WASHINGTON — A coalition of food safety, science and consumer groups has urged President-elect Barack Obama to appoint a Secretary of Agriculture “who has had experience with or has been an advocate of the USDA’s nutrition, food safety, and conservation programs” and who “has had experience providing leadership to a large and diverse organization.”
In a letter yesterday to the President-elect, the group asked that the appointee “embrace the diversity of programs administered by the Department [of Agriculture] and accept the responsibility for representing the interests of all Americans, urban as well as rural, consumers as well as producers.” The group emphasized that agriculture is only one of the interests of the USDA, saying, “The agenda waiting on the desk of the new secretary will include issues of great concern that go far beyond the interests of commodity producers.”
The letter was signed by Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention; Center for Science in the Public Interest; Consumer Federation of America; Consumers Union; Food & Water Watch; Government Accountability Project; Safe Tables Our Priority; Union of Concerned Scientists; and Carol Tucker-Foreman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, 1977-81.
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