Dr. Salerno – The Silver Cloud Diet

USDA Fires Organic Farming Specialist for Expressing Opinion

Mowing Oats & Sweet Clover (© Image courtesy of Roxbury Farm, CSA)

The free exchange of ideas being essential for a healthy democracy, it was particularly disturbing to learn that Mark D. Keating was terminated as an Agricultural Marketing Specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program (NOP) for expressing personal opinions in communications he had with the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

Mr. Keating brought 20 years of experience in various aspects of organic farming to his government service. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals, is urging the NOP to reverse its decision. PEER contends that Mr. Keating did not contradict official policy, but was aiding an advisory panel in formulating recommendations for official policy.

PEER argues that his termination:

• Violates Obama administration policies encouraging “free and open inquiry” by scientists and other technical specialists; and

• Is at odds with policies adopted by other agencies, such as the Department of Interior, promoting “free exchange of ideas” while formulating policy.

Mr. Keating’s job description called for “wide latitude to exercise independent judgment” to “influence, motivate, and persuade the very diverse constituent population of the NOP”. Since he was hired only last April, Mr. Keating was still a probationary employee with limited rights to appeal his dismissal.

Undue Corporate Influence at USDA?

Last September, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published the results of a survey of USDA scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety.

“Hundreds of scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety have personally experienced political interference in their work, and that’s bad for public health,” said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS’s Scientific Integrity Program at the time. “Both the administration and Congress need to act.”

More than 1,700 respondents took part in the survey, which was conducted for UCS by the Iowa State University Center for Survey Statistics. Most of the respondents had worked at their agency for more than ten years.

Disappointing Appointments at USDA

Back in 2008, Ronnie Cummins, executive director of Organic Consumers Association (OCA), told Democracy Now! about his opposition to the appointment of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture:

Vilsack has been an ardent promoter, not only of genetically engineered foods and crops, but also of the extremely controversial biopharmaceutical crops, which involves [inaudible] pharmaceutical drugs or industrial chemicals into food crops. Even, you know, quite a few people in the biotech industry are alarmed by these biopharmaceuticals, since you could get dangerous drugs throughout the food supply.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, “Unfortunately, Mr. Obama on Wednesday chose Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa who has longstanding ties to agribusiness interests, as agriculture secretary – his weakest selection so far.”

During the presidential campaign many sustainability advocates were encouraged by this statement from then candidate Obama, “”We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.”

To learn more about more about those with close ties to Big Agribusiness appointed to positions at the USDA, go to: Organic Consumers Association USDA Watch

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