Some Good News? Obama’s Dept. of Agriculture May Get Things Right…

Not Even This Puppy's Cuteness Powers Can Solve The Problems Created By Corn

Although largely unknown and undiscussed, our food industry has been hijacked by a few mega agro corporations that rely largely on corn for everything (because it’s cheap and easy – and because they own the corn seeds they sell the farmers).  Unfortunately, this is also sucking nutritional value out of food and, oddly enough also making us fat.  But, this post isn’t about this issue – another time, another day.

As I was doing some reading on the subject, I came across a speech that Michael Pollan recently delivered.  Pollan is an excellent authority on the subject.  In his speech, he said something that made me…dare I say…hopeful (or at least not make me want to slap my forehead for a change), while assessing the Obama’s food policy:

“On Obama’s side, you’ve got Tom Vilsack who is the Secretary of Agriculture…Most significantly, he [Obama] appointed as his number two a woman name Kathleen Merrigan, who is a genuine reformer. She founded the organic program at USDA, she wrote the original organic law for Senator Patrick Leahy and she’s a real staunch supporter of sustainable agriculture and she’s running the Department of Agriculture! That’s pretty mind blowing. We’ll see. She’s up against incredible forces of inertia.”

It is comforting to see that there’s a serious reformer in the USDA.  It also left me wondering who Bush had in that post before Merrigan.

The prior Deputy Secretary of Agriculture was Charles Connor, who served from May 2005 until the end of Bush’s term.  At one point, Connor served as president of the Corn Refiners Association for four years.  So…Obama’s appointee is a professional interested in healthy food, Bush’s was a corporate pawn of the corn industry.  Not surprising.

And to demonstrate why the difference matters, I point to the ‘High Fructose Corn Syrup is natural’ debate.  After a request by FoodNavigator-USA, in April 2008, the FDA ruled that products containing High Fructose Corn Syrup cannot be labelled “natural:”

The FDA’s supervisor of product evaluation at the Office of Nutrition, Geraldine June, wrote, “We would object to the use of the term ‘natural’ on a product containing HFCS, because it is produced using synthetic fixing agents.”

Well, the Corn Refiners Association wasn’t having any of that.  So, they prepared a $30 million ad campaign to convince consumers that High Fructose Corn Syrup was ‘all natural’ and has the same nutritional value of sugar and honey.  However, that pesky FDA ruling was in their way…

Good thing for the Corn Refiners Association, it was able to secure the FDA’s reversal of its original position in June 2008.  The FDA said that the Corn Refiners Association could go ahead with its ad campaign and that High Fructose Corn Syrup could be labelled ‘all natural.’  Gee, I wonder how they were able to get the FDA to make such a reversal and adopt such a silly position – after all, Connor was considered the Corn Refiners Association’s “man in Washington.”  This policy change also impugned the integrity of the FDA.  But, that doesn’t matter much to these kinds corporations and their Washington inside men (i.e. a GOP appointee like Connor) – only money does.

Point is, appointees like Merrigan not only offer a stark contrast to the prior office holders, but they offer a glimmer of confidence.