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Release No. 0214.03

**of**

**FOREIGN PRESS CENTER BRIEFING WITH SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE ANN M.
VENEMAN**

**MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE AND EXPO ON AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND**

**TECHNOLOGY, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, 23-25 JUNE 2003**

**THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.**

3:00 P.M. EDT, TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2003

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the
Foreign Press Center. We are delighted to have for a briefing this
afternoon Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman. She will be talking
about the Ministerial Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science and
Technology, which will be held in Sacramento, California, on June 23rd
to 25th.

Secretary Veneman will have an opening statement to make, and after that
she\'ll be glad to take your questions.

Secretary Veneman.

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, thank you very much, and thanks to all of
you for being here today. I am joined today by our Under Secretary for
Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, Dr. J.B. Penn, and we will
jointly be takingyour questions after my opening statement.

"I am very pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you about the
Ministerial Conference on Agriculture, Science and Technology. The
conference and the accompanying Technology Exposition will be held in
Sacramento, California, next week. The U.S. Department of State and the
U.S. Agency for International Development are joining the Department of

Agriculture in this effort.

"President Bush has made improved economic and humanitarian conditions
in developing countries a high priority. Through the introduction of his
Millennium Challenge Account, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or
AGOA, as it is referred to, his Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief that
he announced in his State of the Union Address this year and which was
recently signed into law, as well as a trade agenda focusing on the
needs of the

developing world \-- these all serve to demonstrate this commitment.

"Last year in June at the World Food Summit: Five Years Later, at a
meeting held in Rome, the United States was one of more than 180
countries that met to review our progress toward the goal of reducing by
half the number of hungry people around the world by the year 2015.
Today, 800 million people face chronic hunger. One in three children in
the world is undernourished ,and every five seconds we lose a child to
hunger. Half the world population lives on less than \$2 a day.

"To meet the goal of food security, agriculture productivity must be

accelerated in areas where hunger and malnutrition are worst. The

discussions we had in Rome with our fellow ministers kept returning to

technology\'s role in enhancing agricultural productivity, and this was
the

genesis of the Sacramento ministerial. Science and technology offer some
of the most effective tools to raise agricultural productivity. It may
be through better seed varieties, better planting practices, better
water management, or better food preservation or processing techniques.
Whatever the technology, it must be appropriate and accessible.

"This conference is an important component of a broader effort to
encourage countries to work together to take advantage of the
opportunities that technology presents. The response from around the
world has been very positive. More than 150 ministers from over 100
countries are planning to attend this conference. Ministers of
agriculture, science and technology,

environment and health will gather to focus on increasing agriculture
productivity in an environmentally sensitive way, reducing famine and
improving nutrition through the benefits of technology.

"The conference will not be about negotiations or major new initiatives.
There are other forums for that. Ministers will be at the conference to
learn from each other, to network with each other and to discuss common
issues. We hope they will return home with new ideas, new relationships
and a renewed commitment to apply what they have learned. They will have
opportunities to meet with foundations, international research centers,
private companies at the Expo, and others to share ideas and discuss
partnerships.

"This conference presents a unique opportunity. It offers policymakers
in developing countries an opportunity to focus on what science and
technology in a supportive policy environment can do for farmers,
consumers and countries. Technology is not an end in itself.

"It is developed to serve people and their needs. Science and technology
can improve the nutrient content of foods, address issues of water
quantity and quality, improve food distribution and increase farm yield.
It can cut food waste, reduce the use of chemicals and provide new
marketing opportunities.

"Technology offers new income sources for farmers in areas such as
biodegradable plastic and bioenergy products. Technology has the
potential to help farmers around the globe produce more with less while
protecting the environment for future generations. Technology can help
feed the hungry, improve nutrition, and elevate living standards.

"Our goal for this conference is to provide a path for more people
around the world to share in these benefits. Thank you again for coming
today, and I will be pleased now to take your questions.

