OPPOSITE POLICY

If you're keeping up with Sec. of Ag. Brooke Rollins' big audacious shake-ups in the USDA, you know the main goal is exports.  This theme is exactly opposite what our nation needs.  

                  While the new decisions have some good points, they're kind of like moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Here are the four pillars of the new policy:

                  1.  downsize USDA to match finances (15,000 employees took early retirement)

                  2.  move USDA offices to 5 cities besides Washington D.C.:  Kansas City, Fort Collins, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Raleigh

                  3.  consolidate redundant support functions

                  4.  eliminate management layers and bureaucracy

                  Did you know the USDA has the largest firefighting contingency?  I wonder if they'll release the chainsaws and chippers to turn all that fire fuel into compostable biomass to eliminate all chemical fertilizer in the nation by going to composting?  Not on your life.

                  The big push right now is to exempt all chemical companies from product liability as long as the pesticide, herbicide, insecticide is endorsed by the EPA.  This will do for the chemical companies what vaccine liability protection did for the vaccine industry.  The conservatives and Republicans are lining up behind this effort.  Anything to protect the ag-industrial complex, which is far more powerful than the pharmaceutical complex.

                  The big news surrounding all these initiatives is that the U.S. now has deals to ship beef to Australia, Ireland, and the UK.  Have you been following the U.S. beef shortage story lately?  And goodness, I've been to Australia 16 times.  They don't have enough population to eat half the beef they produce.  Why in the world do we need to be shipping beef to Australia?  And why would they buy it?  None of this makes sense.

                  Unless those countries have a conspiracy to eliminate their domestic cattle industry, I can't imagine why this new freedom to export will result in any additional sales.  And that actually makes sense.  Get somebody to agree to buy our stuff knowing they won't buy our stuff so we can put out press releases touting our good deeds that really don't amount to anything but hot air.  Now that makes sense.

                  This is all much ado about nothing.  Let's imagine some initiatives that would really accomplish something:

                  1.  A FOOD EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION so a producer and buyer could engage in a food transaction without asking the USDA for permission.

                  2.  A famer who substitutes compost for chemical fertilizer gets a tax break. 

                  3.  SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) pays for no ultra-processed food. 

                  4.  The school lunch program buys only compost-grown whole foods.

                  5.  All food safety regulations move to empirical benchmarking using infrared camera technology to eliminate scratch and sniff politics and subjectivity.

                  6.  Legalize surface runoff farm ponds and prohibit aquifer-sourced irrigation.

                  What is one initiative you'd like to see from Rollins that would indicate true change at the USDA (besides eliminating it).