The Intercept - Tom Vilsack for Agriculture Secretary Is Everything That’s Wrong With the Democratic Party

Claire Kelloway, senior reporter and researcher at the Open Markets Institute, writes in The Intercept about why Tom Vilsack is such a bad choice for Secretary of Agriculture.

ON TUESDAY, AFTER some public tokenizing and horse trading, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team crowned dairy industry lobbyist and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture. Vilsack won out over House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s pick, Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was also backed by progressives. Whereas Fudge represented an opportunity to unite USDA’s rural and urban constituents and address the agency’s long history of racial discrimination, Vilsack is a rerun of pro-corporate policies that continue to drive rural communities away from the Democratic Party.

The secretary of agriculture is an underrated and important Cabinet member whose work intersects with climate change, workers’ safety, racial justice, antitrust, rural development, and of course, feeding the country.

The Covid-19 pandemic put America’s fragile and destructive food system on display. Massive plant closures threatened the food supply, front-line food workers fell sick and died in large (and growing) numbers, and nearly 1 in 4 households experienced food insecurity. The next agriculture secretary has an unprecedented moment to enact much needed systemic changes in how we grow and distribute food.

If Vilsack repeats his Obama-era strategy, we won’t see that progress. This is because Vilsack doesn’t actually speak to the totality and needs of rural people. In his work at USDA and as a dairy lobbyist, Vilsack represents the powerful few of Big Ag.

As Agriculture Secretary, Vilsack let down independent family farmers when he failed to take on agribusiness domination. Food production is concentrated in the hands of a shrinking number of giant multinational corporations who hold immense power over farmers, workers, consumers, and policymakers. As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to take on Big Ag during the 2008 Iowa caucuses and reiterated the goal at the start of his presidency. Starting in 2010, Vilsack’s USDA along with the Department of Justice held a series of hearings across the country where farmers shared stories of abuse and anti-competitive conduct by both dominant meatpackers, such as Tyson or Smithfield, and seed and chemical goliaths, such as Monsanto.

Read the full article on The Intercept here.