Climate, exports and family food budgets: Ag secretary tackles topics with Valley leaders
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talked Tuesday about Central Valley farmers’ role in a climate-safe future, and about families stressed by food costs.
He took part in a Zoom call with Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, and leaders in California agriculture.
Vilsack discussed his department’s response to the current drought and the barriers to exports of dairy foods, nuts, citrus and other products.
And he plugged the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now before Congress. It would improve roads, rail, ports and other modes of transportation, along with rural broadband and water supplies.
“Our advantage in the export market historically has been our ability to get product to market more cheaply, more efficiently, because we had a transportation system that was not rivaled,” he said. “Well, that’s not the case anymore.”
Vilsack is a former Iowa governor who also was agriculture secretary during the Obama administration. He and Harder spoke separately from Washington, D.C.
$36 more a month in food aid
Food aid for Americans is the largest part by far of the U.S. Department of Agriculture budget. Vilsack noted a change last month that added an average of $36 a month for the recipients. It is aimed at fresh fruit and vegetable purchases, including farmers markets.
The secretary also mentioned that food banks are getting more dairy products thanks to new federal money for refrigeration. The USDA also boosted payments to farmers for this milk.
Vilsack said the department just allotted $500 million to help Western producers hit by the drought. This includes bringing in hay to supplement the parched grassland in California.
Two nut industry leaders – Richard Waycott of the Almond Board of California and Michelle Connelly of the California Walnut Board — urged Vilsack to reduce trade barriers.
He said a key part of this has been getting China to comply with pledges to reduce tariffs and obstacles related to food safety. He also criticized the Trump administration for placing tariffs on a wide range of foreign goods.
“The problem is that many of those tariffs sort of boomeranged on us in terms of hurting our own companies and our own consumers,” Vilsack said.
Concerns from the citrus belt
Citrus farmers in the Valley and Southern California contend with cheap imports, said Rayne Thompson, vice president for government relations and sustainability at Sunkist Growers.
“We’re facing a reality for fruit and vegetable growers here in the United States that it’s cheaper to grow, pack and ship fruits and vegetables in the Southern Hemisphere versus here domestically,” she said.
Harder noted his own effort to boost local food in school cafeterias. “It doesn’t make any sense for our kids to be eating fruits and vegetables that are grown in Mexico or China when we are in such an incredible agricultural heartland,” he said.
The congressman also introduced a bill that would put about $2.5 billion over five years into climate change projects on farms. They could include capturing carbon in trees and soil, buying low-emission tractors and converting cattle manure into energy.
One technology, pyrolysis, turns woody debris into fertilizer and fuel. A new plant in Merced is doing this with almond shells, and more could follow.
These systems could help farmers comply with a phaseout of open burning of orchard waste by the start of 2025, said Alicia Rockwell, director of government and public affairs at Blue Diamond Growers.
“The goal would be for scale-able pyrolysis equipment to be widely manufactured and utilized as an alternative to open burning for woody biomass,” she told Vilsack.
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
