Speaker 1: Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: then once I got in Tom, I got hooked. U
Speaker 1: s c A is such a huge place, as we
Speaker 1: were describing, So you've got every person, every kind of
Speaker 1: walk of life there, and to me, it's a really
Speaker 1: interesting puzzle. How do you motivate and move forward to
Speaker 1: bureaucracy that complex, that large, that geographically disperse and get
Speaker 1: important things done. I like teasing out that problem. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Citisen Chef. This season, we're gonna really start
Speaker 1: of digging into not just where you get your food,
Speaker 1: but how these processes are regulated. There's this big thing
Speaker 1: out there called the U. S d A. And I
Speaker 1: think they have a budget of about a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: sixty billion dollars and I think there's about a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand employees. And this is this big, giant
Speaker 1: governmental entity that regulates pretty much everything that we eat.
Speaker 1: But I don't I don't think a whole lot of
Speaker 1: people understand what the U. S d A does, why
Speaker 1: they're there. But if you eat it, most likely the U.
Speaker 1: S d A regulates it. I thought the best person
Speaker 1: to talk to about this was my friend Kathleen Merrigan. So,
Speaker 1: Kathleen A. Merigan was the U S Deputy Secretary Agriculture
Speaker 1: from two thousand nine two thirteen, and she is now
Speaker 1: the executive director at the Sweat Center for Sustainable Food
Speaker 1: Systems at the Arizona State University. She also started to
Speaker 1: Know Your Farmer campaign and was also instrumental in working
Speaker 1: with Michelle Obama on the Let's Move campaign. She's someone
Speaker 1: who I lean on to get the sort of real
Speaker 1: deep policy answers that I'm looking for. So I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna ask some questions that include chocolate cake. But
Speaker 1: more on that later. So please welcome Kathleen Merrigan. Kathleen,
Speaker 1: how you doing things? Are great? Trying to tort your
Speaker 1: young minds, that's my They are really interested in filth policy,
Speaker 1: and we we're got to change the faces around the
Speaker 1: table if we want to change policy. Tom, that's my mission.
Speaker 1: I hear you. My son is graduating very soon with
Speaker 1: a degree in food policy. Yeah. So the USDA, all right,
Speaker 1: I've got all kinds of fun facts for you about
Speaker 1: us Well good. I mean, it's this massive governmental body,
Speaker 1: the hundred and ten thousand employees, The budget is over
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty billion dollars a year. I think
Speaker 1: for ten thou short right now, jobs that are available.
Speaker 1: Anybody listening, they want to job the U s d
Speaker 1: A apply, they need you. And we describe U s
Speaker 1: t A as a field based agency, meaning most of
Speaker 1: the employees are scattered about the States and in fact
Speaker 1: in countries around the world because most of our foreign
Speaker 1: embassies have egg specialists. They're feeding back intelligence to USDA
Speaker 1: about what's going on around food and agriculture and country X,
Speaker 1: Y and z. So it's a massive operation. But it's
Speaker 1: this massive, this massive government organization, and yet I don't
Speaker 1: think the average person has a clue as to what
Speaker 1: the U s d A does and why they should
Speaker 1: care about what the U s d A does. We
Speaker 1: thought it'd be great to kick off our second season
Speaker 1: with a permit on the U s d A and
Speaker 1: what it does. And with that, why should the average
Speaker 1: person care about the USDA? What do they need to
Speaker 1: know about the USDA? Well, the USDA is the fifth
Speaker 1: largest government agency. The Secretary of Agriculture is ninth in
Speaker 1: line to succession of the President, and that's because USA
Speaker 1: was the ninth federal government department established first of all,
Speaker 1: if you're a taxpayer. I hope I got your attention
Speaker 1: with some of those numbers. That's one reason to be
Speaker 1: paying attention. The second reason is if you're a person
Speaker 1: in rural America, the U. S d A is your
Speaker 1: home in the federal government because so many of their
Speaker 1: programs are oriented to rural Americans. A lot of the
Speaker 1: programs have eligibility requirements that make it so that the
Speaker 1: smallest of commune today's our first in line for the
Speaker 1: largest that USDA has to offer. So if I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there in rural Kansas, I'm listening to this podcast just
Speaker 1: because I stumbled upon it, and now someone's telling me
Speaker 1: I should care about certain policies. What are they? Well,
Speaker 1: like most people think about U. S c A, and
Speaker 1: they connected right away to farmers and ranchers. Yes, US
Speaker 1: does a lot with farmers and ranchers. But if you're
Speaker 1: in a small town, you might be getting money from U.
