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“REMEMBERING AUGUST ``GUS'' SCHUMACHER, JR.” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S6317-S6318 on Oct. 4, 2017.
The Department is primarily focused on food nutrition, with assistance programs making up 80 percent of its budget. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department implements too many regulations and restrictions and impedes the economy.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REMEMBERING AUGUST ``GUS'' SCHUMACHER, JR.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to August ``Gus'' Schumacher, Jr., who passed away on September 24. Gus was an altruist who dedicated his life to discovering ways to help both farmers and those who are hungry, both here in the United States and abroad. His integrity, creativity, and his great courage over decades to sustain a passionate commitment to assisting the poor and hungry, as well as our farmers and rural communities, leaves an immeasurable legacy that will not soon be forgotten.
I have known Gus since his days in Massachusetts. From the first time I met him, it was clear his passion was infectious. He brought that passion and his creative ideas to us here in Congress when he was the Massachusetts secretary of agriculture. It was that passion that propelled Senator Kerry and me to craft the first legislation--which became law--to create a farmers' market coupon demonstration project in 10 States. In 1988, the first year of the demonstration program, we secured $2 million in the Agriculture appropriations bill for the Women, Infants and Children, WIC, Farmers Market Demonstration Project. I was--and remain--proud that Vermont was one of those 10 States chosen for the initial WIC Farmers Market Demonstration Project. Now, nearly 30 years later, the program helps over 7 million nutritionally at risk women, infants, and children across the United States. None of this would have been possible without Gus's brilliant innovation, determination, and leadership.
Gus put into action his innovative ideas first in Massachusetts and then across the country and around the world with his work at the Foreign Agricultural Service and as Under Secretary of Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service. His work led to a greater emphasis on organizing direct marketing, farmers' co-ops, farmers' markets, crop diversifications, and expanding opportunities for farmer-owned packaging, distributing, and processing facilities. More recently, his leadership and endless resourcefulness was on display through his work at Wholesome Wave. For Gus, the only things that mattered were that there were struggling farmers and hungry people who needed help. It did not matter where because Gus understood that hunger transcends all languages and cultures.
We were fortunate to have Gus come to Vermont several times, both during his work at the USDA and Wholesome Wave. During his visits with the USDA's Foreign Agriculture Service, Gus's unflinching public service was always on display. He came to meet with the farmers, the food processors, and the dairy co-ops. He came to help Vermonters improve their lives, and I will always be grateful for that.
His recent passing reminds all of us of the need to continue his fight. The fight for the hungry, for our farmers, and for the constant work of more fully realizing America's potential as both a great and a good nation. Gus believed, as should we all, that hunger should not exist in this country. We have the food and know-how to end it. Gus offered creative solutions to fight it. Now we need the political will to do it.
I ask unanimous consent that the September 27 Washington Post obituary that describes Gus's life and career be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Gus Schumacher, a Force in the Farm-to-Table Movement, Dies at 77
(By Bert Barnes)
Gus Schumacher, a fourth-generation farmer and third-ranking official at the Agriculture Department, told the story of his epiphany about food hundreds of times.
It was the end of a summer afternoon in 1980 at a farmers market in Boston, and he was helping his brother load up his truck with unsold produce grown on their family property in Lexington, Mass. The bottom fell out of a box of pears, scattering the fruit into the gutter.
There, a young mother with two little boys eagerly gathered them into the folds of her unhemmed shirt. She was a single mom, she explained, dependent on food stamps, which back then made fresh fruit and vegetables prohibitively expensive for her. The pear spill was a bonanza.
For Mr. Schumacher, he would say later, it was a seminal moment in his life. He grew up on a farm, and it had never occurred to him that parents would find it hard to provide their children with fresh fruit and vegetables.
He would change it, he told himself.
Mr. Schumacher--who in a 50-year career also served as the Massachusetts commissioner of food and agriculture, a food project manager and agriculture development officer for the World Bank and finally a co-founder of a nonprofit group that tries to improve affordable access to fresh, locally grown food--died Sept. 24 at his home in Washington. The cause was an apparent heart attack, said his wife, Susan Holaday Schumacher. He was 77.
Since that farmers-market epiphany, Mr. Schumacher helped make food assistance programs more generous in allowances for fresh fruit and vegetables. He also became a force in the farm-to-table movement, encouraging restaurants and retail stores to buy produce locally.
In 2013, Mr. Schumacher received the James Beard Foundation's Leadership Award for ``his lifelong efforts to improve access to fresh local food in underserved communities.''
In Boston, the Globe wrote about a time several years ago when Mr. Schumacher, dining out at tony Hamersley's Bistro, sat down at a table, reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out a shiny, ripe red tomato. He asked for a serrated knife, olive oil and a plate, then proceeded to make himself a salad.
``Who's this guy who's making his own salad?'' chef-owner Gordon Hamersley wanted to know. His own tomatoes came from California. Where had Mr. Schumacher's come from? ``Twenty minutes from your doorstep,'' Mr. Schumacher said.
That scene, or a version of it, would play over and over again between 1984 and 1990 when Mr. Schumacher was agriculture chief for Massachusetts. He was always asking chefs whether they knew any farmers who could supply them food directly. He created market coupon programs for seniors and low-income families with children. He chastised breakfast diners for serving English jellies instead of American ones.
``Gus was instrumental in bringing two seemingly obvious groups together who never talked to each other--chefs and farmers,'' Hamersley told the Globe. ``He's basically the architect of chefs featuring locally grown produce. As always, there was a team of people with him, but he was sitting in the chair.''
The Washington Post reported on Mr. Schumacher's work with refugee and immigrant farmers all over the United States. He encouraged them to grow and market their native vegetables, such as amaranth. From New England, the New York Times reported, Mr. Schumacher made personal deliveries of Asian greens that included pea tendrils, Chinese chive blossoms and Cambodian spearmint to the Washington restaurant TenPenh.
August Schumacher Jr. was born in Lincoln, Mass., on Dec. 4, 1939. He grew up on a farm in Lexington, and his father was one of the largest parsnip growers in Massachusetts. His grandfather and great-grandfather were farmers in New York City. They grew winter vegetables in glass-enclosed hothouses.
Mr. Schumacher graduated from Harvard University in 1961 and attended the London School of Economics.
Over his career, he had a variety of consultancies, served as Massachusetts agriculture chief from 1984 to 1990 and was the USDA undersecretary of agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services from 1997 to 2001.
Since 2008 he had served as founding board chairman of Wholesome Wave in Bridgeport, Conn., which seeks to increase access to affordable, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
His first marriage, to Barbara Kerstetter, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 25 years, Susan Holaday Schumacher of Washington; a stepdaughter, Valarie Karasz of Brooklyn; and two grandchildren. A stepson, Andrew Karasz, died earlier this month.
(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)
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