{"id":29436,"date":"2021-10-08T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T04:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=29436"},"modified":"2022-02-07T16:47:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T20:47:02","slug":"ag-secretary-vilsack-pushes-petroleum-farming-inputs-fights-eus-climate-friendly-organic-food-to-fork-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/10\/ag-secretary-vilsack-pushes-petroleum-farming-inputs-fights-eus-climate-friendly-organic-food-to-fork-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Ag Secretary Vilsack Pushes Petroleum Farming Inputs, Fights EU\u2019s Climate-Friendly Organic \u201cFarm to Fork\u2019 Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, October 8, 2021)\u00a0Taking a page from the playbook of Trump Administration Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the current secretary, Tom Vilsack, used a September G20 summit in Italy to target the European Union\u2019s \u201cFarm to Fork\u201d (F2F) strategy<\/a>, a part of its European Green Deal<\/a>. Mr. Perdue had said that F2F is \u201cmore . . . \u2018political science\u2019 than demonstrated agricultural science\u201d; Secretary Vilsack called it \u201ca path very different from the one the U.S. is pursuing.\u201d The F2F initiative<\/a> aims to transition the EU to a sustainable food system such that it also achieves significant mitigation of climate change. But Mr. Vilsack chose to counter the F2F efforts by promoting an \u201calternative strategy<\/a>\u201d \u2014 under the moniker \u201cCoalition for Productivity Growth\u201d \u2014 through which \u201cother nations pledge\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to follow the European path on farm policy.\u201d He has described this alternative, U.S.-led strategy as \u201ca market-oriented, incentive-based, voluntary system [that] is effective\u201d at slashing agricultural carbon emissions.<\/p>\r\n

Climate, pesticide, organics, and other environmental and health advocates, including Beyond Pesticides, are troubled by these actions. Mother Jones<\/em> poses the central question<\/a> in the headline of its September 30 article: Why is Secretary Vilsack So Afraid of a Plan to Cut Pesticides and Meat? The central F2F tenets that the secretary seems to find unnerving are those that would slash use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and move one-quarter of European farmland to organic production by 2030.<\/p>\r\n

Mother Jones<\/em> writes,<\/a> \u201cThe Farm to Fork\u00a0program, part of the European Commission\u2019s response to the continent\u2019s own accelerating\u00a0climate<\/a>\u00a0chaos<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0steady rise<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0illnesses<\/a>\u00a0related to highly processed food,\u00a0aims<\/a>\u00a0to \u2018make food systems fair, healthy and environmentally friendly.\u2019 At its heart lies the\u00a0goal<\/a>\u00a0of slashing farmers\u2019 reliance on water-polluting, energy-intensive agrochemicals: It requires a 20 percent drop in fertilizer use by 2030, and a 50 percent cut in pesticides. The plan . . . also mandates a 50 percent reduction [in] food waste; calls on farmers to halve their use of antibiotics for livestock, a key driver in the global crisis of antibiotic resistance in human medicine; and aims to nudge Europeans to adopt a \u2018diet with less red and processed meat and with more fruits and vegetables.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The EU\u2019s F2F strategy \u2014 housed within the European Green Deal<\/a> \u2014 is a comprehensive plan to address the climate emergency, and to improve and protect environmental and human health. The F2F strategy sets out a framework for \u201cbuilding a food chain that works for consumers, producers, climate, and the environment.\u201d Elements of the plan include ensuring production levels and food security; extending sustainability practices into the processing, wholesaling, and retail sectors; facilitating a shift to more-healthful diets; reducing food loss and waste; rectifying \u201cfood fraud\u201d in supply chains; and supporting research, technology, and investment for the transition to a far more sustainable food system.<\/p>\r\n

The European Commission\u2019s (EC\u2019s) official F2F strategy document<\/a> emphasizes the \u201curgent need to\u00a0reduce dependency on\u00a0pesticides and antimicrobials, reduce excess\u00a0fertilisation, increase organic farming, improve animal welfare,\u00a0and\u00a0reverse biodiversity loss.\u201d That plan description notes that, because of the groundwork already laid, EU agriculture is the only major production system in the world that has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions in recent years \u2014 by 20% over 1990 levels. It aims to increase that to 55% by 2030. The EC wants food produced in the EU to become the \u201cgold standard\u201d for sustainability.<\/p>\r\n

