A farmer's look at Ag policy

This is by a retired dairy farmer. Most of it has to do with the massive red flags raised by the pick of Tom Vilsack as Ag Secretary. I'm quoting the concluding paragraphs, which suggest that all is not lost by any means.

In a Sep­tem­ber inter­view, Mr. Vil­sack (at the time an advis­er to the Biden cam­paign) said ​“I don’t think most farm­ers want gov­ern­ment pay­ments,” not­ing a ​“need for new poli­cies that sup­port a more resilient farm sec­tor.” Under a Biden admin­is­tra­tion, he added, ​“the USDA could set up region­al food-sup­ply mar­kets and direct fed­er­al incen­tives to farm­ers who adopt cli­mate-friend­ly prac­tices.” Right on!

Let’s give Vil­sack cred­it for embrac­ing that kind of think­ing. And let’s lift up the idea of a just food sys­tem, feed our­selves, pay our farm­ers and farm work­ers fair­ly and pay every­one else a fair wage — as Bernie Sanders says, ​“a min­i­mum of 15 bucks an hour.” Let’s admit that forc­ing over-pro­duc­tion of dairy, or any com­mod­i­ty, on the world mar­ket is a los­ing game. If folks like Rogue Riv­er and oth­ers can export their spe­cial­ties, more pow­er to ​‘em.

Ricar­do Sal­vadore at Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists stressed that ​“any change in admin­is­tra­tion is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to strike in a new direc­tion. So, obvi­ous­ly, going back to a [USDA] sec­re­tary of the past is not the way to strike in a new direc­tion. That is sta­tus quo.”

Giv­en a sec­ond chance, will Tom Vil­sack be that ​“some­one with vision for a just food sys­tem” that Joe Maxwell hoped for, some­one who will Build Back Bet­ter, or will it be ​“déjà vu all over again”? The fate of farm­ers, rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and our food sys­tem depends on the answer. - In These Times

This has an interview with the new Chair of the House Ag Committee, Rep. David Scott (D-GA).

Monsanto needs to be crushed

First, though, I'm noting that the fervent, eloquent tsunami of criticism of Tom Vilsack as the pick for Ag Secretary is entirely valid. Lost in that is that Rep. David Scott (D-GA) is the pick to replace Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) as chair of the House Ag Committee. He's saying, or rather posting, the right things.

“I will use this critical opportunity to represent the values of our entire caucus and advance our priorities for trade, disaster aid, climate change, sustainable agriculture, SNAP, crop insurance, small family farms, specialty crops, and rural broadband,” - Black Enterprise

Getting back to the title, Rep. Scott needs to set his sights on the likes of this.

This real­i­ty is what Mon­san­to was count­ing on when it launched dicam­ba-tol­er­ant crops, an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Mid­west Cen­ter for Inves­tiga­tive Report­ing found.

Monsanto’s new sys­tem was sup­posed to be the future of farm­ing, pro­vid­ing farm­ers with a suite of seeds and chem­i­cals that could com­bat more and more weeds that were becom­ing hard­er to kill.

Instead, the system’s roll­out has led to mil­lions of acres of crop dam­age across the Mid­west and South; wide­spread tree death in many rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, state parks and nature pre­serves; and an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of strife in the farm­ing world.

Exec­u­tives from Mon­san­to and BASF, a Ger­man chem­i­cal com­pa­ny that worked with Mon­san­to to launch the sys­tem, knew their dicam­ba weed killers would cause large-scale dam­age to fields across the Unit­ed States but decid­ed to push them on unsus­pect­ing farm­ers any­way, in a bid to cor­ner the soy­bean and cot­ton markets. - In These Times