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  • From: Pete Vukovich <pvukovic1@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] New Secretary of Agriculture Reveals New Attitude
  • Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:48:15 -0700 (PDT)

Certainly would be a better way to measure success if thats factored in. In the past he's suggested promoting agrotourism and rural off farm job development as a ways to augment incomes - maybe he's evolving his view here or maybe he's just treading on potentially dangerous territory and he knows it.



--- On Fri, 3/13/09, mdnagel@verizon.net <mdnagel@verizon.net> wrote:
From: mdnagel@verizon.net <mdnagel@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] New Secretary of Agriculture Reveals New Attitude
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009, 1:46 PM

I think that, perhaps, in a roundabout way he did identify this.  He mentions the numbers of people on farms who have to work outside the farm in order to augment their income.  I think that if this was the metric to base things on (aim to reduce this number/percentage) then we might actually make some headway (as long as it doesn't result in reducing the number of farmers!).


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA


Mar 13, 2009 01:40:15 PM, pvukovic1@yahoo.com wrote:
I think he's looking at it in a somewhat strange way, perhaps I'm not understanding him, but it seems to me instead of looking at a farms gross revenue as its success the USDA should be looking at whether it can sustain the farmers that work it. Then I think the designations of small/large/and medium would be more meaningful numbers right now its unclear that this isn't another one of those 'economy of scale' arguments which fail at their core.

Simply moving small to medium isn't really an indication of whether the farm will sustain anybody. Replacing 'get big or get out' with 'get bigger' is more of a change in jargon than a change in policy I think. All this seems to be really a consumer and distributor problem more than a producer problem anyway. I haven't heard him say much about either of those, nor am I sure that he has an inkling of some of the wounds his department and its state equivalents have to mend to reverse years of contributing to the trends that now surprise him.

 He hinted in previous speeches he's talking about increasing off farms jobs somehow (which somehow will make small farms more medium). Given present climate I see that as a bandage laced with arsenic. The USDA might start by opposing the NAIS , getting sane about food safety, and changing its own definitions of small/medium/and large. Feel free to enlighten me, but thats just how it seems to me.




--- On Fri, 3/13/09, Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:
From: Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] New Secretary of Agriculture Reveals New Attitude
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009, 10:38 AM

more on that


As to "the development of strategies to make the small income farms into
mid-income farms and become more profitable", I'm waiting for him to
reveal
those strategies or at least point us in that direction. But I'm not
holding my breath. My own effort is in the microfarming range and quite
profitable, and can be profitable for many, many home growers, but it's not
scalable to the midsize farm Vilsack sees declining. One barrier to new
farmers today is the cost of land. Many of us already have very small
acreage that could be quite profitable, but can't afford a bigger spread.
Maybe we should concentrate on making the space we have more profitable and
forget buying land for more midsize farms. There are studies that claim the
smallest farms are by far the most productive per acre.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 3/13/2009
at 10:20 AM Tradingpost wrote:

>any questions?
>
>
>New Secretary of Agriculture Reveals New Attitude Towards Small Family
Farm
>Sustainability, Civil Rights, and Rural Development with Address to the
>Federation of Southern Cooperatives
>http://www.ssawg.org/Newsletters/SSAWGnewsMarch2009.html
>
>The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund hosted U.S.
>Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on February 21, 2009, as he addressed
>more than 300 farmers and agriculture professionals at the Federation's
>conference, held annually in Albany, Georgia. "When our first
>African-American president raised his hand and took the oath of office, we
>made a huge step in this country. It's now our job at the USDA to take
the
>next step," Vilsack stated. He said that if President Abraham Lincoln,
who
>established the USDA in 1862, came back and
wondered how the department is
>doing in supporting farmers, he would learn that "some folks refer to
USDA
>as the last plantation, and it has a pretty poor history of taking care of
>people of color," adding that he chose the conference as the place to
make
>his first speech outside of Washington because he wants to send the
message
>that they are serious about civil rights.
>
>Vilsack took the opportunity to acknowledge the fact that the conference
>program began with sustainable agriculture topics, saying that it is a
very
>important topic, and it's going to be increasingly important. After
>acknowledging other topics that he considers key, such as food assistance
>programs that are included in President Obama's stimulus package, he
spoke
>about the trends in agriculture that they see at the USDA.
>
>"The first thing that popped out to me was the
dramatic growth in the
>number of small farms--small income farms," he said, referring to the
>recently released results from the Census of Agriculture. "In the last
five
>years there have been 108,000 new farms started with sales of less than
>$1,000. These are very, very, very small operations. But that is a
>significant start for people in agriculture and a significant connection
to
>the land--108,000." He described the other end of the spectrum where
the
>trend is the very large income farms that generate $500,000 or more, which
>grew by about 41,000 farms. The third trend, which he identified as the
>challenge, is that the farms in the middle, making more than $10,000 but
>less than $500,000, have decreased by 80,000. He pointed out two more
>trends: Sixty percent of all farms have less than $10,000 in sales, with
>900,000 of 2,200,000 farmers having to work off-farm
over 200 days per
year
>to make it. The last trend that he brought into the picture is the fact
>that the average age of farmers has increased over the last five years
from
>55 to 57.
>
>"Small farming increases; large farm increases; farms in the middle
>decreasing; aging farmers; farmers having to work off the farm," he
>summarized. "So what does the USDA do about this? What should it be
doing
>in the next four years?"
>
>The Secretary said that the President has been very specific with him
about
>renewing and replenishing rural areas across the country. Vilsack noted a
>number of things that need to be done to make that happen, including the
>development of strategies to make the small income farms into mid-income
>farms and become more profitable, as well as to maintain the existing
>mid-sized farms.
>
>One of the ways he sees this
happening is through a major push to focus on
>nutrition, including "fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, things that
are
>good for you. And it can start this year with the reauthorization of the
>school lunch and school breakfast programs." Vilsack sees this as
creating
>real opportunities to produce fresh vegetables and fruit and get them into
>schools and institutions locally. He also stressed that we need to develop
>regional distribution systems to encourage the growth.
>
>In addition to strengthening the infrastructure for local and regional
>mid-scale production, he talked about other rural development issues,
>including new crops for biofuels, resources for bio-refineries, and
>conservation stewardship.
>
>Vilsack's closing remarks focused on his commitment to seeing that the
>civil rights issues of the USDA will be addressed and put in the past,
and
>to making sure that all of the offices are "fair to black farmers, and
fair
>to women farmers, and fair to Hispanic farmers, and fair to people from
all
>walks of life who want to get into farming. We have 108,000 new farmers
>with less than $1,000 in sales. That's a lot of people who want the
>opportunity to work the land and we want to give them that
opportunity."
>
>
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