Ex-dairy lobby boss Tom Vilsack nominated as America’s next secretary of agriculture
US Dairy Export Council chief executive Tom Vilsack has been nominated for America’s top agricultural job by incoming president Joe Biden.
AMERICA’S top dairy trade cheerleader has been nominated by Joe Biden as the next United States secretary of agriculture.
US Dairy Export Council chief executive Tom Vilsack was given the nod by the incoming American president just prior to Christmas.
A former Iowa governor, Mr Vilsack previously served in the top agriculture role in the Obama administration until the 2016 election, when he was replaced by Trump-appointee Sonny Perdue.
National Milk Producers Federation president Jim Mulhern said Mr Vilsack had a strong understanding of the dairy sector through his recent role.
“All of us in the dairy community who have had the opportunity to work with him over the past four years know his deep passion and commitment to rural America,” the US farm lobby group chief said.
“The challenges that lie ahead are many — from a battered farm economy to climate change, the environment and sustainability, to nutrition and the importance of addressing the nation’s growing food insecurity.
“No one is better suited to tackle these challenges than Tom Vilsack.”
Originally from Pittsburgh, the 70-year-old politician unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination, losing to Barack Obama, and was briefly considered by Hillary Clinton as her 2016 running mate.
Mr Vilsack’s nomination has not been without controversy, with another lobby organisation, the National Family Farm Coalition’s president Jim Goodman criticising the appointment.
In an opinion piece for the Wisconsin Examiner newspaper, Mr Goodman said the Obama-era minister did more for big business than family farms.
“Vilsack’s nomination means stepping back to the same old—same old of Obama’s ag policy that did little to promote progressive policies that would give farmers fair prices, limit corporate consolidation (and) rebuild rural communities,” he wrote.
“No doubt almost anyone moving into the big office at US Department of Agriculture would be an improvement over (Mr) Perdue, with his support for the continuing trend of consolidation in agriculture and his ‘the big get bigger and the small go out’ philosophy.”
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