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Friday, January 8, 2021
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Opinion
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Carl Sampson
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Our View
Have the place cards be set at the table?
W
here are the farmers in
the Biden transition?
The Biden transi-
tion review team for the Depart-
ment of Agriculture has 23 members.
As is common in transition teams,
many of these people have held key
positions at the USDA in previous
administrations.
Many of them have experience
with the USDA’s nutrition programs.
That makes sense, because the lion’s
share of USDA’s budget goes toward
school nutrition and other food wel-
fare programs.
Policy wonks abound. What you
will be hard pressed to find is anyone
who makes a living producing food.
Two come close.
Jonathan Coppress teaches farm
policy at the University of Illinois.
He’s a former Farm Service Agency
administrator and has experience as
a grain merchandiser. He grew up on
the family farm, and reportedly has
an interest in the corn and soybean
operation still worked by his father
and brother in Ohio.
Debra Eschmeyer grew up on
a farm. She was a nutrition pol-
icy adviser to First Lady Michelle
Obama and is co-founder of Food-
Corps, a nonprofit that connects
school kids to healthy foods. She
and her husband operated a 22-acre
organic fruit and vegetable farm in
Ohio as they pursued other policy
work.
According to the Center for Pres-
idential Transition, the transition
teams “lay the groundwork for gov-
erning well in advance of Election
Day by building a policy agenda for
the new administration, gathering
information about federal agencies,
vetting potential political appoin-
tees and developing a management
agenda.”
What’s the agenda?
Leaders from national farm
groups met via Zoom with the tran-
sition team on Dec. 4. Partici-
pants described the discussion as
“productive.”
“This administration has promised
to do something to fix our labor prob-
lems in the first 100 days. We want to
make sure they don’t forget. Finding
an adequate workforce for our farms
is probably the biggest problem we
have,” said American Farm Bureau
Federation President Zippy Duvall.
That must be why there’s a repre-
sentative of the United Farm Work-
ers Foundation and another from the
Bipartisan support
for Growing Climate
Solutions Act
Our View
Uncle Sam can’t tell
Americans what to eat F
E
very new iteration of the USDA Dietary
Guidelines spawns the same debate over
sugar, alcohol and other foods that, when
ingested in excess, can be bad for you.
Come to think of it, too much of almost any-
thing will have a negative impact on a person’s
health.
Just look
around.
According to
Harvard’s T.H.
Chan School of
Public Health,
40% of Americans
are obese. That’s
about 131 million
men, women and
children.
Also, according
to the federal Cen-
ters for Disease
Control, 34.2 mil-
lion Americans are
diabetic. That’s a little more than 10% of the U.S.
population.
Though certain genetic factors come into play,
the vast majority of Americans got that way
by eating too much and exercising too little. A
10-minute consultation with a doctor or nutrition-
ist would most likely reach that conclusion.
But the USDA cannot be held responsible for
what, or how much, food people eat.
Here’s an example. The latest edition of the
guidelines states that kids under 2 years shouldn’t
have cake or candy.
It’s insulting to tell a parent that baking Junior
a birthday cake will in some way hurt his health.
If a toddler were to eat only cake and candy, that
would be a problem, but every parent already
knows that.
The guidelines also suggest that men limit their
alcohol intake to no more than two drinks a day
and that women should stop at one. That’s if they
choose to drink at all.
Critics say the USDA should have clamped
down and told people not to drink, and that it’s
the government’s responsibility to make all 328
million Americans healthier.
The problem for the critics — and the govern-
ment, for that matter — is very few Americans
care what Uncle Sam says about sugar, alcohol or
food in general.
Ultimately, any decisions about what to eat or
drink come down
to the man — or
woman — in the
mirror. Each indi-
vidual decides
what to ingest.
Each per-
son is also smart
enough to look
in the mirror
and determine
whether he or she
is packing extra
pounds, which in
turn impacts their
health and how they feel and look.
A person may eat a healthful salad during one
meal — and at the next meal splurge on some-
thing a little more “calorie-dense.”
Either way, it’s up to that person, not Uncle
Sam.
Health advocates say schools should serve only
the healthiest of meals. That’s fine, but try mak-
ing kids eat foods they don’t like. Ultimately,
much of that “healthy” food goes into the gar-
bage, which benefits no one.
A couple of decades ago, Congress and the
Food and Drug Administration thought they had
the key to making Americans healthier. If they
labeled every food product with the ingredients,
calories, serving size and other information, peo-
ple would know what to eat — and how much.
Since then, Americans have only gotten more
overweight and unhealthy.
If a person wants to improve his or her
diet, there’s plenty of help available from
professionals.
But Uncle Sam isn’t one of them.
Congratulations to EPA on 50 years
O
n Dec. 2, the Environmen-
tal Protection Agency cele-
brated its 50th anniversary.
Created by President Nixon in 1970,
EPA consolidated the environmen-
tal responsibilities of the federal gov-
ernment into one agency to more
effectively address environmental
concerns.
Over the past 50 years, the agency
has set a worldwide standard for
using scientific consensus as the
foundation for regulations.
As the head of the trade associa-
tion representing the pesticide indus-
try, I know all too well how complex
and divisive regulatory decisions
can be, yet I cannot overstate the
importance of the work that EPA sci-
entists have done to improve our
environment.