Speaker 1: S c A to help buy an ambulance or a
Speaker 1: police car. You might be getting money wait, wait, money
Speaker 1: from the US to buy a police car or an ambulance. Yes. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: they help with telemedicine, hospital construction, a lot of rural housing. Um.
Speaker 1: Money A loans come from U. S d A. I
Speaker 1: know in the Biden announcement about the infrastructure legislation, there's
Speaker 1: promise of a lot of money for rural I'm just
Speaker 1: generally water um infrastructure because of leaded pipe, and I
Speaker 1: think in the current proposal most of that money goes
Speaker 1: to E p A. But U s C as in
Speaker 1: that business too. They do a lot to help small
Speaker 1: communities construct water and wastewater systems. They've been involved over
Speaker 1: decades in the electrification of America. You might say that's
Speaker 1: work that's been done, but I live here in Arizona,
Speaker 1: just close by to the Navajo Nation, which crosses many states.
Speaker 1: There's still still fifty thousand homes a Navajo Nation without
Speaker 1: running water electricity, which is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: the COVID pandemic was so severe. There was an agency
Speaker 1: that large. If you break it up in the smaller parts,
Speaker 1: and would that make sense our our uh? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you're the secretary secretary culture wouldnt want
Speaker 1: to do that. But um, would that make sense at all? No?
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because there are individual agencies within U.
Speaker 1: S d A with individual mandates. If you're trying to reorganize,
Speaker 1: you're already setting up battles. You have to get a
Speaker 1: lot of new legislation passed, and I say, work with
Speaker 1: what you have and use the time efficiently, because by
Speaker 1: the time all those reorgs happened, I've been I'm old Tom,
Speaker 1: I've been through many I think by the time you
Speaker 1: redo all the stationary reorganize everybody's job titles, move the furniture.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it makes a big difference. And
Speaker 1: what are some of the agencies that are within the
Speaker 1: USDA that soup This is real, This is a real
Speaker 1: temptation for me to go on for multiple hours. The
Speaker 1: biggest agency at U s c A is the Forest Service.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think that's in the Department of
Speaker 1: Interior where the park services, but actually usc A has
Speaker 1: a for services about thirty five employees, and of course
Speaker 1: the last few years have been very involved in wildfire
Speaker 1: control forest management. Many people who go skiing on private
Speaker 1: resort mountains don't realize that that may be Forest Service land.
Speaker 1: And the Forest Service actually has an office in New
Speaker 1: York City for those of you in the big city
Speaker 1: where they're looking at trees and urban settings. So it's
Speaker 1: not just out in the countryside. The U s A
Speaker 1: has a food Safety inspection service. We have four agencies
Speaker 1: at U s c A that do research. We have
Speaker 1: research labs across the country and every five years, one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things, because I'm a nerd U s
Speaker 1: c A, has a Census of Agriculture. We do account
Speaker 1: of all farmers and ranchers in the country and learn
Speaker 1: a lot about their operations, all publicly available information. If
Speaker 1: my memory serves me, you, you were the one who
Speaker 1: started to know your farmer program. When I was asked
Speaker 1: to do that by Secretary will Sack. Most people immediately
Speaker 1: wanted there to be a staff in an office and
Speaker 1: have a house somewhere. And my view was every agency
Speaker 1: at U s d A should find a home for
Speaker 1: local and regional agriculture. And I didn't want to just
Speaker 1: put it in one place, but I wanted to challenge
Speaker 1: every single part of us DA to stand tall and
Speaker 1: do something important. And in fact, all of the seventeen
Speaker 1: agencies of us DA came forward with really significant programs.
