UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

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ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON :

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND 21ST CENTURY :

AGRICULTURE (AC21) :

SIXTEENTH PLENARY MEETING :

:

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A meeting in the above-entitled matter was held on Wednesday, August 1,
2007, commencing at 8:30 a.m., at the USDA, 1400 Independence Avenue,
S.W., Washington, D.C. before:

Michael Schechtman, Ph.D., Designated Federal Official

Patricia Layton, Chairperson

[A P P E A R A N C E S]{.underline}

Abby Dilley, RESOLVE

Cynthia Sulton, HW&W

Debbie Lee, RESOLVE

[MEMBERS OF The AC21 PLENARY COMMITTEE]{.underline}

Patricia Layton, Chairperson

Sarah Geisert

Carol Tucker Foreman

Margaret Mellon

Adrian Polansky

Alison Van Eenennaam

Kathleen Jones

Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes

Bradley Shurdut

Jerome Slocum

Guy Cardineau

Leon Corzine

Nancy Bryson

Michael Dykes

Greg Jaffe

James Robl

Michael Engler

Fuller Bazer

Bowen Flowers

Paul Saxton

Marcia Holden, Absent

Daryl Buss, Absent

Duane Grant, Absent

Steven Pueppke, Absent

Randy Giroux, Absent

Russell Kremer, Absent

Elizabeth Milewski, Absent

[PRESENTATIONS]{.underline}

[Page]{.underline}

Rebecca Bech, APHIS, USDA 43

William Freese, Center for Food Safety 204

[P R O C E E D I N G S]{.underline}

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Welcome and good morning. This is the 16th meeting of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture\'s Advisory Committee on
Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture or AC21. My name is Michael
Schechtman and I am the Executive Secretary and Designated Federal
Official for the AC21.

To my left and right are our facilitators, Ms. Abby Dilley and Ms.
Debbie Lee, replacing Kathy Grant for this one meeting, both from the
organization, RESOLVE, and Ms. Cynthia Sulton from the organization,
HW&W, who are our partners in helping us make the advisory committee
process work.

The AC21 Chair, Dr. Patricia Layton, who is also Chair of the Department
of Forestry and Natural Resources at Clemson and who you\'ll remember
was not at our last meeting because of an injury is back sitting next to
me and I\'m delighted to see her. Nice to see you\'re getting around
again as well, Pat.

DR. LAYTON: It is.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: A bit later this morning we will also be pleased to have
Rebecca Bech, Deputy Administrator for Biotechnology Regulatory Services
from USDA\'s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHIS, here to
provide you with some significant updates from the biotechnology
regulatory side. I\'d also like to welcome committee members of whom
about 18 should be here today, including three new members of the
committee, James Robl, Michael Engler, and Fuller Bazer who will
introduce themselves in a few minutes. Welcome to our discussions.

And, of course, welcome to our *ex officio* members of whom I believe
one is here so far. Oh, two, excuse me. Three. I can\'t count. Okay. I
should note that Daryl Buss, Randy Giroux, Duane Grant, and Stephen
Pueppke will be unable to attend this meeting.

We will, as usual, have a very full agenda so we ask that when the
meeting is in session conversations need to be limited to those between
members. The public will be invited to participate by providing comments
to the committee and USDA this afternoon between 3:30 and 4:45 p.m.

For members of the public who request to speak during the public comment
period I will need hard or electronic copies of your remarks. We will be
preparing the Minutes of this meeting and a computer transcript of the
meeting should also be available within about six weeks or so. We hope
to get the Minutes and all meeting announcements up on the Web.

The AC21 has a website linked to the overall USDA website and it can be
reached through USDA\'s main biotechnology portal via the main USDA site
at www.usda.gov by clicking on "Agriculture," then on "Biotechnology,"
and then on the committee name. For any members of the press who may be
in attendance you\'re welcome to speak to whomever you wish during the
breaks of our meeting and before or after the meeting itself, but, we
ask that you not conduct any interviews or request comments from members
while the AC21 is actually in session.

I will be available, and the Chair, for questions and comments at the
end of each day of the meeting. I\'d like to request that all members of
the AC21 as well as all members of the audience and the press, should
any be here, please shut off your cell phones, beepers, and Blackberries
while in the meeting room.

DR. LAYTON: That includes Trios and any other.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes. Our last transcript was particularly difficult to
decipher and we think it was because there was interference and people
were not speaking loudly and clearly. We have just a few table mikes
which actually surprised me today that we have actually have a few on
the table. It\'s not enough. Most people, I think, will just need to
speak loudly. But, please shut off all of those electronic devices. They
introduce a lot of static on the recording and with the air conditioning
that I presume is going to be cycling on and off it\'ll create
significant problems for the transcript.

Bathrooms are located on either side of the patio just outside this
door, women on the near side and men on the far side.

For information of members of the public, let me indicate that the AC21
has two distinct charges from the Secretary of Agriculture in its
Charter. First, examining the long-term impacts of biotechnology on
agriculture and the work of USDA, which this committee has interpreted
to mean over the next five to ten years, and, second, addressing
pressing specific biotechnology-related issues identified by the
Secretary.

The committee has already completed several significant pieces of work
relating to these charges and the three previous AC21 consensus reports
are available for the public on the table outside. Over the next two
days the committee will work towards wrapping up its current project
which might be considered to fit under either charge of the committee
and that project deals with the impacts of coexistence considerations
for agriculture.

The committee at this meeting will be reflecting on its discussions from
the last meeting, considering work done by the committee staff and
committee members inter- sessionally both in drafting text and in
providing comments on it as we move towards agreeing upon a concise
focused document. I\'ll have more to say about the upcoming work a bit
later. Just outside this room there\'s a table with meeting documents
and background documents on it.

Please take only one copy. For this meeting, as always, we have a series
of documents. There are a number of background documents which key the
official AC21 Charter, the AC21 Bylaws and Operating Procedures; a
package of biographical sketches of all of the current AC21 members, old
and new, if you\'ll allow me to call you old; the draft Meeting Summary
prepared from the 15th AC21 meeting held on March 26th and 27th.

In addition, there will be additional documents when Rebecca Bech
arrives. This will be information from APHIS to which she will speak and
these are a series of documents that are related to the draft
Environmental Impact Statement that APHIS released recently and those
documents will be two Fact Sheets, one on the draft EIS and one on how
to comment on it, two Federal Register notices, one on the availability
of the EIS document and the other on public meetings that are scheduled
regarding that document, and, finally, a press release on the draft EIS.

And I\'m sure that if you ask Rebecca specifically she could get you a
copy of the document itself. It\'s a little bit heavy to transport here
so she didn\'t bring a large stack of them with her. It\'s a substantial
document.

Finally, we also have as background for the public the earlier three
reports that were developed by consensus in 2005 and 2006 outside on the
table. Specific to this meeting we have a few other documents that are
the subject of our discussion. First, the provisional agenda for this
meeting. Please note the one small change in the agenda that, as I
mentioned, Debbie Lee is replacing Kathy Grant.

Second, we have the official working draft on coexistence from which
we\'ll start our discussion today. It is labeled the 5/24/07 draft and
it was distributed to members on May 25th. Let me note to members that
you were sent a very slightly revised version of this document. The only
thing that was done differently is that there\'s now a header on the
document so that you can distinguish it from the others.

I will have more to say later about the genesis of that document and
what it contains. Next, there\'s a document which compiles the written
comments on that 5/24 document that were received from members, the very
few written comments that were received in a text in which suggestions
and comments are included in a bracketed format, the deciphering of
which I\'ll describe in a little while.

Then we have another draft which Daryl Buss, who is not here, and Nancy
Bryson, who is, had kindly volunteered to prepare in an attempt to react
to a general theme they expressed and that we heard from a number of
other members as well that the paper still needed to be more concise and
more focused.

Thank you, Daryl, who is not here, and Nancy as well. A main feature of
that document that I\'ll mention now is that it is considerably shorter
than the 5/24 draft. Let me also note now, and we\'ll talk about this
more in a little while, that because it is a document that was not
prepared as an official committee document from either the full
committee or from a specific subcommittee or working group, that paper
has no official status whatsoever.

It\'s offered to the committee in the hopes that parts of it or indeed
all of it could prove useful to the AC21 and the committee may decide to
adopt bits of text if it feels it may help to move the discussions
forward. If you don\'t find it useful we don\'t need to use it at all.
Either way we will, of course, still be grateful to Daryl and Nancy for
their efforts.

Please note on the agenda for this meeting that there are breaks
scheduled morning and afternoon. For members of the public who wish
coffee, coffee is available in the cafeteria downstairs. Also on the
agenda let me note again that we are planning for a period of one and a
quarter hours for public comments from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. today. We want
to be responsive to the needs of the public and we will see as the
meeting progresses how we need to structure that time. If it turns out
that there are no commenters we will, as always, find uses for that
time.

Members of the public, if you wish to make a comment and you have not
done so already, please be sure that you have signed up at the door so
that we can plan that time. From USDA\'s perspective we have a few main
objectives for this meeting. They are, first off, to introduce new
committee members. Second, to further work on the coexistence topic that
is framed around the question, "In an increasing complex marketplace
what issues should USDA consider regarding coexistence among
increasingly diverse agricultural systems."

Next, to determine next steps and a work plan for finalizing the
coexistence paper and submitting it to the Secretary and, finally, to
begin organizing future committee work. We will also do the one other
thing that I mentioned before which is offer committee members and
briefing and a chance to ask questions of the APHIS Deputy Administrator
for Biotechnology Regulatory Services regarding recent policy
developments, specifically the publication of the draft Environmental
Impact Statement that APHIS prepared and released for public comment a
few weeks ago in considering whether and how to update its biotechnology
regulations.

And she\'ll also give you some idea of some other types of issues that
APHIS is considering. Before we turn to new members and to the
substantive work at hand, one small note for your information about one
member of this committee, Russell Kremer. You\'ll recall that he was
initially appointed two summers ago outside the regular schedule of
member appointments under the original charter rules which limited terms
to one or two years. So, his term expired just last month.

He has been reappointed to this committee and we\'re grateful for his
continued willingness to work with us here. I don\'t see him here yet.
Actually, we haven\'t heard. Has anyone spoken to him by any chance?

DR. MELLON: When I spoke to him about ten days ago he was planning on
coming.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: Maybe his plane is late.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Maybe his plane in late. There\'s a lot of that these
days. Now, I\'d like to say a little bit about the work ahead of you for
this meeting. Members who have been on this committee for a while will
have heard some of this before, but, partly to remind you and partly for
the benefit of newer members let me set the stage in a general way for
your discussions.

I\'ll talk about the specific papers you have in front of you in a
little while when we talk about and actually get down to work on the
subject. The committee has done quite a lot of valuable work in the
reports that you\'ve generated and a clearer understanding of important
issues that you\'ve developed. You\'ve been able to move past the wide
differences and views that you have on some issues to produce solid and
substantive reports and it\'s a considerable accomplishment.

Your current effort on coexistence is continuing to flesh out a number
of themes that were set out in those earlier reports and maybe we could
consider that to be the completion of one set of analysis for the
department. But, you\'ll need to focus here on completing this work, a
significant task, to make it happen and I think to do that you\'ll need
to be fairly strict in your discussions to whittle down texts into a
clear set of statements with which all members can go forward,
recognizing that the paper that you\'re preparing is not going to solve
or resolve the issues.

The USDA has asked for your insights and collective understanding rather
than specifically asking for recommendations for same. USDA would like
to get the lay of the land from you in this paper, the sense of the
things that USDA will be facing considering so that we can understand
those topics better. From USDA\'s perspective, as I have said at
previous meetings, that would be a paper that\'s relatively concise and
that avoids duplicating materials from previous reports.

As the topic is currently framed, the paper looks like this. The
observation that coexistence perfectly or imperfectly is happening sets
the stage. The existing marketplace is considered in some detail.
General issues that precede coexistence issues are discussed, those what
we tentatively called existence rather than coexistence issues, and then
factors enabling or inhibiting coexistence are described.

We\'ll need to have some discussion on whether this most current
structure works or how it should be modified and how to most efficiently
capture the most central themes that you have discussed over the past
several meetings and that emerged in the many presentations that you\'ve
heard.

I\'ll say a bit more about the various drafts in front of you and the
issues you\'ll need to consider once we\'ve moved past the introductory
portion of the agenda, but, let me emphasize time is of the essence. The
facilitators and I have also gotten the sense that we\'re pretty close
to wrapping this up and that the committee is anxious to move on to new
work and USDA is looking forward to having you move to new directions
once this is completed.

So, I\'m hoping that we\'ll be able to pull off another successful
transition, completing one project and bringing new members into
discussions of new products. As before, we won\'t ask the newest AC21
members, which is to say those here for the first time today, to join in
consensus on the coexistence paper when we get to that wrap up point
because they have not been in on the discussions up till now, but,
they\'re here today to see how the committee works and to see what\'s in
store for them.

With all of those words, I am delighted to turn to our committee chair,
Dr. Patricia Layton, for her wisdom and words, welcome, and for her
introduction of new members as well.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you. Good morning and I am delighted to be back here
today. It was not a happy time missing you last time for many more
reasons than you can possibly imagine, but, I did do it in a
drug-induced haze of post-surgery. But, it\'s good to be back and the
wonders of modern medicine are just out there tremendously. I thank my
lucky stars and God for the blessings that I have to be here with you
today.

I am excited about being back and the fact that you all did so much work
in my absence that we\'re getting to the point where hopefully we can
get this document completed and finalized. One of the things we did for
the new members is that we\'ve actually gotten to the point where it\'s
like almost there and then we finish it up and actually do it, kind of
finish it up on the fly and present it at the next meeting that would be
a great goal, but, I\'m not sure we\'re going to be there by the end of
this meeting, but, I\'d love to be.

It is so good to see all of you. I hope everyone had a successful trip
here today and I\'m looking forward to meeting the new members who came
in last time when I wasn\'t here, Marcia and Stephanie, and I\'ve
already met Guy and who else have I left off? Anyway, so I\'m really
excited about that. Oh, by the way, nice to see you. It\'s good to have
another person from Mississippi with us, somebody who understands my
accent.

South Carolina is a little different from the rest of the South, but,
you know, it\'s there. Anyway, with that, I\'d like to ask the new
members of the committee, Fuller, Jim, and Michael to tell us a little
bit about themselves as they go through and I\'ll introduce \-- I\'ll
call on each one to do that. A little bit about yourself and where
you\'re from and what you do so that we can get to know you a little bit
better and, as you know, as you can see, I think as you came in this
morning all of us who shared some years here together, it\'s been an
enjoyable committee for the last four to five years, and I also am going
to ask our new *ex officio* members to also introduce themselves and I
think we have one new one here today, right, Paul, which I also met this
morning too. There you are.

Okay. So let\'s start with Fuller, and Fuller Bazer and I share
something in common, Texas A&M and Florida. Go Gators, go Aggies. And
it\'s always a pleasure to meet other alumni of distinguished
universities. So, Fuller, if you\'ll tell us a little bit about \-- I\'m
sorry, it\'s almost football season. You know, come on.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. LAYTON: So, Fuller, if you would introduce yourself, please, and
tell us a little bit about yourself.

DR. BAZER: I\'m Fuller Bazer. I\'m a native of Louisiana. I grew up in
Shreveport and I did my undergraduate degree at Seminary College, went
to Methodist School, and started off in pre-med and got interested in
vet school and finally ended up as a reproductive biologist. Then I did
my Masters at LSU and my Ph.D. at North Carolina State and went to
Florida in 1988. Was there until 1992 when I moved to A&M. So, I\'ve
enjoyed that. I\'m a microbiologist. We work primarily in uterine
biology and early pregnancy and use all the typical techniques available
today in microbiology and so forth to conduct those types of studies.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. Great. And Jim?

DR. ROBL: I\'m Jim Robl originally from Kansas. I did my bachelors and
masters degree from Kansas.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Could I ask you to speak up just a little bit more
loudly?

DR. ROBL: I\'ll try to. After completing my masters at Kansas State
University I went to University of Illinois for a Ph.D. and then went
through Wisconsin. Spent 17 years in Massachusetts. I was a professor at
the University of Massachusetts. Got involved in biotechnology, started
a few companies, and ended up taking a position as president and chief
scientific officer for one of those which is Hematech.

So now I\'m back in the Midwest in South Dakota and president of
Hematech.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you. And I can see I\'m not the only football fan.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: May I ask what Hematech does?

DR. ROBL: Hematech is a biotech company and it\'s genetically modifying
cows to make human follicle antibodies and so we\'re using cows to make
human therapeutics.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. Michael?

DR. ENGLER: My name is Mike Engler. I\'m from Amarillo, Texas right now.
I\'ve got my undergraduate and graduate degrees just up the road at
Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Our big sport is Lacrosse, not football, and
they, of course, are the defending champions from this June. My career
path was in academics at the University of Texas Medical School in
Houston. And then I went into industry for a couple of years and now
I\'m back at the family\'s business which is called Cactus Feeders.
We\'re cattle feeders in the Texas Panhandle and Southwest Kansas. We
run feed yards and ranches. I\'m the president and CEO.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you. And Paul.

MR. SAXTON: Hi. My name is Paul Saxton. I\'m the Director of the Office
of Agricultural Biotechnology and Textile Trade Affairs at the
Department of State. I\'m also the senior advisor for agricultural
biotechnology for the Department of State. I\'m a career member of the
Senior Foreign Service with 35 years in the Foreign Service; postings
from Madagascar to Iceland with Brussels and four Latin American
assignments in between.

I\'m originally from New York but spent most of my adult life overseas
and when I\'m not overseas I\'m a Virginia resident. So, that\'s me. I
have a graduate degree from George Washington University in
international politics and Latin American issues, history and politics.

DR. BAZER: Dr. Layton, I have one thing. Since we\'re talking about
biotechnology we do animal biotechnology. We have \-- I guess one
biggest advance is that we have discovered Interferon Tau which is a
pregnancy recognition signal in sheep and other ruminants and it\'s now
in clinical trials in humans for PMS and psoriasis and trials are
starting for rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis so we also discovered a
urethane (sic) which is a hematocrit growth factor. It\'s not being
pushed too much because Amgen has a corner on the market where their
cocktail is. There\'s a molecule that\'s of interest.

DR. LAYTON: Oh, wonderful. Thank you.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. LAYTON: Okay. I do want to add so that we can complete this that
anyone who hasn\'t been introduced this morning for the benefit of our
new members to just give your name and a little bit about where you are
now at least because it doesn\'t say that in all of our press releases
and everything for our new members.

So, Nancy, if you\'d start us out since Michael\'s already introduced
the front table.

MS. BRYSON: I\'m Nancy Bryson. I\'m Chair of Food and Agriculture
Practice at a law firm here in Washington, Venable. I was General
Counsel here at USDA from 2002 to 2005.

MR. CORZINE: Leon Corzine. I farm in Central Illinois, mostly corn and
some soybeans and a few cows and past president of the National Corn
Growers Association.

DR. DYKES: Michael Dykes. I work with Monsanto Company and have for the
last 18 years. Run the Washington office, State, Federal, Mexico, and
Canada Government Affairs. I was a practicing veterinarian prior to that
for six years. I had a practice in Illinois. Auburn University DVM and
masters in agri-econ and BS in Science, a great institute of higher
education, University of Kentucky.

(Discussion off the record)

MS. JONES: I am Kathleen Jones and I\'m the Biotechnology Coordinator
for FDA\'s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and I went to
Villanova undergrad so if you want to talk basketball...

(Discussion off the record)

MR. FLOWERS: I\'m Bowen Flowers from the Mississippi Delta and I\'m a
farmer there and grow cotton, soybeans, corn, and wheat, and I\'m a
graduate from Mississippi State, but, I wouldn\'t brag about its
baseball.

MS. GEISERT: I\'m Sarah Geisert and I\'m with General Mills and I\'ve
been there for 24 years and I currently provide leadership for our
regulatory product safety group. My background is the Big 8 which is now
part of the Big 12 but right now I\'m living in Minnesota, go hockey, so
we can add to the sports that we get to talk about.

DR. POLANSKY: Adrian Polansky from Kansas. I\'m involved in farming and
seed operations and my son and daughter-in-law also grow a few cattle.
Graduate of Kansas State University, home of the number one basketball
recruiting class. We play a little football there too and you can visit
Auburn and first thing you hear hopefully we\'ll play reasonably well.
I\'m currently Secretary of Agriculture in Kansas.

MR. SHURDUT: I\'m Brad Shurdut with Dow Agrisciences. I\'ve been with
the Dow family for about 18 years. I head up their government regulatory
affairs group globally. I\'m actually a Big 10 representative from the
University of Michigan so we have some football and basketball and
hockey to brag about. So, that\'s my background.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes. I\'m an economist by
training.

MS. DILLEY: You\'ve got to speak up, Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Sorry guys, I have a cold and this is as high as
the voice is going to go. Again, I\'m Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes. I\'m an
economist. Most of my research \-- I\'m a professor at the University of
Missouri in Columbia and I have both my graduate degrees from the
University of Florida in Gainesville. I\'ve been in academics for 18
years and all my research has to do with the economics of innovation,
innovation affects the economy as a whole and the last 12-15 or so years
I\'ve been an economist in biotech.

DR. JAFFE: I\'m Greg Jaffe. I\'m the Director of the Biotechnology
Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit
consumer group located here in Washington, D.C.

DR. MELLON: My name is Mardi Mellon. I\'m the Director of the Food and
Environment Program with the Union of Concerned Scientists which is a
non-profit organization headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I got
both my Ph.D. and law degree from Virginia so I\'d like to raise the ACC
flag. We do basketball, football, and lacrosse.

DR. CARDINEAU: I\'m Guy Cardineau. I spent about 20 years in
agricultural biotech from start-up companies all the way up to big
companies, Dow Agrisciences. I\'ve been a faculty member at Arizona
State University for about five years and I have appointments in the
School of Law, the School of Biosciences, and the Biodesign Institute.

MR. SLOCUM: I\'m Jerry Slocum from northwest Mississippi just up the
road from Bowen and I farm soybeans, corn, and wheat in the rolling
hills there. I\'m in the country grain elevator business. We have four
country grain elevators and unit trains to the Gulf. Like Bowen I\'m a
graduate of Mississippi State University and I\'m looking forward to
tailgate season.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: I\'m Alison Van Eenennaam. I\'m at the University of
California in Davis. I\'m a cooperative extension specialist in animal
biotechnology engineering and I\'m a graduate of the University of
Melbourne which has an awesome cricket team.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. Michael.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Thank you everyone. So we are now at the point of the
agenda where we will turn to our facilitators for an overview of the
agenda and a summary from the last meeting. So, first to Cindy Sulton.

MS. SULTON: You all should have received the Minutes from the March
26-27th meeting and as Michael said earlier, the transcript of the
meeting is on the web. But, I will briefly summarize what we did in the
last meeting after our logistics and administrative welcomes. There was
an update from USDA by Ron DeHaven from APHIS where he provided us an
update on issues related to transgenic rice and alfalfa and responded to
questions from the committee.

We then went on to a discussion of the draft compilation of the paper on
coexistence and discussed three general sections and made
recommendations regarding them all as specifically factors enabling
coexistence, factors inhibiting coexistence. We also had presentations.
We had two, one from Ms. Catherine Greene, senior agricultural economist
from USDA on USDA\'s research on the organic industry.

The second presentation was Mr. Phil Lempert who is Trends Editor and
Correspondent with NBC News' Today Show and he spoke on the view from
the supermarket. We had no one there for public comment. We ended the
meeting by agreeing to prepare a new draft to be distributed to the
members in April and asked that comments come back and the meeting was
adjourned on the second day at 3:30 p.m.

Are there any questions or modifications or amendments to the Minutes?
Michael, would you like me to close it now?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes. Do the usual.

MS. SULTON: Okay. If you do in rereading them have any comments or
changes if you\'d get to Michael within the next week we will make them.
Otherwise, we\'ll post these Minutes as written on the website. And,
Abby, if you want to go over the agenda for today.

MS. DILLEY: Certainly. As you look at the agenda and along the lines of
what Michael had said about our meeting objectives we\'ve introduced new
committee members. The primary focus and a lot of our time is
particularly devoted to working on the draft and making significant
progress on a paper from the committee specific to the topic of
coexistence and we will spend most of our time doing exactly that.

As is usual at this point in deliberations and working on a document,
there\'s an agenda there, but, it\'s really placeholders because a lot
of it will depend on our initial conversation around the two documents
that were sent out to you prior to the meeting to really take a step
back and say how do we want to organize our work best and really move
forward as productively over the two days as possible and that could be
anywhere from setting aside time to do some drafting to talking about
portions of the paper that really need a lot more discussion versus
other portions that don\'t need a lot of discussion but are more
editing.

And, so, we just need to get an accounting of where we are in our
conversation, where the paper is, and what the committee wants to do
collectively in terms of making some progress and moving towards a
consensus document to complete our charge on this particular topic.

So, we will do that early on and after we have the opportunity to hear
from Rebecca Bech and provide you an update and she obviously is looking
forward to some comment back from the committee and some input from all
of you because we\'ve set aside the 9:30 to 11:00 slot on that topic and
then we will come back and we may, because we\'re moving along at an
advanced clip here, if Rebecca\'s not here we may at least start that
conversation or get you at least settled into where we can set that
conversation up.

And then we\'ll move to that discussion more specifically at 11:00 or
11:15 after our break so that the hope is that we have a really good
game plan before we break for lunch so that when we have a break for
lunch if there are portions of the document that we particularly have
highlighted you get a chance to review that at the break and then we can
come back and really get to work when we come back from lunch at 1:45.

And then we really will devote the time talking to the document and
working until we take a break and then turn to public comment. As we
have in the past, we\'ll certainly use that time either for public
comment and/or doing some additional work and then adjourn by 5:00
having had a chance to just reflect on where we are and making progress
on the document so that we can get set up for tomorrow\'s deliberations.

And then really tomorrow is focused almost exclusively on working on the
paper and moving the paper along and then spending the last portion of
the meeting talking about preliminarily about future work and how we
might want to organize between this and the next meeting depending on
where we are with the paper.

Often as we have with the three reports we\'ve completed there\'s some
details to wrap up and we need a time frame to do that in and some very
specific stuff about what needs to happen before the report can be
signed off on and delivered potentially at the next meeting to the
Secretary or someone from the Secretary\'s office.

And, so, we\'ll have some opportunity to hear a little bit, a preview
perhaps, on the committee\'s next round of work and then we\'ll conclude
no later than 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. So, that roughly is the agenda.
We do have it segmented out along the sessions that we currently have on
the 5/24 report but I think we just really need to take an accounting of
where we are and how you want to proceed and the agenda will evolve
accordingly.

Any questions about the agenda or how we\'re allocating our time?

