Obama's Farm and Food Appointment

The most telling Cabinet pick that Barack Obama will make -- and from a
long-term standpoint perhaps the most meaningful one -- is not his
selection for secretary of State, secretary of Defense, Treasury
secretary or attorney general. Obama, constrained by circumstance and
the demands of official Washington, has filled those positions with
predictable players from the usual D.C.-insider lists.

The pick that will give us the most insight into where Obama will
lead the country could well be the one he makes in coming days for the
most misunderstood position in the Cabinet: secretary of Agriculture.

The Department of Agriculture is, to be sure, misnamed. Ever since
Abraham Lincoln evolved what had been a subdivision of the Patent
Office and then a section of the Department of the Interior into an
independent federal agency that the 16th president referred to as "the
people's department," the department has been about much more than just
farming. And that is only more so today, as the agency deals with
everything from food safety and the spread of organic farming to
buy-local food initiatives, rural development, food and nutrition
programs in urban areas, and overseas aid.

The USDA is a key player when it comes to energy policy, both
because of the rise of biofuels and because of the increasingly
adventurous grant-making by its Renewable Energy Systems and Energy
Efficiency Improvements Program.

The USDA's Forest Service administers almost 300,000 square miles of national forests and grasslands.

The secretary of Agriculture is, as well, often a definitional
player in trade debates -- as the question of how the United States
supports farmers remains an essential one when it comes to forging
trade agreements and engagement with the World Trade Organization.

With a $97 billion annual budget and roughly 110,000 employees --
more than the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and
Urban Development, and Energy combined -- it is one of the largest
non-defense agencies in the federal government. And its hand is
everywhere, with thousands of county extension offices spread across
every state.

Bill Clinton and George Bush made what might best be described as
"hack" appointments to the Department of Agriculture, naming political
pals with limited real-world experience in contemporary farm and food
debates. In Bush's administration, in particular, the job of the
secretary of Agriculture has been to promote the agenda of corporate
agribusiness with regard to trade policy and the lowering of food
safety standards. As such, there is a lot of repair work to be done.

The question is whether Obama will nominate someone who is ready to do the work.

Most of the early speculation regarding the Agriculture secretary
nomination focused on former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who was briefly a
contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nod before dropping out
to back first Hillary Clinton and, finally, Obama.

Vilsack is a capable administrator with the right partisan credentials.

But he was only at the top of the list of Agriculture secretary
prospects because he is a prominent Democrat who comes from what
Washington insiders know as a "farm state." As governor of Iowa,
Vilsack had to engage with farm issues. But that embrace was anything
but inspired. Family farm activists, fair-trade campaigners and
advocates for organic foods were regularly disappointed by the stands
he took. The Organic Consumers Association was blunt, declaring:
"Vilsack has a glowing reputation as being a schill for agribusiness
biotech giants like Monsanto."

Reviews like that one led Obama's transition team, and Vilsack himself, to recognize that the Iowan was not the right choice.

Obama can do better, much better.

Some activists have suggested a radical break with recent
Agriculture Department appointments. They'd like to see Obama select a
genuine change agent: writer Michael Pollan, whose books -- "In Defense
of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural
History of Four Meals" -- have reframed the debate about food
production, food safety and eating. Pollan would be a bold choice,
somewhat like Franklin Roosevelt's selection of Henry Wallace as his
Depression-era secretary of Agriculture. But the author admits he's an
unlikely pick.

More likely -- and still quite appealing -- is the prospect that
Obama might turn to Tom Buis, the president of the National Farmers
Union, who was an early and wise counselor for the president-elect.
Buis, an Indiana farmer who has also served as an aide to top Democrats
in the Senate, has over the past several years been in the thick of
every major debate about farm and food policy. He knows the issues and,
for the most part, he has been on the right side of them, although
critics of ethanol initiatives will find fault with his advocacy on
that front.

Unlike the Farm Bureau, a conservative grouping that has
historically aligned with corporate agribusiness interests and Wall
Street, the Farmers Union has for a century represented working farmers
and Main Street. In recent years, Buis and the NFU have emerged as a
key player in advancing fresh thinking about farm and food issues:
supporting the development of organic farming, backing the development
of farmers' markets and local food programs, promoting
country-of-origin labeling and other food safety initiatives, and
battling the commodities speculators that have driven up global food
prices.

Emblematic of the broader view taken by Buis and the NFU is the
group's embrace of fair-trade thinking; the NFU was the first of the
major farm groups to recognize that free-trade agreements such as NAFTA
have failed working farmers in both the United States and the rest of
the world.

There are, to be sure, other prospects for secretary of Agriculture.
Obama could take the easy, and uninspired, route of selecting a key
player in Congress, such as House Agriculture Committee Chair Colin
Peterson, D-Minn., or Congressman John Salazar, a potato farmer from
Colorado. The president-elect would be wiser to turn to a sharp state
official, such as Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture Rod Nilsestuen of
North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture Roger Johnson. Even more
impressive would be former North Dakota Commissioner of Agriculture
Sarah Vogel, an always-ahead-of-the-curve advocate for food safety and
fair trade. The same goes for Minnesota Secretary of State Mark
Ritchie, a former policy analyst in Minnesota's Department of
Agriculture who co-founded and for many years led the Minneapolis-based
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Vogel, Ritchie and Buis are different players with different
strengths. But each has a record of commitment to approaching farm and
food issues from the perspective of those who grow and eat this
nation's bounty -- as opposed to the agribusiness conglomerates and
speculators that profiteer off America's and the world's fields of
plenty.