Speaker 1: For example, the Natural Resources Conservation Service that helps and
Speaker 1: send farmers to do environmental practices on their land. They
Speaker 1: came forward with a hoop house initiative seasonal high tunnel
Speaker 1: way for farmers to extend their growing season. That was
Speaker 1: wildly popular and the biggest uptake state was Wisconsin. Also
Speaker 1: followed close on the hills by Alaska. We're having that
Speaker 1: ability to extend the growing season actually significantly changed lives.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, welcome back to citizenship. We will
Speaker 1: have a lot of questions about our food and how
Speaker 1: we ast consumers can better understand systems in place that
Speaker 1: get that food to us. Kathleen Merrigan, I think is
Speaker 1: the perfect person to demystify what the U. S d
Speaker 1: A does and why we should care. So far, you
Speaker 1: talked about forestry, you talked about ranchers, you talked about farmers.
Speaker 1: We haven't heard about what's in it for the people.
Speaker 1: How does the average person how do they engage with
Speaker 1: the U s d A. Where do they see it?
Speaker 1: Obviously in their taxes they see it, But where do
Speaker 1: they see it in the supermarket? Where do they see
Speaker 1: it in the grocery store? How does it affect them? Now?
Speaker 1: I know I think that the overwhelming largest part of
Speaker 1: the budget goes to SNAP is that is that correct?
Speaker 1: At least more than half, and I was Deputy secretary
Speaker 1: in ten it was at the high point and we
Speaker 1: were feeding about forty nine million people through the Supplemental
Speaker 1: Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP. Now it's much more because of
Speaker 1: the widespread unemployment and chaos in our economy. What's really
Speaker 1: nice is when the federal government provides SNAP benefits in
Speaker 1: times of economic distress, people immediately spend that money and
Speaker 1: it stimulates the economy more effectively than anything else. We know.
Speaker 1: It's a it's like a shovel ready stimulus program, but yes,
Speaker 1: SNAP is the biggest part of the u s d
Speaker 1: a's budget. Overall nutrition assistance is about eight percent these
Speaker 1: days of us das budgets. Too often family will use
Speaker 1: those dollars to buy the cheapest foods possible. And so
Speaker 1: that leads me to ask, how can the U s
Speaker 1: d A make nutritious foods more fordable, more accessible outside
Speaker 1: of the double Bucks program where you can use your
Speaker 1: food stamps and the farmers market and get a token
Speaker 1: for double the money that you spent there. As much
Speaker 1: as I'm a big USDA and federal government champion, change
Speaker 1: happens outside of Metro d C, and it eventually makes
Speaker 1: it to the halls of power there, and it's really
Speaker 1: great that we have a situation where we have a
Speaker 1: farm bill every five years or so, and some of
Speaker 1: the innovations that we see out in the field can
Speaker 1: become national policy. And you give a good example with
Speaker 1: a double ups program. Um, you know, the SNAP program
Speaker 1: is probably the money that people get is too little,
Speaker 1: and that makes um, they're getting more now, They're getting
Speaker 1: a little more, a little bit more now. But I
Speaker 1: think people are ready to reassess the Thrifty Food Plan,
Speaker 1: which is his analysis in the background that helps determine
Speaker 1: what the snap amount of money should be to allow
Speaker 1: people to eat a diet consistent with the dietary guidelines
Speaker 1: for Americans, which is also something that US AND has
Speaker 1: involved in. Right. It's also used for things like to
Speaker 1: calculate alimony and also to calculate the amount of calories
Speaker 1: that members of the services I should receive as well.
Speaker 1: So it's not just for snaps, that's right. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of issues around food access. People get very
Speaker 1: focused on the cost of food it. I just want
Speaker 1: to say, you know, we need to put more money
Speaker 1: into it. But food access is something that we know
Speaker 1: is really difficult. So if I don't have a car
Speaker 1: and taking public transport and maybe doing two jobs, I
Speaker 1: might be a single mom. You know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get all processed food because I can't afford to buy
Speaker 1: fresh food because I can't take that time out of
Speaker 1: my month multiple times. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different factors that play in. It's a complex problem to solve,
Speaker 1: but we definitely need to get more nutritious food to people.
Speaker 1: And when people start talking about the budget problem, I
Speaker 1: just look at what we spend as a nation on
Speaker 1: healthcare costs, and I say, can't we think more in
Speaker 1: a preventative health way and understand food as medicine? And
Speaker 1: if we do, wouldn't we um put on our green
Speaker 1: eye shades and see things totally differently? I think so right.
