Kathleen Merrigan, President Obama’s choice for the second spot at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has received praise from sustainable and organic farming advocates.
“This amounts to a major win for organic, sustainable and local food advocates, since Merrigan is not only well-versed in these issues, but has been a tireless advocate for them,” Sam Fromartz wrote on the ChewWise blog.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Jean Halloran, director of Food Policy Initiatives at The Consumers Union agreed. “We would expect her to be a strong defender of the USDA’s organic standards, which have been under repeated attack for the last several years.”
Merrigan was a professor and director of the Agriculture, Food and Environmental Program at Tufts University. Previously she was administrator of the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Services and assisted in the development of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. This set the national organic standards to receive federal accredidation.
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Tags: kathleen merrigan, organic, organic farming, usda