Obama's Ag Policies Trying to Have it Both Ways. By Marion Burros, Politico, February 13, 2010. "Longtime food policy observers are having a difficult time squaring the Department of Agriculture's entrenched preference for high-tech industrial agriculture that emphasizes biotechnology and genetically engineered crops with its newfound interest in helping those who favor low-tech ag: small farmers, advocates of organic and local food and champions of sustainability. Margaret Mellon, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, describes the USDA as schizophrenic. 'It wants to promote both organic and sustainable local,' she said. 'It is also committed to promotion of biotech here and around the world. So far, there has not been collision between those two priorities, but I'm not sure that situation will last much longer.' When former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack was tapped as agriculture secretary by President Barack Obama, the presumption was that he would lean toward an emphasis on biotech. After all, Vilsack was once named governor of the year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
"But Vilsack threw the agriculture community a curveball by naming as his deputy Kathleen Merrigan, an outspoken advocate for farm policies that favor conservation and sustainable land use. She drafted the 1990 act that produced federal organic standards. Yet, in an interview shortly after taking his new post, Vilsack didn't back away from the importance of agribusiness and genetically modified crops in feeding the increasing world population. 'You don't work around agribusiness,' he said. 'You work with it.' The competing policy strands have created some confusion among USDA watchers. Still, Carol Tucker Foreman, a former assistant secretary of agriculture and now director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, says that one thing is certain: The culture of the department is changing. 'I've never seen conversations before about family farms and really small operations and local agriculture,' she said."
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