MR. CORZINE: I just have one, Abby and Michael would be disappointed if
I didn\'t mention it and maybe it goes to our meeting Minutes too. In
our charge, in the second point, didn\'t we rather painlessly get rid of
that word increasingly in that marketplace? I know you did it back on
our white paper on our comments.

MS. DILLEY: That\'s a good question. I know we got rid of one
increasingly.

MR. CORZINE: I think you got rid of them both.

MS. DILLEY: And we had two of them, so, right.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: You are quite, quite correct.

DR. LAYTON: Which one did you get rid of?

MS. DILLEY: Both.

MR. CORZINE: Both.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes. It now states in a dynamic, evolving, and complex
marketplace. Excuse me for \-- in a dynamic, evolving, and complex
marketplace. It\'s coexistence among \--

MR. CORZINE: Diverse.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: The way it reads now, I apologize for having gotten the
wrong one on the document, what issues should USDA consider regarding
coexistence among diverse agricultural systems in a dynamic, evolving,
and complex marketplace. Thank you.

MR. CORZINE: Okay. Thank you.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Appreciate that.

DR. DYKES: We have questions on the Minutes and comments on this.

MS. DILLEY: Why don\'t we do them if we have them now because we are in
the next agenda item with Rebecca and she\'s obviously not here yet. So,
go ahead, Michael.

DR. DYKES: Page 9 under the presentation by Catherine Greene.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. DYKES: On page 9 where it talks about the presentation by Ms.
Catherine Greene, I think we should check the comment in the parentheses
there about pesticide residues in organics. Five percent of the
tolerance is set by FDA for all food. I don\'t think that\'s a correct
statement.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: EPA.

DR. DYKES: Well, EPA would set the tolerances. I\'m not sure it\'s 5
percent of the tolerance either. I think you should check that for
accuracy.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Okay.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I think we\'ll need to check both for accuracy and for
what she said.

DR. DYKES: Yes.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Hopefully one in the same.

DR. DYKES: We know the FDA doesn\'t set them.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes.

DR. LAYTON: Good catch. Any others?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I guess what we will do since we\'re waiting for Rebecca
Bech and we\'re a little bit early in our schedule to spend a few
minutes and talk about the papers that we have as an introduction to the
discussion that will begin after the presentation from APHIS.

So, let me talk a little bit about those documents and remind you how
they came about. The topic of coexistence, in addition to discussing
this topic briefly in one previous report this will be the fifth meeting
at which the committee has talked specifically about coexistence.

There have been a number of presentations from farmers, seed companies,
seed trade, the organic industry, a legal expert, suppliers and
shippers, a consumer advocate TV personality and internet personality, I
should say, and two economists, one from this committee and one from
USDA helping to provide background information for your work.

There have also been several drafts and formats considered by this
committee. Most recently at the last AC21 meeting in March the committee
discussed a draft that was in essence a compilation of different texts
prepared by small writing groups. The sense at that time from the
committee was that that draft was too long and rambling and was poorly
organized, containing all sorts of different things, some related to
coexistence and some not, all jumbled together.

As a result, at the last meeting a new set of organizing concepts and a
number of discrete facts for inclusion in the paper were outlined and
the committee asked committee staff, me and our facilitators, to prepare
a new draft taking into account the discussions you just had.

We did this and prepared a whole new draft which was sent to you for
comment on April 17. We received a significant number of comments, not
from all members however, but, we prepared from those comments the May
24th draft. In preparing the May 24th draft we adopted straightforward
comments that seemed to be relatively non-controversial.

The cleanup improved the organization, corrected factual inaccuracies,
but we left open for discussion those comments that proposed either
significant deletions to items that other members had specifically
proposed including or raised policy questions that we felt were best
left to the full committee to discuss.

We didn\'t lose those suggestions though. All of those comments of that
sort that were not directly adopted were specifically noted in the text.
So, we then sent out the newly annotated text on May 25th and requested
comments again. This time we received responses from only six committee
members, a clear sign of draft fatigue, but, an insufficient response
nonetheless.

In the document labeled compiled comments to the 5/24 draft you should
see both suggested changes from the six commenters, the comments they
added to the text, plus the earlier comments from the previous round. I
hope that the two sets of comments are generally easy to distinguish by
color, not that the specific time that we received them is going to
matter very much in the end.

The compilation contains two types of notations. For the benefit of new
members of the committee and the public let me describe how to decipher
the notations in the document. Again, two forms of input: comments and
edits. Comments are generally off to the side except in some cases
inside text boxes. The text boxes wouldn\'t accept comments. The
software wouldn\'t accept comments off to the side so sometimes they may
be imbedded within the text box.

Specific proposed changes to the text are represented by square brackets
in the text. These are the rules for interpreting the square brackets.
Alternative texts are represented with consecutive pieces of text, each
within its own set of square brackets. If there are consecutive
alternatives the first one will always be the initial version and
subsequent one for suggested replacements.

All alternative texts are attributed to members with their initials. If
there\'s only a single piece of square bracketed text it\'s a proposed
addition to the text and it\'s also attributed. Proposed deletions are
also attributed with the word "delete" or "deletion" in italics. And,
finally, it was sometimes necessary to do a bit of nesting of brackets
within brackets imbedding some smaller changes within larger blocks of
text. I hope that it\'s obvious what is suggested in each place where
that happens and I also hope that I haven\'t put any brackets in the
wrong place.

Additionally, we have one other document, as I mentioned earlier,
another draft that was developed by the kind voluntary efforts of Daryl
Buss and Nancy Bryson. Based, as I said before, on the sense that the
paper still rambled on too much, they attempted to capture the central
messages of the earlier reports and produce a more focused and punchy
report, if I could use that term.

It does a few things that I will highlight to you. First off, it
condenses the draft. It\'s only about half as long as the previous one
and the authors freely confessed in their e-mail sending it to me that
they were running out of time in their editorial work so undoubtedly
additional shortening in some parts of the text would still be possible.

It also eliminates the entire existence section. It also adds a whole
new section on things for USDA to consider so as not to leave the reader
with a so what impression. I think in considering how you feel about
this draft and whether it\'s potentially useful to your work and aspects
of it could be adopted you\'ll need to reflect on these three features
which you may or may not find to be improvements.

If you wish to adopt that format I think there will need to be a clear
sense from the committee that it\'s a good way to go forward. Without
belaboring the point let me reiterate that the committee is not under
any obligation to use that document. That having been said, I expect the
whole committee are nonetheless very grateful to Daryl and Nancy for
their hard work and their insights.

So, that\'s the basic introduction to this point. Are there any
questions while we\'re waiting for Rebecca Bech to arrive? Rebecca is
caught in traffic. She\'ll be here shortly after 9:30. So, are there any
questions on how we proceed?

MS. DILLEY: Michael has already said this in terms of just the two
drafts. I think what the first draft, just taking a step back, I think
the 5/24 draft in terms of it being closer to a more organized document,
it wasn\'t there, it was kind of a merger between a meeting summary and
a collection of all the different conversations we have had over the
course of trying to tackle this topic as well as trying to start gelling
around a structure.

And I think what I particularly appreciated in Daryl and Nancy\'s offer
was really saying, okay, I\'ll look at the discussion and then we just
need to strip it down to the more \-- the key themes and try to make a
logic flow out of this which wasn\'t completely there certainly in the
first draft.

So, as Michael said, while Daryl and Nancy\'s draft doesn\'t have
official status per se I think it really does help to pull out what are
some key themes that we were really trying to get our arms around that
were kind of bogged down and a lot of meeting summary type of things.

Now, obviously, there may be some things there that are meeting summary
types of things as well as comments that help. We need to help pull out
and highlight, but, one of the things just to look at in terms of the
structure is basically a lot of it, the main section is the executive
summary and the factors enabling and factors inhibiting are the same.
The difference is taking out the existing marketplace, the existence
issues, and as you\'ll recall we spent a fair amount of time at the last
meeting talking about that. Is that really coexistence or it\'s not
really coexistence if there are issues. They\'re sometimes sort of
linked to coexistence, but, we were really struggling with that and, so,
that is one section that\'s still in the 5/24 draft that\'s not in the
7/22 draft, I\'ll call it.

And then the other section that Michael\'s already highlighted in terms
of the differences just between, if you look at them just from an
outline perspective it\'s "Issues for USDA to Consider." In the last
go-around we had talked about, "Do we want to have recommendation
language?" The question is, is this really recommendation language or
not and then is this the content you would want or not?

So, those just in terms of the big picture outlines and the different
sections in the paper I think is one of the things we need to think
about and then going from those do we have a structure that we can \--
can we gel on a structure and then how do we dig into those respective
sections?

So, just any kind of general \-- and, Nancy, I don\'t know if you also
want to comment just in terms of how you and Daryl approached this, but,
if you wanted to say anything more about the draft that you tackled now
that Michael and I have given our kind of overview.

MS. BRYSON: I guess I would just say that although this comment wasn\'t
passed on with what Daryl and I sent, it\'s the efforts of a lawyer and
that probably means we overlooked a few things. I\'ll hear from other
disciplines on the committee. But, what we tried to do, and we sort of
did a read through of what we had and looked at the various comments and
tried to say, where do we go with these comments?

A lot of the comments were questions about whether material belonged
here or not; that it was difficult to place. So, we actually started at
the end. We thought, okay, if the charge is, what issues should USDA
consider, reading what we had in the report we tried to think about what
those were and they seemed to fall into these three fairly discrete
baskets which we didn\'t do a particularly fabulous job of summarizing
totally, but, we thought that there had been a lot of discussion about
information and public education about coexistence.

There were some common themes sprinkled throughout the report that all
seemed to fit into that basket which is a basket that USDA can deal with
quite effectively given the range of its publication, public education,
and information dissemination programs.

Then the second thing that, at least Daryl and I thought came across
from the draft, is that a big issue was how to support the development
of new and additional tools for the marketplace on coexistence and there
are a basket of different things in here which we thought fit this kind
of idea building off what it seemed to us the committee had agreed on
which is that this is all happening because of cooperation in the
marketplace; what sort of additional tools can expand that cooperation?
And the examples here are just things that are drawn from different
sections of the report.

And then the third thing was providing leadership on key programmatic
and policy issues, including upgrading infrastructure and continuing to
approve regulatory oversight and compliance. These aren\'t things that
you necessarily think about putting together but it seemed to us that
the common, logical denominator for them is a leadership role for USDA
in these two areas that are very important.

Obviously USDA isn\'t going to fix the infrastructure itself, but, it
does have programs of authorities that we didn\'t use\-- to be a leader,
sort of use agriculture as a bully pulpit for that purpose given
everyone\'s interest in it. And obviously the regulatory issues which
have been discussed in a lot of reports, it seemed to us we have heard
from presenters still need to co-work and so we just put those in this
basket also, the leadership role and the policy issues there.

And then that\'s really what we did first and then sort of working
backwards from that what we did was go through the report and kind of
looked closely at the words there \-- do the words belong in this
section; do they advance it. I think that what we ended up thinking
about the existence issues which we spent so much time talking about was
that you could actually discuss a number of those within this framework
of coexistence, what\'s enabling it, what\'s not enabling it.

If you took, for instance, the issue about the perceived lack of
information about organic and you added that to the presentation we
heard last time from Phil Lempert about the increasing important role of
consumer demand for choice among food you could effectively think about
that as a factor that\'s enabling coexistence; the increased consumer
demand for that kind of stuff. And, so, we tried as best we could to
integrate the existence issues into the discussion on coexistence, but,
that was our thinking about the approach.

MS. DILLEY: So, just any general reaction or questions on where the
draft came from or thinking about outline and it\'s going to be \--
we\'re doing this until we see Rebecca and there will be lots of other
opportunities to talk about this obviously, but, I think it would be
good to get going. Nick?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: So, I heard all three of them with the benefit of
having the \-- do I need the microphone? I\'m sorry about this. So, I
read on the plane, I had a lot of plane time yesterday, all three drafts
and first of all my feeling is that we should decide what draft we
should work from before we get started because otherwise this is going
to be a very difficult task to make problems. Secondly, my feeling was
that the 7/22 draft was a major improvement to the previous draft so I
would suggest starting from a shorter draft and adding to it as
necessary rather than the other way around.

MS. DILLEY: Brad.

MR. SHURDUT: Yeah. I think I\'d add on to that too. I think Nancy and
Daryl did, in my estimation, a great job synthesizing, ordering, and I
do like it. It didn\'t quite hit the recommendation piece but at least
it gave you something to grab when you\'re done with this report. So, I,
too, think that we pick a report to start with and I think that last
version is really a great start and I would certainly favor it as the
jumping off point.

MS. DILLEY: Other comments? Anybody who feels differently in terms of,
no, I really like the 5/24 draft because it flows so smoothly? I mean,
that\'s not to say that, you know, we\'re not going to refer back to
those reports, but, I do agree, we have to pick one draft to work from.
Otherwise, it just gets too confusing to move through three different
drafts at once. So, if you have the draft we\'re working on as the 7/22
I think that\'s helpful then we can refer back to the other reports as
desirable or necessary.

DR. LAYTON: And I see some nods.

MR. SLOCUM: Yeah, 7/22.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: 7/22?

MS. DILLEY: So, please read it at the lunch break or before then, not
during Rebecca\'s presentation, before we really dig into it. So, I
think that\'s helpful and we\'ll come back to the issues to consider,
the section that we really want. We\'ll get to that point, but, I know
there\'s some questions about that particular section, but, I think
having a draft, using the 7/22 one, and there are additional copies out
there, because one of the other challenges we had in the past has been,
well, that\'s not on my page 5, it\'s on my page 7.

I think if all the committee members have a draft in front of them where
we all have the same page numbers that would also be very helpful so if
you did not pick up one with the \--

DR. LAYTON: Hole punches.

MS. DILLEY: \-- thank you \-- if you would do that at a break. So,
Michael, without just really getting into it I think why don\'t we take
a short break and then come back. Michael?

DR. DYKES: Abby, is the 7/22 draft that you e-mailed us the same one as
out here on the table?

MS. DILLEY: It is. You know, often times I find that when mine rolls off
my computer versus somebody else\'s printer \--

DR. DYKES: So you\'re asking us to take a look at?

MS. DILLEY: The hole-punched one. I mean, certainly keep yours that you
marked up. I want you to use those comments obviously, but, just for
referral purposes it\'s helpful to all, make sure we have the same page
numbers, etc. so that\'s all I would ask.

MS. GEISERT: Could you just confirm, is it seven pages?

MS. DILLEY: Yes, it is.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Maybe the simplest thing to do is go to the last page.
I\'ll tell you where the last page starts in this copy and if it\'s the
same in yours then you don\'t need to get it.

MS. DILLEY: Don\'t worry about it at this point.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: It starts with the words, "well as regional
differences\..."

If you all got that then you needn\'t go get another copy.

DR. LAYTON: Page before that starts with "the"?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: The page before starts "the issues for USDA to
consider\..."

(Discussion off the record)

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Let\'s take a few minute break and we\'ll wait for
Rebecca to arrive. Please don\'t wander far so we can get started
quickly when she gets here.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken)

DR. SCHECHTMAN: There are a series of documents that are being passed
around. There are a series of five documents that are being passed
around. If we run out of any of them \-- they started in the back there
\-- if we run out of any of them there are more on the table outside.

And, also, Rebecca has brought a limited number of electronic and a
limited number of hard copies of the Environmental Impact Statement. We
can get more of the electronic copies for anyone who wants them.
They\'ll show up later in the day today if people need and we can get a
few more hard copies as well.

So, at the end of her presentation if you would simply let people know,
let one of us know at the front, if you will need a copy we can get you
one either now or later today. You have to actually want to read a
rather long document.

With that, let me introduce, although many of you I think know her,
introduce to you Rebecca Bech, who is the Deputy Administrator for
Biotechnology Regulatory Services from the Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service at USDA and she will be talking to us today about the
various regulatory developments that have been going on on biotechnology
in APHIS and in particular on the Environmental Impact Statement, the
draft Environmental Impact Statement that was released three weeks ago
and will leave you with some things to mull over as well. Thank you.

MS. BECH: Good morning. And thank you for the opportunity to come and
talk to you. I don\'t know if the microphone is picking me up but my
voice carries pretty well so I\'d like to just spend a little bit of
time this morning going through some exciting news for APHIS and that
was that we were able to publish our draft Environmental Impact
Statement.

We did a rollout on July 12th for this and the comment period actually
officially opened on July 13th. It\'s a 60-day comment period. So, I
thought I\'d spend a little time this morning giving you just a little
bit of a background even though I know a lot of you are familiar with
the reasons why we actually decided to do an Environmental Impact
Statement. I\'m going to walk you through some of the key scoping things
that we have in the EIS and I\'d be happy to answer questions on any of
those for clarification.

So, first, I\'d like to start with what we see as the goals of a
regulatory system. And the first thing that I always talk about is that
our systems should be flexible and it should be able to adapt to
changing trends and new scientific information. The primary principles
that a regulatory system should be based on are science and they should
be rigorous yet easy to understand to the public.

Regulations should also extend as possible to encompass the full
interest of all of the stakeholders and they need to meet domestic as
well as international needs and they should be proportionate to the
levels of risk. So, these are really the key concepts that we think of
when we talk about an ideal regulatory system.

Now, regulatory systems often face challenges. First of all, the
technology is evolving and it\'s rapidly evolving. You should have
appropriate oversight then for the, what we call second-generation-type
products that we\'re now starting to see and look specifically at some
of the crop-trait combinations that we\'re beginning to see, in
particular, those things that are looking at some of the stress
tolerance, drought tolerance, cold tolerance.

These are things that when the Coordinated Framework, when we first
started providing regulatory oversight for these products they were at
times \-- really, they might have been in the pipeline but they were
much further down the road so they weren\'t the kinds of things that we
typically saw initially when we put our regulations in place.

Certainly, a new trend that we\'re seeing a lot now is the
pharmaceutical plants and those plants that are being used for
industrial purposes, bio-fuels, something certainly everybody\'s talking
about right now. So, in the future we\'re also looking at genetically
engineered animals. So, these are a lot of things that we have to
consider when we\'re looking at how we\'re going to change the
regulations to adapt to these new trends.

Looking at development of biotech products in other countries, certainly
we\'ve been one of the primary exporters, but, we know that there\'s a
lot of products that are now being developed in other countries and soon
we\'re going to be seeing these coming into the U.S. So, how do we deal
with this low-level presence and what most of you have referred to in
the past as adventitious presence?

That\'s something that we need to consider and certainly a very key
concern that we hear a lot about is this term that\'s called
coexistence. That\'s where something genetically engineered may be
commingled in with bio-genetically engineered crops. And very important
is an increase in transparency to the stakeholders in considering what
their input is when you begin developing new regulations.

So, we started this process a while back. It was primarily driven by the
kinds of new technological trends that we\'ve been seeing and a lot of
the experience that we\'ve gained. As most of you know, the Plant
Protection Act was passed in 2000 and our regulations really have not
been comprehensively updated since that Act passed.

We have, however, when we first put regulations in place in 1987 we have
made changes in the regulations and I have listed just a few of those
that were more significant, but, we\'ve not done any kind of real
comprehensive look at the regulations. So, one of the things that we
looked at when we started talking about do we need to do this
comprehensive look is looking and reflecting back on the 18 years of
experience that we\'ve had in providing oversight for genetically
engineered organisms.

The first step then was to begin looking at what kind of documents do we
need to produce in order to deal with comprehensive review and most of
you understand the NEPA process and it states that if you\'re going to
do something that\'s significant, broad, and has a lot of scope you
really need to do an Environmental Impact Statement.

So we struggled a bit on whether or not we go out with an Advance Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking initially or whether we go right ahead and begin
with an Environmental Impact Statement and we decided because we wanted
to hear a lot from the stakeholders, provide a lot of opportunity for
input into what the environmental impacts may be to the regulatory
changes that we were considering that we would actually begin the
process with the EIS.

This is a little bit different. A lot of times the regulatory agencies
look at doing the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking first, getting
comment on that, and then when they begin to move into actually
preparing the regulatory revisions, they do the environmental document
at that time.

But, along with this we have been looking at the regs. We knew initially
that there was some administrative changes that we needed to make and so
we began writing and considering those things, but, really the EIS is
the basis for the regs and your comments and the input that we get from
the stakeholders then will be considered before we actually begin
drafting the major sections of our regulatory revisions.

So, the public comment period then in 2004 was regarding our notice of
intent to do the Environmental Impact Statement and received about a
little over 3,000 comments on that notice of intent. We consider that as
we begin drafting the EIS and, as I mentioned at the beginning, we
actually started the public comment period on the EIS on July 13th and
I\'d like to make sure that everyone knows that that was a Friday the
13th and the 60 day comment period actually closes on 9/11 so I don\'t
know what that actually means, but, anyway.

We are targeting then for publication for our Rule in early 2008. We
will, again, go through a very lengthy public comment period on that.
We\'ll hold public meetings to get a lot of input on it, and then our
Rule we hope to finish by late 2008. Now, that is what we call a rocket
ride. It is a very ambitious time line and we are aware of that but we
think that the EIS really is a good part of what we\'re looking at and
it\'s a strong basis for what we\'re trying to do with the Rule.

So, this is why it\'s so important for us to get people to comment on
the EIS and really look at that. I know it\'s a 300-plus document but it
really is the basis for what the rules are going to look like.

I\'ll talk a little bit about why did we write the EIS. We know that we
need to follow NEPA guidance and, therefore, we felt like the scope of
the regulatory changes was comprehensive that we would go ahead and
draft the Environmental Impact Statement. It\'s important to note that
the EIS is not the Rule itself. It does not analyze the environmental
impacts of the technology itself. It\'s really instead looking at the
regulatory changes and the differences between what we\'re currently
doing now and what we\'re proposing to do.

So, in the EIS you\'ll see that there are alternatives and then we list
these alternatives. We do a brief analysis of what those alternatives
are and what we\'re putting out in the EIS is the preferred alternative.
Chapter 1 then talks a little bit about the history, our authorities,
and the current regulatory process and Chapter 2 really begins to look
at the issues and action alternatives.

The third chapter talks more about the affected environment and the
fourth chapter is the analysis of the impacts of the changes that we\'re
talking about and then it, of course, gives the preferred alternatives.
Again, it\'s important to note that I often get this question is people
think that this is the Rule and as soon as the comment period closes and
we do the analysis of the comments we\'ll be able to then immediately
act upon these alternatives.

We still have to go through the Proposed Rule process. So, some of the
issues then that are addressed in there is the scope of our regulation,
looking at what we call environmental releases, our adventitious
presence. Some of you are aware that we actually published a policy
statement earlier this year that talked about what we\'re currently
doing on low-level presence.

The EIS and what we plan to do in the reg is actually just formalize
that and make it much more transparent. We\'re looking at
pharmaceutical, industrial traits, approvals, conditional and
unconditional. Currently, I\'ll go through this in a little bit more
detail in just a moment, but, currently we don\'t really do what we call
approvals. We deregulate or we grant nonregulated status so this is a
little different. Again, importation of commodities. We need to begin
looking at that and then also based on the experiences that we\'ve had
over the past 18 years we need to look at all your areas where we can
provide regulatory relief.

So, the APHIS currently regulates genetically engineered organisms
underneath what we call a plant pest risk issue. And that is if they are
genetically engineered with a plant pest sequence or if they are
genetically engineered and they may pose a plant pest risk then it would
trigger us to come in underneath our regulations and begin to look at
that product.

What we\'re doing is proposing to look at the additional provisions and
scope that the Plant Protection Act of 2000 provides to us, in
particular looking at Noxious Weed authority and Biological Control
Organisms authority. The Noxious Weed authority underneath the Plant
Protection Act of 2000 is very, very broad and it encompasses a wide
range of agricultural interests so that really provides a much broader
scope than narrowing it down just to look at plant pest issues.

Biological control organisms are something that we have worked with our
sister agency, the Plant Protection and Plant Protection Quarantine. I
worked with them for fourteen years. I should know that. They had a lot
of oversight on biological control organisms, but, we\'re seeing more
and more of those kinds of organisms that may be genetically engineered
now and, so, we are currently working with them and looking at what kind
of regulatory framework we would put in place.

We currently have a two-tiered system when people and applicants come in
they would like to field test a product then they either apply for a
notification or a permit system and the notification is really more of a
streamlined system. What we\'re proposing to move to then is a
four-tiered system, the first level being something that would be very
similar to what the notification system is, and that\'s for things that
we have a lot of experience with and that we feel like are lower
risk-type organisms. These are particularly the BT-type crops, the
herbicide tolerance, those kinds of things.

The second tier would be something that\'s very similar to what we call
our permitting system right now. These might be new crop-trait
combinations but in general they are things that we might have more
familiarity with such as some of the perennial crops that are being
engineered with a trait that we have a lot of familiarity with,
herbicide tolerance, or something like that. And we are providing those
currently under the permit system so this would be very similar to the
second tier.

Now, moving into the third level then these are things that we have less
familiarity with and we\'re looking in particular at those crops that
are being used right now to produce pharmaceutical-type proteins,
industrial traits, any kind of unresolved plant and safety issues. So,
this would be the third tier.

And the fourth tier, although we don\'t expect that we would be using
this very often, but, we know that perhaps there are people that are
looking at in their research that involve something that is a known
toxin. In that case we felt like we needed a tier that would address
that and we\'re thinking that even in this tier it may be something that
would not be able to be outside field tested so we\'re looking at how
we\'re going to do that and we\'re waiting on, of course, the comments
from the public to help us define more closely what these tiers would
actually \-- the criteria that we would use to put things in these
tiers.

So, the low-level presence, currently we have no specific regulatory
provision within our regulations in 340 but we do, however, currently
look. The first thing we look at is the safety of the commodity. We do
an assessment on that. We look at regulatory compliance. And then based
on these two things we do what we call a preliminary assessment and then
our agency responds based on the safety of the product and if we see
that there are any compliance issues.

So the proposed system then would formalize our response actions that
detection of material from plants meet certain safety criteria. That is,
those that might be in permit tiers 1 or 2 will be non-actionable and
qualifications include addressing protein safety. So, we\'re actually
looking, do these particular instances have protein safety or perhaps
even an early food safety from FDA. We would be considering those kinds
of things when we make our assessment. All other types of products that
don\'t meet this criteria then we would consider to be actionable.

However, we have a wide array of actions that can be taken all the way
from perhaps issuing warning-type letters all the way to criminal fines
so there\'s a wide array of actions that are available to us and we
would, of course, use the appropriate action according to the risk.

So, infractions will be investigated regardless of whether or not they
fall into the Type 1 category. Any time something is reported to us we
would do an investigation to determine if our regulations have been
followed appropriately and if there were any kinds of compliance
infractions.

