Diversity of Scale Tom Vilsack is one of the longest serving secretaries in USDA history. The one-time presidential candidate is a likeable and formidable character. Yet at this week’s annual USDA Outlook conference he tried to talk farmers out of getting big, and instead to go into diversification. His position satisfies the left’s tendency to attract support from small, inefficient farmers, and it comports with the Biden Administration’s skepticism of big business. However, the message was cloaked in the idea that farmers could better thrive by being small, and diversifying their sources of income such as selling environmental services.  It is quaint but not at all backed up by vigorous research by his own agency...