Secretary Vilsack apparently believes that, enacted dominantly across the globe, the tenets of F2F<\/a> would \u201creduce crop yields, push up food prices and threaten food security. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released economic models saying world food production\u00a0would drop by 11 percent and prices would shoot up 89 percent if all countries<\/a>\u00a0followed the European model,\u201d according to Politico<\/em><\/a>. The secretary commented, \u201cThe world\u2019s got to get fed, and it\u2019s got to get fed in a sustainable way. And we can\u2019t basically sacrifice one for the other.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

His USDA is alarmed at the prospect that this EU approach might spread and result in more trade barriers that could limit markets for U.S. agricultural goods. With intensifying impacts of a worsening climate and pesticide use, he may have a point. In recent years and in the absence of global standards, concerns in Europe and some other countries about intense U.S. use of synthetic pesticides and genetically engineered\/modified seeds and foodstuffs have led to restrictions on the import of some U.S. goods.<\/p>\r\n

For example, France is currently seeking to bar food imports<\/a> produced under what it considers lax environmental, health, and worker standards. Mexico\u2019s announcement of its proposed plan<\/a>\u00a0to ban glyphosate and genetically modified maize set some U.S. officials\u2019 hair on fire \u2014 so much so that they worked alongside agrichemical companies<\/a> to persuade President Obrador to quash it. This notion that the U.S. is seen as having inferior standards looms for Big Ag as a threat to its business model and bottom line. Politico<\/em> writes<\/a>, \u201cVilsack’s overarching fear is that Europe would use its diverging food standards to throw up more barriers to trade.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Now, Secretary Vilsack is assembling an unsavory coalition of the willing, and looking for more adherents, to reject the EU model and pledge to use the industry-friendly approach to agriculture-related environmental policy he is promoting. (The secretary claims there are 10\u201315 countries interested, though has not publicly named them.) He is pushing the Coalition for Productivity Growth approach<\/a>, which he hopes will sway producers away from the EU\u2019s F2F model. To date, the UAE (United Arab Emirates) has joined this effort, and the secretary is courting Brazil to do the same.<\/p>\r\n

The secretary\u2019s choice to partner with these two countries could hardly be more transparent, some advocates say. The UAE does very little farming (it imports 80% of its food), but it has huge reserves of oil and natural gas \u2014 the latter being the primary feedstock for the production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Such fertilizers are critical to industrial food production\u00a0in the ag-intensive regions of the United States and Europe.<\/p>\r\n

Mother Jones<\/em> reports<\/a> that Brazil is captive to the products of the same agrochemical giants as is the U.S. \u2014 Bayer (owner of Monsanto), Syngenta (owned by China), and Corteva (the merger product of Dow and DuPont) \u2014 and is the third largest user of synthetic pesticides, behind the U.S. and China. Pesticide use in the country is reportedly rampant<\/a>. The Bolsonaro-appointed agriculture minister Tereza Cristina \u2014 whom environmental journalists have dubbed the \u201cmuse of poison\u201d \u2014 greenlighted 262 new synthetic pesticides<\/a> in the seven months of her first year in office (2019); 82 of those were identified by Brazil\u2019s own National Health Surveillance Agency as \u201cextremely toxic.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Given these facts, it is no surprise that the UAE, and perhaps Brazil, as well as industry groups, such as the International Fertilizer Development Center and the North American Meat Institute, are already on board for the Coalition for Productivity Growth.<\/p>\r\n