The field testing that we do for pharmaceutical and industrial traits\--
right now it\'s allowed with both food and \-- it\'s allowed with both
food and non-food crops. We had very strict and rigorous permit
conditions to ensure confinement and we also had increased oversight
from our compliance division. What we\'re proposing to move to is
something very similar. Food crops with protein safety issues may be
subjected to more stringent measures, but, as you\'ll notice that in the
EIS it is keyed up to look at the issue of non-food crops versus food
crops so there is a scoping question that specifically involves that
particular issue.

Looking at non-viable materials, currently we regulate only the living
stages of the organism and what we\'re talking about is moving to a
system that we may provide some sort of oversight for non-viable
material. This is when we deem that it\'s necessary to mitigate any
adverse environmental impact effects. We don\'t anticipate that there
would be very many instances where we would actually provide this kind
of oversight or exercise this authority, but, there are cases that we
think that it may be prudent for us to look at this.

And the example that I give is there may be field trials or there may be
a trait that is being tested that would have like for purposes of
bioremediation or phytoremediation where the non-viable material may
actually have some toxic metals or something that\'s in it. So, we would
then be looking at that if it were to be mixed.

Currently when we\'re looking at the pharmaceutical and industrial we
have no regulatory provisions for what we call a "continuous production"
and moving into commercialization of some of these products so we have a
pretty rigorous permitting system but what we understand and know is
that often times the people that are testing these kinds of crops are
going to continue doing the same kind of build under the same conditions
repeatedly. So, what we\'re trying to do is looking at a type of permit
system then that people could use that would be longer than a one- or
two- year type system and it would be for those products that right now
are not continuing to come out from under regulation but they may be
producing some sort of commercial protein from it, so continuous
production under some sort of multi-year permitting system.

We\'re not exactly sure exactly how that would look but that\'s what
we\'re talking about developing and looking at a mechanism that would
allow that. Currently, when we\'re talking about deregulation we mean
basically one option and that is what is known as a full deregulation
process. Once we go through all of our safety assessments on it and we
deem the product to be safe and the conventionally-bred counterpart then
it comes out from underneath our oversight and we do not exercise any
kind of regulatory oversight.

What we\'re proposing is a second option which may provide a conditional
type oversight mechanism if there\'s some sort of unresolved risk. Now,
this could be done in one of two ways. One is we could retain the
current system and deregulate in part in some cases or we could actually
adopt a new system with what we would call an unconditional approval and
a conditional approval.

Again, we don\'t anticipate that we would do this very often. What
we\'re trying to do is build in flexibility into the system looking at
the goals that I talked about at the beginning. We\'re looking at
products in the future that right now we don\'t even envision might be
produced and so, again, the example of the plant use for
phytoremediation or bioremediation, this may be a case where it\'s
something that people would want to plant and use commercially. However,
we might want to exercise some sort of oversight in the debris and make
sure that we have some sort of regulatory control in how that\'s
disposed once it\'s being used commercially.

So, that\'s another example where right now we could see a product
coming through the system and we might consider some sort of conditional
approval.

Importation of commodities. Right now if it\'s not deregulated and it\'s
coming in it does require a permit. What we\'re proposing to do is look
at the commodities that have been deregulated in the U.S. and they will,
of course, be allowed entry. Regulated commodities that may enter under
a conditional type of approval or permit. That is, if it\'s a commodity
that may be coming in not for an environmental release but something
coming in just for food processing and some commodities may not be
allowed to enter at all depending on the risk and if it\'s not approved
in another country, it\'s coming in, so, you know, we\'re looking at
more of a tiered system that would allow for a lot of flexibility for us
to look at things that might be coming in.

The packaging requirements. We provide a list of very descriptive, what
kind of containers, and if you\'re going to deviate from that right now
it currently means that you have to ask us for a variance. We want to
adopt more performance-based standards to look at what the criteria is.
We don\'t want any escape. We don\'t want it to be disseminating or
existing in the environment. So, we would say that these are the
standards that must be met and then the applicant would be able to
devise the way that they would like to package the system in order to
meet those standards.

Compliance with all other applicable federal and state requirements
would still be necessary.

Exemptions then for the lowest organisms. We currently have what we call
our short list of organisms. These are exempt for any kind of required
interstate movement permits and what we\'re looking at moving toward is
to add other low risk things that we\'re very familiar with to the list.
We\'re proposing really to exempt these plants that may fall out into
that first tier. So, if you\'re field testing something in the first
tier you would not be required then to have a permit to move it
interstate.

We\'re also looking at a mechanism to add items to this list. That\'s
really the extent of the EIS. I break it down a little bit into what the
main scoping questions and issues were and I think what I\'ll do is stop
here and allow for questions before I move into the second part of my
talk.

MS. SULTON: Any questions? Guy.

DR. CARDINEAU: In relation to your last point, are you considering some
exemptions for disarmed agrobacteria? They\'re not pathogens anymore.
We\'re still required to get movement permits and so forth to transport
these around and so that would facilitate things dramatically.

MS. BECH: Well, I strongly recommend that you provide that in the
comments and these are the kinds of things and issues that we would be
looking at, yes.

MS. SULTON: Mardi?

DR. MELLON: Well, I have two questions. I mean, first I\'d like to
compliment the agency on having produced a very extensive, clearly
written, well thought out Environmental Impact Statement.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. MELLON: I mean, they\'ve really done a lot of work. They\'ve
produced a very clear, very comprehensive, very well thought out
Environmental Impact Statement and they are really to be commended for
that.

MS. BECH: Thank you.

DR. MELLON: And I think it will be the basis for a really fruitful
public debate. My two \-- I guess I have one question and two questions.
One is simply that, you know, because it is so long, so comprehensive,
and so clearly going to be the basis of the upcoming rules I would urge
the agency to extend the comment period. I mean, to have a two-month
comment period, one of the months of which is August I think is just \--
it\'s just not going to get you what you could get in terms of comment
and it doesn\'t serve, you know, the interest of transparency or kind of
participation that you\'ve articulated and really I think the hard work
that you\'ve done, you know, deserves a longer period of time so that
you\'ll get more comments.

My second question is whether there is any consideration in the EIS of
looking, I guess, of looking kind of beyond the traditional set of what
can be considered the issues raised by genetically engineered crops to
consider protecting the susceptibility of valuable herbicides. We know
that weeds become resistant to herbicides. We know that EPA has in place
programs that protect basically the long-term efficacy of BT by ensuring
the susceptibility of pests. I really think the pesticides out there are
few enough in number and some, like Roundup^®^, are, you know, clearly
so valuable that we \-- that the agency ought to consider protecting the
efficacy of that class of herbicides by looking to see something. You
know, I\'m not exactly sure what could be done, but, something along the
lines of what EPA has done to protect BT.

I think the weeds are coming. There\'s just no doubt that we\'ve \-- you
know \-- that the problem that was predictable has now emerged, but, I
would just \-- you know, since you\'re moving ahead and doing a lot of
new things I think embracing that impact of the use of biotech as one of
the issues that these new rules might address would be valuable.

MS. BECH: Thank you for the comments. First, I neglected to say exactly
about our public meetings that we\'re holding in conjunction with this
in August. They are all in August. Two of them are here in the
Riverdale, Maryland area. The first one is today from 4:00 to 7:00. And
the second one, because we realized that you all were involved with this
meeting, we\'re holding a second one on Friday, again from, I believe,
4:00 to 6:00. So, we wanted to make sure that people who are involved
with this meeting had an opportunity to go on Friday as well.

We\'re holding one in California on August 16th and again in August 30th
at Kansas City. So, we understand 60 days, but, also we wanted to allow
a lot of public comment through these public meetings so we\'re doing an
extensive outreach in that and may even consider, depending on what we
find out from the first three or first four public meetings that we
have, if necessary we may do another one in September, but, we\'re going
to be looking and seeing what kind of response we get with the first
one.

So, as far as the second comment that you made, Mardi, this is what we
call programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. The kinds of issues
associated with the areas of concern you were talking about with the
herbicide resistance and those kinds of considerations we certainly look
at when we\'re doing individual environmental assessments with products
and we look at cumulative impacts and those kinds of things so it\'s
important if you \-- I think most everyone probably understands in this
room that programmatic environmental impact is looking at the changes
from the current system to what we might move to.

The actual specific kinds of environmental impacts of products we are
obligated to look at underneath either doing an EA for a product or, if
necessary, an EIS for a product. So those things are considered when we
do them individually.

MS. SULTON: Alison?

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Yes. At the beginning of your talk you alluded to
genetically engineered animals and I just wanted some clarity. Does this
cover genetically engineered animals in any way?

MS. BECH: Okay. It covers insects that may have plant pest risk
potential and that\'s the only animals that are covered under this. It
really is specific to plant pest risks. I was in general talking about
regulatory systems, flexibility in things that we\'re looking at that
we\'re having to prepare for, so we are actually looking at genetically
engineered animals and we have the Animal Health Protection Act in APHIS
that we\'re looking at providing some sort of regulatory oversight.
We\'re working very closely with FDA and with EPA within the
coordinating framework, looking at our authority.

We may be starting an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking process in
association with what our scope of our authority would be and what our
regulatory framework would be. So this is specific to plants but on the
future we\'re working on the animal side as well.

DR. MELLON: You\'re not planning to do an EIS on your animal
regulations? You would start with an \--

MS. BECH: Well, we\'d start with an ANPR first. I believe that it\'s our
intention that we would as broad a scope as that is we would probably
need to do an EIS following it, but, we would start the process with an
ANPR whereas in this case because we had regulations in place we started
\-- we did not do the ANPR. We went directly into the EIS, advanced
notice proposed ruling.

MR. CORZINE: Rebecca, I echo everything Margaret said to a point because
it is important and we appreciate the work that you\'re doing. Where I
would offer a different opinion is in moving forward. Although it does
tax all of our organizations to take a look at this, my understanding,
and maybe you could expand, is that this is not the rule so you\'re just
looking at direction to move forward with rule because I think you
should move forward. We are going to have to work a little harder to do
it.

While your agency is focused on this a lot of times these things get \--
you lose focus if you extend things too far so I encourage and
appreciate your moving forward quickly.

MS. BECH: Thank you.

MR. CORZINE: Or the current time line.

MS. BECH: Thank you.

MS. SULTON: Nancy.

MS. BRYSON: Rebecca, I just wanted to follow up with you on the
low-level presence definition. It sounded from your presentation in
looking at the EIS that the way the agency is intent right now to put
some more definition around that in the proposed regulations, is that
correct?

MS. BECH: It\'s difficult to say right now because we\'re waiting on the
kind of comments that we would see, but, we are going to try to
formalize it more, defining it a little bit better how that looks and
we\'re waiting to see what kind of comments we get. We do want it to be
more formalized and transparent in the regs itself.

MR. CORZINE: One other thing I failed to mention. I don\'t know if
you\'ve looked at it or not. As we take a look at changing the
regulations and whether this fits or not, but, could you or have you
thought about with what we see coming what\'s an obstacle to a lot of
the new technology is what we see in overseas approval processes and
regulations can we \-- is this an opportunity to see if there\'s any way
to coordinate or take a look at what would be maybe some sort of
harmonization or synchronization or where other countries would take a
more positive look at the work that you have already done in their
process?

MS. BECH: Well, we know that that\'s a real issue and there are other
things that we\'re doing outside of this initiative to address some of
that. We are trying within some of our bilateral and trilateral meetings
that we have, in particular with Mexico and Canada, to look at joint
review type process, things like that.

But, where it may have an impact with the particular direction we\'re
moving at and looking at importation of products is looking and working
through some of the standard-setting bodies to look at what are the key
kinds of risk assessments that you need and trying to make provisions
between those things that may be coming in for propagation that may be
of higher risk released into the environment versus those things that
may only be coming in from a variety of uses.

So, for us, we see looking at what are the key molecular
characterization assessments that you need to do for that. CODEX is
certainly working on some issues there on what they\'re looking at in
particular with the low level presence issues so we\'re working with
some of these standard setting bodies to address some of those issues.

MS. SULTON: Mardi, do you have another question?

DR. MELLON: No.

MS. BECH: Another thing I wanted to talk to you about, because we may be
asking you to help us a little bit, and that\'s looking at our
compliance and inspection efforts right now. We have a dedicated
Compliance Branch since 2003. We\'ve been trying to build our
infrastructure within Biotech Regulatory Services and we\'re putting
some key effort and focus on that in the next couple of years.

One of the things that we have looked at very carefully is doing
risk-based inspections and we\'ve recently selected a Compliance Branch
Chief. Her name is Dr. Emily Pullins. And, so, she\'s working very hard
to get and solidify some more of our standard operating practices and
the way we work with our sister agency, Plant Protection and Quarantine,
out in the field in doing inspections.

But, we\'re considering developing a quality management system for
biotechnology and that\'s looking at really something that we\'ve looked
at from the beginning and we\'ve really emphasized and that is focusing
on best management practices. From the beginning when we put this in the
system in place we have encouraged best management practices.

And, so, we wanted to look at our strategic plan for our compliance
branch and one of the areas that we have said over the last couple of
years that we were going to start focusing on is an auditing-type
function that could compliment our inspection process.

The outreach program would function more as the compliance
assistance-type program is what we\'re looking at and we believe that it
would improve compliance, it would increase transparency, and would
focus on being more proactive and preventive instead of reactive.

We\'re looking at following along the HACCP type approach or even
looking at the ISO standard approach. And USDA has several auditing
functions within the department within the Agricultural Marketing
Services and within GIPSA. They do some of these auditing and so we\'ve
been working very closely with them and considering ways in which we may
incorporate some of this into our compliance activities.

Some of the issues as we began talking and looking at more about what we
might do is certainly looking at how would we do the training activities
there, what kind of guidance do we need to do for our external
stakeholders and looking at time lines for implementation.

So, questions that I would propose that the AC21 may help us out in this
area would be, what incentives could be developed to increase the
participation by industry and academia? For example, one of the things,
I know EPA uses and several other agencies that have \-- that look at an
auditing function or program set around this is if you are participating
in the program and you have compliance issues they provide an incentive
for unless you\'re applying or some sort of you get points that you can
use towards the system. I see some people are maybe nodding their heads.
You\'re familiar with how EPA operates. So, we\'ve been looking at that.
What information about the program should be developed and included in
some sort of outreach strategy and how might the system then be utilized
internationally? Perhaps it goes back to some of your questions that you
raised about it. Would it be as \-- we say it\'s a compliance assistance
program but also be used as some sort of educational component
internationally to say these are the best management practices and the
way these crops are field tested in the U.S. so that there\'s a core
piece that other people could consider internationally.

We believe that it probably would increase confidence with the trading
partners, but, we\'d like for you all to consider that and think about
as we begin developing and are there ways in which as we develop it we
can put a system in place that would actually address some of the
concerns that we\'re hearing internationally. Increase our capacity in
other countries. All these things we thought would be very open right
now and we would like your input.

So, that\'s really all that I wanted to share with you this morning. I
think that this piece is going to be a key initiative for us on the
compliance side. So, we\'re just beginning to work on this. Think a
little bit about how it will be developed and your thoughts around these
or are there some other questions that you feel would be important for
you all to address in looking at this. That would be very helpful for us
to hear from you.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Thank you. Let me just add a little bit about committee
work and timing on this. Obviously this is something that is still in
the development process. Obviously you haven\'t seen the formal proposal
for how this works yet. The idea is to plant these questions in your
mind now and probably come back at the next meeting. I\'ll remind you of
the questions between this meeting and the next meeting. And we\'ll
devote some portion of time at the next meeting to get your considered
thoughts on the questions that Rebecca has asked you today or if she
thinks of more in the interim.

MS. BECH: We\'ll start with these.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes.

MS. SULTON: Mardi.

DR. MELLON: I would second it. I would second the notion that work is
needed in the compliance area. Certainly we\'ve been trying to follow
this area particularly with regard to pharmaceutical and industrial
plants for several years now and we do lots and lots of FOIAs and every
time we get one back we find out things about the compliance system that
are anything but confident and inspiring.

Unfortunately, now, a lot of our FOIAs are basically just not the answer
and, so, as you move forward to try to improve the compliance system I
would urge you really to be more forthcoming in the form of FOIA so that
people who are interested in how the system is working right now, you
know, have an opportunity to get information.

It is very uncomfortable to kind of feel like you\'ve got all these
FOIAs, you know, based often on earlier FOIAs suggesting that there were
problems and that they just simply don\'t get answered. So, I think some
transparency in advance would help us; would kind of pave the way for,
again, a fruitful discussion of an important area.

MS. SULTON: Paul.

MR. SAXTON: You probably already thought about it, but, I would urge you
on the last point to fold this into your participation in the Import
Safety Working Group because this is particularly relevant to what that
body is doing right now. And we\'d be happy to work with you at State
Department with this to bring the international component on.

MS. BECH: Thank you.

MS. SULTON: Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Rebecca, without being familiar with the
underlying process by which you made progress here, I was wondering if
you can tell me what kind of impact assessment process you are following
or the steps that you are taking as you\'re developing a new regulatory
framework, especially an economic impact assessment.

MS. BECH: Is the question more specifically for quality management
system approach? Is that \--

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: No, more broadly, more broadly throughout the
process looking. Yeah, that\'s right.

MS. BECH: Okay. When we move to actually doing a Proposed Rule there is
an economic analysis that\'s in association with that, cost analysis as
well, so, there will be one associated with any rule, or the EIS is
strictly the environmental document. There is some, a little bit of
discussion in there, but, the full economic assessment is beginning to
be worked on internally right now that would be in association with the
rule.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: And just all the economic impact assessment is
done, the work is done internally. In other words, your organization
also puts out the economic impact assessment?

MS. BECH: Yes. Yes. It\'s not being done within Biotechnology Regulatory
Services. However, APHIS has a group of people that are involved in
doing the analysis and they work very closely also with the USDA, with
the group that provides oversight for that.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Thank you.

MS. SULTON: Greg.

DR. JAFFE: Yeah. I\'m going to go one step farther than Mardi in saying
that I do think that compliance, inspection, and enforcement activities
that go on at APHIS are not transparent at all and I don\'t think you
should have to do FOIAs to find out information about that so I would go
one step further in saying that we just should be responsive and I think
that the agency should be identifying the number of inspections it does
each year, the types of infractions that it sees, the enforcement
actions that it takes.

Other agencies, you said you\'re looking at EPA as a model. EPA as a
model does provide the public on a yearly basis with how many
inspections the different regions do, the types of infractions, the
numbers of enforcement actions. If you want to get compliance in
industry you have to determine and you also have to make information
public, not just to NGOs but to the regulated industry so that they know
what\'s going on and you\'ll get them to be involved in those
activities.

So, I think that I would say that that information needs to be \--
anything that you\'ve got to do in inspection and compliance you really
have to build up a transparency and a public component to that
independent of FOIA.

MS. BECH: I can appreciate that. One of the things we\'ve tried to do is
we do have information on our website about our compliance group. We do
post. If we have violations we post summaries of the investigations and
the summary statements about the violations. It\'s a policy plan as well
to provide some sort of summary report on compliance activities that we
wanted to post on the web.

Part of our problem really is building the infrastructure, getting the
people in place to do this. We only started the actual branch and
division in 2003 and we\'ve been hiring and continuing to hire and build
and so it is our intention to put up some sort of summary report about
compliance and inspection activities.

It\'s a matter of the resources and what we\'re trying to accomplish
here is to add more staff to the compliance branch and dedicate this
specifically to some of those activities.

MS. DILLEY: Rebecca, just so I\'m clear on what you\'re asking them. To
me, some of the questions and comments are specifically questions to you
in terms of outreach, but, thinking of them at large, not just to
outreach or industry and academia, the increased participation, but,
just outreach to lots of different groups and that\'s the third question
along those lines too in terms of internationally thinking about how we
can provide information, assess the system more broadly, not just
domestically.

Am I understanding you correctly?

MS. BECH: Well, we\'re talking about specific to a quality management
type-system.

MS. DILLEY: Right, specific to a quality management-type system. And,
so, just in terms of what you\'re asking the committee because we\'ve
got twenty minutes. People would want to get into this. Are you asking
for the committee to firmly take this up and maybe carve out some time
in the agenda at the next meeting or are you looking for comments
between this meeting and the next meeting informally or both or just
because we want to be responsive?

This is an important issue obviously.

MS. BECH: We\'ve actually talked a little bit about this a lot, so I\'ll
let Michael \--

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes. I think the plan would be to carve out a little bit
of time in the agenda at the next meeting. We\'ll remind you of all of
what\'s been said about this, both through the meeting summary and
we\'ll send out these questions to you as well and we will carve out an
hour or two of time at the next meeting to be able to come back to them
and get your thoughts after you\'ve had a little time to reflect on it.

MS. SULTON: Pat.

DR. LAYTON: Yes. I wanted a question for clarification, Rebecca. When
you talk about an ISO 9000-kind of system, I assume that\'s the one
you\'re talking about, is it you\'re looking at a quality management, an
ISO 9000 plan for your compliance where you would be outside audited or
are you looking \-- because that\'s an old concept if you have
independent outside auditors and that\'s the system I\'m more familiar
with rather than the HACCP system so is that what you\'re looking at?

MS. BECH: Well, one of the things we\'re looking at, we\'re actually
looking at a system similar to something that GIPSA has done about a
verification type system where it\'s voluntary and if people want to say
that they have a laboratory that they\'d like to have as a proficiency
program that GIPSA oversees then they volunteer and once you\'re in the
program then you meet like these ISO standards for your lab. And then
there\'s a recognition that comes from GIPSA that you\'re verified, the
lab\'s verified.

So, what we\'re talking about is initially would this be some sort of
voluntary system that people who are actually doing field testing
underneath our regulations that they may say we\'d like to participate
in this program and right now we\'re still looking at what kind of level
of participation. Are we going to a HACCP type approach, maybe even
considering ISO type standards? So, we\'re beginning to think about it.
It\'s not developed yet, but, it is intended for those who would be
field testing underneath our regulations.

And we kind of see it as compliance assistance.

DR. LAYTON: So you\'re more looking then at the people who are going to
be testing being more ISO 9000 certified rather than your compliance
system being ISO 9000 certified?

MS. BECH: Yes. Our permitting system actually was ISO certified and what
we\'re looking at additionally is, because we just developed our
compliance program and we\'re still putting in SOPs and all, extending
our certification from our permitting system over so initially, yes,
but, what I\'m focusing these questions on and what I\'m talking about
here is really for field testing and the absence on the outside.

DR. LAYTON: Okay.

MS. BECH: Just to let you know that we are considering ISO standards and
we have some of that in place already in our program.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. Great. Thank you. That clarifies a little bit.

MS. BECH: But, it is something that we\'re talking about as voluntary
and we\'re not saying that it would absolutely be the ISO standards,
but, we\'re talking about HACCP-like or ISO standard-like so we\'re just
beginning to think really about the program and what would be of most
value.

MS. SULTON: Sarah.

MS. GEISERT: Thanks, Rebecca. I would echo what Mardi and Greg were
saying. It\'s an area where we too are glad to see activity in the area
of regulatory. This is a topic of quality management. The whole topic of
quality management systems I think is an area of active discussion today
particularly as you deal with imports.

I\'m was wondering, as you were looking at kind of drafting and getting
your arms around it, you know, the area, the FDA does a lot in terms of
the compliance part, certainly FSIS, as you deal with, you know, CODEX
and we would encourage sort of that focus on kind of standards that
exist today. We certainly have HACCP. We think that\'s an underpinning
in terms of food safety, food foundation. We\'re also dealing with kind
of the kinds of GAPs, GMPs, with hygienic practices.

So, I think it\'s a topic that\'s ripe for discussion; there\'s a lot of
work going on; it\'s what constitutes a quality management system; and
then just be the pitfalls around the concept of certification and our
experience has been that there aren\'t any. So, I think it\'s a
component of a quality management system and so I think it\'s a good
topic, but, there are probably many areas internationally as well as
domestically as well within the broad industry that can be helpful here
because if it\'s a multi-faceted topic.

MS. BECH: We absolutely agree. We\'re not trying to reinvent the wheel.
What we want to do is we see this as being complementary. There\'s a lot
of work going on. We\'re starting to talk with people about that. So, I
appreciate those comments and that\'s exactly what we need to hear more
about and need to learn more about.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Any other \--

MS. SULTON: Any further questions?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: If there are no further questions thank Rebecca for
giving us news hot off the presses and giving us things for the
committee to mull over.

MS. SULTON: Perhaps we could take a five minute break. We\'ll break
until 11:00 and then come back and start.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Before you leave, if there is anyone who would like to
receive electronic copies of the Environmental Impact Statement? Okay. I
see three. Four. Okay. If there are no more we have enough copies here
now. If anyone else changes their mind let me know and we\'ll see that
you get one and are there any members of the public who particularly
want one? Thank you.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken)

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Now, I guess we\'ll return to the official business at
hand. We\'re back on line and turn it over to Abby.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, before we moved to Rebecca\'s presentation and
discussion we had decided to use the 7/22 draft and just in terms of a
way to approach this, I mean, the good news is on the introduction and
the charge from the Office of the Secretary we actually had the right
language. Leon, hopefully you\'ll note that even though we didn\'t have
it right in the end in the agenda. And then this first part, the
introduction, just get some background to the reader in terms of the
what the charge was, the definition we used, and methodology.

What I thought might be helpful is maybe look at that again, look at the
major sections which we have an Executive Summary, Factors Enabling
Coexistence, then Factors Inhibiting Coexistence, and then Issues for
the USDA to Consider, as the big pieces are outlined. And typically with
an Executive Summary it\'s always, do you focus on that now or focus on
it at the end? I think it\'s an interim process. I think we need to look
at the Executive Summary now to make sure we captured the right themes.

The 7/22 draft really tries to tighten it up and put the bullet points
into what are some of the dimensions that \-- and just in terms of
setting up the conversation with what we had talked about and what\'s in
the paper now is that coexistence among different types of agricultural
production systems is not a new phenomenon. It\'s been going on for a
while and some of the things that have typified what that looks like or
how that\'s been working, those are some of the bullet points that we
have been putting in there.

And there are some bullet points in this executive summary, so, what I
thought we\'d do is take a first brush at the Executive Summary. We\'ll
probably want to come back and fine-tune it after we\'ve gone through
the whole round of the paper because there may be some other things we
want to adjust or bring in to the Executive Summary that may not be
there now.

So what I would suggest is that perhaps we take a look at the Executive
Summary and start there because that\'s just trying to bring out what is
it we\'re trying to say and why are we trying to say it. And then we can
move into the other sections of the document.

Nick?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: For a seven-page document do we need a one page
executive summary?

MS. DILLEY: Is it just a different title or just remove it completely in
terms of the intro, part of the intro?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I suggest we remove it entirely. I mean, if we are
trying to summarize six pages into one.

MS. DILLEY: Just so I understand. To just take out the text as well or
take out the title? Because the text, I think, you don\'t see repeated
in other places, but, it could be that \-- I mean maybe it is repeated
in other places. Maybe it\'s currently you see some of the same themes
in the enabling and inhibiting. Just so I\'m clear on your
recommendation. Is it to just remove the text and the title out of the
paper? You\'re really going for a four page document?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yes. I mean, if it is to be short and succinct do
you need an Executive Summary? I\'m posing the question anyway.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Reactions to that comment? Guy?

