The next secretary of the US Department of Agriculture will confront two of the most dire problems facing the nation: spiking levels of hunger brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout, and the damage that ever-increasing climate chaos visits upon our most productive farming regions.

The New York Times will tell you a different story. According to a recent article in the paper, President-elect Joe Biden’s decision about who should run the USDA hinges not on climate or hunger policy expertise, but rather on the question of...