Obama has completed his cabinet choices and Tom Vilsack was named Secretary of Agriculture. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times thinks that the incoming Obama administration needs a Secretary of Food rather than a Secretary of Agriculture. With less than two percent of all Americans engaged in agriculture, and last I checked, 100 percent still needing to eat, maybe there’s some merit to this thought.
Kristof argues that the Department of Agriculture focuses on representing the farm lobby instead of people’s nutritional health needs.
The issue is seen as having such importance that a group of 90 notable figures in the world of sustainable agriculture and food have issued a letter to the incoming Obama administration:
“From rising childhood and adult obesity to issues of food safety, global warming and air and water pollution, we believe our next Secretary of Agriculture must have a vision that calls for: recreating regional food systems, supporting the growth of humane, natural and organic farms, and protecting the environment, biodiversity and the health of our children while implementing policies that place conservation, soil health, animal welfare and worker’s rights as well as sustainable renewable energy near the top of their agenda.”
For more information on what sustainable agriculture entails, you can read more at the Department of Agriculture’s website.
Are you serious? Wow people have way too much time on their hands.
How about a ministry of exercise where they install cameras in our homes and make sure we don’t sit on the couch too much. That’ll help with obesity.
Secretary of good, with this economy the country is facing with so many people losing their jobs. This is going too far now.
You have the FDA which represents and is run by former Drug Company executives, you have the EPA which is not monitoring pollutants in food, water and fish and foods coming in from China that kill people and pets. Now you have this Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack who has ties to Monsanto which is bent on having us all eat genetically modified foods which are harmful and causes allergies.
Why on earth doesn’t the Obama administration think that these lobbyists like Vilsack will change anything? People like Tom Daschle and Tom Vilsack work for law firms which represent, received money from, are influenced by and influence peddle the huge bio food companies. They work for these law firms to get around the lobbyist rules and still receive campaign contributions from their corporate clients at arms length. Influence peddling is still alive and well and I have yet to see anything change in the Obama administration.
Monsanto maintains control of the seeds for food growth which also harms the small farmers who wish to grow non-modified foods such as organics? There were other people Obama could have chosen who have no ties to the large bio-fuel, bio-food, genetically modified foods, and those corporations that wish to taint the food supply.
These corporations have goals of putting small farmers and organic farms out of business, they wish to control the agriculture business world wide and the US farmer has to comply with Monsanto’s influence regarding their seeds and this govt., is totally in favor of letting this continue. Genetically modified foods contain pesticides right in the seed kernals which affect human health, you are eating pesticides right from the structure of the plants -thanks to Monsanto.
The tainting of our food supply makes people sick, it harms the environment with more chemicals and these companies develop a monopoly on the world food supply – do you really think this is the right path for Obama to take “yes we can?” No you don’t.
If Obama wishes to reduce, prevent sickness and the health of Americans -you have to start with the basics- wholesome, organic, none chemically treated foods and revert back to farming which is not run by corporations who’s intent is to dominate the market for their almighty profits. Obama made a big mistake with Vilsack.