DR. CARDINEAU: It\'s only three paragraphs and some bullet points. I
think it actually adds to the document by laying out the groundwork,
personally. It\'s not very long and I think it\'s useful. That\'s my
personal opinion.

MS. DILLEY: So, \--

DR. CARDINEAU: I would leave it in.

MS. DILLEY: All right. I\'m sorry, go ahead, Greg, then Michael.

DR. JAFFE: I guess I would say I\'m not sure it isn\'t exactly a summary
because I don\'t think it really summarizes the rest of the paper. It
really is part of an introduction or some background or something else.
So, I would agree with Nick, you don\'t need an Executive Summary for a
seven-page document. I would also say that this is not an Executive
Summary. In my reading, I don\'t think it summarizes the high points of
the rest of the document.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. JAFFE: So, if we want to have an Executive Summary I think it\'s
absolutely different than this text because I don\'t really think it
does it. In fact, the last paragraph of it says this report presents but
it doesn\'t set forth what this report is doing, not saying what the
conclusions are from those different sections. But, I do think that some
of the things that are in these paragraphs aren\'t other places and they
do need to be stated, but, you have to come up with a different name for
this section.

MS. DILLEY: Well, we can take out the Executive Summary and leave it as
part of the Introduction and then we need to see if you would put the
text elsewhere but you\'ve done it in other places either we delete some
of it or move it to another place where it is redundant and try and do
it that way.

Michael and then Nancy.

DR. DYKES: Yeah. To me, I don\'t know that we need it. I think, again,
if you look at the methodology it begins with the three key areas and
then you start with the first key area that you\'ve got and you read on
from that so, to me, I think a lot of that\'s repeated. Even in the last
paragraph, what\'s currently the Executive Summary, it repeats the last
line of the methodology so, to me, it flows well, just delete the
Executive Summary section and go 1, 2, 3 as outlined in the methodology.
I would support Nick\'s suggestion.

MS. DILLEY: Nancy.

MS. BRYSON: I think Greg is right that an Executive Summary is the first
thing that we kind of agreed on. The thing that was useful in terms of
our thinking for us was that it let us say people had different views
about how well this is working and it also laid out a framework for
thinking about the different areas that you\'re going to talk about and
that\'s why the bullets particularly talk about seeds, the expert
knowledge about crop management, the infrastructure, the commercial
agreements, the marketplace information, and the legal and regulatory
system.

I think some of the ideas that appear later on are a little complicated
to grasp in the absence of some introduction like this and maybe it is
that kind of an introduction.

DR. LAYTON: Is that then not part of the methodology?

MS. BRYSON: Maybe it could be part of the methodology.

DR. LAYTON: I think there\'s some points that you bring out that maybe
it\'s been sort of an additional paragraph under methodology about the
differing attitudes and the kind of restrictions on seeds and those
kinds of things so I would say that potentially we can pull from, you
know, useful pieces of this into methodology and then it would flow if
that\'s an option that would work for everyone. Guy?

DR. CARDINEAU: Why don\'t we just delete that last paragraph of the
Executive Summary thing?

MS. DILLEY: Of this report, yeah.

DR. CARDINEAU: Right, reiterate and then leave the other, the two
paragraphs with the bullets.

DR. LAYTON: As a part of methodology?

DR. CARDINEAU: A part of methodology.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

MR. SHURDUT: As opposed to methodology. To me it\'s just an
introduction.

DR. LAYTON: It\'s an A, B, C so you got to have something as a C.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: You have to call it something or else you move it up.

MS. BRYSON: Can you say "Overview?"

DR. LAYTON: Put a placeholder over Overview for right now.

DR. CARDINEAU: Framework.

DR. LAYTON: Framework.

MS. DILLEY: I think the important thing is we\'ve deleted an Executive
Summary. There\'s some pieces there that aren\'t repeated in other
sections so we need something and then we can kind of turn our attention
to the particular text and get some comments on that. But, it sounds
like the notion of Executive Summary doesn\'t make sense but we still
like some of the text in there. Leon?

MR. CORZINE: With the risk of overworking this part I would say that I
agree with where we\'re headed on this, but, as we do that, if we\'re
not going to just delete it like we\'ve just done with maybe the last
paragraph, there could be some other things as we go through that we
need to go back and not be repetitive, okay.

MS. DILLEY: And double check.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: This is about structure.

MR. CORZINE: Okay.

MS. DILLEY: Yeah. Yeah. Any other thoughts on, as Michael said,
structure, where we put it, how we would put it, and delete "Executive
Summary"? We\'ve got some other placeholder here that\'s a framework or
overview or something along those lines.

DR. LAYTON: Factors becomes 2 and the next factors becomes 3.

MS. DILLEY: Maybe that last portion of the first paragraph under
methodology is feeding into the rest of the report because we\'ve
deleted the redundancy and that piece of it.

So, just while we\'re talking about structure, before we really get into
the details of editing and text, Factors Enabling Coexistence obviously
is the next section and then Factors Inhibiting Coexistence. Is that
still the right logic flow that we are looking for? Again, I\'m just
trying to look at the big chunks of it and then we\'ll come back to
actually editing the text.

Michael?

DR. DYKES: I thought these bullets streamlined and made it much more
succinct and I thought by and large captured \-- I\'ve got some comments
on the content, but, by and large I thought tried to capture most of the
points that had been made.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. DYKES: Especially on the Factors Enabling Coexistence.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Any other thoughts? Any other? Greg?

DR. JAFFE: I\'m still confused. What are we \-- we seem to be jumping
around. What are we doing right now?

MS. DILLEY: I\'m trying to get the overall structure. This is a big
chunk. We\'ll come back and edit. We\'ll come back to "No Longer the
Executive Summary," the introduction, and really do the editing of that
and then I\'m just trying to get the big pieces here.

MS. SULTON: Do we like the outline or do we think the parts are in the
right place?

MS. DILLEY: Maybe we\'ll come back and fine-tune that after we get more
into the editing details, but, I\'m just trying to make sure that we\'re
\-- you know \-- all the chunks we need to really dig into.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes. This version has a slightly different organization
than the last one we worked on so we\'re just trying to get a general
sense about the overall organization of this before we dive into the
words that are within each section.

MS. DILLEY: I am not going to belabor it. We\'ll come back to it. So,
and then the Issues for USDA to Consider, again, I think the way this
was set up was sort of pulling out themes of what we talked a lot about,
not so much that we necessarily want to \-- when you \-- we need a
section for this that your fine with the three bullets that are
highlighted here, but, in terms of having a section that tries to
extract from it what is it that we\'re really trying to \-- since I
think the charge was what issues should USDA consider I think this was
trying to say therefore you should consider whatever it is that we think
they should consider.

And we\'ve talked about this in terms of, kind of, our "did we want to
do recommendations or not?" It\'s not really recommendations. It\'s
highlighting particular areas. So, I think that\'s the question, does it
make sense and the logic flow to have that and it may be that we need to
answer this after we\'ve gone through the text a little bit more, but,
just initial reactions to that.

Michael?

DR. DYKES: I go back to Factors Inhibiting Coexistence. I thought when
you start to get to page 4 I thought things kind of, to me kind of fell
apart a little bit in terms of keeping them short and succinct. The
whole stuff on infrastructure, it seems like there\'s a radical
departure once you get to page 4 from where we\'ve been the first four
pages.

But, then also on the USDA thing. Issues for USDA to consider. The last
one just wasn\'t really clear to me. Maybe I just finished reading this
late last night. Maybe I need to read it again, but, my comments last
night were the third bullet point, providing leadership, I wasn\'t clear
exactly where that was going.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: But, in terms of the structure of having \--

DR. DYKES: Yeah, I think so.

DR. LAYTON: It certainly answers the questions. What issues, they\'re
there kind of thing. And I like that parallel.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Whatever they are.

DR. LAYTON: Whatever they may be.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes, here they are.

MS. DILLEY: And it\'s also hard to answer if you don\'t dive into the
content of it. So, it may be that, you know, overall, okay, we\'re going
to go through these sections as outlined and we\'ll come back and answer
that more specifically as to what the content is in there.

So, I don\'t hear any other \-- I mean, is there anything dramatically
missing? We\'ve obviously cut out some pieces like the "Existence." As
Nancy has said, some of that has been folded into other pieces here and
there was a fair amount of discussion about the current marketplace
which is now no longer there.

So, is there any discussion of that or are you pretty comfortable with
these major sections as they are, that\'s how the main section of the
report. Again, not that we\'re jettisoning all that material but just
that these are the main pieces of it.

Greg?

DR. JAFFE: I guess I like generally the sections 3 and 4 being shorter
and everything. I don\'t think there\'s a context written any longer as
why we\'re all of a sudden discussing those things. Because what used to
be the Executive Summary, which I\'m not sure what that is now called or
where that is, or, whether it\'s totally deleted, it talks about
coexistence framework. I\'m not sure I understand and I\'m not sure
other people who will read this will understand that.

And I guess some of that \-- I didn\'t like the term, the existing
marketplace because I didn\'t think we were talking about which was the
marketplace, that we were talking about the farm, the existing things
from the farm, not on the market.

What I do think, I mean, I\'ll come back to what I\'ve said many, many
meetings ago which is that, you know, coexistence is a big issue in the
rest of the world but isn\'t a big issue here and one of the factors
that make it why isn\'t a big issue here or why isn\'t it as big an
issue here and then what are the things that may cause it to be a bigger
issue or things that may be problematic in the future in it. I thought
that\'s what we were discussing and we drew a little bit of that in 3
and 4 but we don\'t talk about the context of why it isn\'t a big issue
here.

So, to all of a sudden we just jump into it and we say there\'s a bunch
of things that have contributed to the current coexistence framework.
But, I just don\'t think the framework is the right word. Framework is
that I thought we had all said that on the whole although there are
parts of it that aren\'t looking well it hasn\'t been as big an issue
here and there are reasons behind them and that\'s some of the reasons,
those are some of those factors that enable coexistence so those are
some of the things that has made it not as big an issue here.

But, I think we need to put actually a couple of paragraphs, some from a
previous draft or otherwise that sort of talks about the fact that we do
have, you know, genetically engineered crops grown, organic crops grown,
and others, some of them always on the same farm and they are able to
coexist and we have \-- and then we then explain what are the features
that\'s done that and I know that we attempted in the Executive Summary
to summarize that or make it spiffy or something, but, I think in doing
that we lost one of our key messages.

MS. DILLEY: Right. So, currently, or, in the 5/24 document there\'s some
elements of just some of the themes that you pulled out, Greg, that go
to your point in terms of it\'s not only that coexistence is not a new
phenomenon but we\'re also \-- some of the other things that help shape
our discussion and our thinking is the fact that it\'s not as big an
issue here as it is in other places and the U.S. is a big producer of
and there\'s been a lot of growth in GE and organic crop production.

And then I think maybe we got too bogged down trying to give a whole lot
details on that, but, I think your point remains that we\'ve lost that
in terms of providing that context or how we entered into the discussion
and that\'s important so we need to pull from that some of that language
in the 5/24 document to provide that context.

Sarah and then Nancy.

MS. GEISERT: You know, I\'ve been wondering along those lines if one of
the things to me that\'s missing is a bit of the data. We\'ve given
opinions and we\'ve actually struggled is it working, is it not working,
but, what I like about some of the other reports is you had fact as
context and here today the organic acreage, the traditional acreage, the
biotech acreage almost as an appendix that kind of gave you here\'s what
we were working with on a knowledge base that is really about production
agriculture in the U.S. market today.

It could be helpful as a context and then you can begin to provide maybe
a bit more of a description around it and I think those numbers have
been surprising to many of us here on a number of different fronts.

When you\'re able to pull, you know, government data that would say
here\'s about the market segments, to an outside reader, to me, that
would be, I think, helpful.

MS. DILLEY: Other comments? Nancy?

MS. BRYSON: I think one of the challenges that Daryl and I saw in
looking at comments people made wherever there were fact statements or
not totally true but representative comments were, you know, this
statistic that was in there, and I\'m not sure what the source was,
maybe one of the presentations or something that would need to be
updated to current statistics. I think, Michael, you made that kind of
remark. And we just don\'t have staff on the committee that\'s doing
that.

And, so, we may \-- probably what\'s an arbitrary decision in our draft
to sort of eliminate all the statistics, but, it was for that reason,
Sarah, not because we thought that it detracted from it, but, because
there didn\'t seem to be, you know, a record for it.

MS. DILLEY: Right. I mean, the challenge with going down that road, that
route, is that the balance is it really does help provide some valuable
information and then the question is, well, if you go that route then
what data are you citing, is it updated, and that dimension of it. So,
you have to \-- the committee needs to make a decision if it really
provides a lot of valuable information then it\'s what information are
we providing and making sure it\'s updated and correct information.

Michael, and then Fuller, then Nick.

DR. DYKES: Yeah, my comment of the day is that it references 2005 data
so my comment was we should have 2006 data in there by now since we\'re
almost through 2007. If it\'s readily available we should slip it in
there. If it isn\'t, then 2005 is the last data we have, let\'s use it.
With the past, as I recall, the data, we\'ve really just gotten that
from, I guess, Michael\'s put that in there, the USDA data, so, to your
comment, Nancy, about the staff, I don\'t think it\'s been an issue to
get current USDA data for whatever it happens to be.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: If it\'s clear specifically what you want and if it
exists and if the only thing is going to be, Michael, insert a number,
we can certainly go do that.

DR. DYKES: Insert the most recent data.

MS. DILLEY: I mean, to your first point though, we really have to be
clear about what data are you looking for to be in the report and then
we can update it. So, Fuller, and then Nick, then Pat.

DR. BAZER: Just a brief comment coming back to Greg\'s comment and that
is that when I read this one of the things that didn\'t jump out at me
was the fact that if you look at all the surveys that have been done, at
least the ones that I\'ve seen, you know, there\'s a lot of public
comment in our regulatory agencies that oversee our food supply whereas
if you go to the European Union with the same survey you don\'t get that
same sense so this is something you want to use as a segue into some of
these things might be a possibility.

MS. DILLEY: Nick and then Pat.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: So, to the point that Greg raised I agree that we
should definitely have something in the document that says this is why,
this is reality, it is what it is in the U.S. and we\'ve had enough text
in previous drafts to provide support. I\'m not really sure, although
I\'m not really sure that this kind of report that we are asked to
produce is a data-driven one.

So, I\'m not really sure that data is necessary, not because it is not
enlightening, but, because I think we can see for a while what kind of
data might be necessary for this.

MS. DILLEY: Pat?

DR. LAYTON: I want to get back to Greg\'s comment. Greg, I think you
were saying that you wanted to say something about it\'s not necessarily
a big deal in the U.S. but it\'s a much bigger deal and I was looking in
the 5/24 paper because I couldn\'t remember us ever having written that
down because we were confining it to the U.S. marketplace, so, that was
one of the questions of do you remember if we had some language that we
had written already that was pulled out?

I thought your ideas were fairly good. I thought maybe it was a
paragraph or two to add to that introductory section, but, I don\'t know
that we have that in 5/24 and I don\'t remember that we \-- I don\'t
remember if we had it written in earlier documents.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: If I can just make one comment on that. I think, Greg,
the last meeting was the one meeting that you were somewhere else and I
believe \-- I\'d have to go back to check the transcript, but, I believe
that there was at least some comment in the meeting from some folks who
thought that we should focus on what was going on in the U.S. and not
try to do the comparison in any detail.

So, that\'s just another \--

DR. JAFFE: I completely agree. I completely agree that we should focus
on the U.S., but, I think we have to put some context of why we don\'t
have data of why it\'s not working in the EU or things like that. All I
was saying was our discussions from four or five meetings ago when we
first talked about this was the issue was why are we talking about this,
is there an issue here, and one way to contrast that was was to say,
well, it is an issue in a lot of other places and what\'s working well
with the system.

So, I think we\'ve had a lot of discussions at the beginning about that,
but, I think we have to put some context of why are we talking about
factors contributing to coexistence; what\'s the context for talking
about those? Well, because there are things working well here and just
to give a little background about that is all because people are going
to see a report about coexistence and other people internationally think
about it in a different way I think than we\'ve been thinking about
here.

MS. DILLEY: Mardi, and then Paul, and then Michael.

DR. MELLON: I mean, I hate to say this, but, I\'m not sure that this
committee has \-- I mean, I\'m just not sure that we have identified an
issue on which we can, you know, productively provide comment.

I think it\'s very hard to know what the issue is. I mean, when it comes
down to what issues should USDA consider regarding coexistence in a
dynamic, evolving, complex marketplace, I mean, what\'s the problem? And
we\'re not willing to kind of define the problem with coexistence. Is
the problem that organic agriculture feels, you know, somewhat unfairly
hobbled by the fact that they just don\'t want to grow GE and through no
fault of their own they\'ve got a lot of GE in their products and they
just wish it would go away?

I mean, is that the problem or is the problem that the biotech industry
feels somehow that in other parts of the world coexistence \-- the need
for coexistence is somehow adding to the set of problems that they feel
they have? But, without a problem we just really \-- I think we\'re
just, you know, floundering and, so, I mean, I\'m just \-- I\'m getting
to the point where I\'m not sure what we\'ve \-- you know \-- I\'m not
sure what we\'ve really got to offer.

I mean, something along Greg\'s \-- the lines that Greg\'s, you know,
mentioned might be useful, but, I\'m not sure how much and, you know,
that being said I think it is also true that we are \-- as part of our
context I think we need to acknowledge that we\'re the Agricultural
Biotechnology for the 21st Century committee so we\'re composed of
people primarily who care about biotech.

And, so, there is \-- if we\'re going to talk about the coexistence of
two things, one thing is really well represented in the committee, and
the other one really comes in only via presentations or perhaps, you
know, some of the commitments that others of us have, but, we need to
\-- you know, that, too, will always make this feel \-- you know \-- it
will never sit right to the other people in the world for the AC21 to
say coexistence isn\'t a problem because it isn\'t a problem for you and
you\'re not well-represented \-- you know, the folks for whom it is a
problem have some access to the process and in some cases they don\'t.

I mean, all of which is to say I just \-- you know \-- does it ever
happen that committees like ours take on issues that after thinking
about it they really don\'t have a lot to say or am I \-- I mean, maybe
there still is worth a struggle, but, \--

MS. DILLEY: Mardi, I think you raised a lot of issues and some of them
go to the context and I think one of the challenges that we\'ve had on
this topic in general is what is the problem we\'re addressing.

I think that\'s one of the first issues you raised and I think where we
came around to that was we got a lot of different perspectives on that
partly due to exactly what you said in terms of how we\'re comprised,
but, what we ended on was not defining the problem or talking about so
many differences but then talking about, well, we all can agree that
fostering coexistence is a good thing.

And we are still partially hampered by what you were saying which is
we\'re comprised of a group that\'s focused on ag biotech, not
coexistence at large in terms of conventional and organic as well. So,
but, to me, that could be statements within the context, if you will.

And then the question still remains, well, do we have some things to say
about fostering coexistence that we think are worth putting down on
paper and delivering to the Secretary and that\'s really the question I
think that the committee, not bypassing some of the things or avoiding
stating some of the things in the context, but, if we can explain the
context well enough and we come out the other end in saying, well,
fostering coexistence is important and we think the committee has
something we want to say then, how do we best say it given all that
context, I think, is really the question.

DR. MELLON: I mean, I\'ve put that sentence in about eight times and
every time it comes out, you know, that the USDA has the responsibility
to foster the different forms of agriculture and the coexistence among
them.

MS. DILLEY: It\'s still in the 5/24 draft and that should be in the
7/22. I\'m less familiar with the 7/22, but I \-- yes. No, I think that
is \--

DR. MELLON: But, I want to say that and I\'m not \-- I\'m trying to be
\-- you know \-- I\'m trying to say, well, maybe the folks that are
interested in biotech don\'t want to say that and maybe we should just
acknowledge that that\'s not what they\'re about, that\'s not, you know,
what they were put here to do, but, until we can say that the idea that
the coexistence issue just has no context at all to me.

I mean, it just comes down to, you know, basically some form of just,
you know, keep the USDA out of coexistence and let things develop. Or,
there was another real issue here and that\'s the coexistence between
the biotech folks and the conventional folks who want to serve this very
real, I don\'t know how big, but, very real market that wants GE-free
products and there are problems there, you know, that kind of arise in
the adventitious presence context that are somewhat addressed.

So, I\'m just getting \-- I think there are a lot of \-- we\'ve done
well in the past. We might be able to do well in the future. I\'m just
not quite convinced that we\'re out of place \-- we\'re in an issue
where this group can make much of a contribution.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Paul and then Michael.

MR. SAXTON: As a complete newcomer to the group I hesitate somewhat to
make comment. However, I really think that Greg is correct, that you
really do need an international context and it affects what goes on in
the United States also because it affects the ability of companies to
sell seeds to Europe, for instance, because if their farmers can\'t
plant them because of coexistence problems then that\'s a serious issue.

I mean, we even have the, to me, ludicrous situation where Cyprus is now
trying to put coexistence in the supermarket so that you can\'t put a
box of Cheerios that might have biotech products in it in the same place
where another kind of cereal is that is organic or something else and
that\'s under consideration right now, even if the President wants to
veto that.

And I think the implication is is it\'s in Europe they say that
coexistence can\'t function and we need to separate farms and separate
things. Those kinds of arguments come back here also and I think that\'s
something that needs to be brought up in here because it is a problem,
both real and potential.

MS. DILLEY: Michael and then Guy.

DR. DYKES: I think Greg and Mardi as well, I think there\'s some context
needed. I think we had some of it as I look back on like page 2 we\'ve
indicated to some of the stuff about the context about coexistence, how
it\'s been happening. I think we need to add some of that before we get
to some of these other bullet points. I\'m with Mardi too. I think we
started off as a committee with a rather diverse view of all the many
problems associated with coexistence and I think as we listened to the
presentations and we thought more about it I\'m not sure we\'ve come
down to what is the problem that we\'re trying to address today.

DR. MELLON: But, I can assure you the people in the organic community
believe they have a problem; one not of their own making that makes
their lives difficult, and, so, while they may not have persuaded this
group that they have a problem they believe they do and, so, I would be
very \-- I don\'t know, if we go forward with this I just wouldn\'t want
to \-- you know \-- I won\'t be a party to kind of, you know, glossing
over their belief.

MS. DILLEY: Yeah, I don\'t think that\'s where Michael\'s going. I think
he agrees with your point of what problem are we really trying to
address and do we have anything to say on it. I think that\'s \--

DR. DYKES: I think what we\'ve come down to is so what are the factors
that are in that and, so, I think that\'s how we got to where we are
with this 7/22 draft.

MS. DILLEY: Guy and then Alison.

DR. CARDINEAU: I appreciate Mardi\'s comment, but, I\'m still confused
by how big an issue this is for the organic community since the organic
community, from my narrow perspective, when I think of organics I think
of fruits and vegetables primarily. I hate to use the term vegetables
because it\'s a culinary term. But, when we\'re talking about corn and
soybean, the amount of acreage that\'s organic is very restricted and
soybeans itself pollinate before the flowers open so there\'s an
adventitious problem there that has to do with seed mix actually.

DR. MELLON: All of that\'s true.

DR. CARDINEAU: I think we have to address it, but, I\'m not sure I
understand that it\'s as big a problem as you seem to suggest.

DR. MELLON: Well, then let us just leave it.

DR. CARDINEAU: No, but, I want to understand it, so, can you give me
some numbers? Is it possible?

MS. DILLEY: Wait a minute. I think we could go down that path and I
think we\'ve gone down that path with some presentations, etc. What I\'m
hearing is the content between, can we be definitive about what the
problem is, and how to fix it if we are comprised of organic, biotech,
etc. That, to me, is a different issue than saying we\'re not \-- there
is some contextual issues to put around this and we want to help foster
coexistence from our perspective. That\'s a different route to take than
we\'re going to be the definitive \-- I\'m sorry \-- well, articulate
definitively what the problem is or is not in the U.S.

And I thought we, a couple of meetings back, decided not to go down that
route but talk about fostering coexistence and whether we have something
substantive to say. It\'s a question to the committee and to what would
be most useful to the Secretary to say is going down and defining the
specifics of the problem of coexistence what you want to have us come
back to and then we need to think about do we really have the right
tools to have that definitive statement or, you know, what\'s going to
be most useful?

So, I think we\'re having different conversations here so I just want to
be clear what conversation we\'re having when and I know a lot of cards
went up, so, let\'s go through the cards and get some additional
comments.

But, before we go down that path, Guy, of tell me what exactly the
problem is I want to just get some more input into it. We\'ll come back
to your question but I\'d just like to get some more input. So, I
believe, Alison, you were next and then we had Jerry, Adrian, and Nancy,
and Nick.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Well, I guess I feel like this is not that narrowly
focused. I remember Guy saying like he can\'t grow GE potatoes because
of market issues and McDonald\'s. I think there are a lot of border
issues that this committee\'s very well positioned to address and it was
bigger than just organic. It was also genetically engineered items that
couldn\'t come on to the market and alike, so, I don\'t think that it
wasn\'t that narrow in this report.

MS. DILLEY: Jerry and then Adrian.

MR. SLOCUM: Well, I would echo what Alison said because if you look at
three of the first four bullets under inhibiting coexistence you speak
about seed in the second bullet which is an issue for all three, but,
particularly an issue for the organic community. You talk about labor in
the third bullet and you expressly mention labor-intensive organic
sector. You talk about in the fourth bullet you talk about like
transparency in the organic product market.

I mean, it seems like to me that more than half of the \-- well, three
of the first four and about half of the bullets specifically speak to
the organic sector. So, I mean, I think we\'ve heard what they said and
I think we heard what Russ said since Russ has a particular interest in
fostering these types of farm opportunities. I think that we mentioned
those without specifically saying there\'s a problem in the organic
community.

Maybe we ought to say there\'s a problem that the organic community has
coexisted simply because of the size of the production. And maybe we say
that somewhere but I think we talk about the problems that they
mentioned to us, with the exception of lack of money to enter the fray,
if you would. But, if there\'s such a high demand and such a high profit
opportunity then that ought to solve itself, you would think, but, I
don\'t think \-- I do remember when we started this and we started
hearing presentations there was this element on the committee that says
why bother with a report since there are no problems in the U.S., and
there are. Obviously, there are problems, but, I remember that card
being placed on the table, but, there was a desire from the Secretary\'s
office to have us talk about it and a desire within the committee to
talk about it.

MS. DILLEY: Adrian, and then Nancy, and then Nick.

