I would have thought the NYT would have been more open minded about letting "packers" own livestock. I read somewhere that 3/4ths of the the employees at the NYT who determine what gets on the front page, are packers.
Posted on 12/12/2004 7:49:24 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
As a symbol of American farming, it is hard to beat Gov. Mike Johanns of Nebraska, whom President Bush has nominated as secretary of agriculture. Mr. Johanns was raised on a dairy farm outside Osage, Iowa, so farmers know that Mr. Johanns is one of their own. But heading the Department of Agriculture is not a symbolic job.
Mr. Johanns governs a state that prohibits packers from owning livestock - which would be a good idea nationally - and has one of the strongest laws against corporate farming in the country. Unfortunately, Mr. Johanns took an aggressive stand against the anticorporate farming law, and he cut financing for rural development initiatives. On the plus side, he has also shown a willingness to learn from the other side, though whether that will do him any good in the Bush administration is, at best, an open question.
As agriculture secretary, Mr. Johanns will quickly face some tough issues. He is a strong advocate of open agricultural markets. But to ensure America's presence in the global beef market, he will need to support vastly increased testing for mad-cow disease in the United States. Mr. Johanns will also need to speed up the move toward a national animal ID program as well as mandatory country-of-origin labeling.
The real test of the new secretary's mettle will come, however, with the drafting of a new farm bill for 2007. The bloated 2002 farm bill, which Mr. Johanns championed, supported only one group of farmers - corporate commodity farmers. By any other measure, the bill was a huge reversal.
It is essential to reverse the trend toward concentration in American farming. But the only way to pay for increased conservation programs and rural marketing initiatives - vital to farmers and to rural America - will be by capping subsidy payments on commodity crops, a politically difficult task. Mr. Johanns has a real opportunity to help reshape agriculture. He knows farming on the ground, and he knows farming at the legislative and administrative level. The question is whether he can work on behalf of the widest array of American farmers.
"Mr. Johanns governs a state that prohibits packers from owning livestock - which would be a good idea nationally - and has one of the strongest laws against corporate farming in the country."
More regulation is always a good idea in the opinion of the NYT.
ping
ping
I would have thought the NYT would have been more open minded about letting "packers" own livestock. I read somewhere that 3/4ths of the the employees at the NYT who determine what gets on the front page, are packers.
BTTT!!!!!!!
I would have thought the NYT would have been more open minded about letting "packers" own livestock. I read somewhere that 3/4ths of the the employees at the NYT who determine what gets on the front page, are packers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
