Of all the cabinet positions an incoming U.S. president must fill, the secretary of agriculture is arguably one of the least glamorous. While roles like the secretary of state and the secretary of defense command significant attention, the secretary of agriculture tends to be ignored.
For President-elect Joe Biden, however, who he nominates to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be another window into how much he listens to Democrats to his left.
Former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is widely rumored to be Biden’s pick for secretary of agriculture. Progressives activists, leaders and organizations, however, have come out against Heitkamp’s potential nomination and are actively pushing for Biden to reconsider.
Pushback against Heitkamp
Heidi Heitkamp served as a senator for North Dakota from 2013 to 2019. Following her defeat during the 2018 midterm elections, she launched the One Country Project, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that describes itself as seeking to reopen “the dialogue with rural communities, rebuilding trust and respect, and advancing an opportunity agenda for rural Americans.”
Critics, however, have argued that One Country Project seeks to push Democrats to the right on issues like climate change.
Last month, more than 160 groups, including the Food Chain Workers Alliance, Food and Water Watch, Family Farm Action, Friends of Family Farmers, the Open Markets Institute, People’s Action, RootsAction and the Sunrise Movement, signed the letter asking Biden to reconsider nominating Heitkamp.
“Heitkamp is the wrong choice for the USDA because she has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, supports fossil fuel interests, and holds views that are out of step with the Democratic Party and the majority of Americans,” the letter states.
The letter also points out that Heitkamp led negotiations on the 2018 Farm Bill that “widened subsidy loopholes for wealthy mega-farms and exacerbated concentration in agriculture.”
“Heitkamp’s environmental record and support of the fossil fuel industry should disqualify her from leading an agency that is crucial to President-elect Biden’s bold plan to fight climate change,” the letter adds, pointing to Heitkamp’s co-sponsorship of legislation aimed at easing air quality regulations on factory farms, which are notorious air and water polluters.
The letter adds, “Tapping Heitkamp for this position in the Biden administration would enable the continuation of disastrous Trump-era food and farm policies, jeopardize President-elect Biden’s climate goals, and boost corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, frontline communities, the environment, hungry families, and animal welfare.”
One of the groups that signed the letter opposing Heidi Heitkamp as secretary of agriculture is Food and Water Watch (FWW), a nonprofit organization that works to build political power in order to implement solutions to the nation’s most pressing food, water and climate problems.
FWW Factory Farm Organizing Director Krissy Kasserman spoke to Blue Tent about why FWW opposes Heitkamp to lead USDA.
“Heidi Heitkamp represents the status quo. She has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers,” explained Kasserman.
She added, “[Heitkamp] has really deep ties with corporate agribusiness, takes a lot of pretty substantial contributions from Big Ag and she doesn’t prioritize family-scale farms, so you know in many ways, she’s actually not all that different from Sonny Perdue, our current agricultural secretary.”
Heitkamp was, in fact, on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of agriculture back in 2016.
As Blue Tent has covered, family farms are facing an existential crisis right now, with about 10,000 farms folding each year. By far the biggest forces behind these closures are Big Ag mergers and lax antitrust enforcement.
According to data published by the Center for Responsive Politics, Heitkamp received significant campaign finance contributions from big agribusinesses such as DowDuPont, Monsanto, Sygenta Corp. and Deere & Co. During the 2018 election cycle alone, Heitkamp received approximately $232,000 from agribusinesses.
“These massive campaign contributions, combined with her voting record, are a pretty clear indication that she will continue to support corporate agribusiness,” Kasserman said.
“Nominating her for this position will only entrench those terrible food and farm policies that we’ve seen for the past several decades and could really be the final nail in the coffin for tens of thousands of additional family farms,” she added.
More than just farms
USDA oversees a variety of programs. In addition to regulating the farming, ranching and forestry industries, USDA also oversees the nation’s nutrition programs and provides leadership on rural development.
