Tag Archives: vilsack

Trump Eyes Ex-Agrichemical Exec to Fill His Final Cabinet Post

by GudrunLevin19 Posted on January 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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When Indiana’s then-governor Mike Pence needed to appoint a new director of his state’s agriculture department back in 2013, he dipped right into the corner offices of the global agrichemical industry. His pick, Ted McKinney, then the director of global corporate affairs for Elanco Animal Health, a division of pharma giant Eli Lilly, had previously been an executive on the government-affairs team for seed/pesticide giant Dow AgroSciences.

Now Pence is the vice president-elect for the incoming Trump administration, which sorely needs to appoint a secretary of the US Department of Agriculture, the only open cabinet slot. And McKinney, recently re-appointed as director of Indiana’s agriculture department, has emerged as the latest in a long line of contenders du jour for the job, Politico reports.

And now the USDA post is really open: Tom Vilsack, the outgoing USDA chief, abruptly quit Friday, informing employees in an email he had served his final day, ABC News reports. Vilsack added some damning commentary on Trump’s delay in choosing his successor: “When that individual is named, he or she will be at a tremendous disadvantage, in terms of getting up to speed on all this department does,” Vilsack said in a statement, according to ABC.

Will McKinney be the one Trump chooses for the burden? In his capacity as an Indiana government official, McKinney—who also serves as director of agribusiness development at the Indiana Economic Development Corporation—is perhaps best known for helping lead an ultimately unsuccessful but “very aggressive” effort to entice DowDuPont to choose Indianapolis as the corporate HQ of its agrichemical arm. McKinney has a well-earned perspective on the advantages of doing agribusiness in Indiana, which sits in the heart of the US corn belt. His most recent private-sector employer, Elanco, is headquartered in the state, as was Dow AgroSciences, until its parent company merged with DuPont last year.

The seed and pesticide industries would certainly have a major ally at the helm of the USDA if McKinney gets the nod. In addition to having worked for Dow for nearly two decades, Mckinney was a co-founder and served as interim executive director for the Council for Biotechnology Information, a group funded by BASF, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta, to promote agriculture biotech. These companies need USDA approval to move novel genetically modified seeds from lab to market. And apparently they have Trump’s ear—on Wednesday, Bayer CEO Werner Baumann and his Monsanto counterpart Hugh Grant scored an audience with the incoming president to promote the pending merger, which will need to pass antitrust vetting from Trump’s justice department.

But McKinney isn’t purely an agri-tech nerd. In an address before an annual meeting of an Indiana pork industry group soon after taking the Indiana department of agriculture job, McKinney cited “divine intervention” as one of the main reasons for his move from the corner office to the state bureaucracy. After getting the call from Pence, he explained, “my wife and I prayed about it, it just seemed right. I took the plunge, and here we are…and I’m having a ball!”

Like former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, McKinney appeared on early versions of Trump’s USDA short list, disappeared from discussion for weeks, only to re-emerge with a headline-grabbing visit to Trump Tower, Politico reports.

Fun fact: McKinney’s son, Brad McKinney, works for Mike Torrey, the DC Big Food lobbyist who for a couple of weeks in November led Trump’s USDA transition. Torrey abruptly quit after Trump announced a ban on lobbyists serving in the transition.

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Trump Eyes Ex-Agrichemical Exec to Fill His Final Cabinet Post

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Tom Vilsack Is a Little Worried That Trump Forgot the USDA Exists

by VirgiliCarpente Posted on December 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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While writing this post about the chaos surrounding the US Department of Agriculture transition, I was tempted to title it, “What the hell is Trump getting up to at the USDA?” Apparently, outgoing USDA chief Tom Vilsack has the same question.

In its emailed morning news roundup for December 14—you can listen to the audio version here, starting at the 32 second mark—the trade journal Agri-Pulse reported on its recent exit interview with Vilsack. In it, he took a poke at the Trump transition team. The USDA chief expressed disappointment that Trump has yet to appoint his successor and complained that “we haven’t had much activity from the transition team,” even as his own staff has been developing materials to prep the new team for taking over the agency.

“I think we’ve had one person here for a few hours and then that person was told he couldn’t do the job,” Vilsack said, an apparent reference to Michael Torrey, the food industry lobbyist Trump tapped to lead the USDA transition a month ago. Torrey abruptly quit a week later after Trump announced a ban on lobbyists working in the transition.

“And then we had a second person and we’ve seen him like once, and that’s it,” Vilsack added. That would appear to be a reference to Joel Leftwich, who took over the role of USDA transition a few days after Torrey’s exit. In addition to his transition duties, Leftwich now works for the Senate Agriculture Committee, but he served as Pepsi’s top DC lobbyist from 2013 to 2015.

“It’s a little puzzling why, given the magnitude and the reach of this department, that people haven’t been more engaged, given the opportunity to learn,” Vilsack said.

Meanwhile, Trump isn’t close to deciding on who he’ll tap to take over from Vilsack, reports the trade journal Southeast Ag Net. Mounting speculation recently settled on Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) as the likely pick, but that crumbled Monday, with reports of dissension among Trump’s ag advisers and whispers that Heitkamp would decline the job anyway.

