The Farm Exception
I didn’t know a great deal about Ken Salazar’s environmental record, but according to Grist’s Kate Sheppard he’s been quite solid on most “green” issues with the important exception of agriculture where he’s done things like vote against “a subsidy-reform amendment to the farm bill that would have boosted conservation funding by $1.2 billion and made access to the funds more equitable.” And the shocking reality of the legislative politics of agriculture is that the amendment in question failed by a large margin.
Meanwhile, Tom Vilsack is going to be Agriculture Secretary. Vilsack did some very important yeoman’s work a few years back trying to heal the wounds between the labor-oriented and centrist factions of the progressive movement, but on farm issues as far as anyone knows he’s a very conventional Iowa subsidy guy. Given the Obama administration’s high environmental aspirations, it seems perverse to just pretend that agricultural policy doesn’t have environmental impact. But that’s the convention in American politics and it looks like something Team Obama is comfortable with.
33 Responses to “The Farm Exception”
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December 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Eh, I’m pretty happy with most of Obama’s choices, but this one sucks a hairy Vilsack. I mean, we can cross our fingers and hope that Vilsack’s rep will be good cover for enacting the kind of ag reforms we need, but odds are that boring old corn-fed Vilsack won’t deliver much.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Vilsack is a big proponent of wind power at least, which did expand significantly in Iowa during the time he was governor there.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Can Vilsack dunk?
December 17th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Here’s another positive take on Vilsack from someone who has worked with him at the state level.
http://www.cfra.org/blog/2008/11/19/different-view-vilsack
December 17th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I have to say this is a pretty good choice.
I’m a bit concerned about the complaints I’m reading. They seem to be coming from urban activist groups who don’t understand the real issues. A bit like the complaints about Salazar.
I’m still impressed with Obama’s choices. They’re pragmatic.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Obama’s support of corn & ethanol subsidies during the campaign was one of the few instances where I supported a Mccain position over Obama’s. So I’m not really surprised by this, though obviously that doesn’t stop it from being disappointing. I think this is the number one issue that progressives should be pushing back on and really trying to pressure the administration to have a change of perspective. Because this isn’t just a green issue: its also an economic issue, an energy issue, a public health issue, a poverty & famine issue. The way the U.S. subsidizes these things really is gross, and it gets negative marks on all these things. And you know something is a really terrible policy when the Economist & Fidel Castro are complaining about the same thing.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Can Vilsack dunk?
I’ve met him; he’s quite tall, maybe six-three, six-four, but he certainly does not have a particularly athletic build. Probably when he was younger he could, barely, but I’d say no chance now.
Seriously, though, Salazar and Vilsack are the worst picks so far in an utterly uninspiring cabinet. I’m sure Vilsack, Monsanto shill, will be the one to reform American agriculture. And Salazar, contender for worst Democratic Senator and friend of the mining industry, should really be counted on to stand up to those extractive industries. Ugh.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Energy Secratary Chu, while favoring biofuels in general, is an opponent of corn-based (or any food based) ethanol, so there will at least be one voice in the cabinet opposing it.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Eh, could be worse.
Its worth noting that any agricultural system reform would have to happen very incrementally. A magic wand that replaced Burger Doodles worldwide with farm stands and canning facilities would be great, but barring that people have to eat. Encouraging growth of family farms near major cities, regulating environmental practices, divorcing slaughterhouses from livestock ownership, etc… are great things for government to do right now and Vilsack is on board with those. Longer term reform is going to have to be driven by grassroots movements that maximize demand for good food and keep this issue on the radar of legislators from non-farm states. One of the big problems we have is Congresspeople from major metro areas that know very little about food production.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Obama’s state-interest willingness to suck up to Big Corncob was covered by Ken Silverstein way back. Any change on that front is going to have to come from outside the department itself: for those wanting radical reform, it’s one of those “now make me do it” issues. As Paul J. suggests, the response shouldn’t be to shrug and deal for the next four years, but to push back.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:32 am
The other Steve:
When you say “urban activist groups” it sounds a lot like the “east coast liberal elitist” straw man the Republican party enjoys demagoguing so much. The truth is that a: many concerned food activists live in cities, this does not make their concerns less valid, b: many in rural areas are so blinded by the status quo of agriculture in their communities that they cannot imagine anything different, c: the more you learn about the state of ag policy in the US, the more you come to understand that it is MOST devastating to rural American life. I say this as one who has left (hpefully temporarily) rural Illinois due to a lack of opportunity, and would love to return, as a rural lifestyle much better fits my temperment.