**QUESTION:** My name is Adu-Asare, a reporter for AfricaNewscast.com.
It has come to the notice of those of us who attempt to follow the
events in agriculture around \-- especially in the developing countries,
to find out that, whereas, technology \-- science and technology can
improve productivity n the area of food production, for example, the
major problem is getting the

food and the other agriculture products from the areas of production to
the markets and to the harbors and to the airports. Where is the science
and technology for that?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, you ask a very good question. And I think
it\'s a critical question as we look at the developing world, in
particular. And in many parts of the world where agriculture does hold
some promise, there are issues of infrastructure within the areas for
the very issues you talk about, whether it\'s transportation, roads,
trains, bridges, ports, to be able to move products to where people are
hungry.

"To some extent, that is technology in and of itself \-- technology
that\'s helping with infrastructure. But I think that one of the things
that we want to do with this conference is address a broad range of
technologies that can assist agriculture in various ways \-- whether
it\'s increased productivity, or it\'s water-saving technologies, or
it\'s information technologies, transportation technologies. I don\'t
know that we\'re going to have a lot of transportation technology at
this conference, but I do think that you raise a very important
question, that all of these issues need to be considered when we\'re
talking about how to improve the efficiency and productivity of
agriculture, particularly in the areas of the world where people are
most hungry.

**QUESTION:** Jim Berger, from Washington Trade Daily. I just wanted to
know if you know if there will be a EU delegation at the meeting and how
high? I know they have other issues right now.

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "You\'re right. They do have other issues. And
when we first planned this conference, Mr. Fischler and I discussed it,
and he had hoped very much to be there. But then he called me to tell me
that, in fact, they were going to be in the throes of their discussions
about their common agricultural policy reform, which they have been
doing over the last few days. And so, because of that we won\'t have a
lot of participation from people from the European Union. And we\'re
disappointed by that because, clearly, we want to have all regions
participate and represented.

"We do have some Europeans attending. We have some Eastern Europeans. We
have a number of countries from throughout the region. I believe the
Hungarian Minister is speaking, and so we do have a broad range.

"At the last schedule, I saw that we still had the Spanish Minister of
Agriculture attending, although I suspect with some of the things that
are going on, I am not sure if that\'s still going to be possible or
not, just for the reasons you bring up."

**QUESTION:** Florence Rossignol with CTV, Canadian Television. I\'m
afraid I am going to have to ask you about Canadian beef. Canada \--
Canadian

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "She asks me this about every other day."

**QUESTION:** (Laughter.) Canadians are still wondering what it will
take to reopen the border to beef imports. What are the standards that
the USDA is looking for? And my second question is, some international
experts have hinted that there might already be a case of mad cow in the
U.S. that you wouldn\'t be aware of yet. Do you think that\'s possible?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, first of all, let me just address the
second

question. There is a lot of speculation about what may or may not be in
certain countries. One of the things that I think has been very positive
is that we\'ve had total cooperation between the United States
Government and the Canadian Government in the investigation that has
gone on about the cow that was found in Canada. Now, very fortunately,
that investigation, I

think, has resulted in the depopulation of over 2,000 animals and the
testing of those animals, and only one cow has been found to be
infected. And that\'s involved trace back, and it\'s involved trace
forward. So that\'s good news.

"You can speculate about what may or may not be there. Many people told
us that they thought that through this trace out that there would be
additional cases. I think that there is a lot that\'s not known about
this disease. We don\'t know how this particular cow was infected. And
so I think people can speculate, but indeed, it\'s certainly not a
conclusion that that person draws with any evidence that I\'m aware of.

"We are looking, as I have said many times over the last couple of
weeks, at the whole range of issues as we are considering when and how
we might reopen the border. As you know, our standard operating
procedure when there is a case of BSE in a trading-partner country is to
temporarily close off trade.

"And so we are looking at the whole range of options.

"We are working with OIE standards. We are working with our Canadian

counterparts looking at all of the issues that need to be addressed, and
at

this point in time, I can\'t give you what, exactly, the criteria will
be,

nor can I give you the timing."

**QUESTION:** Secretary Veneman, on the same topic, Carl Hanlon, Global

Television, Canada. On the same topic, Secretary, at this point then,
can

you offer any hope to Canadian producers who are going out of business

waiting for the ban to be lifted?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN**: I understand \-- and I am just going to say to
everybody, this is the last question I\'m going to take on this because
I really do want to stay on the topic of our conference, and we only
have about a few minutes left \-- but we are working as closely with the
Canadian authorities as we possibly can. We are very aware of the
difficulties that are being experienced by Canadian cattlemen. But we do
have to look at all of the ramifications, not the least of which is what
other trading countries are doing. I don\'t believe that any other
country has opened up their borders to Canadian beef yet.

