The Hill News

Say what you want about U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the man does not flinch when it comes time to sell the USDA agenda. Whether that agenda, which he will push at a meeting of the G20 agriculture ministers this month, is one that will adequately tackle an emerging food crisis remains an open question.

"I would say that there are many reasons that there are food shortages globally, but none of them have anything to do with American farmers and ranchers," argued Secretary Vilsack at a recent hearing defending US biofuels incentives. If you are dumbstruck by this statement, it may be for good reason: it’s just not true.

The reality of course is that we live in an interconnected world where US policies and the practices of the US agriculture industry help determine whether farmers from Kenya to Yemen eat or go hungry. And right now many of them go hungry.

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