Speaker 1: I think the numbers, well, it was a couple of
Speaker 1: years back about two billion dollars a year on healthcare
Speaker 1: costs associated poor diet and pornutrition. So yeah, you think
Speaker 1: um our our friend Jim McGovern, he's been asking for
Speaker 1: this for a long time. I think the voices are
Speaker 1: starting to be raised. I think also Senator Booker is
Speaker 1: starting to ask for as well. And that is a
Speaker 1: White House summit on hunger, which we haven't seen since
Speaker 1: the Nixon administration. Um, what what policies do you think
Speaker 1: come out of a summit on hunger? It's against a
Speaker 1: three day summit where you will take people from across
Speaker 1: the spectrum through different agencies making recommendations. What what kind
Speaker 1: of policies can come out of a three three day
Speaker 1: session on hunger that can really help Americans? Well, I
Speaker 1: think in the year that we've had, the last year
Speaker 1: and a half, where we've had this national reckoning with
Speaker 1: our really sword history on racial justice and social equity,
Speaker 1: I think I would put those issues front and center
Speaker 1: and and we really know that this pandemic is just
Speaker 1: another exclamation point at the end of the sentence that
Speaker 1: things are not fair and people are not equally able
Speaker 1: to survive hardship, And so I would I would probably
Speaker 1: put that lens on everything I do. Want to say.
Speaker 1: Jim McGovern is just about my favorite person in the world.
Speaker 1: What a champion for everything good in the world. He's
Speaker 1: the foremost champion of snap in Congress. Of course, he's
Speaker 1: got a lot of help with Rosa de Laura and others,
Speaker 1: and Corey Booker putting out the Justice for Black Farmers
Speaker 1: Act really impressive um reintroduced this year with a lot
Speaker 1: of co sponsors, a lot of them on the Semi
Speaker 1: Agriculture Committee, really saying we have not treated black farmers well.
Speaker 1: We certainly know from the different lawsuits at U, s
Speaker 1: d A. We haven't treated Native Americans well, we haven't
Speaker 1: treated women well. So we've got a lot to reckon
Speaker 1: with a lot of it goes back to equity and justice.
Speaker 1: The calls are pretty strong right now and there's hopefully
Speaker 1: you know, the administration is receptive to it, but it's
Speaker 1: it's about time. I think the last time we had
Speaker 1: was I think with likeness to nine are somewhere in there,
Speaker 1: and some some good programs come out. The SNAP program
Speaker 1: was modernized that you know, prior to that you actually
Speaker 1: had to pay into the SNAP program, and so that
Speaker 1: was changed. The RECAS program I think was created after that.
Speaker 1: So good policies came out of it, and it worked
Speaker 1: for some time until the eighties and then kind of
Speaker 1: we we took a step backwards. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: loving now that the last a week or so, starting
Speaker 1: to hear stories about how there are a fewer people
Speaker 1: who are hungry now, because we're actually spending some more money.
Speaker 1: That's that's the point, right, That's that's the that's the
Speaker 1: goal of spending the money so a fewer people are hungry,
Speaker 1: there may be a greater sense of empathy for people
Speaker 1: who are struggling. So I think we have a good
Speaker 1: opportunity here. Unfortunately, COVID had to do that. We had
Speaker 1: to wreck our you know, our economy for so many
Speaker 1: people and go through a pandemic to get there. But
Speaker 1: that could be the only one silver lining anyway. And
Speaker 1: this this whole year that we've we've been through, well,
Speaker 1: I hope you're I hope you're right about that, Tom.
Speaker 1: I know that members of Congress, who are very involved
Speaker 1: in hunger issues oftentimes but pretty much annually, issue the
Speaker 1: snap challenge to their colleagues, and they challenge members of
Speaker 1: Congress to live for a week on what would be
Speaker 1: a snap budget. And I've actually gone to the grocery
Speaker 1: store with groups of Congress people as they try to
Speaker 1: shop with their carts with their budget and try to
Speaker 1: figure it out. So, yeah, people don't really understand what
Speaker 1: it means to live with food insecurity in this country.
Speaker 1: And I just remember back at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: Obama administration, there was an outbreak of H one N one,
Speaker 1: which was a swine flu, and people um all over
Speaker 1: the administration really concerned because schools were closing and they thought,
Speaker 1: what about all those kids, and they're not going to
Speaker 1: have access to school meals? A very valid concern, But
Speaker 1: I said, you know where do you think these kids
Speaker 1: get their meals on the weekends and on school vacations
Speaker 1: and in the summers. So we have a lot of
Speaker 1: work to do to make sure children, in particular have
Speaker 1: access to the nutrition they need to become successful adults
Speaker 1: and contributors to society. We'll be back with more Citizen Chef.
