Former Leahy aid tapped for U.S. Ag post
Toolbox
Times Argus Staff - Published: February 25, 2009
WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Monday nominated Kathleen Merrigan, a former aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as deputy Agriculture Secretary.
That announcement came today from Leahy's staff in Washington.
Merrigan is a professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston. She worked for Leahy from 1987 to 1992 when he chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee, and she later held posts at the Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Merrigan has long been a supporter of organic agriculture and her appointment is likely to be popular with small farm and nutrition advocates who have criticized Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, for his support of biotechnology, according to the release.
42