The Washington Post's Jane Black has a nice interview with incoming secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack in which he offers up some downright Pollen-esque rhetoric. "This is a department that intersects the lives of Americans two to three times a day. Every single American," he said. "So I absolutely see the constituency of this department as broader than those who produce our food -- it extends to those who consume it." It's a rhetorical echo of what the food movement has been saying, and a suggestion that the criticisms are being heard, and maybe even absorbed, high into the secretary's office.Vilsack hasn't even put into place his deputy level staffers yet, so there's not much in the interview that's concrete. But one policy effort Vilsack mentions deserves note: The campaign to make the government-subsidized nutritional programs -- think school lunches and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children -- more, well, nutritious. As things stand, those programs are a dumping ground for meat and dairy producers. Rather than paying for food, taxpayers shell out for calories. Then, later on, they shell out again for medical costs as a diet of dairy and processed food exacts its inevitable toll. It's a bizarre state of affairs -- like paying someone to cut off your hand so you can pay someone else to reattach it. It's also a missed opportunity: If the government is going to be spending tens of billions of dollars in direct food purchasing, there's no reason that money shouldn't be used to grow the smaller, more local, more sustainable, more healthful food sector that most experts and regulators claim to want to see. A steady stream of government dollars is a good support base for an industry that's just now finding its way in the marketplace and figuring out how to expand. EATERS, NOT JUST FARMERS.
The Washington Post's Jane Black has a nice interview with incoming secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack in which he offers up some downright Pollen-esque rhetoric. "This is a department that intersects the lives of Americans two to three times a day. Every single American," he said. "So I absolutely see the constituency of this department as broader than those who produce our food -- it extends to those who consume it." It's a rhetorical echo of what the food movement has been saying, and a suggestion that the criticisms are being heard, and maybe even absorbed, high into the secretary's office.Vilsack hasn't even put into place his deputy level staffers yet, so there's not much in the interview that's concrete. But one policy effort Vilsack mentions deserves note: The campaign to make the government-subsidized nutritional programs -- think school lunches and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children -- more, well, nutritious. As things stand, those programs are a dumping ground for meat and dairy producers. Rather than paying for food, taxpayers shell out for calories. Then, later on, they shell out again for medical costs as a diet of dairy and processed food exacts its inevitable toll. It's a bizarre state of affairs -- like paying someone to cut off your hand so you can pay someone else to reattach it. It's also a missed opportunity: If the government is going to be spending tens of billions of dollars in direct food purchasing, there's no reason that money shouldn't be used to grow the smaller, more local, more sustainable, more healthful food sector that most experts and regulators claim to want to see. A steady stream of government dollars is a good support base for an industry that's just now finding its way in the marketplace and figuring out how to expand. 