The political and environmental records of these state \u201cpartners\u201d are very concerning. The UAE is a close ally with the Trump family; Brazil\u2019s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is also a Trump ally and shares, with Donald Trump, an adviser in Steve Bannon. Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s administration, Mother Jones<\/em> reports,<\/a> has \u201cutterly savaged the Amazon rainforest, a crucial store of carbon and home to nearly 1\u00a0million<\/a>\u00a0indigenous people, opening it to cattle ranching and undermining decades of efforts to preserve it. A July 2021\u00a0Bloomberg investigation<\/a>\u00a0found that \u2018Brazil\u2019s government is engaged in an active campaign to open up the Amazon to privatization and development \u2014 first by turning a blind eye as public and protected lands are raided and cleared, and then by systematically pardoning the people responsible and granting them legal title to the stolen lands.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Mother Jones<\/em> offers this critique<\/a>: \u201cGiven the steamrolling of the Amazon and the pesticide free-for-all, Vilsack is essentially embracing the agriculture policies of what counts as a rogue state in climate- and broader environmental-policy terms. At a time when climate change can\u2019t be ignored \u2014 with droughts, floods, and fires\u00a0menacing our key farming regions \u2014 a Democratic agriculture secretary is ambling down the same pesticide-scented path trod by Trump.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

By contrast, the head of the EU’s Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, has emphasized<\/a> that agricultural productivity growth can no longer be the only or primary concern: \u201cWe\u2019ve created a system that pushes farmers to increase and go bigger all the time. But that system has pushed the Earth past its limits. We\u2019ve got to stop counting success in terms of the number of \u2018wagons of food\u2019 we produce.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Many members of the public, and those in the advocacy communities, might have expected better from a Biden Secretary of Agriculture, particularly given the administration\u2019s understanding of the threats of the climate emergency. Indeed, there was optimism at the early flurry of executive orders<\/a> that signaled the new administration\u2019s appreciation for the need for systemic-level review and climate action across federal agencies.<\/p>\r\n

It appears now that Secretary Vilsack missed the memo; his endorsement of this industry-friendly Coalition for Productivity Growth signals serious inattention \u2014 or downright ignoring \u2014 of the harmful impacts of industrial agriculture on climate<\/a>, health<\/a>, environment<\/a>, biodiversity,<\/a> and natural resources<\/a>. Beyond Pesticides maintains that the transition to organic regenerative agriculture<\/a>, which counters environmental<\/a> and other<\/a> harms, is imperative and urgent.<\/p>\r\n

When he nominated Tom Vilsack for a second turn as the nation\u2019s agriculture secretary (and head of USDA), there was mixed reaction among advocates and the public. Some, such as the nonprofit Farmworker Justice, embraced the choice,<\/a> largely because during his previous tenure in the Obama administration, Mr. Vilsack had engaged with the farmworker community in relatively unprecedented ways. Others were less thrilled; the nomination was criticized on multiple fronts. Beyond Pesticides wrote<\/a>, in December 2020, \u201cJudging from his past record, President-elect Biden\u2019s announced pick for Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, will need to dramatically change many previous positions in order to implement the elements of President-elect Biden\u2019s policy framework.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

As governor of Iowa in the early 2000s, he got cozy with the state\u2019s industrial agriculture and biotech sectors. The Counter<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>reported<\/a>\u00a0in a 2019 investigation that \u201cemployees alleged that Vilsack\u2019s USDA repeatedly ran out the statute of limitations clock on discrimination complaints, while attempting to foreclose on farmers whose cases hadn\u2019t yet been resolved. Employees also said that USDA manipulated Census data to obscure a decline in Black farming, which in turn allowed Vilsack to paint a rosy but inaccurate picture of his tenure.\u201d During that tenure, he \u201callowed big agribusiness to carry out inspections themselves<\/a>, rather than [be inspected by] federal government inspectors,\u201d and allowed a significant increase in slaughter line speeds<\/a> in poultry plants \u2014 raising the risks of processing worker injury.<\/p>\r\n

Immediately prior to his current tenure, Secretary Vilsack worked as a lobbyist for the Dairy Export Council<\/a>, during which time \u201che made clear his opposition to policies that . . . would break up corporate agriculture conglomerates.\u201d He also, for all his talk early in the Obama era of concern about the plight of small farmers, went on to allow rapid consolidation<\/a> in the agricultural sector, which often squeezes out small farmers. The Center for Food Safety<\/em> wrote<\/a> that he \u201cpromoted factory farms with funds intended to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions\u201d by supporting methane digesters on site at CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), absent evidence of their efficacy. He was also on watch at USDA when he expedited the approval process for GMOs (genetically modified organisms), and when Bayer purchased GMO giant Monsanto. (He has been dubbed \u201cMr. Monsanto\u201d by some critics.)<\/p>\r\n