"We are discussing that with other countries \-- with just one cow
finding \--we are looking at with other countries as well, what are
going to be the criteria. One of the things that we think needs to be
done is more discussion needs to be conducted in places like the
international standards setting body, the OIE, on how do you go from a
single case like this to what

the next steps ought to be.

"So certainly, we\'re very aware of the plight of the Canadian
cattlemen. It\'s difficult, we know. But again, the U.S. isn\'t taking
action that\'s any more stringent than what any other country is
taking."

**QUESTION:** Some Canadian producers actually think that, at this
point, the ban is being maintained \-- some of the producers believe the
ban is being maintained \-- to help the American producers increase
their profits. What would you say to them?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "That\'s not true. I\'ll just say it\'s not
true."

MR**. DENIG:** We\'ll take the lady in the back \--

**QUESTION:** Hi. I\'m Catherine McConnell with the Washington File.
Could you just give some specifics about the field trips, like maybe
give an example of what the ministers are likely to experience?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, there will be a range of field trips. Let
me just say a word about why this conference is being held in
Sacramento, California. Of course, as you know, California is one of the
most diverse agriculture-producing regions in the entire world, so it is
also very technologically advanced.

"And so, Sacramento is very near to, for example, the University of
California-Davis, where a lot of technology research is conducted. And
so we thought it would be an ideal place to bring ministers from around
the world to showcase, not only the diversity of agriculture, but also
some of the technologies and also the proximity to areas that would be
appropriate

for field trips.

"So I think we have got field trips to rice-producing areas; obviously,
some field trips to the research sites at UC-Davis. I think we\'ve got
field trips to dairy production. I don\'t have them all in front of me,
but that gives you some kind of idea of the range of opportunities that
the ministers that are visiting us from around the world will have to
see some of the kinds of production, the kinds of practices and the
kinds of new research and technology that are being developed.

"In addition, we will have this exposition in the conference center, in
the convention center where this is being held, where private companies
are coming to actually showcase their technologies, whether they\'re
information technologies or seed technologies or global positioning
systems or new product technologies, so that there will be a range of
technologies that are available for people to see and discuss, as well
as some of the research agencies within USDA will be exhibiting, as
well."

**QUESTION:** Bill Thompson, Oster Dow Jones. I believe consultation
meetings began this week between the United States and the EU over the
WTO suit on their moratorium. Can you give us an update on what\'s going
on? Do you expect this to be resolved in the consultation process, or do
you expect this to go to a dispute? And how closely are other countries,
such as in

Africa and in other places, watching this?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "I believe the consultations start tomorrow, if
I\'m not mistaken, in Geneva, and it\'s hard for me to speculate at this
point as to what may be coming out of those.

"You know, I really don\'t have a handle on how closely other countries
are watching this. It\'s in a very technical dispute settlement mode at
this point. I haven\'t seen a lot of press about this internationally in
terms of people saying that the consultations are going to result in
something this week. I don\'t think they will. I think this is the
beginning of the process.

"But certainly, when Ambassador Zoellick and I announced that we were
going to begin this process under the WTO, one of the things we did was
we had people with us, including a farmer from South Africa, a professor
from Africa, some professors from universities, talking about the
promise of these technologies to really help people in developing
countries. So,

certainly, I think as we made this announcement there was certainly some
interest because we had people from Africa when we made the
announcement."

**QUESTION:** Nestor Ikeda, reporter for Latin America of AP, and I have
two Quest ions. What would be the specific areas where would you like to
see as primary potential destination for technology to \-- in the field
of agriculture?

And the second question is: What kind of announcement would you expect
from the meeting?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, thank you very much. I might add that we
do have very good participation from Latin American ministers. We have,
I think, a very large number of ministers coming from Latin America and
we are very much looking forward to their participation in this
conference.