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Tom Vilsack Is a Little Worried That Trump Forgot the USDA Exists

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The One Thing Hillary Cares About Most—When It Comes to Food

by ModestoKXP Posted on July 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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If Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wins in November, what kind of food and farm policy can we expect from her? Like most presidential campaign seasons, the current one has been lighter than a soufflé in terms of debate around food issues. Here’s what we know so far.

(1) The 2016 Democratic Party platform is mostly short on food policy details. Farm programs get all of two paragraphs, under the rubric of “Investing in Rural America.” The section nods to “promoting environmentally sustainable agricultural practices” and “expanding local food markets and regional food systems,” a likely reference to the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program instituted under President Barack Obama. It also takes a stand on farm workers, advocating “stronger agricultural worker protections including regulation of work hours, elimination of child labor, ensuring adequate housing for migrant workers, and sanitary facilities in the field.”

In other notable sections, the platform mentions developing “science-based restrictions” to protect Alaska’s wild salmon fisheries from a controversial proposed mine, and it vows to enforce antitrust laws to “protect competition and prevent excessively consolidated economic and political power, which can be corrosive to a healthy democracy.” As I noted a few weeks ago, that section contains the first mention of antitrust policy in a Democratic Party presidential platform in three decades; and if a President Clinton were to make good on it, there could be profound implications for our highly concentrated food industry.

(2) …except one: Clinton will likely defend hunger programs. The platform bluntly promises to protect “proven programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—our nation’s most important anti-hunger program—that help struggling families put food on the table.” SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, has been in the Republican crosshairs for years. President Obama and Democrats in Congress fought off a GOP attempt to slash SNAP in 2013, and there’s no reason to think Clinton won’t hold the line.

(3) The State Department hotly promoted GMOs abroad under Clinton. Diplomatic cables dumped by WikiLeaks back in 2013 showed that Clinton’s State Department lobbied foreign governments to weaken regulation of GMOs, including food labels, and operated public relations campaigns to improve their popularity. (More here and here.) Back in 2012, Jack Bobo, then serving as senior adviser for biotechnology at the State Department, even lobbied me to take a less critical view of ag biotech. (Bobo is now the chief communications officer of a biotech company.)

(4) She showed signs of appreciating organic ag as first lady. In the 1990s, before organic food went mainstream, Clinton was a fan. Walter Scheib, whom the first lady hired as White House chef in 1994, later reminisced that the Clintons “dined regularly on organic foods” and favored “both wagyu and grass-fed beef.” He added that “nearly all the product used was obtained from local growers and suppliers.” While Michelle Obama is widely celebrated for her robust White House garden, Hillary Clinton kept a small one on the roof, Scheib noted.

(5) She’s tightly aligned with Tom Vilsack, Obama’s US Department of Agriculture chief. The two veteran pols go way back—Vilsack credits Hillary Clinton’s fundraising efforts on his behalf for boosting his successful run as Iowa governor back in 1998. A decade later, Vilsack endorsed Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. Last year, Clinton put longtime Vilsack adviser Matt Paul in charge of her Iowa caucus campaign, plucking him from his post as the USDA’s director of communications. The Clinton team aggressively floated Vilsack as a contender for vice president before settling on Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine for the post. But despite his getting passed over, there was a Vilsack angle—the campaign quickly named Paul, Vilsack’s longtime right-hand man, as Kaine’s chief of staff. Two Washington insiders who declined to be quoted directly have told me that Vilsack is and will likely remain Clinton’s top ag adviser, on everything from policy details to choosing the next USDA chief. That tells me that if Clinton prevails, the next administration will look a lot like the current one on ag policy. Here’s my recent summary of Vilsack’s eight-year run as USDA chief.

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The One Thing Hillary Cares About Most—When It Comes to Food

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Clinton might pick whatshisname — that ag guy — for Veep

by AnhH65113876 Posted on July 19, 2016

Clinton might pick whatshisname — that ag guy — for Veep

By on Jul 19, 2016Share

Rumor has it that Hillary Clinton may pick Tom Vilsack, President Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, as her veep. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and other names come up more frequently, but Vilsack has a good shot according to Politico reporters Gabriel Debenetti and Helena Bottemiller Evich.

What to say about Vilsack? As Vanity Fair put it: “Vilsack is boring, as even his staunchest defenders will admit.”

Vilsack spins his dullness as a virtue. “I’m a workhorse, not a show horse,” he told Politico.

The former governor of Iowa is the longest serving member of Obama’s cabinet. People seem to like him on both sides of the aisle. His record is squeaky clean, except for one real scandal. In 2010, he fired a USDA employee and all around admirable person, Shirley Sherrod, after Breitbart News made allegations about her that turned out to be false. He apologized a couple of days later and said he’d made a mistake.

Vilsack has pushed programs to fight poverty and worked closely with Michelle Obama on school lunch standards. He’s also overseen a big increase in funding for local and organic farm programs — too much according to some row-crop farmers, and not enough according to some activists. He’s a reformer, working within the system rather than tearing it down, much like a certain presidential candidate.