Politico<\/em> writes<\/a> that the kerfuffle over F2F represents a \u201cfood fight\u201d over how to transform the global food system, and suggests that at risk may be not only billions of euros in annual agricultural trade, but also, progress on reining in climate change through cooperation around respective food systems. This is not \u201csmall potatoes\u201d because agricultural enterprises are responsible, globally, for roughly one-third of greenhouse gas emissions \u2014 due in large part to the use of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and animal wastes. The outlet writes that in an interview with him, Secretary Vilsack \u201cbarely veiled his criticism of the EU\u2019s farming philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Secretary Vilsack\u2019s enthusiasm for industry interests has been covered repeatedly. His rationale for his challenge to the EU\u2019s plan comports with those interests, but is being cloaked in language<\/a> about \u201cmarket-based\u201d approaches, \u201cconsidering impacts and tradeoffs among multiple objectives,\u201d and \u201clinking\u201d climate, environment, and resource goals to the production goals. For some in the environmental and health advocacy communities, it sounds a lot like the greenwashing in which industry engages<\/a>. See the USDA web page describing the initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

How goals for climate and resources and health survive this initiative \u2014 never mind potentially experience any success \u2014 remains to be seen. All of which begs the question: what will President Biden do about this apparent deviation from his climate mandates for federal agencies? Advocates and the public would do well to let President Biden know that this initiative is not only wrong-headed and destructive, but also, violates the mandates he set out and promised to enforce. Contact President Biden here<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

Source: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/food\/2021\/09\/vilsack-agriculture-pesticides-eu-farm-to-fork-brazil-rainforest-meat\/<\/a><\/p>\r\n

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

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(Beyond Pesticides, October 8, 2021)\u00a0Taking a page from the playbook of Trump Administration Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the current secretary, Tom Vilsack, used a September G20 summit in Italy to target the European Union\u2019s \u201cFarm to Fork\u201d (F2F) strategy, a part of its European Green Deal. Mr. Perdue had said that F2F is \u201cmore . . . \u2018political science\u2019 than demonstrated agricultural science\u201d; Secretary Vilsack called it \u201ca path very different from the one the U.S. is pursuing.\u201d The F2F initiative aims to transition the EU to a sustainable food system such that it also achieves significant mitigation of climate change. But Mr. Vilsack chose to counter the F2F efforts by promoting an \u201calternative strategy\u201d \u2014 under the moniker \u201cCoalition for Productivity Growth\u201d \u2014 through which \u201cother nations pledge\u00a0not\u00a0to follow the European path on farm policy.\u201d He has described this alternative, U.S.-led strategy as \u201ca market-oriented, incentive-based, voluntary system [that] is effective\u201d at slashing agricultural carbon emissions. Climate, pesticide, organics, and other environmental and health advocates, including Beyond Pesticides, are troubled by these actions. Mother Jones poses the central question in the headline of its September 30 article: Why is Secretary Vilsack So Afraid of a Plan to Cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[249,2,539,6,1,368],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-alternativesorganics","category-climate","category-international","category-uncategorized","category-us-department-of-agriculture-usda"],"yoast_head":"\nAg Secretary Vilsack Pushes Petroleum Farming Inputs, Fights EU\u2019s Climate-Friendly Organic \u201cFarm to Fork\u2019 Initiative - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/10\/ag-secretary-vilsack-pushes-petroleum-farming-inputs-fights-eus-climate-friendly-organic-food-to-fork-initiative\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ag Secretary Vilsack Pushes Petroleum Farming Inputs, Fights EU\u2019s Climate-Friendly Organic \u201cFarm to Fork\u2019 Initiative - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Beyond Pesticides, October 8, 2021)\u00a0Taking a page from the playbook of Trump Administration Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the current secretary, Tom Vilsack, used a September G20 summit in Italy to target the European Union\u2019s \u201cFarm to Fork\u201d (F2F) strategy, a part of its European Green Deal. 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