser Jocelyn Frye and Melody Barnes.”

In Gehman Kohan’s reading, the Merrigan memo reflects a quiet but powerful push from the East Wing of the White House—Michelle Obama’s domain—to transform a half century of failed policies at USDA. I’m not sure about that, but it certainly represents a major step forward from the age when industrial corn men led the agency.

 

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

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  1. sustainablegrub's avatar

    sustainablegrub Posted 2:26 pm
    29 Aug 2009

    And if  you read the memo  you see there's about $1 billion of federal stimulus money still available for local nonprofits or government agencies to expand local farmer's markets, launch an added-value program, build a community kitchen, create a farm expansion and distribution system to feed the school lunch program (be still my heart). Check it out. it's for real.And all this comes a week after Obama, and the Ag and Education Secretaries, seriously dissed the school lunch program for being too full of junk food that comes from far away, saying we need more nutritous local food. They are definitely sending signals, and bucks, to reform the school lunch program and communities need to start gearing up for that with local farmers.http://sustainablegrub.wordpress.com 

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    1. Kurt Michael Friese's avatar

      Kurt Michael Friese Posted 5:27 pm
      29 Aug 2009

      Sadly we need a lot more than $1B.  Merely for the increase that the Slow Food Time for Lunch program is calling for, $1 per meal, we're talking about $5.4B/yr.  And that will only be of help if the money is earmarked specifically for purchase of local and sustainably-raised fresh ingredients, and if we go ahead with the Food Corps program described in the Time for Lunch platform.
      That's why everyone's support is need on September 7th, and why we need all the signatures we can get on the petition.

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  2. foodprovider's avatar

    foodprovider Posted 8:34 am
    31 Aug 2009

    Can anyone help me out here?  I am looking for a definition to "BIG AG".  Also, I am curious as to where or who coined that term.

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    1. Kurt Michael Friese's avatar

      Kurt Michael Friese Posted 8:38 am
      31 Aug 2009

      'Fraid I can't help toy on who first coined it, but it's a blanket term that refers to companies like Monsanto, Tyson and ADM, to large corporate-owned farms, to the family farms that are trapped in corporate contracts, CAFOs broadly, and to the lobbists associate with all the above.
      That help?

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  3. 2GreenMen's avatar

    2GreenMen Posted 12:10 am
    01 Sep 2009

    Things are looking hopeful.  I hope there is more bite in the FDA.  

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  4. Lezlie's avatar

    Lezlie Posted 5:59 am
    09 Sep 2009

    OH Please! I have been in the Organic Industry for nearly 40 years. We are the pioneers, USDA has been a hindrance & downright destructive & this so called show of support is no more then a ploy to take over everything. The truth is they are passing bills to outlaw the family farm outlaw organics & the abilty to seize any farm they choose with Monsanto holding their hand & co writing the bills.Even wanting to allow Organic farms to have GM seeds & crops. Gee thanks USDA. Whilst you are banning manure bannning natural inputs & trying to outlaw natural healing remedies. For all you young ones out there we aware be wary, nothing the government does is what it seems no hand out is free. Do not give away your rights, just wait Monsanto wants it all they want it so they continue to poison the children, I know I am a Organic farmer who has been raided by the feds they took my farm all illegally. But I am outspoken telling you the people the truth.So back off USDA we do not want your help, all you are is a bunch of sychophantic sociopath liars who want full control to do what you do tax & control everything as that is the nature of the beast. The United States Death Agency. 

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  5. Lezlie's avatar

    Lezlie Posted 5:59 am
    09 Sep 2009

    OH Please! I have been in the Organic Industry for nearly 40 years. We are the pioneers, USDA has been a hindrance & downright destructive & this so called show of support is no more then a ploy to take over everything. The truth is they are passing bills to outlaw the family farm outlaw organics & the abilty to seize any farm they choose with Monsanto holding their hand & co writing the bills.Even wanting to allow Organic farms to have GM seeds & crops. Gee thanks USDA. Whilst you are banning manure bannning natural inputs & trying to outlaw natural healing remedies. For all you young ones out there we aware be wary, nothing the government does is what it seems no hand out is free. Do not give away your rights, just wait Monsanto wants it all they want it so they continue to poison the children, I know I am a Organic farmer who has been raided by the feds they took my farm all illegally. But I am outspoken telling you the people the truth.So back off USDA we do not want your help, all you are is a bunch of sychophantic sociopath liars who want full control to do what you do tax & control everything as that is the nature of the beast. The United States Death Agency. 

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  6. Lezlie's avatar

    Lezlie Posted 6:25 am
    09 Sep 2009

    OH Please! The USDA changing its coat! I have been in the Organic Industry for 40 years helping to kick start it, do you know what bills are before the house at present & what the USDA wants to ban?Quess who is behind it & why they are giving this piddling handout. Monsanto the the Jolly GMO monster, why your kids are not being poisoned fast enough & these pesky Organic farms they want to take over. They now want to control all the markets. So the bills before the house state we are outlawing manure we are passing a bill that gives us the right to take any farm we please when we want. They are doing this & giving the government & Monsanto full control even using homeland security to take our farms when they want to. With the USDA wanting to allow Organic farms to have GMO seeds. Gee thanks USDA.The USDA is now trying to ban all natural healing products. On & on it goes. This is another Wolf in sheeps clothing. Do not fall for it. Nothing the government is as it seems, nothing is free. They want to take full control of everything including the banning of real food, so you can all eat poison. Good ol Uncle Monsanto wants to further enslave you. You will be sp poisoned that you will not even be able to think!Look people we are fighting battles on every level here so be aware be very aware & even more wary. Read the bills sign nothing! Do not give your independance away that is if you have any left. Tell USDA & Monsanto to but out. What they say they are doing will be the opposite of what they are doing.So the United States Death Agency & the Federal Death Agency leave the innocent people alone.Michelle has no say they are using her, the same industrial Con Men are still there the ones advising the president is direct out of Monsanto.  Look behind the scenes people & do not fall for this ploy. We the real farmers the ones who do not want to poison you the organic ones demand you to know the truth, we are still here we still grow your food & feed your children. Tell Monsanto & the government goons to take a hike! Parents protect your children!

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