An Urban's Rural View

The news that Tom Vilsack is staying on as secretary of agriculture will disappoint those who disapprove of his performance these last four years. They include many big commercial-ag types who detest his (to them) heretical support of local food and small organic agriculture. They also include the small organic crowd, which despises his support of transgenic crops, ethanol and subsidies for big farmers.

To me this dislike of Vilsack by folks on both sides of the divide is one of the reasons to like him.

Forced to choose between two dramatically different visions of the future of agriculture, Vilsack has chosen both. Under him, USDA supports agriculture. All of it. And contrary to what the people who dislike him think, that’s a good position for USDA to take. We need a variety of approaches to agriculture.

The agricultural ideal would produce more food without requiring more land to be cultivated and without harming the environment. To approach that ideal, we will likely need to incorporate methods from a number of different approaches. Encouraging them all gives us laboratories to test what works and what doesn’t.

Vilsack has said his proudest achievements in his first term include expanded agriculture exports and the resolution of civil-rights cases in agriculture. Those are indeed accomplishments to be proud of. But the accomplishment of which he should be most proud, in my view, is the nuanced position he’s taken in the conflict over the agriculture of the future. Vilsack says he’s for agriculture, full stop. So should we all be.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

© Copyright 2013 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.