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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack did not link this winter’s frigid and snowy weather in much of the country to global warming, but said the “climate is changing” and the federal government wants to help the country’s food producers. At a press conference on Thursday at the United States Agriculture Department’s (USDA) annual Agricultural Outlook Forum, CNSNews.com asked Vilsack if global warming or climate change were to blame for the recent cold and snowy weather. …

At the USDA’s annual Agricultural Outlook Forum on Thursday during a panel discussion about attracting young people to the farming industry, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asked a panelist how she would convince an inner city “minority” child who “doesn’t even know what a tomato is.” “Emily, I want you to envision an inner city child,” Vilsack said to Emily Oakley, interim director of the National Young Farmer Coalition. “Could be African American, could be Hispanic, could be Native American, Asian, whatever, a minority. You’re talking to that child. That child doesn’t even know what a tomato is much less what...

The southern New Mexico plant that has been fighting for more than a year for permission to slaughter horses will open soon, unless Congress reinstates a ban on the practice, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday. In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Mr. Vilsack said his department was working to make sure the process was handled properly for the opening of what would be the first domestic horse slaughterhouse in six years. “We are going to do this, and I would imagine that it would be done relatively soon,” he said. The Valley Meat Company sued the Department of Agriculture...

House Republicans say new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines aimed at forcing students to eat fruits and vegetables are a failure because students across the country are simply tossing the healthy fare into the trash. "[T]here remains great concern with the amount of food waste generated at school cafeterias, much of it brought on by requiring students to take fruits and vegetables rather than simply offer them," Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.), Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) and Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) told USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in a letter sent Thursday. "This is a waste of federal, state and local funds and...

On the same day that Senate Budget Committee Republicans revealed that spending on federal welfare programs constituted the single largest expenditure in the 2011 budget, the Department of Agriculture failed to meet a key deadline to further explain its food stamp partnership with the Mexican government....(SNAP), or food stamps, which recently reached an all-time high enrollment of nearly 47 million participants. Non-citizen participation in SNAP has quadrupled since 2001 and doubled since 2008.

The U.S. government paid a Chicago consultant hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on diversity training workshops that, according to one watchdog, included an exercise in which employees were told to chant "our forefathers were illegal immigrants." Conservative group Judicial Watch made the claim this week as it released a handful of documents pertaining to the program -- and alleged that the sessions held by the Department of Agriculture ended up enforcing political views more than promoting tolerance. "Instead of being diversity-oriented or tolerance-oriented, it's more about adopting a mindset," said Lisette Garcia, a senior investigator with the group....

The United States can meet President Barack Obama's goal of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, but it better get moving. That's according to Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to a 2010 Agriculture Department report, the agency plans for the U.S. to produce 13.4 billion gallons of biofuels from grasses and sugars. The rest would come from oil seeds, crop residues and wood waste. The EPA is exploring other sources, such as animal fats, municipal solid waste and algae. The push for more biofuels comes as other industries, such as commercial power companies,...

White House officials were in close contact with the Agriculture Department in the hours leading up to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's decision to fire USDA employee Shirley Sherrod in 2010, according to nearly 2,000 pages of internal emails released by the administration.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of the National Restaurant Association on Monday that Americans need to “adjust” their tastes so that they like the kind of food the government believes they should eat—and “we have to make sure that what we do is create the appropriate transition.”

Federal officials on Friday rejected Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to bar New York City’s food stamp users from buying soda and other sugary drinks with their benefits. (...) Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, said in a statement that the United States Department of Agriculture “has a longstanding tradition of supporting and promoting incentive-based solutions that are better suited for the working families, elderly and other low-income individuals” who rely on food stamps. “We are confident that we can solve the problem of obesity and promote good nutrition and health for all Americans and stand ready to work with...

