What Now?

Dr. George Gray, executive director of the Center for Risk Analysis at Harvard University’s School of Public Health (Boston, Mass.), echoed Boyle’s sentiments, noting the first BSE case and subsequent scare.

“She never said never, and was clear about what steps had been taken and what steps [USDA] was going to take. The lessons from the first case are seemingly being followed here,” he says. “They have done the things they needed to do to protect the food supply, and the way the USDA handled it was a success. I hope that the [USDA] continues her efforts and I hope the openness with the public and that kind of thinking continues under the next secretary.”

Dr. Charles Curtis, a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio), worries that the public doesn’t know enough, especially when it comes to soybean rust, Phakopsora pachyrhizi, the Asian form of the fungus that was recently discovered in two plots at a Louisiana State Research Farm near Baton Rouge. [See related story, p. 14]

“The public knows very little,” he says. “And I don’t even think the public pays any attention. We’ve been expecting it for sometime. It showed up in mid November. It rides the air currents and it can completely devastate a field.”

The university, Dr. Curtis says, is working with USDA in developing a national strategy and hopes USDA will raise awareness publicly to prevent an all out plant plague.

“I’m sure this is going to be on their plate,” Curtis adds, saying there are around 90 million hectares of soybean fields in the United States.

It is unlikely that the USDA will deviate from the agenda Veneman has hammered out, says Dr. Joseph H. Hotchkiss, a professor of food science at Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.).

Focus on Bio-security and Safety

“From our prospective, the attitude of the USDA is already set in stone, regardless of who is in charge,” he says. “Anybody in this position will have to maintain a focus of bio-security and safety. Pick any agricultural product you like and see. The effect will have great magnitude. Bio-security and food safety; that’s what the public is demanding and if you don’t do those, you haven’t got anything.”

While Dr. Hotchkiss maintains that little will change, farmers in Veneman’s home state California are worried.

Veneman, a Modesto native, leaves California without an agricultural secretary, who understands its unique crops, climate and pests. Officials here say they have much at stake in Veneman’s replacement. California’s total farm economy produced $32 billion last year. About $5 billion of that was in milk and cream alone. Beef cattle account for a $2 billion industry in California.

“I certainly don’t think that if a Midwesterner or others being kicked about are appointed that we’re going to see an immediate falloff in dealing with the issues,” Bill Pauli, president of the California Farm Bureau (Sacramento), told The Associated Press. “But when the top is focused on certain areas, that tends to get more immediate attention.”

Sunshine state officials say Veneman, who previously served as California secretary of food and agriculture and as deputy secretary of USDA, was instrumental in promoting exports, fighting California’s unique pest and disease problems, delivering $22 million to fight an outbreak of a poultry disease and allaying fears of mad cow last December.

“She conveyed the absence of risk by stepping to a podium and informing the world that she planned to serve American beef at her holiday table,” California Secretary of Food and Agriculture A.G. Kawamura said in a statement.