Speaker 1: I'm Tom Clokio and I'm talking with my friend Kathleen Merrigan,
Speaker 1: the former Deputy Secretary and Agriculture from two thousand. How
Speaker 1: How did you? How did you end up in the
Speaker 1: usb A? How does one end up as the the
Speaker 1: number two in this huge agency? Overall in the federal
Speaker 1: government there about four thousand political appointees and of that number,
Speaker 1: probably about two fifty or at U s d A,
Speaker 1: so not a lot of people, and probably of that
Speaker 1: number is somewhat less than fifteen. I have to go
Speaker 1: through Senate confirmation as I did. So how did I
Speaker 1: get that job? I ran a little campaign for myself.
Speaker 1: I suppose you don't get those jobs because you're sitting
Speaker 1: in your office waiting for the phone to ring. Kathleen
Speaker 1: is an advocate for organic farming. She in fact wrote
Speaker 1: the organic bill. So when I was nominated to BC
Speaker 1: Secretary of Agriculture, for example, people said, Merrigan, she's from
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and that's not a big act state. She wrote
Speaker 1: the organic law. That's not mainstream egg, and she's female. Um,
Speaker 1: it was mostly a male dominated sport. In other words,
Speaker 1: that wasn't the trifecta tom ha ha. Though I'd say
Speaker 1: I was at a school at toss Up Graduate School
Speaker 1: of Nutrition, Science and Policy, and I said, but I
Speaker 1: got the nutrition part, and that that's a bulk of
Speaker 1: what usd A resources spent on. I hate the words ours,
Speaker 1: But do you think we need foods? Are this idea
Speaker 1: that we need someone who's focused more on food? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, we probably need a zarina. So I
Speaker 1: think that the calls for having a foods are are
Speaker 1: positive because to me, it reflects the American public's growing
Speaker 1: interests in food. Where As my food come from who
Speaker 1: produced it? Why should I care? I think that this call,
Speaker 1: which I know in part our friend Jose Andrea's has led,
Speaker 1: this call for a senior person in the White House
Speaker 1: to lead a national conversation, is all indication that we're
Speaker 1: going in the right direction. At what point of your
Speaker 1: like to did you say, well, this is where, this
Speaker 1: is where my interests are. What sort of got you there?
Speaker 1: Why would I want to go to U. S d A.
Speaker 1: I used to think of it as the evil Empire, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I was always an advocate on the outside fighting
Speaker 1: for truth justice in the American way. As suppose if
Speaker 1: if you asked me at the time, and when I
Speaker 1: was maternity leave with my first child, my nonprofit decided
Speaker 1: to go under in a way, and I did the
Speaker 1: thing I never expected to do. I went to U.
Speaker 1: S c A And asked for a job. And the
Speaker 1: Deputy secretary at the time, Rich Rominger, was a friend,
Speaker 1: someone I knew for a million years with working with
Speaker 1: American family and try, and he put me in the
Speaker 1: job as the Agricultural Marketing Service Administrator the last two
Speaker 1: years of Clinton to oversee the rulemaking on organic food standards,
Speaker 1: among other things I do believe as complex and large
Speaker 1: as U. S. D A is that many other federal
Speaker 1: departments have a role to play in food. The Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and all their work on obesity within
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services. The Department of Labor has job
Speaker 1: courts centers where they helped train people in culinary arts
Speaker 1: and forest service. The v A. Can you imagine if
Speaker 1: we got all the hospitals of the Veterans Administration to
Speaker 1: serve organic or local and regional or better yet organic
Speaker 1: local food. What kind of massive change would that mean?
Speaker 1: It would be huge. It's not just a snap program.
Speaker 1: It's the women isn't children program with It's the school
Speaker 1: meals program, which is not just lunch anymore, but it's breakfast.
