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Obama Should Select a New Kind of Secretary of Agriculture

December 10, 2008 11:29 by Gene

President Elect Barack Obama is expected to name his selection for the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) soon. This appointment could profoundly impact billions of animals exploited for food, and affect the health and well being of our citizenry. We need a USDA Secretary who will challenge the status quo. Our food system is broken and change is needed.

On today’s factory farms, animals are treated like unfeeling commodities, subjected to intolerable abuse. And consumers are fed meat from diseased animals tainted with pathogens. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Rather than supporting industrialized animal agriculture, our tax dollars should be used to promote more humane and sustainable practices. Instead of appointing a USDA Secretary who represents the interests of agribusiness profiteers, Obama should choose someone who supports a more just and healthful food system and who appreciates that all animals, including farm animals, deserve to be treated with respect and compassion.

Please let President Elect Obama know your thoughts about his pick for USDA Secretary.

Obama’s Secretary of AgricultureUSDA Secretary Tom Vilsack - A mixed bagChange in the Air

Comments

December 29. 2008 19:16

Thanks for elaborating on this last night at Sarah Lawrence College Gene. It was fantastic to see you speak in person.

I've got my fingers crossed that the top down appointment will aide your grassroots approach.

Gary Ploski

December 29. 2008 19:27

Thank you for providing this easy-to-use form letter to spread this message. I hope our community does not lose their activist spirit now that Proposition 2 has passed and Barack Obama is in office. We should be emboldened and continue to act as watchdogs for the animals, whose lives continue to be nickel and dimed by big agribusiness.

Catherine

December 30. 2008 18:20

Hi Gene,

I agree with you that we need a USDA Secretary who will challenge the status quo, and that our tax dollars should promote more humane and sustainable agricultural practices. A key point I think animal advocates (and environmental and public health advocates) need to emphasize in our letters is that we’d like to see more of our tax dollars invested in plant-based agriculture and less in animal agriculture. The biggest gains in “humane and sustainable” are going to come from reducing animal agriculture rather than just changing how it’s done.

Thanks for all the wonderful work you do, Gene.

FYI – below is a copy of the letter I sent to President Elect Obama.

There is one very simple change that Americans can make, which would help solve several serious problems, including healthcare costs, childhood obesity, and global warming. That change is to move from an animal-centered diet to a plant-based diet.

I am writing to urge you to appoint a Secretary of Agriculture, who will lead the Agency in a new direction that supports a move towards plant-based diets and sustainable, organic farming. For too long our food policies have been influenced by the interests of the meat and dairy industries, and subsidies have favored them. In addition to the health and environmental problems caused by America’s animal-centered diet, the institutional animal cruelty inherent in large-scale, intensive animal agriculture can no longer be tolerated by a society that aims to be humane, ethical, and peaceful. The treatment of animals matters to Americans and it should matter to the USDA as well.

Please appoint a Secretary of Agriculture who truly cares about the greater good over industry interests – someone with a vision for improving agriculture to support public health, the environment, and compassion for animals.

Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.

Eileen M.

April 10. 2009 18:34

Hope that you can write more articles in the future. I will be one of your loyal readers if that's happen. Thanks for this useful information webmaster!

Mountain Tour Sports

April 16. 2009 00:29

Well, I am confident that Obama will make the right choice in this case. Obama's policy on freedom of the internet, on internet speeds, on the wars, and other contienous topics have fallen to the liberal side. So with any luck, the treatment of animals etc should follow in stead!

Leadership Expert

April 21. 2009 16:41