"What we hope to have in terms of the kinds of discussions that come out
of this is we don\'t expect \-- at many international meetings you have
big communiqués. We don\'t expect to have people sitting around writing
communiqués. We see this conference much as an education process, as an
opportunity for people from all around the world, particularly from some
of

the least developed countries, to have exposure to the promise of some
of the technologies that may help address this issue of world hunger.

"I mean, again, I go back to what precipitated this conference is the
summit, or the World Food Summit: Five Years Later, where we are
addressing through that process the fact that there are 800 million
people in this world who are hungry. It\'s hard for us here in this city
to imagine that, but the fact of the matter is, is that this is a
serious problem around the world. And this conference is really about
giving people the opportunity to look at a wide range of technologies
and to see what may work in different parts of the world, to meet
people, to develop partnerships.

"And that\'s the kind of outcome we hope to see. New ideas. We may have,
for example, there may be people in certain regions of the world that
say we would like to have these kinds of people come to our region for
further discussion about what the opportunities might be. It\'s hard to
anticipate exactly what the partnerships and what the discussions may
result in, but that\'s the hope is that it will create real
opportunities for people in the future to address the problem of world
hunger."

**QUESTION:** Adu-Asare. You answered the question, a question I had in
mind, and is regarding whether the seminars or the side meetings will be
regionally directed in order to take care of the needs of specific
regions. And I have in mind particularly the genetically modified food
issue. And do you have an idea of how many people and who are coming
from Africa?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "I don\'t have a list of people that are coming
from

Africa, but we have a broad range of people coming from Africa. I think
we have people from South Africa, we have a minister from Uganda who is
going to be a speaker. But there are a number of people who are coming
from Africa, and maybe we can get you some additional information on the
attendees.

"During the first two days of the conference, there will be what we call
plenary sessions in a large room with speakers, for about the first half
of the day, and then the second part of the day will be breakout
sessions in various areas so that people can go to a seminar on areas
that they are interested in. And we have a number of those breakout
sessions both on Monday afternoon as well as Tuesday, and then there
will be a plenary session again on Tuesday evening to discuss sort of
what came out of all of this, to look sort of at the broad overview.

"In addition, we are doing some bilateral meetings and some regional
meetings, and particularly we will be meeting with a whole group of
African ministers as a group to talk about some of the issues. Dr. Penn
was part of the U.S. delegation that went to the AGOA conference in
Mauritius earlier this year. We\'re going to try to do some follow-up
meetings from some of

the people that he and others met there and continue the discussions.
But that is another forum in which this conference was discussed, and
the opportunity for looking at new technologies, and the promise of
technology was discussed there, too.

**QUESTION:** Jim Berger again from Washington Trade Daily. Do you think
the outcome of this meeting will put to rest once and for all the
misinformation in the debate over the safety of GMOs and biotechnology?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "I think it would be hard for one meeting to put
to rest the debate. The debate has been intense. But I do think that
it\'s important to point out that while this meeting will address issues
of biotechnology, it is not just about biotechnology. It really is about
a whole range of technologies that impact agriculture.

"But I do think there\'s great promise. There\'s great misunderstanding
about biotechnology. There is misunderstanding about the biotechnology
that\'s been adopted in this country and what we\'ve been able to do,
not only with productivity, but with water quality, for example. I mean,
we\'ve seen tremendous benefits of water quality from not having to use
so many chemicals.

"As some of these technologies are in their infancy, we will see further
environmental benefits, we\'ll see health benefits as we can produce
more products like Vitamin A enriched rice that could help people that
are Vitamin A deficient around the world.

"And I think we need to keep in mind that the promise of these
technologies for the future, not that people should be afraid, but they
should understand the science behind it. This is a very scientifically
based conference. It will have a number of people with science-based
backgrounds who are discussing various technologies and what the future
may hold for these technologies in various parts of the world."

**QUESTION:** I am Simona Storkey from ANSA, Italy. Do you think that

something could change in the relationship between EU and the U.S. on
GMOs?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, we have been actively discussing the whole
issue of GMOs and biotechnology with Europe since this administration
came in, and before this administration came in, two years before that.
So this has been a discussion where the approvals have not been
forthcoming for almost five years now, and that really is part of the
main reason that we began this WTO process, because of the fact that,
basically, we were hearing over and over from the Europeans that we were
going to see some movement, and yet it was never forthcoming.