DR. POLANSKY: Well, first of all, some of us do represent all sectors of
agriculture and, therefore, I think more than a few do speak for all of
the elements of agriculture, but, I come with the perspective that it\'s
important for organic agriculture from the producer to the consumer has
an opportunity to have a viable economic opportunity to provide products
that a segment of the consumers prefer or demand, however you want to
look at it.

I also represent those that see genetically enhanced food products as
opportunities, not just from, as I\'ve tried to communicate in the past,
not just because of the advantages for producers, but, ultimately the
advantages for consumers for a whole range of reasons and part of it
economic because of the productivity does relate into lower costs for
consumers and there are some other things we can talk about there.

I also represent people that are in conventional agriculture that want
to produce conventionally and so forth. So, that\'s the reason that I\'m
an advocate for coexistence, not an advocate that prohibits any one of
these various options and there\'s others out there, natural and
there\'s a lot of different kinds of processes that are out there.

So, to me, that\'s critical in terms of identifying what enables
coexistence to occur for all of those participants all the way through
the food chain from the producer all the way to the consumer as a matter
of it comes down to choice and it also is just as important to identify
those factors that inhibit so that we can make it possible for everyone
to participate from production to consumption.

That\'s what we\'re talking about and some of the elements of various
\-- some people in these various sectors don\'t want coexistence. They
want just themselves to be able to participate and that I don\'t agree
with. That doesn\'t mean I don\'t represent them and don\'t care about
them and don\'t want practices in place so that we can manage each one
of those will have an opportunity to participate. So, I just wanted to
\-- I just felt like I needed to share those comments.

MS. DILLEY: Nancy and then Nick.

MS. BRYSON: One of the things that Daryl and I tried to focus on was the
charge to the committee which is the Secretary is asking of the
committee what issues about coexistence should USDA consider. So, I hear
what you\'re saying, Mardi, but, I\'m not \-- I think if you try to
define a problem it is hard to define a problem in terms of the context
of that charge. It doesn\'t seem to me that the committee, given what
we\'ve heard, would go back and say we can\'t write a report because we
can\'t identify issues for you to consider.

And, so, that\'s why it seemed to me that in the context of these
discussions about factors enabling coexistence, factors inhibiting
coexistence, that it\'s possible to lay out the range of views about the
subject and then sort of come back together in a more generic way about
issues by identifying these other things which would enhance the kind of
cooperation which it seems to me the committee is sort of focused on is
the new, at least in terms of what we\'ve heard.

And I don\'t know if others had the same reaction, but, I thought that
the bullets from the meeting summary that was passed out this morning
from our last meeting on page 7 really kind of synthesized well the
general concepts that we thought ought to be included, you know, as the
basis for going forward and it\'s not - -it wasn\'t the idea of trying
to define a problem, but, it was trying to sort of adopt a reporting
function saying this is what we see happening in the marketplace.

And to Greg\'s point, there is this last bullet there about how this
paper gives us an opportunity to frame coexistence in a more positive
way than has occurred in the European Union by reinforcing USDA\'s
commitment to small and mid-size farmers.

And I think that\'s a good point. I found it difficult, and I appreciate
your question, Pat, in looking at the 5/24 draft to identify language
that we used there that helps us say that because some comments were
made that we didn\'t want to identify certain characteristics as being
unique to the U.S. marketplace to avoid, you know, suggesting that there
was something special about the market orientation even less, so, it
wasn\'t the intention to exclude that. It was simply that given what we
were working with Daryl and I didn\'t see some way of saying that the
committee had already worked on.

MS. DILLEY: There is some language in there, I think, that goes to some
of the things that we\'ve been talking about. Nick and then Jim.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I guess I just wanted to comment for the record.
First of all, I believe we have both the expertise in the presentation
around this table to address the issue so I don\'t think that we have
any shortness of issue there. I believe that we have discussed the issue
in some length and raising the question, so what\'s the issue after all
is almost as a group because we\'ve addressed this over and over again
and even at the end the overall conclusion that we come up with is that
there is not a real big issue around coexistence.

I think that\'s still valuable to be put into the report in the context
of this committee. In other words, that the committee considered all the
issues on the table and here is what we can come up with, but, you know,
we still don\'t believe that there might be big issues here, okay. So, I
think that might be valuable.

Finally, I think to Greg\'s point, if we say anything in this report I
think having said that, for example, in the European context there\'s a
lot of discussion about coexistence but there is no coexistence actually
taking place versus in the U.S. having a whole lot of coexistence taking
place but there\'s not a lot of discussion about it is valuable in
putting this into context.

I think, and putting this into a report is valuable one way or the other
having into the report is valuable and we have both text and bullets in
the past to flush this out and the reasons why this is happening in the
U.S. so I think having that would be very useful.

MS. DILLEY: Jim and then Leon.

DR. ROBL: As a new committee member I think my perspective on this
document is to, first of all, try to see it completed so we can move
onto the next issue. I read it from the perspective of somebody that\'s
not in the plant area and, so, you know, I looked at it and said, okay,
this is what the job was, you know. Reading through it, did you complete
the job or not specifically, and when I got and I read through and I
went to Factors Enabling Coexistence and I thought, yeah, that\'s good
information and Factors Inhibiting Coexistence, I thought that\'s good
information.

But, the document really fell apart after that. There wasn\'t anything
there that held my attention or seemed to address what was the primary
goal or task of this committee and it almost seems to me this issue of
is it a big issue or is it not is that really what you need to talk
about or did you do your job when you got through those factors and
essentially put that in context like we\'ve been talking about and the
job\'s done.

I\'m not sure, you know, the other stuff adds a lot to the document.

MS. DILLEY: And I think we were \-- I think as several people have said
we were \-- it\'s been framed around a different set of things as
opposed to how big a problem is it and being more specific about it.
It\'s really been about what issues do we need to think about and so our
risk management tools, and we talked a lot about risk management tools
and do we need more of those. Is the infrastructure adequate or isn\'t
it and it\'s been around that kind of conversation as opposed to again
being more definitive about, do we have a problem or don\'t we.

That\'s why I think when we started talking about the context and where
we entered into that there was a lot of discussion around that, and I\'m
not sure, we may need more context, but, I\'m not sure it\'s going back
to defining the problem. That seemed to be where we got on a different
course and that we\'ve been following since the last couple of
discussions which was more on how do we foster it and in order to foster
it we\'ve got to figure out what\'s helping and what\'s hindering and,
so, that\'s where we need to put our energy and then do we need to
complete that last section, so what, so what are we telling the
Secretary in terms of what issues they need to consider.

Well, we may or may not get some things that we can expect from that and
really highlight. So, Leon and then Nick, is your card back up? Okay.

MR. CORZINE: I wanted to help us focus and back to Greg\'s point about
would it help if we had a snapshot, say, a couple of paragraphs where we
are in the beginning and then these other things; as we look forward
what does enable us to move forward or what has, and that\'s the way I
looked at that, and then what other things could we do that are maybe a
problem that we could fix, and that maybe gets us out of this we don\'t
have to work at it, this is a big problem or is it not a big problem,
but, a snapshot with some facts about where we are today in the United
States.

That\'s what we\'ve had presentations about and so it should be
something pretty concise and then we don\'t have to get into arguments
about, well, this is a big problem or I\'m inhibited or I\'m not
inhibited and those kind of things. It\'s more, okay, here we are. And
maybe that gets us a little more factual and a little more concise and
not quite so into those things that don\'t have a lot of facts.

MS. DILLEY: Can you elaborate on factual because what I thought was \--
one of the questions we talked about is there a need for data or do we
need to go \-- does it really add or detract. The other piece of it was,
I think, some of the language that Nancy referred to in the summary I do
think is along some of the lines Greg was talking about in terms of
what\'s missing, is there\'s some context that we need, and I\'m not
sure the context that we need is, you know, like you said, Leon,
defining what is a problem and do we need to fix or don\'t we need to
fix it.

It was more here are some of the things in terms of what we thought
about and why we got to inhibiting or enabling coexistence was really
where we concentrated our discussion. That\'s partly from some of this
contextual stuff that we still need to get our arms around and be more
articulate about. And then it goes more into that and then the question
is, well, do we have anything to extract beyond that.

Is that right?

MR. CORZINE: Yeah. Because I think we\'ve got a good point. I mean,
we\'re diving into these things with nothing to actually start it and I
think we have that in one of the other earlier text, kind of the
existing marketplace. Greg, is that your thought to get us started and
then, okay, then we go into these other things, something fairly
concise? We do have data that shows, okay, we\'ve got these percentages,
this is where we are, this is \-- you know \-- I don\'t think that would
be too difficult to do and then you move forward from that.

And maybe that helps us focus and I don\'t like to work from just, well,
this is a huge problem, this isn\'t any problem. You know, you go more
towards what you can do in a positive light and can we do something or
not.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Did you ask a specific question of Greg in terms of
that\'s tracking with what he was saying? So, Greg, why don\'t you
answer that and then we\'ll go to Nick.

DR. JAFFE: I still believe, and I travel all over the world, and I think
that the rest of the world doesn\'t realize that all three or four or
six or twenty seven different types of production is going on in the
United States at the same time, you know, and they all think it can\'t
be done and, I\'m not saying it\'s done perfect here at all, but, it is
being done here so I do think putting a couple of paragraphs in with
that context is really important because then it frames our discussion
about things that are working and what is working well, and then we
discussed things that we think might either could be working better now
or that might become more problems in the future as we have a more
diverse marketplace and more different kinds of products and specialty
products and so forth.

And then the last section can sort of go by the wayside and you just
sort of say the Secretary should pay attention to both the factors that
are working and the factors that aren\'t working, you know, and continue
to support the factors that are working and try to minimize or eliminate
the factors that aren\'t working.

I don\'t think there\'s a lot more that we have to say after that, but,
I go back to the sentence we\'ve had and keep coming back to this idea
that it isn\'t an issue here but it clearly hasn\'t had the same
political press and other profile and why is that, and I think where we
really contribute to the debate on this issue is to explain in our
policy and with people we have at this table why this hasn\'t been which
is to a larger sense the factors enabling coexistence.

But, then we also use the forward part of our charge to sort of look at
it and say, well, there\'s a bunch of things that we think have been
helpful to coexistence there but there\'s also some things that either
aren\'t working as well or that we think may end up becoming pressure
points, or, whatever word we used, pinpoints, in the future.

MS. DILLEY: Nick and then Nancy.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yeah. I was just going to say that maybe taking
section number 5 all together out, leaving one paragraph that says USDA
should support coexistence in general and then consider factors in 3 and
4. So, instead of having a section issues of the USDA to consider just
leave the report at the point that says, you know, we think that
coexistence is an important objective, you know, in itself and USDA
should do its best to support it.

DR. MELLON: Add that sentence back that clustered the three forms of
agriculture that we\'re discussing in coexistence?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Just leave it at that. Just leave it at that
because we already have what\'s working and what\'s not working and,
therefore, just leave it at that and that will also shorten up the
report.

MS. DILLEY: Nancy and then Guy.

MS. BRYSON: I was one step before Nick. I was going to say it sounds
like the sense is it would be good to bring the existing marketplace
back in.

MS. DILLEY: Yes. Yes. Some of the pieces and it may not be whole hog
back in, but, I think that the dimension that we\'re talking about in
terms of, you know, so what is going on here not as a declarative and,
therefore, we have no problem and it\'s not working perfectly. That\'s
not the intent. It\'s to really provide that backdrop of so why are we
are producing \-- why has organic really grown and GE grown along with
conventional and other kinds of production systems. I think that\'s the
real fact that we were missing in the 7/22 and now I\'m kind of getting
a better sense of that.

And, as we\'re getting clear on that, to me, that helps that we\'re not
trying to say a declarative that\'s perfect here and, therefore, we
don\'t have anything to talk about, but, it\'s more \-- you know \--
it\'s a little bit different here and there\'s things that are happening
where there\'s lots of different things are expanding and, so, what are
the elements of what\'s encouraging that and what\'s inhibiting that.

That seems to be the right balance that we\'re trying to strike. Nancy
and then Pat and then Guy. I\'m sorry, Nancy, you just said. So, Pat and
then Guy.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. I actually think it may already be here, it\'s just
not reading it. I mean, I looked at Nancy and Daryl\'s draft and on page
2 at the very top it says coexistence is an important characteristic of
the, and I would add current successful U.S. agricultural system.
Coexistence has developed as a result of the efforts throughout the
entire crop production chain to develop the tools necessary and it is
based on, and it gives you a series of bullets.

We then talked about the fact that we had different views. I think
that\'s important to say. I think there\'s a statement that needs to be
said, something about outside the U.S. We as a committee certainly felt
there was a perception that that\'s not necessarily the case and you
read something from page 7 of the meeting summary and it may be an
important statement.

And then I looked down in the enabling coexistence thing and, for
example, there\'s a part that says a relatively small size of organic
crop acreage compared to conventional and genetically engineered
acreages and the limited number of crops of GE varieties on the market.
Here is where I actually could see expand that bullet with some of the
numbers that we have specific to that or footnote those numbers and say,
you know, put a footnote, the committee received presentations, here\'s
the facts for that or here\'s what we based on that kind of thing.

But, I actually think it\'s not that it\'s really missing. It\'s just I
think if we could sort of tinker it a little bit and add to it and
really not do a lot. I also like the concept of really looking at once
we went through what aren\'t we doing, you know, if we kind of go
through what we\'re doing well and then we kind of look at what we\'re
not doing well and I\'d like to maybe go through that in more detail to
make sure I know what it\'s talking about, but, and then we really might
not need the issues.

The USDA should consider the places where it\'s not working or areas
that need help; factors that are inhibiting, you know. I like that
concept, however. I forgot who said that, but, that\'s pretty
interesting.

But, I think it\'s important that we look at what\'s already there
because it is in a little different format than we\'ve had it so rather
than whole hog put a new section in are there places we can just add a
little bit to a bullet here or there or strengthen like I did. I took
the word, framework, out of that first paragraph because it\'s not about
framework, it\'s coexistence.

I mean, it\'s a thing, it\'s a noun. Right now, if we could strengthen
that maybe so that was my suggestion.

MS. DILLEY: Guy and then Carol.

DR. CARDINEAU: I was going to agree with Nancy that there are components
of the existing marketplace that I think we\'re missing and Mardi had
moved a couple of paragraphs from the Executive Summary part in there
and I agree with you. I think those are important components. It\'s
possible what\'s Pat\'s suggesting will address this, but, those three
or four paragraphs right there hit all, I think, of the high points with
regard to what exists now, how it has existed. It touches on
coexistence; has a global, national, local dimension which addresses
some of Greg\'s points.

And I don\'t think it detracts from the document to add two more
paragraphs that establish what the foundational context of our position
is of not only with regard to the U.S. but looking at the global
marketplace. We have a lot of good points in here and I don\'t
necessarily think it\'s a good idea just to toss them out just because
we want to make it shorter.

DR. LAYTON: But, I didn\'t think there was anything that\'s a non-U.S.
context. I\'m still not satisfied that I have a statement other than
what\'s in that meeting summary notes that was read.

MS. DILLEY: Sarah?

MS. GEISERT: Yes. A couple of comments. I think, you know, Greg is
right. Having circulated this paper, because we produce products around
the globe, there\'s been an interesting discussion to say, how does your
farming work in the U.S. that allows this to happen? And, so, it\'s been
helpful to provide some context and what you get into is the challenge
of sort of, I call it the macro versus the micro phase. You know, it\'s
working. We\'ve seen some evolution over time of some challenges that we
face. We\'ve still been able to meet the need.

But, it actually has provided some, I think, at least for companies like
ourselves, is the ability to have some more informed dialogue that helps
tease up different agricultural systems around the world. And, so, I do
think that this group does have a broad range of perspectives and is
able to add some dimension that can be helpful depending on who the
reader is.

I still believe we need a little more context on that. And I\'m
wondering why another factor is, you know, that we could see in the
enabling to coexistence is where you build in the role also of USDA.

I think while we\'ve argued depending on your perspective how much
support they\'ve given, how much regulatory oversight\'s been provided,
I do think it\'s the strength of why coexistence directionally has been
working in the U.S. is that there has been an attempt to foster all
three and that is a factor that contributes to it too so as we continue
to build the role of government it could be another way to build that
in. It\'s in the factor that discusses it because that is another part
that is different. At least that\'s been the feedback that I\'ve gotten
from markets that we do business is, you know, a more active advisory
open discussion role that USDA has tried to foster.

And, so, that may be another way to build it in to say what\'s working
and they need to continue that. So, just was a thought.

DR. LAYTON: So, Sarah, you\'re just saying we should probably add a
bullet then that says USDA fosters open communication and \--

MS. GEISERT: You\'ve got to work the words.

DR. LAYTON: \-- assistance to deal with the issues.

DR. MELLON: No, it has to foster the different kinds of agriculture.
They have to foster \--

MS. DILLEY: That\'s in there.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: That will be there.

DR. MELLON: \-- or name it. They have to foster conventional and, you
know, \--

DR. LAYTON: Foster different agricultural systems and open dialogue
about this.

DR. MELLON: Because otherwise you\'re coexisting between nothing and it
has no \-- it all just dissolves.

MS. DILLEY: Jerry?

MR. SLOCUM: It seems to me that we\'ve mentioned, at least in my mind
we\'ve mentioned why the U.S. system has allowed coexistence among the
three kinds of agriculture where other places in the world haven\'t.
When we talk about factors enabling coexistence, the first bullet point,
cooperate in market orientation of all stakeholders. That\'s been absent
in lots of the world, but, it\'s been present here. The list of
participants needs to be expanded obviously. It needs to be consumers as
well as the organizations that represent consumers and it needs to be
that the regulatory process, in my mind it\'s part of the supply chain
and the regulatory \-- the regulators of the regulatory environment,
their market orientation is one of the reasons we haven\'t prescribed
some thresholds that other parts of the world have.

We talk about in the top bullet on page 3 flexible market-based
numerical thresholds. We\'ve had several presenters talk about the fact
that there\'s not a definitive number unless the market decides what
number it can deliver and if consumers will accept it or not. And I
think we mentioned some things in my mind that make our system a doable
thing where coexistence does exist and where we can foster all three
kinds of agriculture as opposed to the European Union where we don\'t
foster all three kinds of agriculture and have no intention to in my
mind.

And Cyprus not going to let GE cereal be on the shelf with non-GE
cereal, I mean that\'s a ridiculous regulation in my mind. You know,
but, we\'ve not done those things in the U.S. and I think that\'s part
of our success. Now, I don\'t know how we say that. If we say that in
separate places, at least in my mind as far as I\'m concerned, do we say
that in a separate place, Greg? Is that what you suggest? Because
certainly that\'s part of the reason the three kinds of agriculture
exist and coexist in the United States.

We have approached this issue of the adoption of GE crops in the U.S.
far differently than anywhere in the world and it\'s why they coexist in
conventional and organic agriculture.

MS. DILLEY: So, it seems to me we\'ve gotten over that hurdle whether we
have something to say. We just haven\'t said it as well as we\'d like to
and we\'re going to take another run at saying it and I\'m wondering if
you need more discussion about what needs to be in the introductory
section or we\'ve talked a lot so it\'s a little confusing as to what
all we have in there and it\'s time for actually somebody to take a run
at pulling all the different things that have been said and trying to
pull from the summary some language from the summary, some language from
the 5/24 report and some language from the 7/22 report and actually try
and take another run at an introduction that tries to pull in all the
elements and then have another look at it.

Because I\'m starting to sense we either are starting to get into other
portions of the report or we\'re going to start saying the same things,
only differently, and then we\'re going to actually be arguing to the
point we\'re really agreeing.

So, procedurally it feels to me like we need to pull all the stuff that
people have suggested, need to be shaped a little differently or pulled
from other pieces, put that together and have you look at it again. Does
that make sense? No or yes?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yes.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Michael, did you have a \--

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes.

MS. DILLEY: If it doesn\'t make sense to you then I\'m in trouble.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: No, no. I think it does make sense, but, I also \-- I\'m
trying to be sensitive to making sure that we have the piece of context
that Mardi was talking about that there\'s some piece of the framing
that at least addresses the set of concerns that you\'re expressing in
the introduction.

So, I\'m trying to, you know, without attempting to quantify any of that
I want to just make sure that I can \-- and this may be just seeing that
you\'re dragooned into the process of this introductory piece. But, I
want to just check on a couple of facts to see if these go to \-- a
couple of folks to see if these go to what you were talking about.

Is it an issue that is largely for the future when biotechnology gets
into those fruits and, culinary term, vegetables? Or, is it the sense
that there are very few people who are growing corn because they\'re
worried about doing it so that our market is mostly being supplied for
those things by foreign producers?

I don\'t know what the statistics are on any of that, but, I\'m just
trying to get a sense of capturing, you know, regardless of the scale of
it, just trying to have a little bit that expresses what the range of
perspective is that makes it a topic where at least there is, though
admittedly, a lot less discussion in the United States but there still
is some discussion.

So, with that, did I successfully pull you into the process of putting
pieces for the intro together?

DR. MELLON: I think that, you know, what you\'ve identified are
important issues and I think that, you know, part of them, you know,
could be \-- to me, if you start this out with the fact that you\'ve got
these three coexisting forms of agriculture and they\'re all, you know,
being fostered by the U.S. Government, individually, and, you know,
where they kind of conflict their coexistence is being addressed that\'s
a big deal.

If you\'re taking both the problems of the biotech industry and the
organic folks seriously then I think you do end up, Michael, where
you\'re kind of pointing and that is that there may be some problems in
the future that we don\'t have right now because one of the reasons as
we\'ve identified in here that we don\'t have problems in the U.S. is
that we have a relatively small organic market and, therefore, they can
get themselves away from the biotech contamination problems in a way
that they perhaps would not be able to if they were much larger, but,
also there are a few sources of GE coming because there are not as many
fruits and vegetables, for example, that have been approved.

As that dynamic changes, I think that the sense of where there\'s a
problem would change. Now, I do think that having \-- that all the
things we\'re talking about, you know, laying the groundwork for
coexistence will be valuable as the dynamic emerges, but, only if, I
think, we can convey the notion that the concerns of the organic folks,
you know, are going to continue to be seriously addressed; that they are
not just going to be dismissed as not important.

And, so, that\'s kind of what I\'m seeking and I think there are two
places to do it. One would be to, you know, again, to just have some
clear indication in the introduction that the U.S. is going to foster
all three kinds of agriculture, but, then maybe, you know, to look at
more explicitly at this.

We have a bullet on the relative small size or organic crop acreage as
one of the factors that enables coexistence. We might want to just
revisit that and as a factor that could potentially inhibit coexistence
if the ratio between the two and the number of GE crops were to change
and to say that it could inhibit coexistence if it\'s not addressed, you
know, in our dynamic marketplace.

MS. DILLEY: So, I was \-- it\'s about time to break for lunch. I was
wondering if people think that taking another run at the introduction,
would having had this conversation would be helpful, I\'m wondering if a
couple of people would be willing to work on this. Come back after
lunch, talk about the factors inhibiting or enabling and inhibiting and
have a small group, a really small group, and I was thinking just off
the top of my head, Sarah, Greg, and Nancy perhaps, would be willing to
take a run at trying to \-- working with one of the facilitators to pull
some things together to get it started.

Obviously, all of you need to look at it again because it had a lot of
discussion. But, the larger the group it is the longer it takes, etc.
and I think the point is to really try and take a run at points and
things together and put a new introduction in front of the group to
really work and get it right.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: By when?

MS. DILLEY: What? By when? Well, I know Greg has to leave early. I was
wondering if we could really feed you quickly and you could get going at
least during the lunchtime and then see how long you would need.
Ideally, I\'d like to get it in front of people no later than tomorrow
morning.

And we\'ve got public comment period this afternoon and some other
things that we need to do but I think without doing this it\'s really
hard to move forward on the rest of finishing up the report, though I
think, having had the conversation, maybe we can look at the factors
enabling and factors inhibiting and having some big discussion on that,
but, I think it\'s really critical to walk away from this meeting having
a really solid introduction.

Without that I think it\'s really tough to finish this up. So, if you
all, the three of you would be willing to take a crack at it. And if
anybody else is really dying to be on there it would be great. Mardi, if
you want to participate too that would be great as well. I just \-- I
know that you, along with others, want to take a look at this so it\'s
not \--

DR. MELLON: No, I\'ll comment. I\'ll work.

MS. DILLEY: I\'m not accusing you of that, so, certainly. People okay
with that? Okay.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Abby, in terms of structure, are we ready to give
up largely 5?

MS. DILLEY: I don\'t \-- let\'s not ask that right now two minutes
before we\'re breaking for lunch because \--

MS. GEISERT: He\'s trying to determine if he\'s got a lot to write in
the introduction or a little.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yeah. I mean, I think it\'s important in terms of
how we approach this and I thought that there was sufficient agreement
around the table that we might be able to say we were going to give up
5.

MS. DILLEY: Except for the saying USDA should foster coexistence and all
different forms of agricultural production and leave it at that.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Right. Exactly. And Daryl\'s statement about
coexistence is valuable and should be fostered.

DR. CARDINEAU: To support the enabling things and solve the things that
are interfering with enabling essentially. I don\'t think we can dump
one of the issues completely because that\'s our charge. That\'s what
we\'re supposed to be answering, right?

MS. DILLEY: Go forth and foster basically is what we\'re saying, right?

DR. LAYTON: So, basically 5 is about a paragraph?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: That\'s right. And the point that I\'m saying that
the issues are already in 2, 3, and 4 in essence.

DR. LAYTON: Yeah.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: So, I thought it was an important part of the
structure that we probably should discuss it.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I guess I would just offer the thought that that might
be sort of a provisional thing to do, but, I think when more work is
done on it you\'ll have to sort of go back and look at it and see if
maybe it\'s disappearing but pieces are going to reappear in other
places or just what.

So, I think you can get a final answer on that, not just yet, but, it
may be where it\'s heading.

DR. DYKES: Is it envisioned this introduction would encompass 3 and 4?

MS. DILLEY: No.

DR. DYKES: Okay.

DR. CARDINEAU: It may be encompassed in the existing marketplace.

MS. DILLEY: Right. Correct. So, anything else before we break?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: For the new folks, the easiest thing to do, there\'s a
cafeteria directly below us where they won\'t give you a lot of grief
getting in and out of the cafeteria. It\'s not the big USDA cafeteria,
but, it\'s the one you go to without a lot of hassle. And we\'d like to
be able to start again promptly at 1:45.

(Whereupon, a luncheon recess was taken at 12:28 p.m.)

[A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N]{.underline} 1:52 p.m.

MS. DILLEY: Greg, Nancy, Sarah, are you guys ready? Do you want to just
print it out and distribute it and talk about it now?

(Discussion off the record)

DR. LAYTON: Sarah, what you said was let\'s pull up the section you just
wrote and continue or do we want to go to the next section?

