Catching up with the USDA Secretary Chase

El Dragón loved Thanksgiving — I always do. We localized and co-opped the hell out of our meal (as much as we could) — local bird, local spuds, co-op dairy (Organic Valley!), local cider, coffee from The Equalizer, beef stew wtih co-op made beef, some local roots and squash. Everything else came from the factory. But whattayagonado in the Upper Midwest when you’re knocking at winter’s door?

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you do anything in particular to support your friendly neighborhood farmer?

Speaking of Obama’s transition team (everyone ok? anyone get whiplashed on that one?), let’s go back to the topic of Obama’s impending USDA Secretary nomination. I mean, now that we got the pesky "national security team," or whatever ,out of the way, let’s get down to the appointment that’s going to shape the terrain of the sustainable and organic fields for the next four years.

Because that’s what’s at stake, Food Fighters. The next Secretary of Agriculture will have the opportunity to appoint a National Organic Program administrator and staff. Current deputy of AG Marketing Service, Barbara Robinson, who has served in her role as direct administrator of the National Organic Program since 2002, has seemed, to my eyes, to be a pro-industry, pro-growth administrator. Her approach has been very hands off, with only one certification revocation (Vander Eyk Dairy of California) which was total no brainer. No action against Vander Eyk’s certifier. No action against any other equally bad actors who’ve been dead in the NOP’s sites. Nothing. Regulation, which the organic industry wants and needs, just seems less a concern to Robinson than letting the young industry fluorish the way other start-up businesses might.

It’s a fundamental misreading of what organics needs and shows that Robinson doesn’t really understand what drives organic consumers to pay a premium for such products. We want a heavy hand. We need organic standards to be enforced, with teeth. But that’s not her relationship with the organic industry. Indeed, I’ve always read a basic disconnect between her and organics, even in comments made in passing. Take this one for example, from the Washington Post, where Robinson addresses the USDA’s stance on the most recent access to pasture regulations — the substance is less important than her phrasing in this instance:

"We [the USDA] have no hidden agenda," [Robinson] said, adding that she hopes a final rule will be published in the spring. "It’s their rule, their industry and their marketing claim."

Their rule. Their industry. Their marketing claim. And yet she’s the administrator of that rule, industry, and claim? Beyond this one quote, Robinson’s actions over the last six years have also reinforced the notion that the USDA’s National Organic Program is ultimately an unwilling partner with organics, and that Robinson sees the infant industry as "on their own." A rather astonishing perspective and choice of words, if one considers how long she’s been at this job.

Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association comes to a similar conclusion in the above Washington Post article, particularly where this access to pasture rule is concerned. He mentions his suspicion that the recently released rule, which is more strict and airtight than most would have ever expected coming from anti-regulation Bush administration officials, may be have been rendered so strict as to be unworkable. 

"There is some fear that big industry packed the rule to slow [progress on dairy rule-making] down," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association in Finland, Minn. "It was not done correctly. It makes you really suspicious since it has taken them years and years to close these [new] loopholes."

Indeed, activists who value strict organic standards find themselves in the bizarre situation now of telling the USDA that they have gone too far, that the pasture rule is great and will strengthen organic milk standards, but will have negative, unintended consequences on other organic livestock producers beyond dairy producers.  (Cornucopia at the above link has a great break down of the issue and ACTION is needed!)

So which is it? Is Robinson deliberately throwing a high inside fastball, a little chin music for the organic activists out there who’ve been riding her and the NOP like ponies for the last six years? Or is this overly strict regulation simply a miscalculation on Robinson and the NOP’s part?

It really doesn’t matter.  Either way, we have administrators of the organic program who don’t have a sense of what’s necessary, of where the sweet spot is in creating these regulations. They remain detached and aloof (their rule, their claim), and their lack of ownership and leadership has been felt since the day the NOP was created, October 25, 2002.

Which is why we follow the nomination of President Elect Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture with such interest. We need someone at the top who understands the specific and peculiar needs of the organic industry, who can create a culture that will foster and nurture this young, fast-growing industry.

 Rather than standing back with folded arms and sneering at it.