For nearly two years, U.S. farmers and ranchers watched as the second shoe grew bigger and bigger.
On Nov. 22, it officially dropped. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service estimates released that day, 2005 will be the first year in nearly 50 that America will not turn an agricultural trade surplus.
The dubious milestone was met with odd silence at USDA. Odd because throughout the fall presidential campaign, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman talked herself hoarse each time some farm community in a swing state dedicated a new USDA-sponsored street light.
Now, as America is about to become a net food importer for the first time in generations, Veneman has no explanation of how Bush Administration economic and trade policies have taken American agriculture from a $13.6 billion trade surplus in 2001 to a flat line in four short years.
Who can blame her. Would you want to be the first secretary of the last 11 to report such death-in-the-family news?
| 