[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15510-15511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               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:

               [From The Washington Post, Sept. 27, 2017]

   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

[[Page 15511]]

     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.)

                          ____________________