"But I\'ve had very productive discussions with my counterparts in the
EU, Mr. Fischler, Mr. Byrne, a number of the agricultural ministers
around Europe. The problem is the lack of ability to get consensus about
what the solution is. And I understand that difficulty. The way the
process works makes it difficult for people to agree. But I do think a
number of people have had a lot of very thoughtful discussion about this
and what will work and what will not. Some of the proposals, frankly,
are just simply unworkable, and I think that\'s one of the reasons it\'s
taken such a long time to move this process forward. And that\'s one of
the reasons that we in the U.S. lost patience and felt that we had to
take action.

**QUESTION:** Hi, Julia Dietrich, National Public Radio. You mentioned
earlier that you would be disappointed if you didn\'t have the European
counterparts coming to participate, and I just wondered whether you
thought there would be a lack of balance in terms of developed and
developing countries represented at the conference.

And also, I was interested to know, are the presenters at the
conference, are they mostly American? Are they from an international
group of people?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** Actually, we have a press release out today that
goes through, actually outlines some of the people that will be
speaking. It\'s just a very short list. But I think among the opening
day speakers we have, as I said, the minister from Uganda, a minister
from the Philippines. We have the White House Science Advisor. We have,
I think, the National Science Foundation. I didn\'t, unfortunately,
bring an agenda with me. But

then we have all of these breakout sessions, and through those breakout

sessions there will be moderators and then three people per session with

people participating from all over the world on these various breakout

sessions.

"Let\'s see, ministers of agriculture from Uganda, the Philippines,
Georgia, Mexico, Lebanon and Spain will be among the speakers at the
opening. And so we do have a broad range of countries that are
participating. And this is only a partial list. These are people that
are speaking at the opening plenary. And then we\'ll have, obviously, a
number of people who are

involved in the breakout sessions as well.

"Oh, I\'m sorry. Emmy Simmons from AID is here, and she is going to be
participating in the conference as well. AID has been a very, very
strong partner in this conference. They have been with us throughout the
planning stages and have been very valuable partners, and financial
contributors as well, to the development of this conference.

"Did you want to say a few words?"

**MS. SIMMONS:** Thank you, thank you. We just do want to second the
Secretary\'s words about the importance of this conference and getting
the message of agriculture science and technology out, and providing
this opportunity for people to sit down seriously and talk about the
role of science and technology in addressing the issues of food and
hunger worldwide. And we much appreciate USDA\'s leadership in terms of
putting the conference together.

I noted the last speaker was asking about international participation,
and I am really pleased that we have been able to get panelists in the
breakout groups which is, for my agency has been working very closely
with USDA and others to try to find speakers who can really be
inspirational, who have both knowledge of the science, knowledge of the
technology, knowledge of the markets in which these technologies are
applied.

So we are looking very much forward to having these breakout sessions,
these sessions where people can really get down to the factual
information and down to what do we do next and how do we work together
on the kind of networking issues that the Secretary mentioned.

So we are very pleased to be a part of this conference. My boss,
unfortunately, is going to be traveling in the Middle East -- Andrew
Natsios, our Administrator of USAID \-- so I will be leading our
delegation to the conference and participating, actually, in it.

Thank you.

**QUESTION:** Just a final brief question, what U.S. reaction might be
if the European Union can\'t get their act together and get agreement on
CAP reform in a timely manner, say by the end of the summer?

**SECRETARY VENEMAN:** "Well, obviously, we\'ve been hearing that CAP
reform may come in June, and that\'s why the Europeans are obviously
very tied up right now talking about CAP reform. It\'s difficult at this
point to see whether or not they\'re going to make the kind of progress
that Mr. Fischler has proposed. But certainly, if they make some
significant progress in CAP reform, I think it will certainly create a
greater opportunity for us to make more progress as we continue the Doha
round, and particularly come into the Cancun meeting in September. So
we\'re hopeful that they will make significant progress. I know that\'s
what Mr. Fischler is aiming for, and he\'s got some difficult
negotiations to do with his various ministers.

"Thank you all very much.

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