GUEST
VIEW
Chris Novak
No matter which party holds the
White House, the foundation of EPA
is these career-scientists. These indi-
viduals bring decades of experi-
ence and expertise to the review of
chemicals that are designed to pro-
tect our health, safety and sustain-
ability while protecting our water and
air. Career-scientists provide consis-
tency and integrity to our regulatory
process, no matter which party is in
charge. Their work should not only
be acknowledged but commended on
this historic day.
United Food and Commercial Work-
ers International Union on the transi-
tion team. But no farmers.
The group’s also expressed con-
cerns about rural infrastructure —
roads, bridges and the internet. The
transition team has the appropri-
ate experts on those subjects. But no
farmers.
We’ve been talking with farm-
ers about what they’d like from the
incoming Biden administration. A
common theme that has emerged is
the desire to be heard, to “have a seat
at the table.”
It’s probably too early to tell, but if
the transition team is any indication,
farmers and ranchers should ensure
that the place cards have not already
been set and that they are indeed on
the list.
At a time when science seems to
be under attack, agencies like EPA
continue to do the important work
of regulating our products, ensuring
environmental quality, and protect-
ing public health. The system is not
perfect, but the gains our nation has
made in environmental quality are a
testament to a 50-year legacy of con-
tinuous improvement.
So the next time you get in your
car, shop at a grocery store, or work
in a garden, think about and be
thankful for the work of EPA’s scien-
tists, who have made our lives safer
through their work and dedication.
Chris Novak is president and CEO
of CropLife America, the national
trade association that represents the
manufacturers, formulators and dis-
tributors of pesticides.
armers, ranchers and
foresters know very
well the value of soil
carbon for the health and
water holding capacity of
their soil. But economic
barriers limit adoption of
practices that build soil
carbon. No-till equipment
is costly, and cover crops
don’t generate revenue.
Fortunately, soil car-
bon also has an economic
value beyond its impact on
crop productivity. A ton of
carbon added to the soil is
a ton of carbon pulled out
of the atmosphere, where
it acts as a greenhouse
gas, warming the planet
and causing economic
disruption.
For carbon emit-
ters concerned about or
required to mitigate cli-
mate change, it costs less
to pay another party to
remove carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere and
store it than to invest in
reducing the carbon they
emit. The demand for such
carbon credits from com-
panies and individuals is
growing rapidly as they
pledge to become “net-
zero” emitters and reduce
their carbon footprint.
Globally, the number of
carbon credits produced by
forestry and land use activ-
ities increased by 264%
between 2016 and 2018.
However, the market
for carbon credits is hin-
dered by several signif-
icant obstacles. Farm-
ers, ranchers and foresters
aren’t sure how to imple-
ment carbon credit proj-
ects or navigate carbon
credit markets. They don’t
know who to trust in the
marketplace. And profes-
sionals who work with
carbon credits don’t have
expertise in agriculture or
forestry.
Companies such as Nori
and IndigoAg are building
a market for carbon cred-
its by connecting farm-
ers with the carbon credits
market and the verification
necessary to ensure car-
bon is being stored. Farm-
ers are paid in dollars per
ton of carbon stored. With
Nori, farmers provide his-
torical data on their prac-
tices (planting and har-
vesting, tillage intensity,
fertilizer use, organic mat-
ter additions, irrigation,
liming, and burning) and
the area farmed.
IndigoAg takes soil
samples, and also rewards
farmers for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
Nori supports farmers
operating on rented as well
as owned land.
Nori and IndigoAg are
playing important roles in
overcoming the barriers
GUEST
VIEW
Steve Ghan
Kathleen
Walker
in the carbon credit mar-
ket. However, there is a
need for more transpar-
ency, legitimacy, and certi-
fication of third-party ver-
ifiers and technical service
providers who pay agri-
cultural and forest land
managers for carbon cred-
its generated by sustain-
ably sequestering carbon
in soil or in trees. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture
can fill this role through
a Greenhouse Gas Tech-
nical Assistance Provider
and Third-Party Verifier
Certification Program as
part of the pending Grow-
ing Climate Solutions Act
(GCSA).
The GCSA was intro-
duced in the 116th Con-
gress with bipartisan
support. Senate spon-
sors and co-sponsors are
Mike Braun, R-Ind.; Deb-
bie Stabenow, D-Mich.;
Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.;
and Sheldon Whitehouse,
D-R.I.
The House bill, spon-
sored by Rep. Abi-
gail Spanberger, D-Va.;
has nine Republican
and eleven Democratic
co-sponsors.
The GCSA has diverse
support outside Congress:
the U.S. Cattlemen’s Asso-
ciation, Society for Range
Management, American
Farmland Trust, National
Farmers Union, National
Council of Farm Cooper-
atives, National Milk Pro-
ducers Federation, Ameri-
can Soybean Association,
Sustainable Food Policy
Alliance, American For-
ests, National Woodland
Owners Association and
Cargill.
Since the GCSA has not
yet passed Congress, addi-
tional expressions of sup-
port will definitely aid in
getting it enacted. Call
your Congressional repre-
sentatives today.
Steve Ghan is a highly
cited climate scientist and
leads the Tri-Cities Chap-
ter of the Citizens Cli-
mate Lobby. He meets with
mid-Columbia farmers to
discuss agriculture and
climate change. Kathleen
Walker was raised by a
hard-working Washington
state farmer.