Talking out of both sides of the mouth

USDA chief flatters industrial ag while Obama honors its greatest critic, Wendell Berry

Two events last week offered a nice snapshot of what might be called Obama's dual policy on ag.


1) In Washington on Wednesday, President Obama honored Wendell Berry with the National Humanities Medal. "The author of more than 40 books, Mr. Berry has spent his career exploring our relationship with the land and community," Obama declared, before ceremoniously draping the medal around Berry's neck.


Berry, 76, is probably industrial agriculture's fiercest critic. He is certainly its longest-running. His seminal book The Unsettling of America came out in 1977 -- long before other prominent critics like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, or Vandana Shiva published their own famous critiques. In an interview after the ceremony, Berry told his local paper, the Louisville Courrier-Journal, that "the president whispered to him during the ceremony that he admired his poetry." (In addition to his nonfiction, Berry also writes poetry and novels.) Berry added that he had the chance to thank Michelle Obama for planting her famous organic garden on the White House lawn.


2) Two days later down in Tampa, Fla., USDA chief Tom Vilsack addressed the Commodity Classic, the annual confab thrown by the big corn and soy growers groups and funded by the agribusiness corporations that supply their inputs and buy and process their produce. The trade show's exhibitors list reads like a roster of the globe's dominant agribusiness players: corn-processing giants Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill; seed/agrichemical titans Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta, and Dupont; and synthetic/mined fertilizers behemoths Mosaic and CF Industries.

Mixed messages with the Berry honor but the recent GMO decisions... Trying to keep everyone happy? Sorry but it won't work.