People in the news

Kathleen Merrigan

Deputy Secretary, Department of Agriculture (since April 2009)

(USDA)

Why She Matters

Sustainable food advocates rejoiced when Merrigan, an organic food expert, became Secretary Tom Vilsack's deputy at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The agency that regulates what America eats plays a key role in Obama administration issues from farm subsidies to food safety to health-care reform.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Assistant professor, Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy (2001 to 2009); director, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (1999 to 2001); senior analyst, Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture (1992 to 2000)
Alma Mater: Williams College, B.A. (political science and English), 1982;
Spouse: Michael Selmi

Office: U.S. Department of Agriculture1400 Independence Ave., S.W.Washington, DC 20250
Web site

Path to Power

Merrigan graduated from Williams College in rural Massachusetts, earning her B.A. in both English and political science in 1982.

After college, Merrigan worked for then-Massachusetts State Senator and now Rep. John Olver (D-Mass.). Merrigan began as Olver's 1982 campaign manager and worked her way up to the state senator's chief of staff before leaving in 1985. Olver became a U.S. representative from Massachusetts in 1991 and is still in Congress.

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Leaving Olver's office, Merrigan headed to Texas to earn a master's degree in public affairs from the University of Texas' Johnson School of Public Affairs in 1987. Her thesis examined pesticide-use policy in "an era of interest group negotiations."

She also did research in environmental oversight by government, and received Fulbright funding to spend summers in Krakow, Poland, researching pesticide use there for the Water Policy Institute.

At the same time, Merrigan worked as a special assistant in the Texas Department of Agriculture, assisting the head of regulation on pesticide issues.

1990 Organic Foods Production Act

In 1987, Merrigan became a staffer on the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. As science and technology adviser to panel Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), she helped develop the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (OFPA), that created a set of standards for food win"organic" labeling and a federal program to accredit organic products.

"She can be called the midwife of OFPA," said Michael Hansen, senior research associate at the Consumers Union, the non-profit information center that publishes Consumer Reports.

Post-Hill Career

Merrigan left the Hill in 1992 to get a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's urban studies and planning department. She focused in environmental planning and policy and did research on sustainable agriculture, earning her doctorate in 2000.

At the same time, Merrigan worked as a senior analyst at the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture. She worked on agriculture and food-production policy, which meant working with grassroots and non-governmental organizations.

While she was at the Wallace Institute, Clinton Agriculture Secretary Daniel R. Glickman appointed her to the National Organics Standards Board, a congressional panel that determined standards for the new National Organics Program. Her five-year term ran from 1995 to 2000.

United Nations Organic Policy Statement

Merrigan has also consulted for the United Nations. In 1998, she drafted the first organic policy statement adopted by the Conference of Member Nations. She later helped draft an international action plan for research in organic food systems.

USDA Agriculture Marketing Service

In 1999, Bill Clinton appointed Merrigan to head the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. The 10,000-employee agency is responsible for regulatory programs, including the organic certification program Merrigan helped develop. It also handles food grading and certification, and gathers information on things like pesticide levels and the price of eggs.

The $1.2 billion agency is also responsible for buying food for government programs such as National School Lunch.

Academic Career

In 2001, she joined the staff of Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. There, she was an assistant professor and taught classes on the intersection of agriculture and public policy. She also directed the Center on Agriculture, Food and Environment, including overseeing the master's and a fellowship program.

In her work at Tufts, Merrigan worked on projects that investigated animal health in organic production, compared the nutrient-content of foods grown through organic and conventional farming, and oversaw a program to help new immigrants with farming experience become commercial farmers.

After Barack Obama's election, sustainable food activists began lobbying for her to get an administration position. She was named one of the "sustainable dozen" recommended by sustainable food advocates including the Food Democracy Now campaign. As The Yale Sustainable Food Project's blog declared, "It looks like it worked."

Merrigan was nominated to be deputy USDA secretary in February 2009 and confirm in April of that year.

"Sustainable and organic farmers are excited . . . that someone who has been associated with these issues her whole career is going to be at that level in the department," said Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The Issues

Merrigan is an expert on the relationship between farmers and politicians. She began her career studying pesticide policy, and authored the 1990 law that set standards for organically-grown foods in the U.S., and allowed the nascent industry to launch. In May 2009 she helped start a program which offerd conventional farmers grant money to switch to organic farming methods.

As Vilsack's deputy, Merrigan has taken on a variety of other issues under the USDA's umbrella, including feeding Americans through federal food programs.

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Big Agriculture

Merrigan's position at the USDA gives food activists hope that there will be real change at a department that many accuse of kow-towing to the interests of the major food producers, collectively known as Big Ag.

Merrigan's appointment was a relief to those who had been less than thrilled with Obama's choice to lead the agency: former Iowa Gov. Vilsack. When Vilsack's nomination was announced in December 2008, the Iowan's ties to major food producers, including Monsanto, had many predicting it would be "agri-business as usual" at the USDA.

But after his confirmation, Vilsack went out of his way to distance himself from Big Ag and called for a "new day" for the department, The Washington Post reported.

"I absolutely see the constituency of this department as broader than those who produce our food -- it extends to those who consume it," he said.

Obama and Vilsack have already announced their desire to make school lunches more nutritious and to limit subsidies to large farms. The latter proposal created an uproar among farmers.

As an expert on how food gets from farm to table, Merrigan could help Vilsack refocus the agency's policies from farmers toward eaters. As Gourmet magazine reported, "She knows how things work, and she knows where power lies in the food industry."

Organic and Sustainable Foods

Merrigan's nomination was music to the ears of the growing sustainable-food movement, which believes the industrial system of food production has been harmful to the health of both Americans and their environment.

The movement's headliners, including authors Michael Pollan and Alice Watters, have made the words "organic" and "locally-grown" a part of the average American's vocabulary, while Merrigan has been working on policy behind-the-scenes.

Backlash against the reach and safety of the industrial food-production system has only increased in recent years, as an obesity epidemic has made Americans question the wisdom of subsidizing farmers for growing calorie-dense products such as corn and wheat.

Merrigan and others in the movement want to reduce the harmful effects of the industrial food system on the environment. That means redesigning the system to limit harmful pollutants released from large dairy farms, and restrict the fossil fuels burned when transporting food across the country or around the world. Merrigan has advocated a return to traditional farm methods including limiting pesticides, and rotating crops to refresh nutrients in the soil.

With Merrigan's 2009 confirmation, the movement found an advocate in a key position. Tom Dobbs, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at South Dakota State University, explained, "For the first time, an advocate of sustainable and organic agriculture will be in the highest-level meetings with the secretary. She'll be right there, at his side."

True to expectations, Merrigan announced in May 2009 that the USDA would fund a new organic initiative, offering $50 million through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). "The objective of this initiative is to make organic food producers eligible to compete for EQIP financial assistance," Merrigan said.

The Network

Merrigan began her career working for Rep. John Olver (D-Mass.), who was then a Massachusetts state senator.

As a Capitol Hill staffer, Merrigan advised Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. The committee is now chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

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Additional Resources