Speaker 1: It's backpack programs on the weekends. In some cases, it's
Speaker 1: summer programs. All of those kind of programs that need
Speaker 1: to be extended because we know there are families who
Speaker 1: are in hunger. I can go through the whole alphabet
Speaker 1: suit beyond U. S c A of these other federal
Speaker 1: departments and say, hey, what can you do to help
Speaker 1: transform our food system? So to me, that argues for
Speaker 1: someone in the White House to be trying to pull
Speaker 1: the various strings together to help out. So one thing,
Speaker 1: one thing I have to ask you about talk. Yeah, So, Tom,
Speaker 1: I have all my graduate students play this game, so
Speaker 1: to speak. It comes from Deborah Stone in a book
Speaker 1: that she wrote, Policy Paradox. It's really an exercise in
Speaker 1: trying to understand what is fair. People think fair means equal, No,
Speaker 1: not necessarily, or that fair is easy to define. Not really.
Speaker 1: So I would come to class with a very small
Speaker 1: chocolate cake, and I'd say, how should we divide this cake?
Speaker 1: What's the most fair proposal? And we'll vote on it,
Speaker 1: and I'd break people up in the small groups, and
Speaker 1: people will come back with ideas like, well, well, divided
Speaker 1: up by body mass index, and so we won't overload
Speaker 1: the obese among us, or we'll figure out who didn't
Speaker 1: have lunch, so they're they're probably the most hungry. We'll
Speaker 1: figure it out in various ways, all kinds of fair ways.
Speaker 1: But this is the kicker, Tom. In all the years
Speaker 1: that I have been using this exercise, only once or
Speaker 1: twice has a group of students come up with a
Speaker 1: proposal that said, let's share the cake with people outside
Speaker 1: of the room and I'd say, what about the security guard.
Speaker 1: He makes us safe at the front of the building.
Speaker 1: What about the homeless people outside our building in Chinatown?
Speaker 1: What about the kids down the block in the elementary
Speaker 1: school who may not have sufficient school meals? To me,
Speaker 1: it was a really important policy lesson and it said
Speaker 1: to me, unless we change the faces around the decision
Speaker 1: making table to better reflected demographics of this country, why
Speaker 1: do we think that things are going to change because
Speaker 1: they're forgotten people who are not being considered when policy
Speaker 1: is being constructed. They're not getting their spice of the
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. I really thought that people would think outside
Speaker 1: of the room. Um, but no, And when policies are
Speaker 1: being constructed in Capital Hill, in the state legislatures, in
Speaker 1: the city council, if people are not pushing themselves in
Speaker 1: the door and confronting policy makers and making the stand
Speaker 1: about what they need, they're not going to be thought
Speaker 1: about and better. Yeah, they need to be represented at
Speaker 1: the table with full representation rights. Ideally that's where we
Speaker 1: get to but little exercise, but it's meaningful. What do
Speaker 1: you see as the biggest threat to our food supply
Speaker 1: right now? And there's droughts in your neck of the
Speaker 1: woods you're living now massive droughts, and what's the biggest
Speaker 1: threat to our our food supply? Hands down? Climate change,
Speaker 1: hands down, And we all know that time is running out,
Speaker 1: and I think this pandemic, as devastating as it has been,
Speaker 1: is like a little blip on the screen compared to
Speaker 1: what climate change will be. What we didn't touch on
Speaker 1: is working on food investment. What are you seeing out
Speaker 1: there in the investment world that really guess you're excited
Speaker 1: right now? Huh Yeah. It's a great thing for me
Speaker 1: as a professor because I'm exposed to all the new
Speaker 1: ideas coming in all the time. There's been this huge
Speaker 1: investment of capital in ag tech in particular, and I
Speaker 1: think that's great. I'm really interested in what's going on
Speaker 1: in robotics. I don't think that I've seen a robot
Speaker 1: that can do as well as a human being, but
Speaker 1: if there's a way to allow human beings to do
Speaker 1: other jobs oftentimes, that's great. All kinds of things going
Speaker 1: on in the alternative protein world, even alternative alternatives to
Speaker 1: leather and cotton um. A lot of interesting things going
Speaker 1: on in technology to combat food waste, indoor agriculture, vertical
Speaker 1: farming things that allow agriculture to come closer and closer
Speaker 1: proximity to cities. It's also heads against climate change as well.
Speaker 1: If you're farming indoors, you're not using pesticides, you're not
Speaker 1: using its pesticides. Bowery, they recycled about the water and
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about the weather. You're you're indoors.
