Vilsack confirmation

Vilsack confirmation

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
At a Senate confirmation hearing, AG Secretary nominee Tom Vilsack outlined four priorities for USDA. The first area is climate change. I think there's an opportunity for us to create new markets, incentives for soil health, for carbon sequestration, for methane capture and reuse. The second issue is food security and nutrition insecurity that causes millions of Americans, especially people of color, to cope with obesity and diabetes and other chronic diseases. I think we can create a food system that makes healthy and nutritious food more available, more convenient and more affordable to all Americans. Third, the reality is we lack openness, fairness and competitiveness. And resiliency is a 19 crisis has shown in many of our agricultural markets. I think we can strengthen the rules and laws designed to promote openness and fairness. And finally, we need to fully, deeply and completely address the longstanding inequities, unfairness and discrimination that has been the history of USDA programs for far too long. This is Stephanie Ho for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., for USDA nutrition assistance programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WEC. I think that the USDA needs to do a better job of educating people about the existence of the program. And I think we need to figure out creative ways to get folks interested in Wicke. In addition to the nutrition opportunities, AG Secretary nominee Tom Vilsack made these comments in his Senate confirmation hearing. There's a program that is operating in 12 states called Count the KCS. It's a way of basically preventing stillbirths by counting the KCS. If we have things like this that are also tied, educational opportunities that are also tied to participation, maybe we get a broader awareness. He adds that another goal is broader participation. This would be particularly true in communities of color to basically get that because they have much higher stillborn rates than among white moms. So the opportunity here, I think, is to create ways in which people see multiple benefits for programs.
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