As Your New Ag Secretary...

It is about time that I actually take a few moments to throw out some ideas of what I would do if I was the incoming Agricultural Secretary. It is safe to say that many of these things have been mentioned in prior comments, but I think that says a lot about the similarities I have with a lot of this blogs readers when it comes to agriculture. Oh, and as your incoming Ag Secretary I would like this photo to be my official picture for all press releases :)

1. One of the first things I would try to do would be to make a major over-haul of the current farm bill. By major I mean that I would cut out the "social programs" from the farm bill and allow it to focus completely on the nuts and bolts of farming, not the distribution of food (and other peoples money) to others. If this were done I would hope that people could look more objectively at some of the things in the farm bill that actually apply to farming instead of focusing on the social components.
2. After that was taken care of I would take a major look at the current subsidy system and the incentive programs. Not only do I believe that we need to phase out our current love of paying people to own crop land, but I also think we need to look at the ramifications of paying people not to farm. There are lots of good programs that have a lot that can be beneficial (see the Conservation Securities Program), but there are too many loopholes in the programs that we have. For example, our land had been in CRP for 14 years. At the beginning it was seeded down with native grasses, which was great, but in the subsequent 14 years nothing has been done and because of that it has even begun to suffer a little.
3. Here is the big pipe dream, but I would not allow larger seed companies and packers to influence policy. They are going to only be looking out for themselves (as they probably should), but we need a government that hears and sees all sides of the story. Like I said, this is a bit unlikely, but it is what I would do.
4. I would build a program for agricultural education to be taught in schools. I know that our schools have enough to worry about already, but at some point our students need to learn where food comes from and how it is produced. If we can again have educated food consumers (I believe we did at one time) than agricultural policy and support will probably change for the better.
5. I would require staff to have a intimate knowledge of life on the farm, not just fiscal principles. I wouldn't go so far as saying that they had to be farmers (I don't want to be closed minded), but I do think it wouldn't be too much to ask that they at least spend some time with farmers and get to know their needs, wants, and desires.
6. Oh, and one more thing... I would give all of you guys positions in my office so that I would know that I at least had some people willing to think, and think outside of the box!

What Would You Do?

That is the question that Yeoman posed in the comments of my "A New Secretary" blog post. I think it is a great question ... such a great question in fact that I wanted to move it to the front page so that everyone would be sure to see it. I would love to hear all things, from just a little thought to something that may have been kicking around in your head for awhile. It is one thing to know that there is a problem, but if we can come up with some workable (or even pipe dream) solutions we are better off.

So, here is Yeoman's question:

If you (dear reader, and Ethan) were appointed Ag Sec, what would you do.

We'll presume (a big presumption) actual support from the President, and Congress.

So, if you had the reins of power, in ag, what would you do?

There you have it. The question has been posed and now I'm sure we would all love to hear some thoughts. I'll kick in with mine pretty soon.

A New Secretary

With a new president comes all sorts of new things ... including a new Secretary of Agriculture. And, just this past week we found out that Mr. Obama's choice would be ex-governor Tom Vilsack of my own state (the great state of Iowa). I didn't catch much of the farm news this week, but from what I did hear it seems that they were fairly pleased with the choice if for no other reason than the fact that he is from Iowa and so he would be intimately concerned with the "needs" of today's Iowa farmer. On the other hand, there are plenty of people out there that are less that pleased with the pick.

Michael Pollan said, "a good day for corn. Less good for eaters." And, Allan Nation (editor of The Stockman Grassfarmer) wrote, "This ends the speculation that a 'sustainable ag' candidate might get the nod and the appointment is a major coup for Big Corn and the ethanol industry." In fact you can read more of what Mr. Nation had to say by checking out his blog.

What I know about Mr. Vilsack is that he was a two-term governor in our state who only ran for two terms ... after that he had a short lived run for the presidency. I also know that he actually isn't a native Iowan (he was born in Pittsburgh) and that he spent his time most recently as a lawyer among other things. I do know though that he is probably acutely aware of the workings of big agriculture and the ethanol industry in Iowa and beyond and seems to be a helper in the cause of bio-fuels.

It seems that some of the organic organizations aren't very pleased either because of the way he has reached out to the GMO crowd and the ethanol industry. In fact after a little wiki search I found out that the Organic Consumers Organization (never heard of it) thought that Mr. Vilsack was a poor choice, "particularly as energy and environmental reforms were a key point of the Obama campaign."

If we have any sense of history we know that the Secretary of Agriculture does have a lot of power to shape our country (see Earl Butz) if they are allowed to do so. I'm not quite sure what Mr. Vilsack has in mind, but it should be interesting ... at least he is an Iowan ... well, sort of.

"Get Big or Get Out"

Yesterdays post on the current/impending crisis in the pork industry and how we got to this place made me want to read a little more about Earl Butz. (As an aside, according to a post on Allan Nation's blog pork prices could hit $10 cwt.) Since Americans don't spend a lot of time discussing Agriculture Secretaries in their high school history classes I didn't know much about Mr. Butz until I watched the "King Corn" documentary. In the movie the two guys went and visited him and talked about some of his policies that helped keep food costs low for the consumers. Even though the movie is about the over abundance of corn in our food, and Mr. Butz helped that along, they seemed to soften up as they talked with him because they could see what his intent was ... to a point.

Anyways, since I didn't know to much about Mr. Butz I did what any self-respecting twenty-something raised on computers would do ... I looked him up on Wikipedia! He served as the Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 - 1976 under Presidents Nixon and Ford and according to Wikipedia had a sometimes bumpy ride. It seems like he liked to run his mouth a little bit and that eventually caught up with him (he resigned a week after making some comments).

There are plenty of people out there that believe the ideas of Mr. Butz, "Get big or get out", "From fencerow to fencerow" farming, and his never ending encouragement for farmers to produce more and more have led to the obesity of America and more. I may not go so far as saying that today ... I'm no scientist ... but, he did make some radical changes in farm policy that are still with us and effecting us today.

I do agree with people who say that the policies of Mr. Butz did lead to the agri-corporations we have today, but for the sake of fairness and to present both sides of the story I will post this quote from an article by Sara Wyant of the "High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal":

For a lot of today's "Baby Boomers," President John F. Kennedy symbolized the hopes and dreams for those lucky enough to live in America in the early 1960s. A few years later, Earl Butz became a cabinet member and delivered a similar sense of promise and optimism for those wanting to make a living off of the land.

During his five years as agriculture secretary, net farm income more than doubled over the previous 10 years and farm exports tripled. He engineered a massive grain sale to the Soviets in 1972 and the Soviets essentially bought up the U.S. grain reserve.

Do any of you have any thoughts on Mr. Butz or his policies?