Speaker 1: But they're getting there, They're getting they're getting there. I've
Speaker 1: actually tasted some root vegetivals that they've done that quite
Speaker 1: quite good. Actually, well, we have to, um, we have
Speaker 1: to count on you, chef, because I personally believe you're
Speaker 1: only going to get people to so many people to
Speaker 1: change their dietary practices because it's good for their personal health,
Speaker 1: so many people to change because it's good for planetary
Speaker 1: How we need the power of deliciousness to really motivate
Speaker 1: the masses. That's your job. I can work on all
Speaker 1: the wonky usd A stuff, but that's your job. And
Speaker 1: that's what it was so frustrating about. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: And I was in the middle of labeling and GMOs
Speaker 1: and I'm not nearly as opposed to GMOs as some
Speaker 1: people may think. I am. Um I just want to
Speaker 1: see them label number one. But can we start breeding
Speaker 1: stuff for deliciousness? Um? You know, the first the first
Speaker 1: GMO vegetable was that tomato with that flavor saver and
Speaker 1: it just it you don't see anymore why it was
Speaker 1: just it was horrible. It was terrible. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to get breeders. I mean, and there are
Speaker 1: lists are breeders breeding some delicious foods. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: that chef Dan Barber who's his seventh World company is
Speaker 1: doing just that, but is doing that. But you're you're right,
Speaker 1: deliciousness will win the day, um, hopefully except for you know,
Speaker 1: my little guy at home, who's who's ten, who finds
Speaker 1: nothing to be delicious. Um, and it's really frustrating. Good
Speaker 1: luck with that. Let me know if I can help. Ever,
Speaker 1: before we part, anything else that you think that my
Speaker 1: listeners should know about the U s d A. When
Speaker 1: you're driving around town, look for the U. S d
Speaker 1: A office. Um, they're all over the place, whether it's
Speaker 1: Animal Plant Health Inspection Service in fact, inspecting product coming
Speaker 1: across the border and make sure we don't bring in past.
Speaker 1: Whether it's the park that you're hiking, and it could
Speaker 1: be part of the Forest Service. Look for the U.
Speaker 1: S d A sign. And now that you've heard this podcast,
Speaker 1: maybe your awareness movie raised. Just like sometimes people tell
Speaker 1: you about something it's not your consciousness at all, and
Speaker 1: once it has and you see it all over the place,
Speaker 1: maybe now people will be seeing U. S d A
Speaker 1: all over and and become USDA nerds just like me.
Speaker 1: That that's what we're hoping for. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I ever get to your level, but just how they
Speaker 1: understand there's an agency that is there for food safety,
Speaker 1: um is there to make sure that Americans aren't hungry,
Speaker 1: is there to protect our forest, but that there's this
Speaker 1: agency that really is there to to serve the American public,
Speaker 1: and you should understand how it works and find ways
Speaker 1: to interact with it. Uh So, hopefully, hopefully this the
Speaker 1: system beginning of that well, Abraham Lincoln, when he established
Speaker 1: the U. S c A called it the People's Department.
Speaker 1: So you know, one of my goals and steputy and
Speaker 1: now even as Professor is trying to get USDA to
Speaker 1: open the stores a little bit wider for all of
Speaker 1: us to part take of what it has to offer,
Speaker 1: it was the People's Department. Then it needs to be
Speaker 1: the People's Department now, Kathleen, Thank you, Pleasure Tom So,
Speaker 1: thank you so much again to Kathleen American for sitting
Speaker 1: down with us and for her incredible insight into such
Speaker 1: an important branch of our government. Plenty of what Kathleen
Speaker 1: and I talked about will be coming up again in
Speaker 1: the weeks ahead, most importantly how we can be the
Speaker 1: best advocates for a smart food system in ways that
Speaker 1: go beyond voting with our fork. I for one, cannot
Speaker 1: wait to learn more from the all star lineup of
Speaker 1: guests we have, and I hope you will join us.
Speaker 1: As always a shout out to a place at the table.
Speaker 1: Citizen Chef was executive produced by Christopher Hasseiotis Gabrielle Collins.
Speaker 1: Our research and writers are Lillian Holman and Jescelyn Shields.
Speaker 1: Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app. Apple podcasts are anywhere you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. M