President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate former Senator Kelly Loeffler to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the agency responsible for overseeing our nation’s food and farm system, rural development and nutrition programs. Loeffler, a former financial services and crypto executive and an election denier, served just a one-year appointment to the U.S. Senate and appears to have no experience in food and agriculture.
Below is a statement by Karen Perry Stillerman, deputy director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists:
“Kelly Loeffler is a self-identified yes-woman who raised millions for Donald Trump – yet another example of Trump’s ‘pay-to-play cabinet’ – and wholly unqualified to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Loeffler’s only agricultural policy experience was sitting on the Senate agriculture committee for a matter of months and in that time she was so embroiled in an insider trading and COVID profiteering scandal that she had to step down from a key subcommittee.
“Farmers should be able to count on the USDA to be a source of expertise and science-based guidance. More than 40 million people – most of them children – rely on food assistance administered by the USDA to ensure they have enough to eat. The challenges facing these families and farmers, including rising costs, growing corporate power and extreme weather driven by climate change, are real and they are complex.
“This nomination is not about farmers, food workers, consumers or food security in any way. It is about rewarding another Trump loyalist. The nomination of Kelly Loeffler is an affront to everyone who relies on the USDA every day, which is all of us.”