MS. GEISERT: Page 3, but, I think it is best printed out so people can
see it so that would be my suggestion to start there to see if we\'re
doing a better job at chaptering an introduction because we seem to be
more comfortable with the factors that foster coexistence than the
factors that don\'t.

DR. LAYTON: Cindy, can you pop that to a bigger font. So, now let me
make sure that I understand. As it stands, the committee charge would
still be there. The definition of coexistence would be there. The
methodology would be there, what\'s currently those two paragraphs, and
then this would follow. Correct?

MS. GEISERT: Correct.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. So, A, B, and C are still there and then is this D or
is this continuing with C?

MS. GEISERT: D.

DR. LAYTON: It\'s a D and we need a name for it.

MS. GEISERT: Overview.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. Got it. D, Overview.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: And, Diane, who is sitting outside, is going off to make
hard copies of this as well so that you can all look at it.

MS. DILLEY: So why don\'t we read it. It\'s two paragraphs, right, so,
why don\'t we just read it and you can listen to what it says. Okay. So,
paragraph one is, "Coexistence among biotech and other forms of
agriculture has become a major issue around the world and has not been
as common in the United States. The committee gathered information from
different factors in U.S. agriculture and reviewed data and analyzed the
current status of coexistence in the U.S. The following interesting
facts came to light." So, why don\'t I just read the three paragraphs
and then we\'ll come back, okay. So, "The following interesting facts
came to light. First, "The U.S. is the largest producer of GE crops in
the world." Two, second, "The U.S. is one of the largest producers of
organic crops in the world." Third bullet is, "The U.S. is one of the
largest exporters of conventional crops in the world." Those are the
three, okay.

(Discussion off the record)

MS. DILLEY: "Farmers in the U.S. are currently producing organic and
non-organic crops on the same farm." So, those are the four. The issue
is that the U.S. is producing a lot and also farmers are producing a
mixture of crops on the same farm.

"Therefore, it appears to the committee that the agricultural system in
the United States today is capably supportive of coexistence between
different agricultural systems. At the farm level, however, there are
clearly instances where different production systems can impact farmer
and/or consumer choice."

DR. JAFFE: There were three paragraphs. This is second one now you\'re
coming to.

MS. DILLEY: "Given the current situation in the United States the
committee explored the aspects of the U.S. agricultural system that
currently supports this coexistence. The committee also attempted to
understand what factors inhibit coexistence today and anticipate future
market changes that could impact coexistence today among the production
systems. By analyzing what is working well, what is not working, and
what could be a problem in the future involving coexistence in the
United States the committee believes USDA will be in a better position
to ensure coexistence does not hinder agriculture markets that provides
diverse products to meet the needs of stakeholders throughout the supply
chain now and in the future."

And then the last paragraph is, "While AC21 members have different views
about how well coexistence is working the members all agree that
fostering coexistence is an important and worthwhile goal. Members
encourage USDA to consider the discussion below to carry out its
different role in ensuring that the different agricultural production
systems in the United States can each continue to thrive, prosper, and
meet the needs in the marketplace."

So, those are the three paragraphs.

DR. JAFFE: We\'re having them print it out. One thing I want to just
say. With regard to the four bullets up there, we could elaborate on
those if we wanted and we could put facts behind them. We were just
trying to get the three or four main facts out there, but, obviously one
could say how many acres are GE and soybeans and corn. We could say that
organic is growing. We could say that it\'s primarily fruits and
vegetables. You could say it\'s the largest growing sector. You can add
as many to the sub-facts under each of those four bullets.

We didn\'t spend our time doing that because that gets into details. We
were trying to just get down sort of in a summary fashion some of the
factors we thought were the most pertinent from our discussion that sort
of led us to the conclusion and lead to the analysis that\'s then going
to follow in the couple of sessions.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, this is a run at trying to pull together and
providing that context or overview and that would then lead into the
factors enabling coexistence and factors inhibiting coexistence.

Guy, and then Leon, and Pat.

DR. CARDINEAU: Can we add the words after prominent, add the words "an
issue" because the way this is written right now it\'s suggesting
coexistence has not been prominent in the United States which, in fact,
it has been. It\'s just not been an issue.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: As prominent an issue.

DR. CARDINEAU: "As prominent an issue" because you\'re trying to modify
the major issue and the way it\'s written now it says coexistence is not
prominent which is incorrect.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. I know what you\'re saying just to clarify that
sentence.

DR. CARDINEAU: There was another one too, but, I don\'t remember where I
saw it.

DR. JAFFE: I think it\'s great that we probably should just get general
reaction further before we spend time. Clearly, people think this is a
good introduction and, clearly, this was written in 15 minutes. He\'s
editing. MS. DILLEY: So, kind of a general reaction to it and then
we\'ll \--

DR. CARDINEAU: I know what you meant.

MR. CORZINE: General reaction, I think it is a good first cut. Now, what
I wonder starting off, those first sentences, if we could redo that so
we start off on a positive and I mean, we did say we wanted to include,
you know, problems around the world or Europe or however that first
sentence is again, but, we may want to start off with more of a
positive, hey, this is how it\'s happening in the U.S. and there are
some \-- to start off on a positive would be a general, my first
reaction.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, you\'re looking for kind of an order in terms of
what you say. Pat and then Michael.

DR. LAYTON: I just want to point out that at some point in time we\'re
going to have to come up with some \-- we can\'t say coexistence among
biotech because that\'s not in our accepted definition so I have
actually written potentially some words for us to think about over here.

Ag production systems involving GE crops, or, conventional ag production
systems without GE crops, or, organic production systems, but, I want us
to make sure as we go along that at some point in time we come up with
the way that we want to say this and either use it in definitions that
we\'ve done in previous dialogue but coexistence among biotech and other
forms of agriculture, biotech is not a part of agriculture.

So, I just want to make sure we get that down.

DR. JAFFE: Okay. Can I respond to that?

DR. LAYTON: Yes.

DR. JAFFE: Because I picked those words specifically because we were
talking about the debate around the rest of the world and around the
rest of the world I think it is a discussion about how does biotech
coexist with other forms of agriculture.

The rest of the report, I agree with you. We should have something more
consistent with our definition, but, the reason I just put it there was
because I was trying to capture the debate around the rest of the world
and you ask around the rest of the world and they would say the debate
is between biotech and everything else. It\'s not a \--

DR. LAYTON: Okay. In that case then, it\'s biotech in quotes? I want to
make sure that \--

DR. JAFFE: Right.

DR. LAYTON: \-- we\'re consistent and clear and that we\'re using
consistent words because we\'re going from documents that refer people
back. So, whenever we do that maybe the word biotech is in quotes but I
want to make sure that we get the systems right because we\'ve not used
the word biotech like that in any of our documents before, Greg.

MS. DILLEY: Michael, general reaction?

DR. DYKES: Yeah, I think I agree with Greg. Coexistence is an issue in
Europe, but, I think we have to have the right context drawn about why
it is an issue in Europe. It\'s an issue in Europe to keep biotech crops
from being grown by and large and you\'re talking about 200 meter
setbacks in Hungary where biotech crops have been banned to a large
extent.

So, it\'s another level of assurance that biotech crops won\'t be grown
and I think that\'s a totally different context in biotech since
coexistence in the U.S. where I think in every presentation we had was
about the coexistence has been going on for many, many years in
agriculture, different kinds of corn, and we had all different kinds of
examples of biotech, conventional, organic and any other specialty type
of production somebody wants to try to produce where there\'s a market
for.

So, I think if we\'re going to get into that we got to get the right
context around it. And I think that\'s to a large extent why we are
finding ourselves after six, eight presentations we can\'t really find
the problem on coexistence to a large extent in the U.S. because to a
large extent we, as a food chain, have figured out how to deal with it
and the market figured out how to deal with it. Different prices for
different desires.

So, I think that\'s why we have some of the issues we have. Before we
put a context in let\'s just make sure we portray it accurately. The
other things is, as I hear in this, that a lot of this production end of
it is fostered, which I think we\'ve heard all along.

MS. DILLEY: That\'s what comes across to me, Michael, and what you\'re
saying is that where it\'s more an issue it forces choices and the U.S.
fosters choices.

DR. DYKES: But, then we talk about the USDA piece we move to ensure
which sounds to me like a regulatory. Fostering at the production end we
could ensure.

MS. DILLEY: Continue to foster rather than ensure. Okay.

DR. DYKES: Ensures ample information or promotes all types or something
like that is my overall comments.

MS. DILLEY: Other reactions? Brad, I mean, your initial reaction was,
sounds good.

MR. SHURDUT: Yeah. I mean, basically, I mean, I like the structure. I
agree with some of those other points there, but, I think the sentence
is sort of a prefatory comment here really sets the stage and I think we
could really quickly come to another point in this paper really well by
just jumping off at this point, so, I like it.

MS. DILLEY: Other comments? Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: So, yes, I like this and I don\'t think that we
need a whole lot more detail in terms of detail and so on, and I think
the general idea is conveyed pretty well. I would want to add one bullet
in those four being that the U.S. is the largest exporter of non-GM
crops in the world, which, in my view, is even more telling than\--

MS. DILLEY: Right. U.S. is one of the largest exporters of conventional
crops in the world. Isn\'t that what you\'re looking for? Non-GE is what
\--

DR. LAYTON: It\'s export.

MS. DILLEY: I thought he said non-GE.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Conventional crops is commodity corn.

MS. DILLEY: Right.

DR. CARDINEAU: No, it\'s non-GE. We\'ve been using it as non-GE.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Okay. We export conventional corn. My point is
that there is exports that go to Japan, for example, corn and soybeans,
that are certified non-GM, identity-preserved crops and those are not
called conventional and the point is that the U.S. is the largest
exporter of those crops in the world. I think that\'s telling because
it\'s a different point.

DR. JAFFE: That\'s what that was supposed to do.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Okay. So, instead of conventional I would say
non-GM, non-GE, whatever the term is.

DR. LAYTON: That\'s why I brought these terms up so I make sure we\'re
clear on what we\'re talking about.

MS. DILLEY: Wait a minute. Is non-GE a sub-set of conventional or is
that what you\'re really saying is you don\'t need the term
conventional, it\'s really non-GE?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: That\'s right. I would use non-GE.

DR. MELLON: I think you have to put in commodity.

DR. DYKES: I think we\'ve added during this discussion and I think
really in the marketplace there is another category called non-GE and
that\'s exactly what Nick\'s talking about here is non-GE and I think
you have organic, biotech, conventional, and non-GE. You have at least
four broad categories.

DR. CARDINEAU: But, in other places in the discussion, for example, on
page 2, we say rapid growth and cultivation of both genetically
engineered and organic crops while maintaining substantial conventional
crop acreage. At least the way I was understanding it, we had three
categories, conventional, genetically engineered which are conventional
crops but they\'re modified genetically by, you know, BT or herbicide
tolerant or whatever, and then organic and those were the three
functional categories we were dealing with.

MS. DILLEY: Leon and then Nick. Leon, go ahead.

MR. CORZINE: This brings up the point that maybe it\'s worth defining
those because in the real world, and if we want to be real world,
conventional really is biotech. If you look at what\'s out in the
countryside it\'s what\'s grown. I mean, there\'s no distinction. And
for a vast majority of the grain that is new or is produced to the end
of the marketplace, whether it is biotech, whether it\'s GE, or,
conventional, really the non-GE is becoming another specialty or market.

MS. DILLEY: This sounds like a difference between what we\'re talking
about and what\'s being supplied and what kind of crops are being grown.

MS. GEISERT: Are we talking about wheat, are we talking about corn?

MR. CORZINE: Well, if you\'re talking about grains because it is another
IP product which really becomes a specialty just like an issue of corn
or soy. It\'s just like a linoleic or low lin soybeans, white corn,
whatever. It is an IP product. And the conventional really is the GE
corn.

MS. DILLEY: But is the difference \-- agricultural production systems
you have genetically engineered, organic, and conventional but markets
could be non-GE. You don\'t call them conventional markets, do you? You
call them non-GE or organic. So, aren\'t we getting bogged down here?
Nick?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: First of all, for example, anywhere in the world
when you say conventional you talk about non-genetically engineered
crops. So, I think keeping that analogy is appropriate. In terms of
non-GE or GM-free and so on, all of those are market terms and they mean
that they have been identity preserved and subject to a certain supply
chain. And what I\'m saying is it isn\'t conventional corn that we are
the largest exporter. We are the largest exporter of non-GM crops that
are certified as such, identity preserved, and so on which speaks a lot
more to the issue about coexistence.

That\'s what I\'m trying to say.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, here, where we\'re talking about we\'re major
exporters of X, Y, and Z that should be non-GE and organic. Later in the
paper though it sounds like we\'re talking about ag production systems
which are different terminology. That\'s conventional, organic, and
genetically engineered.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: It\'s not a production system.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, what terminology are we using then? Because
that\'s what we have throughout the paper right now.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: So, in terms of crops, for example, you\'re using
the terminology, conventional, GE, and organic. I think that\'s
appropriate. I don\'t think that many would disagree with that. I mean,
\--

DR. JAFFE: But it\'s already inconsistent and should we say there\'s not
a market for non-GE seed and I\'m thinking, well, conventional seed is
non-GE seed so you have to \-- you know \--

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: No, no, there\'s a difference.

DR. JAFFE: In ingredients.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: That\'s right, so, for example, there\'s a
difference between conventional seed, which is basically non-genetically
engineered commodity corn and there\'s \-- and non-GE, in other words,
certified for a particular content or organic seed, okay. So, those are
market terms and they refer to the underlying process. And genetically
we refer to conventional crops as those who are not genetically
engineered. So, I don\'t see the conflict at all.

MS. DILLEY: Guy and then Adrian.

DR. CARDINEAU: I think we have the same related issue for the next
bullet point. We need to add conventional to that. The farmers in the
U.S. \-- I don\'t know if you want to say are currently, I think may in
some cases be currently producing organic, conventional, and GE crops.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Right.

DR. CARDINEAU: Some are. It\'s not all farmers are but we know that
there are some farmers that do. They have conventional products.

DR. MELLON: Genetically engineered and organic.

MS. DILLEY: Adrian?

DR. POLANSKY: I think we\'re okay as long as we\'re clear when we\'re
talking about conventional crops or production systems because when
you\'re talking about production systems you\'re talking about
conventional which, to me, means tilling the soil and so on and so forth
and another system is no-till. I mean, those are production systems.
What we\'re talking about here are the types of crops, I think.

And as long as we make sure that we\'re clear between those two I think
we\'re on the right track.

DR. LAYTON: So, you refer to them as GE crops, non-GE crops, and organic
crops? Or, is it organic assistant?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: No. I would say GE crops, conventional crops, and
organic and then if you are talking about specifically exporting a
particular type of product that is demanded by the market like a non-GE
you\'re talking about the specific process that has been followed. So,
you\'re using a conventional product that you have certified all along
the way for keeping it separate based on whatever adventitious presence
allowances the market has allowed you to have.

So, it\'s the underlying process that you\'re using that makes it a
non-GE.

DR. LAYTON: Can we call those identity preserved crops?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: No, because they are non-GE. I mean, yeah, they
are identity preserved but they are non-GE. That\'s a characteristic
that the market is paying for.

MS. DILLEY: Any other \-- are cards still up from previous comments or
did you want to have another comment? Adrian, do you have a comment?

DR. POLANSKY: Not at this point.

MS. DILLEY: So more reaction to the gist of what they were trying to
capture and see if that gets us to where we need to go and then \--
Mardi.

DR. MELLON: I don\'t know if this is wordsmithing or gist, but, I do
think we need to look at the statement that some farmers in the U.S. are
producing organic and non-organic crops on the same farm. I mean, I
think the more telling fact, and I\'m not sure how true it is, is that
farmers \-- I mean, how many farmers are producing organic and
conventional or organic and biotech crops on the same farm. I mean, I
don\'t \--

MS. DILLEY: Is it them or is it the \--

DR. MELLON: We know there are some.

MS. DILLEY: Greg?

DR. JAFFE: Again, this may not have been worded properly. The concept
was that I think the fact that I was hoping to put up there is, one, we
heard from several farmers here over our time that grew both organic and
biotech on the same farm, or organic than conventional on the same farm.
They were saying on their farm they could have coexistence.

And I think that the rest of the world, and maybe to an extent even me
before I came to this committee, thought you had organic farmers or
non-organic farmers, you know. If somebody was an organic farmer they
were an organic farmer through and through. They weren\'t an organic
farmer for this crop and a non-organic farmer for six other crops on
their farm.

We asked the woman who was here from the Organic Trade and she didn\'t
even tell us how many organic farmers there were let alone how many
people were growing multiple things on their farm.

DR. MELLON: That\'s right, because it doesn\'t collect that data.

DR. JAFFE: Whoever should collect the data is not important. We don\'t
put any data on the thing here. The fact that was important to this
committee and I thought was part of our deliberations was the concept
that at the farm level there are people who are doing multiple,
different production systems and doing it successfully which is
different to say, well, they\'re doing different crops or it doesn\'t
make a difference, or, they\'re doing all kinds of things.

But, I thought the fact was that it was important to let people know in
our report was that at an individual farm level there are some number of
farmers in the United States, I don\'t know how many, I couldn\'t put a
number, that\'s why I didn\'t want to put in some. We just said farmers
in the United States produce these, meaning we were still undefining
them.

DR. MELLON: But, I think it\'s misleading to imply that that\'s the
routine way in which \-- especially the biotech and organic are
produced. I\'m very comfortable saying some. We have evidence for that.

DR. JAFFE: So whether it\'s organic and biotech or organic and
non-organic.

DR. MELLON: But, it\'s no trick to grow organic apples, you know, and
biotech corn on the same farm, right?

DR. CARDINEAU: That\'s exactly the point though.

DR. JAFFE: That\'s the point. That\'s right.

DR. MELLON: The biology seed mixing problem is not a big one. Okay,
that\'s enough.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, I think what you just said in terms of
clarification is you could change it around somewhat but the point is
that some farmers can grow different things on their farm; that you can
do that and the system helps support that, right?

DR. DYKES: And I thought we heard probably four or five key things about
that. One is historically it\'s always occurred. Now it\'s got dimension
to it. But, historically, that\'s been the case. Secondly is, you got to
know the biology of the crops that you\'re growing and, third, you\'ve
got to have clarity on what the market is that you\'re going to supply
that to so that you know what you\'re growing and what year you\'re
growing it and what the terms and conditions are and I\'d say fourth is
you\'ve got to have the labor supply that you can do that because labor
becomes a consideration in the normal chain where you\'re going to go.

MS. DILLEY: That\'s a great transition on the factors of coexistence.

DR. DYKES: I agree. Like Greg said, I think that\'s what we heard from
the presenters, both the market production, the whole chain was it can
be done.

MS. DILLEY: Right, and, actually, Michael, what you just said is very
much mirrors the five, six bullets that are in what\'s now no longer the
Executive Summary, but, what started as the Executive Summary in the
7/22 draft and now it really starts leading into the Factors Enabling
Coexistence and it starts and that drafting group took those out from
the introductory section and thought it fit better in the \-- as kind of
merged into the Factors Enabling Coexistence section.

But, I just want to make sure that we have any other comments that
people want to make on this piece without having the document actually
right in front of us which we can come back and edit. But, let me get
Guy first and then Leon.

DR. CARDINEAU: Okay. So, on this bullet here, can we write some farmers
in the U.S. currently are producing organic, conventional, and GE-crops
on the same farm? Because now we have genetically engineered, have
non-organic?

MS. DILLEY: Have some combination of?

DR. CARDINEAU: Or some combination of or some farmers in the U.S. may be
producing.

MS. DILLEY: Combinations of.

DR. CARDINEAU: But, I just wanted the word conventional in there.

MS. DILLEY: Right.

DR. CARDINEAU: That\'s all I was trying to do.

DR. MELLON: You can delete non-organic.

DR. CARDINEAU: I think you can take the non-organic out there.

MS. DILLEY: Right. It\'s combinations of.

DR. CARDINEAU: Take out the non-organic in front of genetically
engineered.

MS. DILLEY: Yeah.

DR. CARDINEAU: Just so we\'re consistent. We\'re consistently talking
about conventional, organic, and GE.

MS. FOREMAN: Consistency would be a good thing.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Leon.

MR. CORZINE: Well, I think Guy\'s suggestion helps because what I\'m
wondering in general, we\'re focusing, and Jerry touched on it a little
bit before lunch, is our charge to focus really on organic versus
non-organic, but, you know, we have other specialties out there.

MS. DILLEY: Right.

MR. CORZINE: Organic is mainly the one to focus on and it\'s certainly
an important component, but, as you go through this it\'s not just
organic versus the rest.

MS. DILLEY: I think that\'s why the language was changed the way it was.
It\'s really trying to reflect that farmers have choices of growing
different things, different production systems, different products at
the farm level and I think that was \-- that continues on the logic flow
that the drafting group was trying to put together as what are some of
the things that really struck us and hearing all these presentations and
then trying to extract from those four bullet points, well, what\'s
enabling coexistence and what\'s inhibiting coexistence.

So, that was kind of a logic flow. There\'s choice at the farm level and
at the macro level and we\'re talking about macro levels but we didn\'t
say the macro level words. That\'s kind of the export thing. So, there
are things that are remarkable or remarkable in those presentations
about choice and coexistence and then that leads you into the next
section of enabling and inhibiting. Next section is enabling and
inhibiting.

So, I think we\'re saying the right thing and the same thing and that
it\'s not just the distinction between organic and GE. It\'s kind of
multiple production systems or multiple, different crops. We probably
just way over-talked that one. Sorry.

DR. CARDINEAU: Admittedly, that last bullet is sort of the extreme case.

MS. DILLEY: Right.

DR. CARDINEAU: But, I think it\'s an important point to make that
coexistence not only exists that different farms can grow different
types of crops, but, even on the same farm grow all three of them if you
do it properly.

MS. DILLEY: Right. Other comments on this piece just in terms of
initially, anything dramatically missing or, no, it just seems off base.
I mean, it seems to really start to gel some of the discussion
beforehand and we want to make sure that that\'s the case before we move
into some of the other sections.

DR. LAYTON: I still think we need to come up and make sure that we are
clear on that very first sentence about coexistence among biotech and
other forms of agriculture. Either the biotech goes into quotes because
it\'s not a form of agriculture. I mean, I would be happy with GE crops
and other forms of agriculture, or, whatever, but, somehow we just need
to make sure because that\'s just not a term that a lot of people will
get.

MS. DILLEY: Nancy and then Carol.

MS. BRYSON: I wonder if giving the definition of coexistence that we
have in the paper which says that the term refers to the concurrent
cultivation of conventional, organic, and genetically engineered crops.
If we could simply say coexistence has become a major \--

MS. FOREMAN: Please.

MS. DILLEY: Thank you, Carol.

DR. LAYTON: We have a definition for coexistence.

MS. BRYSON: Okay.

DR. BAZER: Could I just mention two words? Nobody\'s talked about
consumer or customer demand. No customer is going to demand organic \--
is not going to have an organic farming operation and, so, consumer
demand is really the key thing here. Consumers have adopted GE. They
have adopted conventional. They have adopted organic. So, therefore, you
have a market. If you don\'t have a market it doesn\'t make any
difference what kind of records they keep, you\'re not going to have a
market if the consumer doesn\'t have an interest.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Again, it\'s in the definition, consistent with
underlying consumer preferences and choice.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. There you go. Thank you. I knew it was in there
somewhere. I couldn\'t remember where. Michael.

DR. DYKES: As I read, if we look at the first sentence, if we change it
to Nancy\'s suggestion, which I think is a good one because they have a
definition. Coexistence has become a major issue around the world but
it\'s not been found in the United States. To me, I don\'t think that\'s
consistent with what we heard and what we\'ve heard through every
presentation, coexistence has been going on since \--

DR. CARDINEAU: That\'s why it\'s not a prominent issue. Because you\'re
absolutely right. Coexistence is not an issue here.

DR. DYKES: Yeah.

MS. DILLEY: Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: The second sentence in the first paragraph. The
committee gathered information from people in the U.S. agri-food supply
chain in agriculture.

DR. LAYTON: The U.S. agriculture supply chain?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Agri-food supply chain because we did not hear
just from agriculture producers. We heard from people that store and
trade and process the stuff.

DR. LAYTON: Is it agricultural supply chain?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Agri-food.

DR. LAYTON: We heard feed too.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Agri-food includes everything.

DR. LAYTON: We\'ve not ever used that term before so agricultural supply
chain is one we\'ve used before if you\'re comfortable with that. Food
and feed supply chain I know we\'ve used. Food and feed supply chain is
one that we\'ve used on that.

MS. DILLEY: Are you okay with that, the food and feed supply chain?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Not that I\'m big in wordsmithing in general. You
know, I can go with anything. The reason I\'m using this term is to
describe food production all the way down to the supermarket. Food or
feed does not necessarily include production, but, I can go if that\'s
the term that everybody likes better.

DR. LAYTON: I don\'t care. I just want to make sure that we\'re
consistent.

MS. FOREMAN: We have never used agri-food chains before so we\'re going
to have to decide what it means and it\'s easier to say these terms that
we\'ve used before because then we won\'t have to fight about them.

DR. LAYTON: Because we remember writing those definitions.

MS. DILLEY: Let\'s put it in now, the food and feed supply chain. That
doesn\'t mean we won\'t come back and change it a little bit later.
Leon. Nancy, is your card up too? Okay. Leon.

(Discussion off the record)

MR. CORZINE: To start off on a more positive note I think, and we really
do want to focus on the U.S., so I\'ve got a thought on reworking that
first sentence using the same words but just start off with coexistence
is prominent in the U.S. but has become a major issue in other areas of
the world.

And I think that gets us back into focus where we\'re recognizing the
issues in other parts of the world but our focus should be on the U.S.
and we are starting off with not such a \-- not really starting off with
a negative.

MS. FOREMAN: I would read that as just thinking that coexistence is an
issue to here the way you\'ve rewritten it I think is the opposite of
what you intended.

MS. DILLEY: Michael, did you have \-- go ahead.

DR. DYKES: I\'ll let Leon respond.

MR. CORZINE: Well, I think just starting off with a positive. I think
we\'ve carried on and we\'re going into the issues as we go, but, this
one, if we look back, the intent of the group in writing this was to
basically taking a snapshot of where we are today and moving forward
from there.

DR. LAYTON: Can I suggest, I think what Leon wants to do is just change
the sentence around to say coexistence has not been a prominent issue in
the United States, but, has become an issue in other parts of the world.

MS. FOREMAN: I think if he even wants to make it more positive,
coexistence is common practice in the U.S. Is that what you\'re saying?

MR. CORZINE: Sure. Yeah, that\'s a really good idea because, you know,
\--

DR. LAYTON: Good.