Tom Vilsack, President Obama's Secretary of Agriculture, appeared on MSNBC and said that foodstamps are putting people to work and are acting as an 'economic stimulus'. Vilsack said: "Well, obviously, it's putting people to work. Which is why we're going to have some interesting things in the course of the forum this morning. Later this morning, we're going have a press conference with Secretary Mavis and Secretary Chu to announce something that's never happened in this country -- something that we think is exciting in terms of job growth. I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama plans to create a special advisory council to recommend ways to boost the economic outlook and quality of life for the estimated 60 million people who live in rural areas of the U.S., a White House official said. Obama was expected to sign an executive order Thursday establishing the White House Rural Council and naming Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, of Iowa, to be its chairman.

The most interesting thing to me about the Shirley Sherrod scandal wasn't her or how she was fired because the Obama Administration was worried that her video was going to appear on Glenn Beck, even though it never did, on the day in question. Instead, what interested me most was a relatively bit player in this episode... the Secretary of Agriculture who fired her, most likely on orders from above (later retracted)---Tom Vilsack. You see, Tom and I go back a few years. In fact I probably had the first (and maybe only) blog to endorse him for President....

Shirley Sherrod named Georgia Director of Rural Development Minority Farm Settlement Justice Achieved - Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod! We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960's. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country. Now with a cash award of historic proportions (13 million dollars), the group will be able to begin again. In 1969, New Communities received a planning grant from OEO and was encouraged...

Cap and trade is not that complicated. Recently Ag Secretary Vilsack has been out promoting cap and trade and touting its benefits to farmers. Well, let’s look at these benefits that Sec. Vilsack is selling to the American people. Sec. Vilsack is selling this terrible legislation by pointing out the money farmers can make from planting trees which is considered a “carbon offset.” Therefore, during a recession those in Washington would rather re-forest our land, which Vilsack said would provide “significant income opportunities to America’s farmers and ranchers.” This is absurd. When did even the most basic rules about supply...

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-at-182.html NOTE: The following text SNIPPET is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Department of Justice and USDA Workshops to Explore Competition and Regulatory Issues in the Agriculture Industry to Begin March 12 in Iowa Initial Workshop to Be Held in Ankeny, Iowa, at Des Moines Area Community College, FFA Enrichment Center WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today the agenda and panelists for the first joint public workshop, which will be held on March 12, 2010, in Ankeny, Iowa, to explore competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture...

Agriculture: Already buffeted by rising food prices due to biofuels, consumers face a bigger hike if climate-change legislation is passed. Farming costs will rise, and it may be more profitable to plant trees than crops. If the cap-and-trade provisions of the Waxman-Markey bill become law, you can wave goodbye to those amber waves of grain as America's heartland falls victim to a perverse set of incentives and a process called "afforestation." Soybeans and wheat will give way to elms and oaks. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wants a review of what amounts to an agricultural impact study of HR 2454, which...

As noted here, Chris Matthews yesterday named Tom Vilsack a member of Hillary's "eunuch's chorus," people he derided for "saying whatever the Clinton people told them to say." Today, Chris might be claiming vindication after Vilsack's one-man recital in which he parroted Hillary's word-'o-the-day, "change," no fewer than eight times in an MSNBC interview with Andrea Mitchell. View the edited video clip of "Vilsack's Change Chorus" here.

I’ve said it all along: The Democrats’ massive S-CHIP expansion is a Trojan Horse for Hillarycare. Now, we get it straight from the horse’s mouth. A Hill source sends an audio clip of former Iowa Dem. Governor Tom Vilsack at Drake University on Nov. 16 describing how S-CHIP will help achieve those universal entitlement ends: Click here for audio. Transcript: “I think there is going to be a commitment to universal coverage. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be a sector by sector process. I think you either need to go in whole hog or not. We tried to...

It's going to be Romney/Huckabee vs Hillary/Vilsack for the competing '08 ticket. You can bank on it. All the pundits out there can relax because it is a done deal. The only question will be who will run on a far Left ticket because they are angry at Hillary. Probably Ralph Nader again but perhaps someone else or even several far left tickets. BTW, Mike Huckabee will do great debating the incredibly DULL Tom Vilsack. After seeing the rollout of the "New Coke" this week, I think the flavor has gone flat fast. So relax folks. We have a GREAT...