In Transition

The Senate Agriculture Committee, which Grassley served on in the last Congress, will consider Vilsack's appointment on Jan. 14.

During the last farm bill debate, Vilsack urged the Bush administration and lawmakers to ensure small family farms and producers are granted equal bargaining power with large food processors over price negotiations. While the law (PL 110-246) mandated several new contractual rights, Grassley and some other lawmakers say it did not go far enough to protect independent farmers from price-fixing.

Grassley says that the USDA has done little to aggressively uphold, or update, its policies under the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, which laid out basic standards for upholding fair and competitive practices.

"I told [Vilsack] my strong feelings about the department not enforcing it under several administrations and it being a very good tool," Grassley said.

Grassley plans early this Congress to reintroduce legislation aimed at preventing the increasingly-concentrated meatpacking sector from taking advantage of small farmers. "I would say that he spent most of his time taking notes," Grassley said of Vilsack, adding that "he seemed to be sympathetic."

The two also discussed the department's poor reputation for upholding civil rights and Grassley's disappointment with new regulations to define what constitutes an "actively engaged" farmer, the classification needed to qualify for federal support payments. The senator and other midwestern lawmakers want the department to tighten the definition of "actively engaged," partly by setting a minimum number of hours that someone must spend managing a farm operation.

The Government Accountability Office and Grassley criticized the old regulations for not citing a measurable, quantifiable standard of what constitutes active personal management of a farm.

Under the new rules issued late last month, ''actively engaged'' requires the contribution of labor, management or a combination of both that must be "significant and commensurate." A "significant contribution" is defined as "activities that are critical to the profitability of the farming operation."

Congress left wiggle room for the definition in the new farm law with a manager's statement attached that listed "actively engaged" among the criteria the Agriculture Department should consider in setting new eligibility guidelines for assistance. Grassley recently told reporters that the new regulations "effectively left the management test exactly the same as in current regulations."

"I think he's been following comments that I've been making through the press and he seemed to be on top of it," Grassley said of Vilsack. "But I didn't expect any indication out of him, and I think it would be wrong for him to say what can be done until the Obama administration is fully in place sometime after January the 20th."

--Aliya Sternstein