Boosting fruit and vegetable consumption is a special objective of the new team at the Agriculture Department.

As Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary, noted during a recent interview, “The president and first lady are very interested in healthy eating. They are passionate spokespersons about solving the growing childhood obesity crisis.”

Merrigan, who has a doctorate in environmental planning and policy, said she and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack agree that the problem must be addressed and the department has a major role to play in solving it.

“Fruits and vegetables need to have a bigger role in Americans’ diets,” Merrigan said. “We are going to be looking at all kinds of ways to make that happen.”

For example, the administration’s 2010 budget proposal includes an increase of $2.3 million for the Agricultural Marketing Service to establish marketing agreements/orders that support quality assurance for fruits and vegetables. Merrigan pointed out that this support was proposed in direct response to requests from producers and others in the industry.

The budget also targets an additional $1 billion annually to support child nutrition programs.

“We are looking for innovative ways to get fruits and vegetables into our school lunch and breakfast programs,” Merrigan said.

Such innovation will involve the infrastructure of fruit and vegetable production, she explained.

“I can say with certainty that President Obama, Secretary Vilsack and I are really concerned about small- and medium-sized farming operations. We are concerned about the health and vitality of the fruit and vegetable industry,” Merrigan noted.

The goal of improving the diet of Americans has fostered an all-inclusive discussion about agriculture.

“I think it is very exciting now that people of all sorts want to engage in discussions about agriculture,” Merrigan said. “I hope production agriculture sees this as an opportunity, not a threat. My job here is to be deputy for all sizes of agriculture, all kinds of production, all different crops and all different regions.”

This article was written by by G.B. Crawford of the Florida Farm Bureau and was originally published in the July 2009 issue of Foodie News.