« ‘Largest Demonstration in Five Years’ Held in Support of U.S. Security Deal: From Iraq’s Azzaman
Hillary to State Dept. – Finally Some Good News for New York »
An Interesting Choice for Agriculture Secretary
Tom Philpott at The Grist had an interesting post the other day wondering whether Obama’s food/ag policy is withering. 
Among the possibilities for Agriculture Secretary he discusses:
John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association. Boyd helped lead the fight to hold USDA accountable for its long history of stiffing black farmers; his nomination is being championed by the Congressional Black Caucus. Virginia-based Boyd himself runs a relatively small-scale farm; seems like his position as a USDA outsider might lead him to champion the interests of small farmers in an agency that’s long been beholden to large industrial operations.
Boyd is said to be an unlikely long-shot. Ezra Klein comments:
One thing you’re seeing here is the immaturity of the food movement. Until the last year or two, most folks who specialized in agriculture did it from the perspective of industry, or culinary concerns, or GMO worries. Only as global warming has become more salient has food policy emerged as a broader issue, the sort that could grab the interest of young politicians and agency administrators. But it’s all new enough that we don’t really know who those folks are, and so it’s hard for people to find good candidates to rally around. The fact that there was a petition going around to name Michael Pollan Ag Secretary [link] sort of proves the point: Right now, the movement has ideas and advocates, but few converts who are credible on the cabinet level.
For his part Pollan voiced optimism on The Brian Lehrer Show that Obama would move agriculture in a progressive direction. And laughed off speculation that he could be appointed USDA chief.
3 Responses to “An Interesting Choice for Agriculture Secretary”
You know, people like to downplay the position of Ag Czar. Or at least give it a passing glance. What Americans need to understand is that food and our arable lands are going to be the new “oil” of the 21st Century. For one thing, we need conservation of prime ag-soil regions, especially in areas of urban sprawl. Hundreds of acres near where I live, due to bribing, are being paved over. Topsoil, black and three feet thick now lies with an overlay of asphalt or concrete as far as the eye could see in a town that used to be the bread-basket of our County.
Exploding world populations will mean that our arable lands will enable us to trade off our debt. I would say that the Sec. of Ag will be one of the most helpful people to the recovery of the US economy that we'll have in DC. What does America have if not large reserves of essential crude? Essential food… People can live without transportation or even plastics. But they cannot live without food.
We need someone sensible, not an activist. (That's true for all Cabinet positions, in fact.)
“Exploding world populations”
Fertility has been greatly reduced in modern times almost everywhere, which is leading to global aging, not limited to the developed nations. There is no human pestilence of overpopulation, no Malthusian horror, no 1960s excuse for environmentalist and socialist attacks on true progress.
Only a relatively few nations (guess where — it's where development has stalled and even reversed or declined, despite huge fortunes and efforts by the rest of the world to promote progress) continue to present the specter that is fictitiously in the minds of the lefties and has been since the 1960s (“leading” to the “need” for the developed nations to submit to guilty feelings and reverse progress). Fertility decline and population aging are the problems we expect to see in the future. (The developed world's retirement-related welfare programs are unsustainable and will be part of this aging problem.)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9…
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=xx&v=31
http://www.ageworks.com/course_demo/200/module2…
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldgr.gif
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpch.gif
THIS IS NOT EXPONENTIAL. There is no demon.
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpop.gif
I was under the impression that former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack was in the running.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/20…
Seems to me we should just start up a pool, something similar to the NCAA Final Four. How about we each all throw in a virtual dollar and toss a name out there? Winner take all!!