Secy. of Agriculture: Pandemic Has Expanded Food Assistance

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: We turn now to the longest-serving cabinet member in theObama administration, Tom Vilsack, having served eight years as agriculture secretary under the former president, Vilsack has returned to the same position for the new Biden administration. here he is speaking with our Walter Isaacson about the assistance he has provided to farmers throughout the pandemic as well as his plans for reform.

WALTER ISAACSON: Thank you Christiane, and secretary Tom Vilsack welcome to the show.

TOM VILSACK, U.S. SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: It’s great to be with you.

ISAACSON: Your agriculture department budget. 70% of it goes to nutrition assistance, things like snap and what we called food stamps. Tell me how during the pandemic that’s been affected and what you’re doing now.

VILSACK: Well, obviously the pivot from food service to food assistance wasn’t as smooth as any of us would have liked. But the reality is there were a lot of people in need. And so first and foremost, we saw an increase in the need for SNAP increased enrollments. Secondly, we saw the need for an increase in the amount of SNAP and a 15% increase for a family of four means about $102 more coming into the family budget every month for the next several months. You know, what’s interesting about that is it not only helps that family buy more food, but it also keeps people employed. That SNAP increase really supports tens of thousands of jobs if you think about it. Folks have to process, package, transport–every farmer benefits from that as well. Roughly 14 to 15 cents of every food dollar spent at the grocery store ends up in a farmer’s pocket. So the SNAP program is an incredible program. It’s an anti-poverty program, but it’s also it supports the economy during very difficult times. But we complemented snap with an additional program called the pandemic EBT, recognizing as you know, many moms and dads send their children off to school, they may get school breakfast, they may get school lunch, but when schools are shut down that lunch and breakfast then becomes again, the family’s responsibility. So we were providing additional support for families who find themselves with children at home because schools are shut down with our pandemic EBT program. So a lot of ways in which we’re trying to help families get through this very difficult time.

ISAACSON: Well, the nutrition safety net affects young children often and the elderly, but are you doing things now for like homeless, um, you know, younger people or people who may have been affected by this pandemic that you don’t naturally serve?

VILSACK: Well, there’s been an expanded effort, uh, in two phases in response to that question. First, the additional resources for those youths who are living in shelters, um, as you say, homeless folks who find themselves, they may be teenagers. They may be are in their early twenties, finding themselves without a job, without a home. Uh, we’re providing additional financial resources and additional food assistance, uh, for the, the homeless shelters. Uh, we’re, we’re also taking a look at ways in which we can make the availability of food assistance, more convenient, uh, by providing, uh, now, well over a million and a half families in the United States are benefiting from online purchases as opposed to having to go to the grocery store. And I think we’re going to learn from this pandemic, uh, a number of strategies potentially to make benefits not only, uh, more meaningful, but also, uh, to modernize the system so that people can utilize their benefits in the most convenient way possible.

ISAACSON: You’ve had an interesting childhood. As a biographer, I’m always looking for clues of what drives people and it was a challenge. You were an orphan, a family that had addiction problems. Tell me about that and how that helped shape your approach.

VILSACK: Well, I think my mom probably was the greatest influence in my life, uh, prior to meeting my wife, Christie, um, she battled with addiction, uh, both alcohol and prescription drug addiction, uh, and she overcame that addiction, uh, attempted suicide a couple of times, uh, was, uh, was violent at times. Uh, not an easy period of time. My parents separated for a period of, uh, for a while. I lived with my dad. It was a hard time, uh, but my mom basically taught me never to give up on something I truly believed in. She didn’t give up on herself. And she eventually, uh, with, uh, uh, a lot of faith, uh, and a lot of work, uh, basically gained her sobriety and, and in doing so I think taught, uh, my, myself and my sister an incredibly important, valuable life lesson, never to give up, uh, never to give up on things that you care deeply about.

ISAACSON: And yeah. Secretary of agriculture during President Obama’s tenure. You also took on the opioid crisis. Why did you do that? And how focused were you on the rural areas, uh, which is your specialty?

VILSACK: Well, I, I did it in large part, uh, because of my mom and recognizing the challenge that overcoming addiction is. And I did it because I deeply concerned. I’m deeply concerned about, uh, the opportunities in rural America. Um, as I think Bill Clinton once said, if your tomorrow’s not brighter than your today, uh, you can kind of understand why people turn to drugs and why, why they can become, uh, potentially addicted and certainly opioids, a very serious, very serious problem in rural areas. Serious for multiple reasons. One: because the economy wasn’t as strong. So those tomorrow’s weren’t as bright weren’t as weren’t going to be as brighter than, than the today. Two: because there were a lack of resources available to people that wanted to get help. And three, if you live in a small town, uh, the stigma of addiction can sometimes make it more difficult for you to have success in the future. So it was important, I think, for the Obama administration to begin the process of educating people, that this is a disease. It’s not a character flaw. Uh, that’s another, uh, lesson I learned from my mom. It’s, it’s not, it’s, it’s not a character flaw. It’s not like, well, if you just tough it out and you can figure this out.

