Organic Food Group Launches Petition to Block Vilsack Nomination

The Organic Consumers Association said President Elect Barack Obama's choice for agriculture secretary does not represent the kind of change he promised in his presidential election campaign. Some of Obama's cabinet choices are seen as refreshing Washington outsiders who bring some of the nation's best ideas to the nation's crises, such as energy secretary Steven Chu. Others are insiders with long careers based on the traditional ways of doing business in their respective industries. The OCA and others see the agriculture pick as the latter.

Obama announced Dec. 17 that former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack is his choice to helm the Department of Agriculture, and set some lofty goals for the appointee.

"I am confident we have the team we need to make the rural agenda America's agenda, to create millions of new green jobs, to free our nation from its dependence on oil and to help preserve this planet for our children," Obama said Dec. 17 in announcing his choice.

Obama and others cite Vilsack's support of renewable energy and alternative fuels as a key reason for the choice. However, one of these alternative fuels is the main stumbling block for the organic food group and other opponents. Vilsack and others from corn-intensive farming states have long hailed corn-based ethanol as the magic bullet that will break global dependence on dirty fossil fuels. Vilsack said in January that Iowa could be "the clean-energy capital of America," mainly based on corn ethanol production.

Corn farmers have benefited from large subsidies, federal fuel requirements and anti-competitive tariffs on more efficient types of ethanol - all for producing a resource that gobbles more energy to create than it produces. Most analysts now agree that the sum total of all inputs for growing corn and converting it to ethanol are at least as great as the net energy produced by the ethanol.

Corn ethanol also harbors much of the blame for driving up global food prices, which have caused riots all over the world this year. Corn displacing wheat to create ethanol in the midwestern United States more than doubled the global price of wheat in one year, according to Tom Friedman in his book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded." Egypt's minister of trade and industry, Rachid M. Rachid, told Friedman early this year that the Egyptian people, the world's top importers of wheat are furious at American farmers and agricultural policy.

"I tell you, poor Egyptians hate biofuels. They don't know much about them, but they hate them," he said.

Likewise, the local and organic food movements have gone very mainstream in recent years as consumers realize industrial monoculture is far from the most sustainable, or productive, way to grow food.

"This notion that genetically engineered crops can feed the world or that, you know, corn-based ethanol and soybean-based biofuels can solve the energy crisis are, of course, completely discredited," said Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the Organic Consumers Association, on the Dec. 18 edition of "Democracy Now."

He is concerned that Vilsack's Iowa background will keep him rooted to large-scale industrial farming, which they say pollutes the air and water and uses too much oil and other fossil fuels.

"If they're serious about solving the climate crisis, they need to take note of the fact that American industrial agriculture uses about 19 percent of all our fossil fuels and cranks out about 37 percent of our climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases," said Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the Organic Consumers Association, on "Democracy Now."

The OCA was created in 1998 in reaction to a set of weak definitions the Clinton Administration had proposed for organic food. The group has since grown to more than 850,000 members, subscribers and volunteers. Their latest effort is www.stopvilsack.org.

The petition to Congress to block the nomination surely faces an uphill battle. The group is most likely to have the ear of liberal Democrats, but they are also more likely to stand behind Obama's nominee. Vilsack is a popular Democrat who campaigned hard on behalf of Hillary Clinton, then Barack Obama after abandoning his own brief presidential run.

The OCA also lacks support from other environmental groups, many of whom accept Vilsack's flaws because they see him as a strong environmental advocate from a farming state.

"This is someone from a farm state who understands agriculture, and more important for me, understands conservation and understands the need to reduce greenhouse gases," said Brian Moore, director of budget and appropriations for the National Audubon Society, on "Democracy Now."