Summer in DC at the USDA

It is Monday, and I’m beginning my last week of work and looking forward to a few weeks of summer before school starts again in the fall. I’ve been busy in the past week shuffling back and forth from meetings with my boss and helping to finish up a few last-minute projects before I finish my job.

Last week, I went to a “Congressional Briefing” at the Rayburn building to discuss global food aid and security, and what American lawmakers should do to become more effective in their aid. It was a very interesting discussion, and was based off of a book that two Wall Street Journal reporters had recently written (titled “Enough”). It was sponsored by a group that I had previously gone to a panel for, called “The Partnership to End Poverty and Hunger in Africa.”

Right after that, we went to a meeting at USAID (the Agency for International Development) dealing with the same kinds of issues. This panel focused on innovative agricultural techniques, including something called “vertical agriculture”. I’m not sure what the future holds for this technique– it includes growing crops in large indoor industrial buildings! Certainly very intriguing.

I also went to a panel at USAID for global food security issues that discussed the “System for Rice Intensification”, a way to gain more agricultural outputs (i.e. rice) with fewer inputs (i.e. water, fertilizers, etc). This technique has been shown to work in less-developed countries like Mali, and the speakers (including my boss) discussed the pros and cons of modified crops.

I’ve really learned a lot by working here, and I have enjoyed my time a great deal. Last Friday, my office had Chinese food for me and we sat around the conference table together. I am fortunate to have been able to work in such a cool capacity at such an important organization. I’ll be sure to consider my experiences here when I’m sorting through all of my options for post-college!

I’ve been working at USDA for over a month now, but I’ve finally gotten my own workspace. I’m sitting in a cubicle on the fourth floor of the second USDA behemoth on the Mall. For the past month, I’ve kind of been drifting back and forth between desks in the Chief Economist’s Office when people are out of the office (this has obviously happened a lot). This means introductions to a whole slew of new people with the same set of probing questions: “What are you doing here?”, “What do you want to do when you graduate?”… all to be concluded with, “Well, good luck getting a job next year!”

Another interesting thing about being in a new place is the automatic assumption that interns will do all of the terrible jobs that no one else wants to do. The secretary I was introduced to immediately greeted me with, “Great! We’ll definitely put you to work” (although I’m not really working in this department, the World Agriculture Outlook Board—just sitting here). I thought that this was par for the course, and vigilantly sat guard at the desk buzzing people in (this is a high-security area) yesterday for about an hour. Yet this morning, my boss called me and told me that I was never to do any work for this department again. She said, “You are not to do their dirty work; if anyone asks you, tell them that I said you’re very time-constrained on your assignments and can’t help” (only some parts of that are true). She left a message with the secretary, telling her that I would no longer be available for her. The secretary walked over to my cubicle this morning and confronted me. Is this really such a big deal?

Today is Friday, and I have about three weeks left working here. I’ve really enjoyed my time, but I’m not sure that I have any more clarity about what I’d like to do next year. I don’t think that this internship is going to turn into a job, but it’d be nice to call on my boss as a reference or ask her advice for the future. I’ve met a lot of really nice people who genuinely seem to care about their work.

Last week, I went to a luncheon for the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa. The group was composed of people from the government (us), other NGOs, and for-profit corporations, and focused on the importance of demand-driven development in Africa. It was a really interesting talk, but when we left, a woman from Gambia told us, “We’ve been talking about the same issues and tactics since I moved here twenty years ago. When is anything going to actually get done?” That’s kind of how I have felt about my whole experience here: I’ve put together proposals and information that I hope someday will be utilized to establish partnerships or programs within the Department. But with all the bureaucracy and levels and other things going on, I don’t know what will happen.

Today marks the end of my second week at the USDA. Yesterday, an employee from a different department came into the Office of the Chief Economist and remarked that I would learn more by sitting in the office and just listening to the conversations than in any other capacity or assignment. So far, that’s been true. I have an office in another building, but I haven’t been there yet. I’ve been sitting at an empty computer in the main office, through which everyone must enter and exit. All day, USDA bigwigs run in and out with documents or for meetings.