What “real issues” are you talking about? Because to me, environmental degradation, poor food quality and the decline of rural America are very real issues.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I think the nature of representation in the senate means that the united states will never have agricultural policy that is anything but terrible. In the senate people employed in agriculture related industries get much more representation than people employed in any other industry. The agriculture industry wants subsidies for making poison so that it can be sold cheap. They have great PR for poison sales. The family farm, the free spirited cattle rancher. But mostly it is taxing people to make poison cheaper,more abundant, and to make poison makers rich. Dairy, corn fed beef, corn, and cereals are deleterious to human health at the levels produced. They are suboptimal foods in any quantity.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Let it be duly noted that Secretary Vilsack will be tasked with carrying out President Obama’s agriculture policy–and that if Obama has any intention of screwing with ag subsidies, it’s a damn sight better, smarter, and more farsighted not to have sent in a carpetbagger to do the job.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ya know, if you dig a little deeper you find that Vilsack has stressed the need to transition away from ethanol subsidies to more support for more efficient cellulosic ethanol and allow the importation of Brazillian sugar-can ethanol. Here’s a quote from an interview with The Mac Weekly via agweb.com (can’t find a link to this, sorry):
“The current system is built on subsidies that are being provided and people have made investments based on relying on those subsidies, but it is also clear that there simply will not be enough corn even if we continue to increase productivity of the corn crop. There isn’t going to be enough corn to produce the kind of demand that we’re going to have for ethanol. So you’ve got to transition away from corn for cellulosic ethanol, and that’s wood chips, that’s waste, that’s grasses, that’s crop residue, it’s a series of things that currently have little value but could-if we do it right-have significant value and can help produce a series of jobs, which this economy clearly needs. So as the research gets us to the point where we can produce cellulosic ethanol efficiently and in a cost effective way, what we’re going to see is a shifting of those subsidies and that assistance [to cellulosic ethanol]. And then overtime, as that industry matures, there will be a need for ratcheting down the subsidies because the market will take over and there will be an opportunity for additional profits from the market the way it ought to be.”
December 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Ah — here’s the link.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Another quote from the Agweb article:
“Vilsack has taken a moderate position, siding at times with those favoring a shift of funding in the agriculture budget from traditional subsidies to new kinds of supports for farmers that improve soil and water management. “I didn’t get much of a reaction from farmers because deep down most of them know the system needs to be changed,” Vilsack said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. Obama supports a $250,000 a year “hard” cap on farm payments and stricter rules on who qualifies as a farmer.”
Yglesias: “as anyone knows he’s a very conventional Iowa subsidy guy.”
December 17th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
he has acknowledged other biofuels will be better in the long run, but he suggests corn-based ethanol is a necessary transition fuel.
I’m not sure I understand how corn-based ethanol can be a transition fuel to anything, since it is not a plus-net fuel. In short, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it produces.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
My concerns with Vilsack center around his ardent support for Monsanto (incl. their repeated and high-pressure lawsuits against near defenseless farmers who’ve done nothing more than own land onto which Monsanto’s corn’s proprietary DNA has floated on the breeze) and unquestioning support for genetically engineered corn and other agricultural commodities.
I’ve never heard or seen him speak out in favor of family farms over CAFOs.
To my knowledge he also has little to no experience with urban agriculture, an issue important to many here in the Detroit area.
In short, he seems to be a sufficient supporter of the perspective of corporate agricultural interests, and that disappoints me on several levels.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Nathan, Thanks for the article. Good info there that at least blunted some of my distaste for this pick.
Seems like Vilsack isn’t nearly the change agent that I’d like, at least not on first reading. But I’m still hopeful that he can make some positive shifts given what seems to be a decent intellectual approach in that article. I’m especially impressed that he can list off some of the downsides or arguments against corn ethanol, even if I don’t quite agree with his rankings.
Food policy looks likely to become a massive issue, along with water and energy policy, in the next 10 years. We’re depleting soils and dumping shit in the water supply through ag runoff and backing ourselves into a corner. As we do that, big ag interests are getting legislation and court decisions on the books to make small-scale farming even harder than it was before. My fear is that if the Big Ag model turns out to be a poor one, we’re in really big trouble without a robust smaller farm network to fall back on.
Too Big to Fail becomes a lot more serious when your food supply is what’s failing. People have to eat.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Would you expect less from an Illinois Senator who won election largely due to his support in the Midwest? I remain an enthusiastic Obama supporter given our realistic options, but I was never under any illusions that he’d challenge our current farm policies. Quite the opposite, really, given his own record.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I’m not sure I understand how corn-based ethanol can be a transition fuel to anything, since it is not a plus-net fuel. In short, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it produces.
It is a transition fuel because ethanol requires a different production and distribution chain than gasoline. Ethanol also requires some small modifications to vehicles to be used as a major component of the liquid fuel supply. Additionally, it is hard to find credible studies (a collection that does not include anything referencing the Pimental screed unless to point out what bad science looks like) that do not show corn-based ethanol to not be a plus-net fuel. It may not be a large energy gain, but it most research puts it in the 15-40% range. The gain from cellulosic ethanol is much larger, but the transition will be much faster/easier if the distribution and usage chain is already in place for large supplies of cellulosic ethanol to be introduced.
December 17th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
i live in rural southeast minnesota. it’s not just “urban” folk that don’t want vilsak/ethanol. there are many of us, farmers & others, that see ethanol for the boondoggle that it is.
30 year transition fuel. give it up.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:46 am
you might well be better off using more energy-efficient fuels for longer, taxing them, using part of the proceeds to hasten the development of better biofuels, and the other part of the proceeds to do a crash distribution and conversion program when they are ready.
This might be a valid case to examine, but it has a couple of intersections with political reality that I have a bit of trouble with. The first is expecting the arrival of what sounds like a fairly significant gas tax in the midst of a recession; not going to happen. It may be a good idea, but Congress is where good ideas go to die. A hidden tax based on subsidies that also bring about cheap food is a far easier political program to maintain. You are also not going to be able to go around and modify cars to use ethanol in anything resembling a “crash program”, fleet replacement is something that takes decades. Now that we have ULS diesel let’s see how long it takes for low-emission diesels to replace the existing fleet…
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