Editorial: Fixing Agriculture

The New York Times
Published: December 19, 2008

Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Agriculture Department has the merit of being unsatisfactory to both extremes of the farm-policy debates.

Zealous advocates of sustainable agriculture question his support of biotechnology, while partisans of the status quo find him insufficiently loyal to the system of farm subsidies. That leaves him with a very large center of support. He’ll need it to move this country’s broken agricultural policy in a new direction.

During his days as governor of Iowa, Mr. Vilsack embraced innovation — encouraging the use of farmland to produce energy from ethanol and wind power, while promoting better treatment of migrant workers. He has the additional advantage of having governed a state where small, innovative farms are emerging.

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