The first few days I was here, Carol (my boss) showed me around the building. The USDA is located on the Mall, and is two enormous buildings that connect through an underground tunnel. Carol joked that during the winter, people walk the hallway perimeter for exercise during lunch– it’s that big. The department is composed of different agencies– the Office of the Chief Economist, Economic Research Service, Agriculture Research Service, Agricultural Marketing Service, Foreign Agriculture, Rural & Community Development, World Agriculture Outlook (including Climate Change offices)… not to mention all of the administrative and regulatory agencies (like the Inspector General’s Office). As I walked along corridor after corridor of offices, I thought to myself: “How can all of these people have enough work to do for eight hours a day, five days a week, forty-some weeks of the year?” Needless to say, this has been my first foray into the REAL working world, where I get up and go to work from nine to five every single day.

My experience working has been mostly limited to painfully boring after-school jobs, including a dry cleaner, coffee shop, and department store. There, you’re expected to work for the entire time you are clocked in, without any breaks for chatting, web-surfing, or lunches (unless, of course, it’s your strictly-monitored lunch break). You serve people, and then you go home. Your work is over, and then you go home and return the next day for pretty much the same thing.

I’m quickly finding out that a real job, with a salary, in an office, is much different. Problems aren’t solved in a day. Everyone in this office is well-educated (all 6 in the main office have PhDs), professional, and busy with a billion different things. Yet the projects and problems to solve are complex and goals take years to accomplish. The Office takes information gathered from the research agencies, analyzes and disseminates it, and helps advise policy. Eventually, information and proposals go upstairs, to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack’s office to be taken to higher levels.

Basically, my point is that work here is in-depth, complex, and time-consuming. My boss, Carol, is working on a few different things right now: local food systems, rural-urban linkages in agriculture, the school lunch program, as well as goals to forge connections with the FAO, UNDP, and UNEP. From the meetings I’ve gone to, I see that there is a strong interest in sustainable agriculture, local foods, and making multilateral agreements that work to help clean up all of the damage we’ve done to our world. But one of the things that pains the employees here most is the poor reputation that USDA has obtained in the public sphere. They WANT to help small farmers, they want to clean up industrial farming and make the States a leader in sustainability. However, these plans are often foiled, in my opinion, by higher-ups and the constant lack in funds. The Department receives billions, but almost 70% of this money goes to the national food program (SNAP). And still this program is underfunded. Yet USDA also wants to keep food efficiently produced and inexpensive and support American production.

In reality, sustainable agriculture is likely to take a backseat during the beginning years of this administration for more pressing concerns, like health care reform and sorting out the benefits and consequences of the ARRA (Stimulus Act). My main objectives over the rest of my time here are to work on a few projects that Carol wants to tackle in the future. The first of these is researching the link between private-sector (i.e. non-governmental) notions of “Corporate Social Responsibility” and the public sector. The public sector and government have taken a backseat to public urging for more environmentally- and socially-responsible consumer goods. What is the relationship between the two today? What should the federal government be doing? What partnerships can be made between companies like Walmart (who is one of the corporate leaders, ironically, in environmental sustainability) and the federal government?

Another thing that Carol is working on is possibly forging a “Marrakech Task Force” through the UN. The UN’s DESA (Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs) facilitates developed countries leading developing countries in a targeted area of Sustainable Consumption and Production (as per the Johannesburg Summit in 2002). We’re working on agriculture– how can the US help NGOs and governments in developing countries be on-the-ground more sustainable in terms of procurement? I’ll keep you posted.

It’s a lot of abstract work, and a lot of time in front of a computer. But going to W&M for the past three years has made me ridiculously prepared to brainstorm, research, and find out what is possible and make it happen (at least on paper). I love it.