What You Need to Know: Tom Vilsack

Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, has made a career out of bending to corporate agriculture giants.

“In his work at the Department of Agriculture and as a dairy lobbyist, Vilsack represents the powerful few of Big Ag.” –The Intercept

“Vilsack spent the last four years as a dairy industry lobbyist with the trade group U.S. Dairy Export Council. There, he earned $1 million in salary in 2018 as the highest paid executive at Dairy Management Inc., a nonprofit responsible for promoting milk goods and funded directly by mandatory fees from dairy farmers.” –Fox News

“President-elect Joe Biden’s designee for Agriculture secretary worked not only as a top dairy industry executive in 2020 but also as a monitor overseeing Purdue Pharma’s adherence to an agreement to stop aggressively marketing opioid painkillers.” –Roll Call

“‘If past is prologue, we have strong concerns that he will continue to do the bidding of industry,’ said Zach Corrigan, a senior staff lawyer at Food & Water Watch, a consumer and environmental watchdog group, which opposes Mr. Vilsack’s nomination.” –The New York Times

Vilsack’s nomination is also drawing heavy criticism from the Black community who say Vilsack did nothing for them during his time as Agriculture secretary under President Obama.

“Black farm organizations and advocates say Vilsack squandered eight years of opportunity to address long-standing complaints of discrimination in access to USDA loans and other programs. His inaction, they say, exacerbated a catastrophic loss of land and livelihood for many Black farmers over the past century, widening the racial wealth gap.” –The Washington Post

“‘I don’t know why we’ve got to be recycling,’ Clyburn said in a New York Times interview last month. ‘There’s a strong feeling that Black farmers didn’t get a fair shake’ under Vilsack, he added.” – HuffPost

“‘Vilsack is not good for the agriculture industry, period,” said Michael Stovall, founder of Independent Black Farmers…’When it comes to civil rights, the rights of people, he’s not for that. It’s very disappointing they even want to consider him coming back after what he has done to limited resource farmers and what he continues to do to destroy lives.’” – Politico

In fact, Vilsack’s time at USDA was ripe with gender and racial discrimination complaints, many of which went unresolved.

“Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack pledged in 2009 to lead the USDA into a ‘new era of civil rights.’ But whistleblowers say a culture of racial and gender discrimination, sexual harassment and reprisal persists, abetted by serious mismanagement at the office that handles civil rights complaints.” – Politico

“The USDA inspector general found that over about a five-year period ending in September 2014, the USDA’s civil rights office received more than 230 employment discrimination complaints against senior USDA managers, including 13 against officials in the office itself, and more than half of the total complaints were not investigated within the 180-day time limit established by law.” –Politico

“Under Vilsack, USDA employees foreclosed on Black farmers with outstanding discrimination complaints, many of which were never resolved. At the same time, USDA staff threw out new complaints and misrepresented their frequency, while continuing to discriminate against farmers.” –The Counter

Bottom line: Tom Vilsack had eight years in the Obama Administration to make a difference for rural America, and he failed. Americans deserve someone who will always fight on their behalf, not another establishment politician who’s more interested in doing Big Ag’s bidding.