Foodies Cheer USDA Prime Choice

Among "sustainable food" advocates, the reaction to President Obama's choice of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture has been tepid at best.

But as Tom Philpott of Grist noted on Tuesday, it's the deputy secretary "who typically gets things done and sets the tone for the department."

The deputy, it was announced on Monday, will be Kathleen Merrigan, and the people who looked askance at Vilsack are jumping for joy. She is, wrote Stephanie Larsen of the Ethicurean, "a thrillingly unexpected pick."

Samuel Fromartz, author of "Organic Inc.," called the nomination "a major win for organic, sustainable and local food advocates."

But Merrigan is no wild-eyed, extra-crunchy food ideologue. She worked for two years at USDA under President Clinton as head of the Agricultural Marketing Service, where she helped devise the rules governing what is and is not "organic." Earlier in her career, as an aide on the Senate Agriculture Committee, she helped draft food-labeling rules.

That kind of work necessarily involves compromise and cooperation with food producers. While the nomination is unquestionably good news for consumers and for critics of our overindustrialized food system, don't expect Merrigan to charge the ramparts.

Merrigan is director of the agriculture, food and environment M.S. and Ph.D. program at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. She has also worked at the Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture and as a consultant to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Larsen, of the Ethicurean, took partial credit for her blog's part in badgering the Obama administration into making such a choice. "The months since the election brought an outpouring of engagement from citizens urging the Obama Administration to appoint change-makers to lead our country," she wrote. "And it paid off."