Homestead mailing list

[bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

I know that Sage and some others are involved and interested in this subject. 
 This is a food magazine but I was directed from a political blog that was 
talking 'community gardens'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


Food Politics 

Sam Hurst 

Politics of the Plate: Who is Kathleen Merrigan?
03.05.09 


The new nominee for Deputy Secretary of Agriculture is a spot-on selection by 
Obama and Vilsack.

Less than three months ago, advocates for organic and sustainable agriculture 
were up in arms. President-elect Obama had just nominated former Iowa 
governor Tom Vilsack to be Secretary of Agriculture. The blogosphere was 
humming with criticism that Vilsack was too close to Monsanto, too soft on 
industrial-scale feedlots, and too rooted in commodity agriculture.

 Obama seemed to have turned his back on a petition organized by Food 
Democracy Now! and signed by almost 90,000 Americans, including the 
luminaries of the food movement. The petition offered Obama a list of a 
“Sustainable Dozen” from which to select a Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack 
was not on the list. 


What a difference a few months make. Advocates of sustainable agriculture are 
now ecstatic about President Obama’s decision to appoint Kathleen Merrigan as 
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, second in command. Unlike Vilsack, Merrigan 
was one of the “Sustainable Dozen.” She comes from the Friedman School of 
Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, in Boston, where she is the 
director of the Center on Agriculture, Food and Environment.

 She has also worked in government, as head of the Agricultural Marketing 
Service at the USDA, as a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization 
at the United Nations, and as staff to the Senate Committee on Agriculture. 
She even worked for Texas populist Jim Hightower at the Texas Department of 
Agriculture in the late 1980s. She knows how things work, and she knows where 
power lies in the food industry. But that’s not what makes Kathleen Merrigan 
a provocative choice to lead the USDA. 

Tom Dobbs, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at South Dakota State 
University, explains, “For the first time, an advocate of sustainable and 
organic agriculture will be in the highest-level meetings with the Secretary. 
She’ll be right there, at his side.” 

Merrigan is widely seen as the moving force behind the development of federal 
organic standards, and she’s the author of the Organic Foods Production Act 
of 1990. She is an outspoken advocate of moving federal farm policies toward 
conservation and sustainable land use. Consider her academic writings: 

· “Selling to the Eco-Conscious Food Shopper,” Nutrition Today, 2005 

· “Organic Food Regulations: Part Art, Part Science,” Regulation of 
Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals: A Global Perspective, 2005 

· “National Policy Options and Strategies to Encourage Sustainable 
Agriculture: Lessons From the 1990 Farm Bill,” American Journal of 
Alternative Agriculture, 1993 

· “The Sustainable Agriculture Policy Agenda in the United States: Politics 
and Prospects,” Food for the Future: Conditions and Contradictions of 
Sustainability, 1993 

At Tufts, Merrigan has directed a group of projects designed to stimulate 
community gardens, develop regional marketing strategies between consumers 
and local farmers, and promote food and gardening education in local schools. 
This is not the traditional career path of high-ranking USDA officials. 

As second in command at the Department of Agriculture, Merrigan will have to 
navigate the minefield of agriculture trade associations and commodity 
farmers who have already expressed their opposition to President Obama’s 
determination to cut direct payment subsidies for wealthy farmers. With 
Merrigan’s selection, it becomes clear that Obama and Vilsack not only have a 
reorganization of subsidies in mind, but also intend to give voice to an 
alternative approach to growing food. 

Traditional agriculture associations have yet to comment on Merrigan’s 
nomination. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chair of the Senate Agriculture 
Committee, has not yet scheduled Merrigan’s confirmation hearing. 

http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-kathleen-merrigan