I got to watch part of a confirmation hearing the other day for Dr. Kathleen Merrigan. She's been appointed to fill the position of Deputy Secretary of the USDA, and she hails from Massachusetts. It was wonderful to see a woman in such an important position, and the fact that she supports sustainable and organic agriculture is all the better.
The main comment that came out of the hearing was that Dr. Merrigan "loved organic" a little too much, and that she might give short shrift to conventional ag. I thought she responded appropriately by stating that there are a lot of different ways to farm, and that the USDA should be addressing all kinds. Sen. Harkin, the committee Chair, went on to state that he saw the fastest growing part of beginning ag in Iowa is organic farming, so even "the big guys in D.C." are noticing the change in the air.
Now if we could just get them to believe that we know what we're doing. There is a bill in the House that calls for a unified Food Safety organization, combining USDA and FDA into one organization. Part of their rationale is that the government would create "best practices" that farmers would need to ascribe to. The government is already taking suggestions for what these "best practices" might be. How long do they want the code to be? It needs to consider religion, geography, species, scale and philosophy. That's hard to do. My fear is that it will be "best practices" as described by the USDA which means corporate ag. I understand that there is fear out there about our food safety. Rather than coordinate all the farmers to try to think alike (every herd cats?) isn't it better than we educate the public and give them choices? I guess "home ec," wasn't such as a bad idea after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment