Vilsack Expects Sustainability To Become A Selling Feature

Visit your local grocery store and you'll see see labels on the food you buy like "hormone free" or "all natural" and more. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack thinks it won't be long be fore labels such as "sustainably produced" might be a big selling point for Ag products on the world market. 

"I think we're going to see more and more interest in where our food comes from and more and more interest in making sure we can make a strong case for environmental prospective and substantiality perspective as it relates for exports. I can tell you our competitors are going to want to make that case and going to make that case. And so we have to be in a position to do so as well."

But, Vilsack said in doing it's important that, "farmers are not required to bear the financial brunt of climate-smart agriculture and I think there are ways in which we can avoid that."

Vilsack added the USDA should provide incentives for farmers to adopt climate-smart sustainable farming practices which he says may cost some money at first, but which will eventually boost farmer productivity and income.

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