“We have a vision to provide economic opportunity through innovation, helping rural America to thrive; to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans while also helping feed others throughout the world; and to preserve our Nation’s natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved watersheds and healthy private working lands,” explained USDA.
USDA oversees a total of 29 agencies, including Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and Rural Housing Service (RHS).
“We are looking at unprecedented challenges in our food and farm system right now, from the ongoing rural crisis to climate change to the pandemic rupturing of our food system,” Kasserman said.
She named several policy changes FWW would like to see the incoming administration implement. These include stopping the privatization of slaughterhouse inspection, pushing back against industry attempts to increase line speeds at processing plants, and reinstating the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), which was responsible for enforcing agriculture antitrust laws and protecting farmers from the predatory trade and marketing practices frequently used by the poultry and meat-packing industries.
The Trump administration dissolved GIPSA in 2018, merging it with the Agricultural Marketing Service.
Perhaps most importantly, Kasserman added that FWW would like to see USDA be more vocal on agribusiness mergers and stricter on antitrust enforcement, which family farmers and progressive farming groups have demanded for years.
“What we are seeing with this unprecedented consolidation in agribusiness right now is really coming at the expense of small family farmers, and we can’t afford to continue losing 10,000 family farms per year,” said Kasserman “We really need to stop the bleeding and that starts with USDA becoming more involved in opposing agribusiness mega-mergers and becoming more involved in meaningful antitrust enforcement, too.”
But according to FWW and the rest of the 160 groups who signed the letter, Heitkamp is the wrong person to oversee all these necessary changes. Instead, progressive and left-leaning groups have another candidate in mind: Marcia Fudge.
A different path for the USDA
While there have been a few other names thrown about for ag secretary, no one has garnered as much widespread support as Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH).
Fudge has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2008. She’s served on the Committee on Agriculture for many years and chairs the Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations.
In a recent interview with Politico, Fudge made her case to be Biden’s pick for ag secretary. “When you look at what African American women did in particular in this election, you will see that a major part of the reason that this Biden-Harris team won was because of African American women,” said Fudge.
She added that as the U.S. becomes increasingly diverse, politicians are “going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies” where Black legislators like her fit in. “You know, it’s always ‘we want to put the Black person in labor or HUD,’” she said.
“We need to start to look outside of the box, and as they have promised, a cabinet that is representative of this country as well as representative of the people who have supported them. I think it’s a natural fit,” Fudge said.
If chosen, she would be the first Black woman to serve as secretary of agriculture.
In addition to progressive groups, Fudge also has the support of Congressional Black Caucus leaders. According to Politico, Democratic Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) has spoken to Biden’s team about Fudge working at the USDA.
Recently, The Hill reported that three major unions have also come out in support of Fudge. These are the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
FWW has also endorsed Fudge for secretary of agriculture, citing her advocacy for food chain workers and for farmers and communities that have been historically underserved by USDA; her support for family-scale farms and regional food systems; and her work in nutrition programs.
Kasserman said, “Congresswoman Fudge has been, you know, she’s been an incredible leader on a lot of issues that USDA works on for many years… She’s really been fantastic on a lot of issues that the agency works on and she brings a much different viewpoint and background to the agency than we’ve seen there, at least in a very long time, possibly ever.”
“I think that whoever ultimately fills this role is going to really have a big job in front of them,” added Kasserman, “and we think that Congresswoman Fudge is best positioned to help the department navigate those challenges.”
Biden’s cabinet choices thus far have reflected his centrist position and signaled a desire to return to Obama-era policies. While that is a vast improvement over the past four years, progressive groups and leaders have unequivocally said they want progress, not simply a return to “normalcy.”
“I think there’s a real opportunity for the Biden administration to show us that they’re not going to embrace the same old corporate-friendly policies of the last several decades at the expense of family farms, rural communities, hungry families and the environment,” Kasserman said.
Thus far, Biden’s cabinet choices have left progressives unimpressed. Who he ultimately nominates as secretary of agriculture has emerged as another test of where he plans to take his presidency.
