Letter to Tom Vilsack
from the Driftless Young
Farmers Coalition..
To the Editor,
To Tom Vilsack, nominated Secretary of Agriculture. We are young farmers in the heartland, and business owners that feed our communities. Many members of our coalition are new to agriculture – we aren’t part of the incumbent system of landownership and commodity farming – and we see a USDA that does not serve our needs.
Federal farm policy has shaped the landscape that we exist in now, and it’s not pretty: eroded soil and poisoned waterways; rapid consolidation of ownership and depopulation of rural communities; the systematic disenfranchisement of non-white farmers; and climate chaos that intensifies by the year. We are building a different future for agriculture and we need the participation of the USDA to create it on the scale that we need. We envision diverse farms and farmers empowered to steward living soil and thriving ecosystems, sequestering carbon and revitalizing their rural economies. We know that young people are eager to do this work, but current policy has prevented our access to it.
Secretary Vilsack, please join us in building this future. There are entrenched voices that will seek to maintain the status quo. You do not need to be among them. Our future is more resilient, vibrant, and delicious than theirs.
Hannah Breckbill
Decorah, Iowa
Humble Hands Harvest
Bailey Lutz
Spring Grove, Minn.
Listenmore Farm
Sarah Cousins
Decorah, Iowa
Blazingstar
Peter Kraus
Decorah, Iowa
Canoe Creek Produce
Lara Mangialardi
Strawberry Point, Iowa
McGreal Family Farm
Amy Dummer
Galesville, Wis.
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