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Clinton might pick whatshisname — that ag guy — for Veep

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President Obama’s Choice

by Posted on October 29, 2015

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President Obama’s Choice

Posted 29 October 2015 in

National

President Obama and the EPA have a choice to make on the Renewable Fuel Standard, and they need to decide whose advice to take.

On one side, the President’s own Cabinet secretaries, scientists and advisors have publicly called for protecting a strong RFS. They see that the RFS has strengthened America’s rural economy while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

But on other side, the oil industry is up to its old tricks — funding bogus research studies that spread blatant lies about ethanol. These so-called “inconvenient facts” and newfound concerns about the environment are a laugh when they come from Big Oil.

When it comes to advice on the RFS, President Obama can look no further than his own cabinet. RFS supporters include the likes of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Both McCarthy and Vilsack see the RFS as a great American success story and a vital part of the solution to climate change.

At a recent energy conference, Secretary Vilsack made it clear that his department has a commitment to supporting the RFS. “This is the right thing to do for the country and certainly the right thing to do for rural America.”

McCarthy was even more direct in drawing the connection from the RFS to the environment. “President Obama is fully committed to addressing the challenge of climate change. And he knows as well as you do that RFS is a tool we need to bring to the table.”

 

 

The President’s closest advisors know that the RFS is a tool we need. And scientists know it, too. The use of corn ethanol is already responsible for a 34% reduction in GHG emissions according to the Argonne National Laboratory.

So, Mr. President, who are you going to believe when it comes to climate: Gina McCarthy, Tom Vilsack and your own scientists, or ExxonMobil?

 

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What exactly is DDGS?

by Posted on June 12, 2013

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What exactly is DDGS?

Posted 12 June 2013 in

National

Last week, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack spoke at the National Press Club calling for farmers to respond to the impacts of climate change and start adapting now. Across the country rising temperatures, crippling droughts and severe storms are changing American agriculture. Farmers are experiencing shortened growing seasons and prohibitive environmental factors. Without a strategy to both mitigate this disaster and adapt to ever changing conditions, the American agriculture industry will suffer.

Luckily, America’s farmers are on the case. As we’ve documented previously, the ingenuity and innovation of our agriculture industry has produced impressive results when it comes to sustainability. According to a report by Field to Market, over the course of 30 years corn production has doubled while land use has actually decreased by a third and water use by one-half.

The Renewable Fuel Standard has encouraged another kind of efficiency. Dried distiller grains or DDGS, is a co-product of ethanol production that serves as a nutritious, low-cost feed for livestock. In fact, over one-third of the corn used in ethanol production returns to the food system in the form of DDGS. Last year more than 39 million metric tons of animal feed was produced at ethanol plants and more than half of that feed was used in the beef industry, bringing down the cost to both the farmer and consumer.

The impact of extreme weather on the nation’s agricultural industry could be catastrophic without significant effort from the community. The Renewable Fuel Standard is the one policy in the United States that encourages domestically-produced alternatives to oil to help mitigate the disasters of fossil fueled climate change. It also benefits the agricultural community by promoting sustainable practices and lowering costs.

The American farmer is resilient, but Secretary Vilsack is right; we need to be ahead of the game, armed with policies like the RFS to allow for continued mitigation, adaptation and sustainable farming practices.

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USDA offers up new seed money for small farmers

by f45 Posted on January 16, 2013

USDA offers up new seed money for small farmers

By Susie Cagle

Make your hydroponic backyard organic kale dreams come true, now with help from the federal government. Yesterday the U.S. Department of Agriculture finalized a microloan program to assist veterans, minority growers, and small-time farmers who might otherwise have to rely on credit cards to get their farms up and running.

The microloans, up to $35,000 each, will be majorly helpful in an industry where loans are usually for much bigger sums, and involve much bigger stacks of paperwork. More microloans could mean more microfarms, and more diverse ones on the whole, and super-low interest rates (currently 1.25 percent) could certainly cut down on farmers’ debt load. From the Associated Press:

Over the last three years, there has been a 60 percent increase in local growers who sell directly to consumers or farmers markets, Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack said…

The loan can cover the costs of renting land, buying seed and equipment, and other expenses. One goal is to create more opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment in the farming industry, Vilsack said. Another goal is to provide beginners a chance to build credit, so that they can eventually qualify for higher-value loans and expand.

“It’s about making sure that we have diversity within agriculture, that we have a good blend of large production facilities, medium-sized operations and smaller operations,” Vilsack
said. “It will help bolster the local and regional food system movement that is taking place.”

Some small-time farmers were optimistic, but is $35,000 too micro of a loan to do much good?

That would be a good question for economists who don’t have a beef with their local farmers market. Iowa State University economist and local food researcher David Swenson is particularly grumpy about the USDA’s goals. “This is a policy area where community affection and political affection for the idea of local foods has gotten itself way out in front of the economics,” he said. Goddamn that community affection. David Swenson must be hanging out with Glenn Beck lately.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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