ISAACSON: The American farm families have been struggling and some in particular–suicide rates, opioid., How do you deal? Especially as a Democrat with rural Americans who think the system has left them behind, uh, tend to take it out on the Democratic Party, how are you reconnecting with, uh, farm families and rural families in America?

VILSACK: Well, first and foremost, it’s about respect and acknowledging what people in rural America do for the rest of us. If you think about this, these folks provide the most of the food that we rely on. A good deal of the water that we drink is, is directly connected to the work that they do on the land. Uh, they are, uh, the producers of most of the renewable energy that we are currently consuming and want to consume more of. They are the holders and protectors of most of the iconic landscapes in this country. Uh, and they are people that send their sons and daughters into the military in disproportionate numbers. Uh, there’s a value system in rural America that I think is important to the country. And it’s a value system that strongly believes in community, uh, and that, and responsibility of giving something back, uh, you know, the young people learn that you can’t keep taking from the land. You have to, you have to re replenish it.  Number two, also appreciate the emotional stress that, that folks who live in rural communities have seen as they’ve watched their community shrink over time, as they’ve watched their children and grandchildren leave for better opportunities someplace else, it’s an, it’s an emotional strain. And so I think it’s incumbent on the department of agriculture and incumbent on the secretary of agriculture to do everything he or she can do to create economic opportunity, to rebuild, to revitalize, to transform, uh, those rural communities and to let people know that that’s what you are focused on every single day. And I think there’s an enormous opportunity, especially with climate. I think climate as difficult, as challenging as it’s going to be to have a changing climate and all the consequences of that. I think it also opens up the opportunity to simply redefine and transform the entire American economy, particularly in rural places.

ISAACSON: Yeah, the Democratic Party has been slammed in rural America, and that’s been the great new divide in our country between rural and urban. Uh, what’s the problem that the Democratic Party has? Are they not showing that respect you just talked about?

VILSACK: You can’t beat something with nothing. And for far too long, the democratic party has failed to provide an alternative narrative, uh, to folks who live in rural communities, the narrative that Republicans provide is a simple one: less government, less taxes. And if you’re just hanging on, if you’re just trying to figure out how to make, uh, uh, the, the, the payroll, or just trying to figure out how to make ends meet from week to week, hanging on sounds pretty good and less, less government influence, uh, you know, interference and less taxes sounds really, really good if there’s a competing narrative about a changing economy that creates new revenue streams for farmers that allows you to say to your sons and daughters, that there’s real opportunity for you to keep the farm and to expand the farming operation. If you can say to folks, there’s manufacturing coming back to rural communities, trans uh, transforming agricultural waste into a variety of new bio-based products and materials, moving us away from fossil fuel, uh, climate, uh, challenging, uh, environment. Uh, now all of a sudden you’ve got a competing narrative and you have a way in which you can essentially make the case: Your life can be better if you are embracing the policies that we are advocating. Um, and I think we’re now beginning to learn about that. Uh, so first of all, you have to have something, secondly, you gotta be there, you gotta be present. You gotta go out and you gotta speak to people, and you gotta sometimes listen to the harsh reality, uh, that you sometimes get when you do listen to folks in rural communities, uh, how upset that they might be. Uh, and then finally it is about the respect that when you go and listen, that you respect the contribution, folks have made. You don’t demean them and you don’t see them as, as a, uh, as, as something less.

ISAACSON: You served for a full eight years in the Obama administration, secretary of agriculture, which is somewhat unusual to make it that long in the cabinet. And then when president Biden came in, there were a lot of people who wanted to be agriculture secretary, and yet they bring you back for another term. Why were they pushing to have you come back? And what did you feel you still had to do, or you didn’t do the last time around that made you finally say yes?

VILSACK: I think during the course of the campaign, I convinced  then vice-president Biden that there was enormous opportunity on the climate side and rural places. And I think because of that, when you saw the passion with which I delivered that message, he wanted me to the opportunity to give me the opportunity to, to, uh, to make good on, on, on what I was suggesting could happen. Then I think in terms of things that I wanted to do, or things that were left undone, the reality is this job is never done. There are always things that need to be done or things that need to be done better or things that need to be done deeper. And one of the things that we needed to do was to continue the work that we started in the Obama administration of dealing with the discrimination, the history of discrimination at the department of agriculture for socially disadvantaged producers. Um, and there was an opportunity for us to dig deeper for us to root out, uh, systemic barriers that exist, uh, in the department, uh, debates to provide a more equitable and fair department and to sort of change the reputation of the department, uh, among minority producers. And that was a big challenge and a big opportunity.

