Tom Vilsack's confirmation hearing for agriculture secretary basically went off without a hitch Wednesday in Washington.

The hearing effectively amounted to those wonderful, protracted question-speeches by senators working to stress to Vilsack all of the things they want to make sure he does for their particular pet programs at USDA.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said he expected Vilsack will be unanimously supported by the committee. Vilsack could be trying to figure out the phone system in his new office as early as inauguration day, though given the scope of that day Vilsack may want to wait until Wednesday to show up for work.

Harkin began his questions of Vilsack with health-care reform. Noting that Congress and USDA must reauthorize the USDA nutrition programs in 2009, that reauthorization can tie into health care reforms by revamping and enhancing child nutrition.

Vilsack commented that adding programs to the farm bill for fruit and vegetables was an important first step in such a process. Vilsack said he had met with Health & Human Services nominee Tom Daschle about tying nutrition programs to health care.

"One of the challenges will be: A, making sure people know this is available and; B, making sure there are distribution systems in place to provide the quantity and the quality that will make this successful," Vilsack said.

First point scored: Satisfy the priorities of the chairman.

Don't Ad Lib on Farm Bill

Southern lawmakers from Ranking Member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., stressed to Vilsack that he needs to understand he represents all of agriculture. To that end, these senators emphasized that USDA right now has gone too far in writing rules for the farm bill that will adversely affect southern agriculture. Lincoln said USDA's rules are "completely out of the ballpark from what our intent was."

Vilsack said he would consult with the committee over issues of implementing the farm bill. Vilsack specifically highlighted his enthusiasm for implementing changes in the Conservation Stewardship Program in the bill, as well as completing rules for the permanent disaster program.

I know that it is important to members of Congress that whatever compromises were made to reflect the diversity of agriculture that are reflected in that bill be carried out," Vilsack said. "I think it's important what we do is consistent with congressional intent."

Backing Ethanol

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., encouraged policy efforts that would move ethanol above the E-10 blend, which is actually an Environmental Protection Agency issue rather than USDA. But Thune wanted to know if Vilsack would work with EPA and the Department of Energy on higher blend levels.

Vilsack said biofuels have created new opportunities for farmers, but USDA also needs to educate the public about the various factors going into higher food prices that are not necessarily due to biofuels. Meeting the increasing Renewable Fuels Standard will be a challenge unless more efforts are put into biofuels research and development, Vilsack said.

"I think USDA has a very, very important role to play in making sure we provide the research and the focus and direction to meet whatever the requirements are," Vilsack said.

Vilsack also has spoken to Lisa Jackson, the EPA nominee, about her role in boosting biofuels production and agriculture.

Upgrading USDA

Multiple times during the hearing Vilsack also mentioned to senators the need to deal with technology challenges at USDA.

"One of the concerns I have about USDA's capacity to give you information or to allow you to do a proper oversight responsibility that you have is that it may be difficult for us to accumulate data, to obtain data with 1980-ish software," Vilsack said. "So one of my focuses, if confirmed, will to try to get technology to the point where we bring it into the 21st century."

Organic Advocate

To the lamentation of the organic community, it wasn't until about 90 minutes into the hearing before someone mentioned "organic." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., raised the point that he wrote the first organic program for the farm bill in 1990. The industry now is worth $20 billion annually in sales. Leahy said he was worried USDA has not kept up with the most rapidly growing part of agriculture.

In a roundabout way, Vilsack responded to Leahy by explaining that as an attorney who did income taxes for farmers, he learned in policy to work in a variety of ways to give farmers as many income opportunities as possible, or "to give them a diverse menu of options," Vilsack said.

"Organic is a rapidly growing part of agriculture and a rapidly part of peoples' diet and nutrition decisions," Vilsack said. "And we need to recognize that. We need to support it and we need to celebrate it."

Leahy said USDA needs to keep strict standards on organic rules to keep the prices for organics at higher levels for farmers.

Pat Roberts Defines the 'Small Farmer'

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. --- whose craftsmanship for sarcasm at Agriculture Committee hearings can only be compared to the skills of a seasoned Cuban cigar maker rolling out the finest Cohibas --- offered Vilsack a definition of a "small family farmer" in modern agriculture.

"That small family farmer is about 5'2", and I'm looking to see if Mr. Leahy is sitting here, from Vermont, and he's a retired airline pilot and sits on his porch on a glider reading Gentleman's Quarterly --- he used to read the Wall Street Journal but that got pretty drab --- and his wife works as stock broker downtown. And he has 40 acres, and he as pond and he has an orchard and he grows organic apples. Sometimes there is a little more protein in those apples than people bargain for, and he's very happy to have that."

And then there is Roberts' production agriculture farmer.

"That person is in Iowa. He's got 2,000 acres and he farms and he farms with his dad. Two brothers are gone because they can't really sustain that on the farm. His counterpart in Kansas, in my part of the country, has 10,000 acres. And his tractor costs about $350,000. It's amazing, in terms of the costs. But these folks are the folks who produce the food and fiber for America and a troubled and hungry world."

Roberts was using his point to explain that given all of the support for organic agriculture and specialty crops and all of that, which Roberts said he supports, that people don't forget about production farmers in the country.

"There are some that want to change the mission of the USDA," Roberts said. "Some think the department should be called the Department of Food or Nutrition or Hunger, or really, I think what they want is a Department of Anything But Agriculture."

Somewhere at the end of that Vilsack got a chance to respond.

Harkin on Subsidies

Noting the banker bailout, Harkin wrapped up the hearing with a comparison to farm payments.

"I don't want the Wall Street Journal or New York Times preaching to me any more about our little subsidies."