Nicholas D. Kristof, “Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’?,” The New York Times, December 11, 2008

This op-ed piece advises President-Elect Barack Obama to select a reformer for the top position in the Department of Agriculture and to recast the agency as the Department of Food, thereby “giving primacy to America’s 300 million eaters.” Appointing a “secretary of food” would signal Obama’s intention to “move away from the bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes American unhealthy – all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars,” according to columnist Nicholas Kristof. He faults both Republicans and Democrats on congressional agriculture committees for “kowtowing” to industrial farming interests, which have allegedly used their influence “to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis
with diabetes and obesity.”

Kristof points readers to an online petition that names six potential reform candidates for the secretary of agriculture post, including the Center for Rural Affairs’ executive director, Chuck Hassebrook. In addition, Kristof urges the president-elect to eschew any nominees endorsed by the food industry, noting that “Society is becoming increasingly concerned not only with little boys who abuse cats but also with tycoons whose business model is abusing farm animals.”