Shaping the New Administration

Despite a massive public outcry, including over 20,000 emails from the Organic Consumers Association, President-Elect Obama has chosen former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.

While Vilsack has promoted respectable policies with respect to restraining livestock monopolies, his overall record is one of aiding and abetting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) or factory farms and promoting genetically engineered crops and animal cloning. Equally troubling is Vilsack's support for unsustainable industrial ethanol production, which has already caused global corn and grain prices to skyrocket, literally taking food off the table for a billion people in the developing world.

The Organic Consumers Association is calling on organic consumers and all concerned citizens to join our call to action and block Vilsack's confirmation as the next Secretary of Agriculture.

  Organic Consumers Association

You can sign their petition here.

What else is troubling to me is what I learned about organic growers’ associations during my pest management studies at the University of California, Davis. To the associations, organic production wasn’t so much an ideal or a statement, but actually, well…a business. They didn’t particularly want more growers producing organically, because the law of supply and demand is what netted them their profits. Premiums can be charged, as you well know, for organically produced food simply because it isn’t as plentiful as the chemically produced stuff.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.