By Emily Cai, ASU sustainable food systems graduate student
On the first evening of our Food Policy Immersion in Washington, DC, our graduate student cohort piles into the backyard of Jerry Hagstrom’s house in Woodley Park for an informal talk with the prize-winning agricultural journalist.
Over a dinner of pizza and salad, Mr. Hagstrom begins the evening by describing his recent experience at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. We eagerly listen to details of the night, ranging from fashion commentary (Washington is always behind New York) to celebrity sightings (Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson) to the dinner of shrimp and steak (remarkably not overcooked for a 2600-person event). More importantly, Mr. Hagstrom tells us that 675 pounds of potatoes were supplied to this event, which is something that the National Potato Council—a subscriber of the Hagstrom Report—would be thrilled to know about.
Through our program at ASU, our cohort also has the privilege of a subscription to the Hagstrom Report, allowing each of us to stay up-to-date on agricultural news. Through the Report, Mr. Hagstrom painstakingly collates ag-related news—from conferences to press releases to hearings on Capitol Hill—into a succinct yet comprehensive daily newsletter for subscribers ranging from the National Potato Council to Swette Center students.
In addition to the newsletters, subscribers may also, from time to time, receive a Hagstrom Report “Alert” in their inbox. For example, just several days before our evening with Mr. Hagstrom, subscribers of the Report received the following Alert (Volume 14, Number 82): USDA to require testing of dairy cattle before interstate movement due to bird flu.
Over the course of our conversation, Mr. Hagstrom divulges how this particular alert came about: a two-day whirlwind trip to New York for a conference at the Rockefeller Foundation, both days interrupted to take calls for press conferences with Secretary Vilsack (the second one being on the transfer of avian flu to dairy cattle), followed by hours of writing. Mr. Hagstrom regales us with a hectic story full of vivid details—the uncomfortable chair where he listened to the press conference, the lunch where the only meat was tuna, the broken elevator debacle at the Woodley Park metro station—all so that this piece of breaking news (Alert, Volume 14, Number 82) lands promptly in our emails mere hours after the press conference.
This, of course, is only a brief glimpse into how Mr. Hagstrom stays on the cusp of agricultural news. “I have to be constantly flexible,” he says, while emphasizing the importance of responding quickly to stories and putting news out the day it happens. “There is no ‘every day.’”
Not only is this a timely piece of news, it’s also salient throughout our time in DC, with multiple speakers—from USDA undersecretaries to industry professionals—bemoaning the outbreak of avian influenza. A shame, then, that agriculture is generally viewed as a less prestigious news subject, with ag beats being assigned to beginning, less-experienced reporters. As Mr. Hagstrom elaborates on the issue of avian influenza in dairy cattle, he touches on everything from international trade to the beef industry to Colombian politics, painting a picture of the sheer range and complexity of agricultural policy. It’s a story whose impact is wide-reaching, entwining players from American dairy farmers to the Colombian government. And yet, as Mr. Hagstrom explains, ag beats are usually assigned to reporters who aren’t necessarily familiar with the breadth of the subject content and all its encompassing nuances, only for them to be moved onto different topics once they’re deemed more experienced.
Fortunately, the Hagstrom Report continues to deliver. On Wednesday, May 1—two days after our dinner in Woodley Park—subscribers of the Hagstrom Report receive three alerts within six hours:
Alert, Volume 14, Number 87: Stabenow to release farm bill proposal today.
Alert 2, Volume 14, Number 87: Thompson releases farm bill overview.
Alert 3, Volume 14, Number 89: Stabenow wants negotiations before a markup.
Over a breakfast of bagels and coffee in the ASU building, our cohort talks about the latest Alerts from the Hagstrom Report: progress for the Farm Bill is finally being made. The importance of these updates is reflected throughout the rest of the week, with the course of conversation in DC pivoting from concerns around avian flu to the massive package of food and agriculture legislation passed every five years.
And somewhere—perhaps in an uncomfortable chair, perhaps following a lunch of tuna and vegetables, or perhaps on a train traveling from New York to D.C.— Jerry Hagstrom is writing, working tirelessly to bring breaking agricultural news to all of his subscribers.
This blog is part of a series from the Swette Center’s annual Food Policy Immersion, a required course in their two graduate programs. Students met with federal food and agriculture focused officials at USDA, the White House, and Congress alongside many other important influencers of policy in industry and non-profits.