DR. DYKES: If we talk about coexistence internationally in other parts
of the world I would admit that coexistence has been a huge topic of
debate in Europe. Aside from Europe, maybe somewhat in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Aside from those, I don\'t recall coexistence being the prominent issue
when we give it the international status.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Well, Australia has had long discussions about
coexistence in the context of canola. New Zealand has had discussions in
the context of coexistence as recently as a year ago.

DR. DYKES: Australia, has that been the coexistence debate or has that
not been a biotech debate?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Well, they called it such. I mean, they called it
coexistence, so, yeah, I mean, we can debate this for a while, but, I
mean, it\'s beyond Europe.

MS. DILLEY: Alison?

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: I guess I was curious if we\'re going to still use
what\'s on top of page 2 here because the sentence says coexistence is
an important part of the U.S. agricultural system. Can we describe that
sentence and put it in there and then, comma, then put has become an
issue in other parts of the world or are we getting rid of that section?
I\'m not sure.

DR. JAFFE: We\'re getting rid of that completely.

DR. CARDINEAU: That\'s a great idea.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: It\'s on top of page 2 of the 7/22 draft.

DR. DYKES: First sentence.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: First sentence.

DR. LAYTON: Executive Summary.

DR. CARDINEAU: First sentence in Executive Summary.

DR. LAYTON: Correct.

MS. DILLEY: So you\'re using that as coexistence is an important
characteristic of the United States agricultural system?

DR. CARDINEAU: Successful.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Uh-huh.

MS. DILLEY: Characteristics of the U.S. agricultural system.

MS. FOREMAN: I think that works real well.

DR. MELLON: Systems of what?

DR. LAYTON: And then as defined by us in here in the definition.

DR. MELLON: Right, but, in the first sentence shouldn\'t we say
coexistence \-- I mean, is this the same \--

DR. LAYTON: It\'s not the first sentence.

DR. MELLON: \-- thing as saying coexistence among different forms of
agriculture is an important characteristic of the successful U.S. ag
system or is this a sentence that basically says coexistence among
conventional, organic, and \--

MS. DILLEY: No, it\'s coexistence among \-- coexistence is an important
and we\'re referring to coexistence as defined above because this is \--

DR. MELLON: Why can\'t we just take those words down there and just say
as we defined it above. Coexistence among conventional, organic, and
genetically engineered crops is an important characteristic of the
successful U.S. agriculture system. I mean, I just want to clarify what
the real meaning of the sentence is.

MS. FOREMAN: Right now it looks like it\'s disconnected, but, this page
is a new page that\'s disconnected from the first page where it says
that and it\'s just a paragraph or two in between where it says
coexistence for the purposes of this paper refers to and then you got
methodology and then, as I understand it, this is the very next thing.

MS. DILLEY: Right.

MS. FOREMAN: So, I mean, I could follow down without being distracted
too much.

DR. MELLON: For a topic sentence, I can live with it.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you, Mardi.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: And then the comma.

MS. DILLEY: Now you have the system comma but has become an issue in
other parts of the world, if I understand what you\'re suggesting,
Alison. Okay. Where your cursor is, just delete from there to the U.S.,
to the word, U.S. and leave the comma. There you go. Perfect.

MS. DILLEY: Leave the comma. There you go. Perfect.

MS. BRYSON: Can we change the "but" to "although", "although it has
become an issue in other parts of the world..?"

MS. DILLEY: Sure. Okay. Now you see the flow of that first part and then
coexistence has become a major issue around the world. Okay. So, take
that out.

DR. CARDINEAU: Take that out, right.

MS. DILLEY: So take that out.

DR. CARDINEAU: All the way down.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: We\'ve got a lot of words sitting out there. You need to
take out the coexistence word too.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So now it reads, "Coexistence is an important
characteristic of the U.S. agricultural system although it has become an
issue in other parts of the world." And then you drop down to "The
committee gathered information from different participants in the
U.S..."

DR. LAYTON: U.S. feed supply chain.

MS. DILLEY: Thank you.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: I just want to make sure this gets copied properly.

MS. DILLEY: Mardi.

DR. MELLON: Should we \-- Michael, should we be explicit about your
point which is that it\'s an issue in Europe and in other parts of the
world?

DR. DYKES: I thought I mentioned that, but, I didn\'t because I thought
that might not \-- I think that\'s a more accurate statement, but, I
could \--

MS. DILLEY: To say in Europe and other parts of the world rather than
\--

DR. DYKES: To me, I could debate the Australia point. Canola is more of
those coexistence issues. Cotton north of the 27th parallel is a
coexistence issue. Both of them are in Australia and I think they are
two different issues, but, that\'s a different point.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: From a policy perspective. From a policy
perspective the discussion is \--

MS. DILLEY: You have to use the mike, Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I\'m sorry. So, from a policy discussion
perspective it\'s taking place in a lot more places than Europe. You
know, I mean, Africa is a place where this is being debated. Japan is
being a place that it\'s being debated. Again, not that there is policy
that is being drafted but the discussion is taking place.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. DYKES: I\'m fine with the way it is.

MS. DILLEY: All right. And then we worked on the bullets that follow the
interesting facts came to light and then there is a bullet for \--

DR. MELLON: Participants really are different. There are participants in
different parts of the food chain. I mean, that\'s wordsmithing.

MS. FOREMAN: Just put different parts.

MS. DILLEY: Within different parts of the U.S. food supply chain. Okay.

MS. FOREMAN: Take it out of the line above.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: And now you new guys, you see how we work.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So then the bullets in terms of interesting facts and
then we move down to therefore it appears that the committee \--

MS. FOREMAN: Can I make just about the last bullet there just so that
it\'s more parallel? I think you passed it.

MS. SULTON: I think I did too.

DR. LAYTON: No, you\'ve already done that one. Drop down.

MS. DILLEY: The last bullet which is some farmers in the U.S.

MS. FOREMAN: Could you say some U.S. farmers because you have the U.S.,
the U.S., the U.S.

MS. DILLEY: U.S. farmers currently are producing. Okay.

MS. FOREMAN: Thank you.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. And, therefore, so, any comments on that particular
paragraph?

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Are we talking about the therefore paragraph? I guess
I\'m not really sure where the problem is. The production systems are
equal to consumer choice. I\'m not sure. Just the wording about it like
it says Joe Blow\'s growing organic and \--

MS. FOREMAN: It\'s supposed to be the other way around.

DR. LAYTON: Where consumer choice are impacting farm production systems.

MS. FOREMAN: Yeah. You have to sell it to make it a worthwhile product.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: That\'s exactly it.

DR. LAYTON: So redo that sentence for me so Cindy can read it.

DR. DYKES: How about "Market demand and consumer choice is driving
what\'s being produced."

MS. FOREMAN: I\'d be happy \-- you know \-- you could say that it
impacts. I hate the word impact, but, it affects farmer choice. I\'m not
sure it affects consumer choice.

DR. LAYTON: So market demands and consumer choice \-- market demand and
consumer choice affects farm level decisions about production systems.
Affect farm level decisions about production systems?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Can I check with the office to make sure that was what
they \--

DR. JAFFE: Wait. I think we\'re away from the point that we\'re trying
to make here. The point we\'re trying to make and we can change it,
I\'ll just let you know what the thought was, was the first sentence
sort of said there that the system is \-- the macro level is working and
the second one was to say at the farm level, at the farm level though
there are instances where coexistence is not working very well. Now, we
didn\'t say that very artfully obviously and this was drafted in all of
20 minutes.

But, the attempt there was to sort of say at the farm level there are
clearly instances where production systems \-- there are other
production systems that are impacting farmer or consumers in terms of
their choice because a farmer can\'t grow or he says he can\'t grow or
can\'t get his products to be organic or he can\'t transport it or
something like that.

So, the first sentence is for contrast. One conclusion we reached was
that generally at the market level coexistence is working at the macro
level, at the national level it\'s working. All this data and everything
suggests that this isn\'t a major problem at the macro, at the national
level. But, on an individual farm level there are instances where there
are problems where a farmer can\'t grow what he wants to grow or a
consumer can\'t get the kind of product that they hoped to get in the
market because the market can\'t satisfy it.

That\'s what we were trying to get at. We didn\'t say it very artfully.

MS. FOREMAN: It seems to me that you can make the point about the farmer
choice very simply there. I think it\'s a fine point. I mean, the point
about the limiting or affecting farmer choice. I think you have to
explain in another sentence why it affects consumer choice. I\'m not
sure it\'s worth saying here. But, I\'ll ask Sarah.

MS. GEISERT: Again, I think the intent was the conversations that we\'ve
had that said, you know, if you wanted something with a zero threshold
that you may not be able to satisfy the market, whether that\'s a
fraction of a percent or where it was. So, we were trying to combine
them together. If there was a farmer in Reno where he couldn\'t have
transportation or, you know, country grain elevators. The intent was to
try to find a way to bring them both together and maybe we didn\'t do
such an eloquent job.

MS. FOREMAN: I think that\'s the correct assumption. I\'m just not sure
that you can squeeze it into one sentence.

MS. GEISERT: Okay.

DR. MELLON: I agree. I think they\'re two good and probably separate...

DR. LAYTON: So, take out that market demand, blah, blah, blah and just
write at the farm level, however, there are clearly instances where
different production systems can impact farmer choice. I just want to
make sure because I thought that choice was there but I don\'t remember.

DR. DYKES: I mean, as read, I don\'t know what that sentence means.

DR. JAFFE: How production can impact what a farmer can produce or \--

MS. FOREMAN: What a farmer does produce.

DR. JAFFE: \-- what a farmer does produce.

MR. CORZINE: I think we\'re missing there a little bit, Greg, because
really to what Carol said is it\'s not \-- and we heard from everybody
that presented, I can do it, is there a market for it that will return
me what my costs are to do it. And, so, I think maybe it gets back to
the point, I think maybe you need to lead off with consumer markets or
consumer demand in more than the different agricultural systems because
do the systems affect each other? Well, maybe, but, it\'s not really a
limit on my impact. The impact of what I\'m growing is what the
marketplace tells me.

MS. DILLEY: Nick and then Mardi.

DR. JAFFE: I mean, what you hear about is somebody who has a crop that
grew one way but then they can\'t sell it because it doesn\'t meet
specs. To me, that\'s not the market based on the context that says, you
know, no less or no more than 1 percent GE and then a neighbor or
something causes a problem and it comes out at 1.5 percent and now they
have to sell it into a different market. It\'s not that there\'s not a
market for it, but, clearly, they weren\'t able to and this may be one
in a thousand, it may be one in a hundred thousand. I don\'t know what
it is, but, there are instances out there.

We were just trying to capture that although it works at a macro level,
at the micro level, at an individual farm there are instances in which
it\'s not working. Coexistence is not perfect everywhere.

MS. DILLEY: Michael, you want to jump in here, and then Nick, and then
Mardi.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I\'m trying to see if this sort of captures the thought.
At the farm level there are instances where some farmers perceive that
they cannot economically serve some markets using a particular
production system. Is that the point?

DR. MELLON: I really think it\'s broader than that and it\'s very
important to be clear about it. People who plant a crop intending to \--
they\'re organic farmers. They want to grow organic crops. They want \--
they don\'t want to use GE. That\'s for market reasons, for their own
reasons. They plant a crop. Pollen comes in from the outside or their
seed has been contaminated and all of a sudden they\'re harvesting it.
Now, in some instances it actually has an impact on whether or not they
can sell their product.

But, even when it doesn\'t, this is something that they have to worry
about day after day after day. Who is planting around me, am I rival to
have my crop contaminated. So, the issue is that \-- I mean, one
important feature of the coexistence issue is that people at the farm
level cannot engage, you know, or do not have \-- I mean, it\'s the
sense of them not having control over all of the features of their own
crops so they can\'t produce for the consumers they\'d like to produce
and in the way that they would like to produce.

And I think it is beyond just the few instances where, you know,
somebody detects higher levels and comes back at them and says, well,
I\'m not going to buy it.

MS. DILLEY: Let me turn to Nick. Sarah, we had talked a little bit about
this at the break and you were talking about the macro and granular
level so I might want to call on you to say that because that helped me
understand what you guys were trying to capture in this paragraph.

Nick, go ahead.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I just have a procedural question. Are we getting
to the point where we are wordsmithing the document?

DR. MELLON: I agree.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Because I think we can come back or, you know,
work through a draft that, you know, we can refine at the end, but, have
we decided the overall structure and have we addressed all the big \--

DR. LAYTON: Yep.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: We have? Okay.

MS. DILLEY: I think people generally like it, but, I don\'t think this
is just a wordsmithing issue. I just think trying to articulate exactly
it\'s working at the big picture level, but, there are tensions in a
system that overall is capably encouraging coexistence. I don\'t know if
there\'s a difference of opinion on that or not. That\'s what I think
we\'re talking about right now.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Abby, this specific point, we probably have
written it down at least in two different versions or drafts in the
past. I don\'t think that there\'s a disagreement in general; that there
are some farmers that do not have a perfect choice set. I don\'t think
that anyone around this table would disagree that there are some farmers
that may not be able to produce 100 percent or zero percent.

MS. DILLEY: Mardi\'s nodding her head. Leon, does that sound like a
characterization that we\'re just not finding the right verbiage?
Because that\'s what I \-- if we\'re there then we can move on if it\'s
just a case of wordsmithing. I just want to make sure that we\'re there
and it\'s not just something more than that.

MR. CORZINE: I think we\'ve got to rework that sentence because, you
know, really I think, you know, we\'ve got consumer markets at the end
and I think it really should be up a little bit higher and because I
still contend I don\'t know of anyone, and we had numerous presenters
here, and nobody said \-- unless you want to get down to the point, I
mean, okay, I might like \-- if I had my first choice I\'d produce
tomatoes and be able to deliver them in Chicago, Illinois in December,
but, I can\'t do that, okay, and that\'s an extreme, but, I mean, it\'s
sort of along the same thing.

MS. DILLEY: Well, I\'m not sure it\'s just an editing issue that you can
say that, so, \--

MR. CORZINE: Yeah.

MS. DILLEY: \-- if it\'s not an editing issue then we\'ve got an issue
because I think that\'s very different than what Nick just said which is
there are \-- the overall fabric seems to hang together, but, there are
holes in the system and what I hear you saying, Leon, is there aren\'t
any holes in the system. It really works quite well. So, that may be a
bad analogy.

I just hear you saying that coexistence is not an issue.

MR. CORZINE: Well, I don\'t think \-- you know \-- definitely there can
be an instance where it is, but, you know what, it really does get down
to economics and what the marketplace says because we had \-- let\'s go
back to our presenters.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Wait a minute. If you just said it can be an issue
then maybe it is just an editing issue and we\'re just not on the right
language. Okay. Nancy, go ahead.

MS. BRYSON: Well, all I was going to say is \--

MS. DILLEY: What I\'m trying to do is see if Nancy put it up then maybe
she was trying to get us past this particular point which is why I went
to her. I know other people had their cards up. If you want me to go in
order I\'ll go in order in the direct order.

MS. FOREMAN: She was one of the authors.

MS. DILLEY: Well, okay, and then we\'ll come back to Jim.

MS. BRYSON: Just to recap. The intent of the sentence and the reason we
started looking at it more closely is that it combined two thoughts
because as the drafting committee we put them together and we sort of
added them, you know, farm and consumer choice.

I heard something slightly different in what Leon was saying. What I
heard him say is that it would be good to have a separate sentence on
consumer choice and then he was proposing that it be between the
therefore sentence and the farmer sentence. And, Carol, I think you were
proposing a separate sentence on the consumer point as well.

MS. FOREMAN: Yeah. I\'m not sure it\'s the same one, but, yeah, I accept
what you were trying to do because I think what we heard was that it
sometimes doesn\'t work for farmers. There\'s pulls in the system, Abby.
I think that\'s what \-- I agree with that. I think that\'s what we
heard. I think that\'s what\'s on page 8 of the 5/24 draft when we\'re
talking about some people are not going to be satisfied to have organic
substitute for non-GE.

There are some pulls in the system. I don\'t think that it\'s possible
to get that sentence that the committee came up with quite covers the
different source of those food problems or the different nature of the
two problems. But, I\'m not sure right now if there\'s an agreement in
the group for a substantive revision.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Jim and then Pat.

DR. ROBL: My comment isn\'t all that important so I could have waited a
little bit longer even, but, \--

MS. DILLEY: You\'ve got the mike now so go for it.

DR. ROBL: It seemed to me that in listening to the discussion and what
the sentence said when you say at the farm level really what you\'re
saying is that some farmers have reported issues with being able to do
this and some alternatively with some consumers have reported issues of
availability of products.

And, so, you know, I guess I would prefer, based on what I\'ve heard, a
more direct sentence as opposed to at the farm level because at the farm
level means farmers uniformly across the board as opposed to some
farmers have reported this issue, which is what everybody\'s been
saying.

MS. DILLEY: Pat and then Michael.

DR. LAYTON: I actually was going through that. I was going to say some
farmers, however, clearly have coexistence issues. So, or something
along those lines. Some farmers did report coexistence issues. Some
farmers did report. You didn\'t hear it? Okay.

MR. SLOCUM: We heard a trade organization you\'re talking about.

DR. LAYTON: Okay.

DR. MELLON: Trade organization for the organic industry reported it.

MS. DILLEY: Michael, and then Adrian, and then Alison.

DR. DYKES: My thought in this paragraph was that and the latest that was
flowing for me was we talked about coexistence in the U.S., we talked
about coexistence in the rest of the world, we\'ve got the four facts.
Therefore, the committee sees that the U.S. system is capable of
producing whatever crop there is and then that sentence was obviously
the consumer choice in the markets dictate what happens at the farm
level in terms of what they grow, which I thought was consistent with
every presenter we had.

Tell me what the market is and what the economics are and I can grow all
three, one, two, whatever. It depends on what the market signals I
receive as an individual farmer is to what I grow.

MS. FOREMAN: But you heard something different.

MS. DILLEY: Greg, go ahead.

DR. DYKES: That\'s what every presenter told us.

DR. JAFFE: But, I guess we\'re still trying to capture it. Generally we
all believe that the system is working but that there are individuals
\-- the market, no matter how much you say the market works, there are
individuals who get caught in market failures or places where the market
\-- now, I don\'t like to use the market terminology, but, that\'s not
what I just heard you say.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: He said market failure.

DR. JAFFE: But, even if the market is corrected it doesn\'t mean
somebody doesn\'t get hurt because their product doesn\'t fit in with
the market so I think \--

DR. DYKES: To me we\'ve got two thoughts going here. To me, I think the,
therefore, that sentence, I think that\'s a conclusion we take. I think
the other conclusion we take is the markets will dictate what farmers
grow, and then I think there\'s another point, Greg, to the picture, I
think the point you\'re trying to raise. However, there are instances
where there are problems. How we want to say that, that\'s not artfully
said. But, there are times where this doesn\'t work a hundred percent of
the time.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: It doesn\'t work a hundred percent of the time for
one hundred percent of the \--

DR. JAFFE: In a report that we wrote later on in section 4. This is an
introduction. It\'s just a foreshadow of what we said later on where we
talk about things that some consumer aren\'t getting what they want and
some farmers are not and they\'re telling USDA and, therefore, you need
to look into these kind of things. So, it\'s just foreshadowing what\'s
going on later.

If everything was working perfectly we wouldn\'t need that other
section.

DR. DYKES: I\'m not saying it\'s working perfectly. I think there are
different thoughts here. I mean, the gist of what we heard was we can do
it. This is what we concluded in the therefore sentence. And we\'ll grow
what the market tells us we should grow economically which I thought was
the second sentence and then to me there\'s another sentence in there
that says, however, there are times when this doesn\'t work, however you
want to say it, for hundred percent of the people hundred percent of the
time.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Basically that\'s the gist of what we\'re trying to
capture. Okay. I think we got kind of the gist of this, but, I want to
make sure that Adrian and Alison get a chance to put their \--

DR. LAYTON: And Mardi.

MS. DILLEY: We\'ll take everybody\'s card, okay.

DR. LAYTON: Jim, are you still up?

DR. POLANSKY: I certainly agree with the macro sentence. I just think
I\'m still struggling with the other point. It\'s not a perfect world
and whether it\'s a hundred percent all the time or however we frame
that, but, it\'s not. I just wanted to add that it\'s not necessarily
just at the farm level that there are instances of where there are
issues that impact who can produce what and what consumers\' choice is.

From my perspective as a wheat producer, for example, I\'m going to
bring this up again and people are going to say, I\'m tired of hearing
that, but, there are significant concerns among some consumers about
having a biotech wheat. That doesn\'t mean that no consumer would choose
if there was biotech wheat, germplasm---resistant\-- that didn\'t have
scab in it, a fungus issue which is not a very good thing
production-wise and it\'s not necessarily a good thing for the supply
chain because there\'s economic loss in terms of processing and making
sure that those are removed and then those kernels that are infected are
a problem in the feeding industry and so on and so forth.

So, whether we\'re talking about it\'s a market failure or what, that
there are also instances where producers can\'t produce and some
consumers don\'t have the choice in the marketplace. Somehow both of us
complexities or issues I would be comfortable with in identifying here
in a sentence or two because I think they are both realities, at least
in some small way.

MS. DILLEY: And, Adrian, exactly what you said, it\'s perfectly
consistent with the immediate and previous conversation. I really think
that\'s the case. Michael, do you want to jump in before I call on
Alison and Mardi or no? Go ahead.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Sure. It\'s just the thought of a sentence that might
capture this. And this is in addition to a sentence about consumers.
Some farmers believe, however, that their farming options are
constrained or that additional costs or uncertainty are being imposed by
the new complexities of the marketplace. Does that address it or not?

DR. LAYTON: No.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: No one likes it. Okay. That\'s fine.

MS. DILLEY: Alison and Mardi.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: I\'ll take a shot so you\'ll have a shot to shoot
this one down, but, I think what I heard was however at the farm level
there may be situations where concurrent use of different production
systems causes problems for neighboring farmers.

MS. FOREMAN: Also, you can preface that. It\'s not just that. It also
may deprive consumers of something they \-- at the farm level. I had
something similar to that.

MS. DILLEY: Can I just make sure we get that sentence before we move on
and then Carol, we should come to you for your sentence, but, at the
farm level concurrent production.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: There may be instances \-- there may be situations
where concurrent cultivation or use of different production systems
causes problems for farmers.

MS. SULTON: Concurrent?

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Well, I was trying to tie it back to the definition
of coexistence which is the concurrent cultivation of conventional,
organic, and genetically engineered crops.

MS. SULTON: Say it a little slower.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Concurrent cultivation using different \-- concurrent
cultivation using different production systems, or whatever words,
causes problems for neighboring farmers. And I guess, Leon, that was
partly in reference to you with, you know, the weeds can come back the
other way too. It\'s not just a one-way field. What your neighbor does
impacts how you grow your crop.

MS. DILLEY: Mardi.

DR. MELLON: It seems to me that \-- I mean, it\'s really important to
separate the farm level problems from the consumer problems and I agree
that, you know, Adrian has an important kind of take on restrictions and
consumer choice as well as, you know, kind of the fact that people who
want non-GE food can\'t get it.

But, I think at the farm level it is \-- there is an asymmetry which is
that no one in the biotech market growing GE foods is impacted in
deference to Carol, suffers an economic \-- an adverse economic impact
from the presence of non-GE seed or pollen moving into their crop.

So, I would just, with that in mind, and with the limited context of
coexistence being the three kinds of agriculture we\'ve identified I
think that Alison\'s sentence would need to be modified to say that at
some \-- and I don\'t remember the sentence \-- but, concurrent
cultivation at the farm level \-- concurrent cultivation can cause
problems to farmers of non-GE and organic products.

Because I think that\'s the only way that the problems work at the farm
level.

DR. LAYTON: Well, I think what Alison said was that the weeds from an
organic farm could in fact affect his no till or his GE farm. I think
that is what she was saying is that \-- I wasn\'t here when the speakers
came so I\'m not going to say that, but, I thought there was a
responding. But, if you\'re sitting next to an organic farmer are you
worried in your fields?

MR. CORZINE: When someone\'s sitting next to one?

DR. LAYTON: Yes.

MR. CORZINE: It does. You do have issues. I mean, you have actually
additional weed pressure and insect pressure and, so, we have to do some
additional things next to our organic guy.

DR. MELLON: Well, if we want to say that then I don\'t think that would
come immediately to mind so I\'m more than willing to, you know, reflect
your experience but I think we\'d have to be clear about what it is.

DR. DYKES: I would also add if I could, I\'d also add, Mardi, the entire
seed production side of production agriculture are very much concerned
about what crops are growing next to all the fields that are in seed
production.

DR. MELLON: That part I get. But, in the context of these three forms of
agriculture that we\'re \-- we\'re not talking about yellow and white
corn or getting soybeans into your corn. Those are other issues, but,
they\'re not the way we define coexistence. So, among these three, it
seems to me that it is \-- and, you know, if we want to set \-- if we
want to make Leon\'s concerns clear I\'m happy to do that, but, other
than those it seems to me that there is something of an asymmetry that
people growing the \-- it\'s the people who chose not to grow the
biotech crops who, through no fault of their own, have to worry about
biotech whereas it doesn\'t go the other way.

MS. DILLEY: I just didn\'t think we were getting down to that level of
putting down all different situations where there could be a problem. I
thought we were staying on an upper level where we\'re saying \--

DR. MELLON: I didn\'t say \--

MS. DILLEY: \-- you can\'t please all the people all the time and so
that happened at the farm level as well as at the consumer level which I
thought we were going to shift and try and find that sense. I didn\'t
know we were going to do it doesn\'t work for organic necessarily when
you\'re next to a GE farmer or a conventional when you\'re next to \-- I
mean, we can go that route.

I just think it\'s going to be an awfully \-- a lot longer process and
paper. If it\'s necessary we\'ll \--

DR. MELLON: How about a statement like some farmers are going to be
affected some of the time I just don\'t think is going to eliminate the
issue on it.

MS. DILLEY: No, you\'re right. You need to put some more clarity around
it. I just don\'t know how in-depth we want to \-- that\'s the question
I have on that one. We\'re trying to get the at the farm level and then
we need to go to consumers.

MR. CORZINE: See if this \-- I\'ve got a cut of where I was trying to go
now and so this may be another choice or we can put this up. Consumer
markets dictate what farmers will grow. However, there are instances
where the food and feed or the food supply chain has difficulty meeting
a particular consumer demand.

MS. DILLEY: Well, that\'s linking back the consumer and the farmer. I
thought this was at the farm level specifically rather than at the
consumer level.

MR. CORZINE: It is recognizing because the farmer\'s not operating in a
vacuum. I mean, he\'s going to grow what he can sell and, so, I think
this does address it and it gets it to the point to maybe raise the
level of the consumer demand, I think, and then also, however, there are
instances where the food supply chain does have difficulty meeting
particular consumer demands.

So, it kind of recognizes that, okay, there are problems or it\'s not
perfect. We don\'t offer any perfect world.

DR. DYKES: It\'s not just at the production end or just at the consumer
end.

