2008 Woodie Awards
Veneman: public servant or tomater hater?
Mike Ives '06.5
Issue date: 3/30/06 Section: Opinions
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I tell you, Ron, I'm a bit confused. When you announced that Ann Veneman would be our commencement speaker ["Veneman to Address Grads," March 16], you characterized her as someone capable of providing "an important and relevant message to students who would be leaving the relatively protected confines of Middlebury to pursue various jobs, volunteer work and studies." But when I think about it, I wonder what her message will be.
Perhaps that we should consider helping the world's children? Veneman, I understand, was recently appointed head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), whose logo we all recognize from trick-or-treating. Or else that we should consider careers in agro-politics? In that realm, she set a shining example for us as President Bush's Secretary of Agriculture from 2001 to 2005.
These sound like nice things to do. I imagine she is a very nice person, besides.
But there are so many messages to impress upon impressionable college students these days, Ron! Veneman, you know, also served on the board of biotech giant Calgene (later bought out by Monsanto) in 1994 when its infamous "Flavr Savr" tomato became the first mass-marketed genetically modified food product. Before her appointment as Secretary of California's Department of Food and Agriculture in 1995, she lobbied for Dole Foods, a corporation with a curious penchant for supporting brutal dictatorships, labor violations and environmental abuse in the "developing" world. And her policies on meat safety and forestry under our nation's fearless leader strike me as, shall we say, less than hopeful?
Plus, her record seems to mock the values of our local landscape. A year ago, the Vermont Senate voted 26-1 in favor of the Farmer Protection Act - a bill protecting small farmers from lawsuits brought by companies like Monsanto in the event that genetically modified seeds infiltrate their non-GMO crops. As a state, Vermont has presented the strongest resistance in the country to genetically modified foods, and Middlebury itself is one of 83 Vermont towns to have passed an anti-GMO town resolution. Oh, and our world-renowned environmental writer-in-residence Bill McKibben's 2003 book Enough: "Staying Human in an Engineered Age" outlines the grave potential dangers of genetic engineering to human and environmental well-being.
Perhaps that we should consider helping the world's children? Veneman, I understand, was recently appointed head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), whose logo we all recognize from trick-or-treating. Or else that we should consider careers in agro-politics? In that realm, she set a shining example for us as President Bush's Secretary of Agriculture from 2001 to 2005.
These sound like nice things to do. I imagine she is a very nice person, besides.
But there are so many messages to impress upon impressionable college students these days, Ron! Veneman, you know, also served on the board of biotech giant Calgene (later bought out by Monsanto) in 1994 when its infamous "Flavr Savr" tomato became the first mass-marketed genetically modified food product. Before her appointment as Secretary of California's Department of Food and Agriculture in 1995, she lobbied for Dole Foods, a corporation with a curious penchant for supporting brutal dictatorships, labor violations and environmental abuse in the "developing" world. And her policies on meat safety and forestry under our nation's fearless leader strike me as, shall we say, less than hopeful?
Plus, her record seems to mock the values of our local landscape. A year ago, the Vermont Senate voted 26-1 in favor of the Farmer Protection Act - a bill protecting small farmers from lawsuits brought by companies like Monsanto in the event that genetically modified seeds infiltrate their non-GMO crops. As a state, Vermont has presented the strongest resistance in the country to genetically modified foods, and Middlebury itself is one of 83 Vermont towns to have passed an anti-GMO town resolution. Oh, and our world-renowned environmental writer-in-residence Bill McKibben's 2003 book Enough: "Staying Human in an Engineered Age" outlines the grave potential dangers of genetic engineering to human and environmental well-being.