April, 2021
Washington and Lincoln – The Biden administration is off to a good start for rural America and USDA. On day one, the President signed an executive order on equity, which specifically included in its definition "persons who live in rural areas." "Geographic communities" are finally getting their due.
He followed up by naming Kelliann Blazek as special assistant to the president for agriculture and rural policy. She brings formidable qualifications to the job, having worked for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, as counsel to Congresswoman (and farmer) Chellie Pingree of the House Agriculture Committee, and as faculty at George Mason law school.USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack then raised eyebrows with suggestions for sweeping change in America's food system:
“The time has come for us to transform the food system in this country in an accelerated way,” Vilsack said. He rattled off statistics to make his case: Nearly 90 percent of U.S. farmers now rely on off-farm income to survive as a result of unsustainable economics. Roughly 60 percent of Americans have at least one chronic disease. Forty percent have two or more. The government spends more on diabetes treatment each year — $160 billion — than USDA’s annual budget, all while knowing that poor diet is a major driver of chronic disease. “When you look at those statistics, you have to ask yourself: Can we continue to do what we’re doing? It suggests to me that we can’t,” he said.
Even Senator Bernie Sanders, who as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee will have much to say about federal policy, has been talking up the importance of rural America:
"I come from one of the most rural states in America, and I lived in a town of 200 people for a couple of years. And I think there is not an appreciation of rural America or the values of rural America, the sense of community that exists in rural America. And somehow or another, the intellectual elite does have, in some cases, a contempt for the people who live in rural America. I think we’ve got to change that attitude and start focusing on the needs of people in rural America, treat them with respect, and understand there are areas there are going to be disagreements, but we can’t treat people with contempt."
The new Biden infrastructure bill also has much in it for rural America, causing bewilderment in some benighted quarters about why Biden would help the GOP base. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has not made its case well, so far. It has not couched its rural initiatives in their best light. For example, restoring America's infrastructure must start with improvements to "natural infrastructure," meaning the prevention of soil and water erosion at its source. Although the Biden plan has funds for conservation stewardship programs and even helping young farmers acquire farmland, the political opposition so far has been able to frame the debate around the idea that this is not "traditional" thinking about what Congress has been doing for decades; that is, letting topsoil wash away and then spending billions on repairs downstream to roads, bridges, canals, railroads, airports and levees.
Biden has a better narrative to sell his infrastructure bill to rural America, if he will only use it.
But that should not detract from an otherwise good start. Will rural America take notice? It better, as transforming our food system and our infrastructure is the best, last hope for reversing the vicious cycle that has brought rural America to its long, sad, and shameful state of decline.
What Secretary Vilsack needs now is a speechwriter who is not afraid to pen phrases like, "The era of get-big-or-get-out is over!" and "Re-populate, don't de-populate, rural America!"
