President Elect Barack Obama is considering candidates for various cabinet posts, including the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A). When the U.S.D.A. was formed in the 1860s under President Abraham Lincoln, it was known as the “people’s department,” and it sought to support family farming communities and to provide nutritious food for the U.S. population.

But, unfortunately, the “people’s department” has been hijacked by agribusiness profiteers who exploit government programs and line their own pockets instead of providing healthy, affordable food to our nation. The system in place today, developed under various industry driven U.S.D.A. administrations, has been marked by a demise in family farming, an explosion in petro-chemical use and dependency, overly processed and tainted food, wanton animal cruelty, abuses of an unprotected labor force, environmental destruction and pollution, emerging pathogens and diseases, and rising health care costs.

For decades, U.S. presidents have appointed factory farming advocates to run the U.S.D.A., and the meat and dairy industries, along with large scale commodity producers (eg. corn and soy), have garnered billions of dollars in tax subsidies. We can no longer afford the excess, injustice and inefficiency of the current system, which profits the few at the expense of the many. 

Please encourage President Elect Obama to appoint a U.S.D.A. Secretary who will take the Agency in a new direction that supports organic, sustainable farming, and provides wholesome food to all segments of our population. Industrialized animal farms and unhealthy processed foods should be discouraged, and community based systems that produce fresh organic produce, made available through farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture programs, and community gardens should be supported. Contact Obama to express your opinion at http://www.change.gov/.