All this and no recipe?

HEY, EZRA - with you being an instant expert on agricultural policy and food production, I'm sure you're familiar with what Vilsack has said about the respective roles of the USDA and the FDA, right?

I'm not pimping Vilsack here, although there are some far more troubling names being mentioned as in contention for the job. But geeze, this is a complicated area and you're coming off like, well, Sarah Palin at the debate. You read something about it but you're missing a lot of context and lack fluency.

You might also give a think about what the implications for a more broadly-supported (i.e. subsidized) local food movement and more sustainable agricultural practices would be for your argument.

Oh, then let me be clear. I think we should rip out ag subsidies, not pretend that the department will transition to subsidizing small farmers rather than large producers. And yes, Vilsack has said that the USDA and the FDA have split oversight of food security and that's a problem. I agree with him on this point. He's also said that we should eventually move from corn to cellulosic ethanol (still problematic), but can't take out corn subsidies in the short-term.

I guess I'm confused: What's your point here? Do you have a case in favor of Vilsack as ag secretary?

Don't forget that USDA also has the Food Stamp program. Almost 30 million Americans get food stamps now, the last time I checked the figure. I believe this is a record high.

Of course Tom Vilsack is known to Canadians as the Governor Rick Mercer conned into congratulating us on the introduction of the 24 hour clock.

At a panel discussion broadcast by PBS on World Food Day, Mark Ritchie, the Minnesota Secretary of State, made a good impression. He spoke common sense and challenged many of the economistic myths about agriculture, like that we are better off with fewer and larger farms and fewer people working in agriculture, or that food autonomy was irrelevant because one can always buy food on the international market, etc. he would be amazing as agricultural secretary. And he actually knows something about agriculture.

Even outside ag policy, Vilsack's record on standing up to major corporate interests is not inspiring. He was quite happy to hand the Iowa Board of Regents over to the insurance companies (Iowa's other major employer), and stand aside when they scuttled the U of I's presidential search in a hissy fit over the University Hospital's relationship to insurers.

Vilsack is classic backbone-less DLC. And unlike other Clintonites under consideration, he doesn't seem to have been able to get much of anything done.

As David Wonk notes, USDA administers the Food Stamp program, which is kind of a big deal. What you may not know is that USDA does a whole hell of a lot more than either agriculture subsidies or Food Stamps. As an element of foreign policy, USDA is involved in helping other countries develop and maintain their own agricultural production. Domestically, one of USDA's missions is the promotion of rural life, including everything from rural housing loans to providing communities with loans and grants to construct and improve water and sewage utilities to helping rural communities purchase fire engines. USDA is also the home of the NRCS, which is an important player in the field of purchasing and maintaining conservation easements across the country. Vilsack may be a poor choice for Secretary of Agriculture if you think the most important thing USDA does is hand out money to farmers. He may be an excellent choice if what we're concerned about is having an effective administrator make sure that the wide variety of things that USDA does are done well and efficiently.

As David Wonk notes, USDA administers the Food Stamp program, which is kind of a big deal. What you may not know is that USDA does a whole hell of a lot more than either agriculture subsidies or Food Stamps. As an element of foreign policy, USDA is involved in helping other countries develop and maintain their own agricultural production...

I think you're missing the point. No one's saying that nothing USDA does is worthwhile - simply that you don't need USDA to get it done. Take food stamps - wouldn't they be better off being administered together with other social security programmes, rather than being stuck out on their own in another department? It's as though there was a "free electricity for the poor" programme run by the Department of Energy.
And advice to foreign farmers surely belongs to AID, doesn't it - just as NRCS should be an environmental programme. And so on. USDA, as you've demonstrated, does a huge amount that isn't really about agriculture.

The model here might be the British government, which abolished the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and turned it into a Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Yes! That's what we need! Another layer of bureaucracy! Good thinking!

There needs to be major rehaul in thinking about the Department of Agriculture. It is no longer just about food. It is about plants farmed for medicinal purposes, industrial purposes, energy purposes and nutritional purposes. It is about land use issues, trade issues, and health issues. It is about domestic and international concerns about food, climate, land and water management. It is still a major source of jobs in rural counties. And yet it is still treated as if it was dealing with 18th century issues.
Modernize it and get all the different issues on the table and working in concert for a change.

Good point Aaron. NRCS and FSA (Farm Services Administration) play a HUGE role in habitat conservation across the country, in the form of easments and cost share programs such as CRP, WHIP, WRP, SAFE, and many, many other programs.

I think you're missing the point. No one's saying that nothing USDA does is worthwhile - simply that you don't need USDA to get it done. Take food stamps - wouldn't they be better off being administered together with other social security programmes, rather than being stuck out on their own in another department?

Maybe, maybe not. It's not clear to me that one department would be better than another for administering any particular program - particularly when we're talking about a program like food stamps, that is pretty successful where it is. It sounds to me like the plan you suggest - dismembering USDA for conceptual clarity's sake - doesn't really do much of anything except create a bunch of problems as other departments fight over which USDA program gets transferred where. USDA isn't perfect, by any means, but it does a lot of things well. There are more pressing problems facing the country than the somewhat odd portfolio of programs administered by the Department of Agriculture.

Some of the brightest people working on rural development are at or pass through Ag. Several of the agencies are actually fairly good but the overall agriculture policy is so abysmal it dwarfs those successes.