ISAACSON: So you’re focusing, among other things, on racial equity as part of this, uh, as part of your tenure now. Explain how that’s going to work. And especially the loan forgiveness program that was just passed.

VILSACK: Well, I think, uh, in the first in the Obama administration, the focus was on trying to compensate people for specific acts of discrimination that may have occurred 20 or 30 years ago. And that was done with a settlement of class action cases. But what we didn’t do and what needs to be done is basically to take a look at, as I said, the systemic barriers that exist in the programs today, and to address the cumulative effect of the discrimination that occurred. When you were discriminated against, it meant that you didn’t get alone or that you got alone late, or you weren’t able to put your crop in the ground exactly the same time your neighbor put their crop in the ground. Your productivity was less. Because your productivity was less, you didn’t have the opportunity to buy that new piece of equipment or expand your farming operation when land became available. And over time, your operation remained static. Your neighbor’s operation continued to grow. Now you’ve got USDA programs that essentially, uh, provide help and assistance based on production, based on size. If you’re small and you don’t have as much production, you don’t get as much help. Let me give you an example: in the recent COVID payments to farmers, roughly 25% of the farmers receiving those payments self-identified as white African-American, native American, et cetera, of that self-identified population, black farmers received $20 million of assistance in help. White farmers receive between $5 and $6 billion in help. So you essentially have a gap between socially disadvantaged producers and those who aren’t socially disadvantaged. Those who couldn’t take full advantage of the programs at USDA, and those that do take full advantage of the programs. So the question is, how do you address that gap so that you keep people on the land and you can encourage more farmers? And what we’ve essentially been able to do with a debt relief program is take a first step towards allowing folks to stay on the land. And now the next step, as part of the American rescue plan is to begin creating ways in which land access market access can be improved. Technical assistance can be provided. So over time, the gap that exists because of discrimination that may have taken place long ago for socially disadvantaged producers can be, can be reduced.

ISAACSON: Is it hard to explain that to a white farmer who needs debt relief, that the debt relief is going only to the socially disadvantaged farmers and particularly you’re giving debt relief to black farmers that may be neighbors of white farmers who are struggling.

VILSACK: Well, it, it may be difficult, but I think when you explain it and understand that in the COVID relief package, for example, black farmers received $20 million when white farmers received five to $6 billion, people understand and appreciate that they’ve had the full benefit and the full advantage of all of these programs for an extended period of time and their neighbor has not. And so to the extent that they may feel, uh, that this isn’t fair, now they might be able to understand how that African-American farmer may have felt for 20 or 30 years. Um, and I think at the end of the day, all of us, all the farmers, white, black, whatever, I honestly want more people on the land. We want people to farm. We want diversity within agriculture, both in terms of who’s farming, but in terms of the size of operations and the method of operation, uh, diversity is an incredibly important of, of a healthy, uh, agricultural economy.

ISAACSON: To what extent is climate change affected by the agriculture sector and what are you going to be doing about that?

VILSACK: U.S. agriculture is roughly 9% of our overall U.S. submissions, uh, globally. It’s somewhere between 14 and 15%. So in a sense, us agriculture is doing a little bit better than, uh, than international agriculture generally. Uh, there are many things we can do and will be doing. First and foremost, we’ll be supporting climate smart agricultural practices, uh, cover crops, uh, no-till rotational grazing with our conventional conservation programs and renewing and upping our investment in those climate smart agricultural practices. Two: we’re going to obviously focus on methane and methane reduction. Uh, there are feed additives that can reduce methane. Are there ways which methane can be captured from, uh, from animal livestock, uh, and converted into energy and fuel. That’s important because we want to maintain the ability to produce, uh, animal protein. If we’re going to feed a hungry world and ever-increasing world population, animal protein has to be part of the equation, but to do that, we need to do it sustainably, uh, effective way. We need to also convert agricultural waste into a variety of different new materials that are bio-based will create manufacturing jobs in rural places. It will also provide, I think, an opportunity for us to improve water quality, because we won’t be over-applying, uh, that manure on land that doesn’t need it. Uh, it will be, uh, enable us to produce a series of bio-based agricultural products, um, that will, uh, create new revenue streams for farmers and reduce emissions. And over a period of time, uh, we will get to, uh, president Biden’s goal of a net-zero emission, U.S. agriculture. And I think we’ll see early wins in this effort, uh, in, in terms of his administration. Uh, as we look at ways in which we can incent and encourage more carbon sequestration on the land that, uh, that farmers and ranchers have, if we’re going to get serious about climate, we got to get serious about carbon sequestration in rural areas. 72% of the landmass in the U S is in rural places. We need to utilize that resource to absorb carbon and to improve the soil health at the same time.

ISAACSON: Secretary, Tom Vilsack. Thank you so very much for joining us.

VILSACK: Thank you.