U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack went to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention last month to warn delegates that the loss of small and medium-sized farms endangers the central pillars of American identity and democracy.

“At the foundation of our economy and our value system is American agriculture,” he told growers Jan. 22 at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“I don’t think the country can stand the continued acceleration of the loss of small and mid-sized operations,” he said. “Are we OK with that? I’m not. I don’t think you are, either.”

The rural way of life rewards hard work and teaches people that success must be earned, Vilsack said. “It is the value system of this country, represented by the people in this hall.”

We expect the secretary of agriculture to be in favor of farms and farmers, but we’re always surprised when anyone from Washington comes around to speak in favor of America’s values — particularly those extolling the old-fashioned virtues of hard work.

But we can’t help pointing out the irony in Vilsack’s warning, as the federal government seems to do its best to thwart the success of farmers of every size at every turn, and has done more to facilitate the consolidation of farmland than just about anything.

Take the H-2A visa program. Farmers who need labor depend on the guestworker program, but the federal Department of Labor has made the program more expensive, and more difficult. Smaller growers have trouble affording it, and larger farmers often still can’t get enough workers.

Or how about the Environmental Protection Agency’s vulnerable species pilot project, which included new pesticide restrictions that would initially cover more than 100 million acres, and more after the agency applies the program to other species.

While EPA has decided to modify the plan, its original draft would have hobbled farmers of all sizes.

And despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary, the EPA continues to try to regulate ephemeral waters and wetlands under the Clean Water Act.

Or how about federal energy policies that make fossil fuels and inputs more expensive? Or federal agencies that enforce their regulations through their own administrative courts and threaten targets with huge daily fines to discourage them from exercising their due process rights.

We could go on, but we impose a strict word limit on ourselves. All of these policies make farming on a large scale difficult, and on a small scale increasingly impossible.

We’ve always supported Vilsack as the best choice President Biden could make as his secretary of agriculture.

As was the case during his tenure in the Obama administration, Vilsack’s Iowa commonsense and pragmatism make him a welcome outlier in a government that often proffers policies hostile to the interests of agriculture.

But his defense of the family farm doesn’t square with the actions of the government he represents.