MS. DILLEY: Carol and then Bowen.

MS. FOREMAN: I am trying to get them into the same sentence.

MR. CORZINE: I think you do.

MS. DILLEY: Go ahead, Carol.

MS. FOREMAN: Let me try and get them in the same sentence.

MR. CORZINE: I think you do.

MS. DILLEY: Go ahead, Carol.

MS. FOREMAN: I\'m trying to get them down in the same sentence because I
actually like the notion of the overall it works well, but, there are
specifics that sometimes create problems. While the system works well
overall, the concurrent use of different production systems sometimes
limits the choices available to individual farmers or consumers.

"The concurrent use of different production systems sometimes limits the
choices available to individual farmers or consumers."

Now, if we want to elaborate on it we can do so at a later point. It
seems to me the key here is to not let this get control of the whole
paragraph.

DR. LAYTON: I like it, yes.

MS. DILLEY: Does that work for people?

DR. LAYTON: I think that\'s what the drafting committee was trying to
say, yeah.

MS. FOREMAN: They got 20 minutes and I had an hour.

MS. DILLEY: Bowen.

MR. FLOWERS: I just wanted to make a statement being a farmer. We got
the word about different crops, different packages, conventional. Right
now cotton next to corn, we\'re having a big problem with cotton bugs in
the cotton coming out of the corn so that\'s just part of farming now. I
mean, even though my own farm where I\'ve had two different types of
crops, I\'ve got to be careful and know what I\'m getting into so, you
know, the problem is out there, you know, regardless of which way
you\'re looking at it. It\'s both ways.

But, that\'s just part of farming and it\'s always been part of farming
even before GE crops because you have to worry about what chemicals you
put on. You put certain chemicals on corn and soybeans and you can\'t
put those on cotton and you have to clean out your spray rigs when going
from one crop to another so it\'s just part of farming right now and
it\'s always been part of farming.

MS. DILLEY: Right. Okay. So, I think we got a sentence that tries to
capture the discussion that we had and I think the group, the drafting
committee, was trying to do but we had to talk about it for several
minutes before we landed on the right verbiage. Are people pretty
comfortable with that sentence then?

DR. LAYTON: Could we see Carol\'s sentence one more time? There\'s so
many sentences up there. "While the system works overall the current use
of different production systems sometimes limits the choices available
to individual farmers or consumers." And that follows that "Therefore it
appears to the committee..." sentence.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So then if you move into the next paragraph, "Given
the current situation, the committee explored the aspects of the U.S.
agricultural system that currently support the..." \-- so, basically
it\'s talking about what comes next in the report is what enables
coexistence, what fosters coexistence or enables coexistence and what
could impact the coexistence that exists today among the production
systems.

And then "By doing that USDA will be in a better..." \-- and are talking
about it "In this report USDA will be in a better position to ensure
coexistence is not hindered in an agricultural market that provides
diverse products," etc.

So, that kind of puts what\'s coming in the report and how we were
trying to meet the charge. So, take a look at that and see if overall
that gets to the right point and then the last sentence, the last
paragraph is talking about there are different views. We all agree that
fostering coexistence is important and then we encourage USDA to read
the report. Right? In a nutshell. Michael. I\'m sorry, Greg.

DR. DYKES: I am okay.

DR. JAFFE: The last sentence of the report but was trying to get in what
Mardi had wanted, that USDA\'s role should be more active than just \--

MS. DILLEY: Yeah, we want it to foster coexistence and part of that is
to encourage all three different production systems, right? Michael?

DR. DYKES: I think on the USDA part I\'m okay with the paragraph
generally speaking. I think when we get down to the committee believes
that USDA I don\'t particularly like the "ensures". I would suggest that
we say, "The committee believes USDA should support agricultural markets
that provide diverse products and meets the needs" and the rest of that
sentence.

We should delete "will be in a better position to ensure that
coexistence does not hinder."

MS. DILLEY: So, basically USDA can better support coexistence?

DR. DYKES: "The USDA should support agricultural markets that provide
diverse products that meet the needs of stakeholders in the supply chain
now and in the future."

MS. DILLEY: Is that last sentence of the second to the last paragraph?

DR. DYKES: "The committee believes the USDA" and I would delete up to
the word "and hinder an", and I\'d insert the words "should support".

MS. SULTON: A-n?

DR. DYKES: A-n. Delete the a-n.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: So the sentence would now read \--

DR. DYKES: "The committee believes USDA should support agricultural
markets that provide diverse products that meet the needs of
stakeholders throughout the supply chain now and in the future."

DR. LAYTON: So, insert should support an agricultural market.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Agricultural markets.

DR. DYKES: I\'d say agricultural markets.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: So that sentence will then read "By analyzing what is
working well, what is not working, and what could be a problem in the
future involving coexistence in the United States, the committee
believes USDA should support" \--

DR. DYKES: Agricultural markets.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: It doesn\'t quite follow the "By analyzing".

DR. JAFFE: The idea was this is what our report talks about and then
this is going to help and link it to what USDA was \--

DR. LAYTON: Okay. How about "...will be in a better position to
support"?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: To support. Will be in a better position to support.

DR. LAYTON: Yes, will be in a better position to support.

MS. DILLEY: To support agricultural markets, right?

MS. FOREMAN: I won\'t make a fuss about that, but, it does seem to me
that I always had a little bit of problem saying USDA should support
agricultural markets. What you\'re really supporting is an effort to
meet the needs of individual stakeholders throughout the needs of
individual stakeholders and \--

MS. DILLEY: The rest of that sentence.

MS. FOREMAN: And why can\'t you just say.

MS. DILLEY: To support the needs of \--

MS. FOREMAN: Individuals. Why do we have to have agricultural markets
there?

DR. DYKES: To meet the needs of.

MS. FOREMAN: Just say, yeah, to support the diverse needs of
stakeholders throughout. This is on consumers or the supply chain.

DR. DYKES: Outside the supply chain.

MS. FOREMAN: The supply chain, does that mean in the end it\'s it
supposed to be meet the needs of \--

DR. LAYTON: Of the American public.

MS. FOREMAN: Oh, pooh, Pat. To drop the phrase \-- if we could just drop
the phrase about agricultural markets I don\'t think it\'s necessary
there. You want the stakeholders.

MS. DILLEY: In a better position to meet the needs of stakeholders
throughout the \--

DR. LAYTON: Also take provide \--

MS. DILLEY: The supply chain and consumers now and in the future. You
know, however.

MS. FOREMAN: Consumers are fine, or, whatever.

DR. CARDINEAU: So, it\'s going to read now USDA will be in a better
position to meet the needs of stakeholders throughout the supply chain
now and in the future?

DR. LAYTON: To support the diverse needs of individual stakeholders.

MS. FOREMAN: Now and in the future.

MS. DILLEY: Now and in the future.

MS. FOREMAN: Drop throughout the supply chain since that leaves me out.
Drop throughout the supply chain. MS. DILLEY: All right. We need to take
a break here shortly. All right. We need to take a break before public
comment. Is there any \-- we\'ll come back to this obviously. We\'ll
take a break and then come to public comment. But, anything before we
break?

MR. SLOCUM: Stakeholders and what?

DR. LAYTON: Americans.

DR. MELLON: I actually vote for putting the supply chain back in because
I do think that \-- I mean, there is a supply chain and there are a lot
of people in it. They\'re all important and somehow acknowledging that
is \--

MS. FOREMAN: Ultimately consumers.

DR. MELLON: Well, we can have consumers and others in the supply chain
if we wanted to focus on them, but, \--

MS. FOREMAN: If he can have the supply chain and ultimately consumers.

DR. LAYTON: That\'s okay.

MS. DILLEY: All right. So, we are supposed to go to public comment right
at 3:30. Michael, did you want to take a second.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: So, we will need to return promptly at 3:30 so that we
can \--

DR. LAYTON: Because we do have public comment.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: We have one person who signed up yesterday for public
comment so we may indeed have a public comment and he might not be able
to arrive much before the time of the meeting.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken)

DR. LAYTON: The comment period goes for an hour and fifteen minutes. If
our commenter is not here now we will check again in a half an hour to
see if he\'s arrived, but, meanwhile we will continue with the next
paragraph if that\'s okay with Abby who is leading this discussion and
Cindy, if she will be at her spot. We\'ll break it down in a few
minutes, not a complete break, but, we\'ll stop and find out if our
commentor has arrived.

Is that okay, Michael? Debbie at the keyboard and Abby, we are at "AC21
members\..."

MS. DILLEY: Okay. So, we\'re on the last paragraph of the single sheet
that the last committee put together so "While AC21 members have
different views about how well coexistence is working, the members all
agree that fostering coexistence is an important and worthwhile goal and
members encourage USDA to consider the discussion below to carry out its
important role in ensuring that the different agricultural production
systems in the United States can each continue to thrive, prosper, and
meet the needs of the marketplace."

Any comments on that last paragraph?

MS. FOREMAN: Can we go back up to what we\'ve now said immediately
before. It seems to me that what we\'ve said now is substantially more
supportive of coexistence than it was before. Go back up a little bit
more.

DR. LAYTON: That was the choice thing.

MS. FOREMAN: The preceding sentence. "...capably supporting the
coexistence among different agricultural systems." That\'s not quite
consistent I think with \-- we may need to complete that while we have
different views about how well coexistence is working because it says
there we think that it is. I\'m sure it could be done by just qualifying
that sentence.

DR. LAYTON: Well, I think the key series is, therefore, the "Agriculture
today is capably supporting the coexistence among different agricultural
systems." However, then we went down to your piece. Go the next thing,
system. "While the system works well overall, the concurrent use of
different production systems sometimes limits the choices available to
the individual \-- to individual farmers or consumers."

"At the farm level, however, there are clearly instances where different
production"\-- we don\'t have that one in there? Okay. We need to get
rid of stuff.

DR. CARDINEAU: Can we roll back up? I don\'t like the fact that we\'re
using agricultural system twice here. Can we just take it from
"Therefore it appears to the committee that the United States is capable
of supporting the coexistence in different agricultural systems"?
Because you\'re using agricultural system twice in that same sentence
and it sounds pretty funky to me.

DR. MELLON: Good suggestion. Rather than capably, but, it\'s generally
supporting the coexistence.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. So, therefore, \-- let me read it again. It does help
if you read it out loud sometimes.

(Discussion off the record)

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Let\'s just go onto the next paragraph that we\'re
worried about.

MS. LEE: Starting at therefore?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Yes.

DR. CARDINEAU: Take out the \"the\" in front of coexistence also.

DR. LAYTON: Starting with market demand. All the way down, Carol. Keep
going. All the way to the bottom. Okay. "Therefore, it appears to the
committee that the United States is today generally supporting
coexistence among different agricultural systems. While the system works
well overall the concurrent use of different production systems
sometimes limits the choices available to individual farmers or
consumers."

MS. FOREMAN: I thought that that was something that both those sentences
were something we all subscribed to.

DR. LAYTON: Right. Now, does that conflict with "While AC21 members have
different views about how well coexistence is working, the members all
agree that fostering coexistence is an important and worthwhile goal."?
That was your point, Carol?

MS. FOREMAN: Maybe qualifying it, do we need that first clause?

MS. DILLEY: Just say members all agree that fostering coexistence is an
important worthwhile goal?

MS. FOREMAN: Yeah.

DR. DYKES: I\'d like to see us delete that if we could.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: So go one more paragraph down.

MS. DILLEY: So, delete "we think that fostering is a good thing"? Just
the first part?

MS. FOREMAN: The first clause there.

DR. LAYTON: That AC members all agree.

MS. DILLEY: Is that better?

MS. FOREMAN: Now, the thing is that the very last part of the second
sentence really is almost the same as the last part of the previous
paragraph. I can write but I can\'t talk.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. So we may want to delete "Members encourage USDA to
consider.." discussion below. No?

MS. DILLEY: No, it does say something different. It does say you should
consider and it\'s important that you ensure that the different
agricultural and continue.

DR. CARDINEAU: I think the objective here is particularly if we\'re
going to eliminate that last section 5 is that we\'re saying that it\'s
enabling some places and it\'s interfered with in others and what we
want to do is get USDA to obtain the enabling things and less of the
interfering issues and that\'s the objective, I thought, of that last
sentence.

MS. DILLEY: I just want to make sure Carol\'s \-- Michael?

DR. DYKES: Yeah. I\'d suggest we change the word "ensuring" here to
"enabling" or the word you just used or something like that,
"fostering".

DR. LAYTON: "Enabling" at the end of that line.

DR. DYKES: "Important role in enabling the different production
systems..."

MS. DILLEY: You know, it doesn\'t fit, but, I think your point is
ensuring sounds more regulatory so we need to find a different word.

DR. CARDINEAU: Just say "enabling the different agricultural production
systems in the United States to continue..." Just put a \"to\" there:
"...to continue to thrive, prosper, and meet the needs of the
marketplace."

DR. LAYTON: That sounds very good.

MS. DILLEY: Mardi?

DR. MELLON: I\'d like to add the word, "three", "to enabling the three
different agricultural production systems to continue to thrive,
prosper, and meet the needs of the marketplace." That\'ll go back.
We\'re not just talking about the different, whatever they are, but,
that\'ll hearken us back to when we\'re talking about fostering
coexistence that we\'re referring to our definition.

DR. DYKES: I am not necessarily opposed to what Mardi\'s saying, but, I
think if we were to just futuristically maybe we ought to limit it to
the three. I mean, to me, as it states now it encompasses the three,
but, it\'s broader than just that, so I would ask if we want to limit to
the three.

DR. MELLON: Here is my concern. You can deal with the coexistence
problem by just having one of them go away. You know, you don\'t have a
coexistence problem if organic, it can\'t continue anymore because all
of its stuff is contaminated and they lose the better part of their
markets, you know, to be real stark about it.

So, I don\'t \-- I\'m not interested in fostering coexistence in that
way, so, I would like it clear that we want to foster both the three
kinds of agriculture and the coexistence among them. I do understand
that we may evolve different kinds of issues that in the future I don\'t
think we\'re limiting ourselves by kind of not mentioning them now and I
think that we\'re addressing, you know, real problems that have to do
with these real \-- these forms of agriculture defined by the
marketplace so we\'re served \-- I mean, we\'re well served by being
somewhat specific.

DR. DYKES: I guess I would argue that I hear what you\'re saying on the
organic piece and I think that\'s valid. I also think that we\'re not
looking at it going the other way so I think that the issues still
associated here if organic were to go and I think some of the issues
would be, again, all the biotech seed production is very concerned about
what else is growing next door to you.

So, even if you had a world with no organic for whatever reasons and
I\'d say no organic I still think you\'ll have issues of concern with
growing those and I think this is Bowen saying biotech is no longer
here. You\'re still going to have issues of this whole coexistence thing
just from the different agricultural systems and five years from now
there may be another something, maybe agricultural production for
interview purposes that has some unique characteristic that we want to
see that fostered as well. Just a thought.

DR. MELLON: I hear what you\'re saying and I agree with Bowen that these
are issues that farmers have had at some levels to confront forever, you
know, yellow corn, white corn, all that. But, those have not risen to
the point that we have, you know, State Department officials worrying
about them, so, I think, I mean, I\'m willing to \-- I\'m certainly
willing to broaden it in some way but I still think we\'re \-- you know
\-- that we are best served by keeping our eye on the ball that\'s here.

DR. LAYTON: Can we say current and future?

DR. MELLON: Oh, sure, you can say current and future.

MR. CORZINE: Yeah, that\'s what I was going to say, current and future,
because there are other ID systems that are going to come along with
specialty crops, maybe both in the negative and a positive way we\'re
focusing a little bit too much on organic because \--

DR. MELLON: It isn\'t just organic. I agree with him.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. That\'s a good solution.

DR. DYKES: I\'m not opposed to that.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. We have now finished section 1. And that we have, at
least we\'re putting it to bed for now, in which we had the introduction
as the broad title, section 1. The committee charge is (a); the
definition of coexistence is (b); and (c) is methodology and (d) is now
overview and we have just completed it.

Okay. With that I\'m going to \--

DR. DYKES: We need to slow down a little bit. This is a little
unsettling to me because I \--

DR. LAYTON: Five pages to go, Michael. I have to congratulate everybody.
That was good because we had an hour and a half where we were doing
other things this morning. However, at this time I\'d like to turn and
welcome Mr. William Freese with Friends of the Earth who is going to
provide public comment. Mr. Freese, if you don\'t mind using the
microphone so it can go on the record, please, in the corner over to
your left, my right.

And, also if you would, please, restate your name in case I\'ve
misspoken it and you have minutes and hopefully you have a written copy
of your comments also for the record.

MR. FREESE: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you very much. We appreciate that.

MR. FREESE: I brought ten copies.

DR. LAYTON: That\'s okay. It\'s just for the record.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: We can make more copies for the committee.

MR. FREESE: Yes. My name is William Freese. I\'m actually now with
Center for Food Safety rather than Friends of the Earth.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. Thank you.

MR. FREESE: And I came here today because not to speak about the issues
you\'re dealing with now, but, actually I came across the 2006 report,
Opportunities and Challenges in Agricultural Biotechnology, A Decade
Ahead. And I was \-- I guess I was just surprised by the way, in our
view, at CFS, it kind of misrepresents agricultural biotechnology.

And, in particular, I\'m looking at the next ten years section. It says
nothing about the modification that is by far the most common one in ag
biotech and that is herbicide tolerant crops. In just leafing through
the entire report I don\'t think I see a single mention of it and I
think it\'s very important. We have speculative traits, nutritional
enhancement mentioned, drought, and soil tolerance, pharmaceutical
crops, etc., none of which have proven \-- not of which have been
brought to market at all.

And, yet, herbicide tolerant crops are on four \-- comprise four out of
every five acres worldwide of genetically modified crops. And this is
from ISAAA Report that you cite yourself in this report. So, I mean,
really if you\'re going to describe transgenics in agriculture the most
accurate way to describe it would be herbicide tolerant technology.

And I think it\'s very important that your committee understand that and
discuss this as it\'s very important and also reflect it in your
reports, which are not for the public consumption, and also address some
of the, you know, adverse impacts of the herbicide tolerant crops such
as herbicide resistant weeds and some of the problems we\'re seeing with
the huge increase in use of glyphosate, including mineral deficiencies,
blockage of manganese and iron uptake in plants and I won\'t go into
that.

When I presented this fact in the past the response is often, oh, well,
yeah, that\'s what we have now but in the future it\'s going to all
change and, yet, I\'ve looked at the twelve crops that are currently
pending for deregulation, in other words, USDA. Of those twelve crops,
six of them are herbicide tolerant crops. All of them are engineered for
resistance to glyphosate so we\'re looking at more of the same.

And, actually, two of those six are engineered for resistance to two
herbicides each, glyphosate and one other. So, even in the near-term
future at the very least and probably in the longer term future we\'re
looking at a continuance of this dominance of herbicide tolerance
technology and that needs to be, you know, understood and addressed and
reflected in the report, I would request.

And, finally, I include some statistics on herbicide use. I noticed in
the report the common claim is made that genetically engineered crops
reduce pesticide use and promote conservation tillage. In fact, it\'s
perfectly clear that these crops overall increase pesticide use. And,
again, pesticides understood is herbicides plus insecticides.

There\'s a very comprehensive study based on USDA data by Chuck Benbrook
makes it perfectly clear that we\'re talking about increased pesticide
use and this is, again, a very important issue. There have been a number
of faulty studies put out there to hide this fact and they rely on
various tricks such as, for instance, basing their statistics on the
very early years when ag biotech number was small production of
herbicide use. Subsequently, that\'s changed greatly and, so, I would
just ask that, you know, your committee, when you deal with these
matters, you know, base your statements and analysis on facts rather
than fiction and, you know, I have references here.

I would, you know, encourage you to check and not take my word for what
I\'m saying and that\'s basically it. Thank you very much for your
attention.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Thank you very much. Do you have an electronic copy of
your remarks as well?

MR. FREESE: I\'ll just give you these hard copies.

DR. LAYTON: Thank you. Were there any other public commenters in the
audience while we\'re taking this break? If not, we will check again one
more time before the end of the period so that we make sure that anyone
who might have come in during this time period since it\'s public record
that we can hold it for commentary that we\'ll stop if that\'s the case.

And with that, thank you again very much for your comments. We
appreciate it and we will now continue to move through the rest of the
document that we\'re working on. Okay.

So, in my notes that puts us \-- Abby, really we\'re dropping the
executive summary which was number 2 and we\'re at what now \--

MS. DILLEY: Number 3.

DR. LAYTON: \-- was 3, factors enabling coexistence, what will now be
item 2.

MS. DILLEY: Right. And on the 7/22 document which is what we\'re using
for discussion purposes that\'s the middle of page 2 and starts with a
sentence and several bullets. You want to take just a couple of minutes
to look that over and refresh your memories of what\'s in there and then
we can start the discussion.

DR. DYKES: Abby, which section are we looking at? I apologize.

MS. DILLEY: Factors enabling coexistence on page 2 of the 7/22/07
document.

DR. DYKES: Okay. Thank you.

MS. DILLEY: Eight bullets.

DR. LAYTON: I would note that someone had mentioned earlier on that
bullet that there was something about regulatory environment that might
want to be in there; that that list was not exclusive. I just had that
note. I don\'t remember who said that. I don\'t know if that first
bullet.

MS. DILLEY: I know that when the drafting committee was working at lunch
obviously we took out the bullets that are just above that section, the
six bullets, and you might want to look at those and that may be pulled
down into that section and merged into that section because the last
bullet is specifically on legal and regulatory system.

DR. LAYTON: Is there a move to maybe move the bullets down there? Should
we put them back up on the screen just in case anybody needs to see
them?

MS. DILLEY: They\'ve got them in their draft. It\'s an open question as
to whether those are helpful to the report.

MS. GEISERT: And some of them are there. I think kind of in the wording
is both the question of how you might reword them or add them if need
be, but, I think we do talk about the feed and some of the elements
there.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: There is some overlap to the structure.

MS. GEISERT: There is overlap.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: And there are some bullets that are unique in the
first set \--

MS. GEISERT: Correct.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: \-- and not in the second which is legitimate to
\--

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Nick, can you move up to the mike. Thank you.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: You keep saying that. I was saying that it\'s
probably legitimate to move some of the bullets from off the set up top
to factors enabling. And certainly in my view the legal and regulatory
system that provides stability and certainty to market participants is
an important factor in making markets work well.

So, that certainly would be a bullet that we include in factors enabling
coexistence in general.

MS. DILLEY: Greg.

DR. JAFFE: Have we started the discussion?

MS. DILLEY: Yes. We\'re starting. We\'ve already started.

DR. JAFFE: Okay. I\'m sorry, I need to leave in like three minutes.
That\'s why I figured I would just give a couple of comments. On that
bullet, "The legal and regulatory system...", I mean, for me, that
doesn\'t do anything because I don\'t think there\'s enough explanation
there of how that really relates to coexistence. I mean, the legal
regulatory system works for everything. I don\'t know whether there\'s
specific things in the legal regulatory system that \-- there may be
specific aspects of the legal regulatory system that really promote
coexistence. We should discuss about that.

Just saying the legal regulatory system promotes stability in the
marketplace, to me, what\'s missing in both the factors enabling
coexistence and in the next section is linking them to the specifics of
allowing this coexistence that we\'ve talked about in the introduction
and that we\'ve defined facts about work.

So, for our specific aspects of the legal and regulatory system I think
that\'s great to put those in, but, just a general bullet like that, to
me, is not what we should be writing in this section. And with that, I
would similarly say for the last bullet, again, "...increasingly
important role of consumer demand for differentiated food products based
on individual views of the role of food in health and wellness...," I
don\'t necessary disagree with that statement at all, but, I don\'t see
how that is related to helping the existing coexistence that\'s worked
very well throughout the United States when we\'re talking about organic
and biotech and conventional crops.

They can all be related to health and wellness and so forth. So, again,
not that that is an incorrect statement, but, in my mind it\'s not
sufficiently tied to the point we\'re trying to make here which is these
are specific factors that really promote the coexistence of these three
different crops to keep that in.

The bullet before that on the relatively small size of organic crop
acreage and the limited number of crops I think is a very important
point to make. I guess I would like to see that expanded on a little
bit. I think in condensing it I think we know what we\'re saying, but,
I\'m not sure all the readers who would read who don\'t know all the
facts of what we\'re saying because we\'ve taken out facts before about
the details about the organic market it might be important to say that
the GE crops are commodity crops, soybeans, that the organic crops are
fruits and vegetables primarily. I don\'t know what else you want to put
in here, but, to me, by boiling this down we\'ve taken out a little bit
of the importance.

I think that point is a very important point but I don\'t think we\'ve
sufficiently described it so the more average reader can understand what
we\'re trying to make.

MS. DILLEY: Okay.

DR. DYKES: Greg, are you saying delete the last point?

DR. JAFFE: Yes. Unless we can \-- I would say delete the last point and
similarly I would not propose including a point on regulatory legal
unless we can specifically tie it to something that in fact is helping
coexistence. It\'s different than helping other \-- anything else. I
mean \--

DR. DYKES: Any insect (sic).

DR. JAFFE: Right.

MS. DILLEY: Nancy, and then Carol, and Nick.

MS. BRYSON: I think just in the way of explanation what Daryl and I were
thinking about including in this last bullet is that coexistence depends
on market demand. The reason why we have these different kinds of
production is because the market looks for it. And it seemed
particularly that the last presentation we had from the person whose
name I\'m not going to remember \--

MS. DILLEY: Phil Lempert.

MS. BRYSON: \-- Phil Lempert was making that point quite dramatically
about the strong role that\'s played by the choices consumers are making
for food based on a variety of characteristics, natural, organic, things
like that.

And, so, you know, in terms of thinking about what makes this a vibrant
U.S. marketplace work, that seemed like an important characteristic
based on what we have heard. That was our thinking for including a
particular bullet.

MS. DILLEY: So maybe that\'s exactly what you need to say is just
"...consumer demands for coexistence" because there are markets for
different products. Is that what you\'re trying to say, Nancy?

MS. BRYSON: That is a factor that enables coexistence because you have
the market demand for different crops.

MS. DILLEY: Carol?

MS. FOREMAN: Yes. I like the point. I acknowledge that it, again, is
condensed to the point where it\'s hard to relay it back, but, I would
like to see it expanded enough there because for the same reason that
Nancy mentions and it may be necessary, I think, to expand several of
these.

I would, for example, on the one before suggest that we break it into
two separate bullets because these are really important points and
hooking them together I think diminishes their importance and we could
say a little more if they were separated.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Nick and then Michael.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: First of all, I generally agree with Greg\'s point
that we should explain what the connection in the regulatory system is
and the facilitation of the issue of coexistence.

In my mind, we\'ve discussed a lot of dimensions where the regulatory
system has assisted coexistence, including issues around the fact that
we have not, within the context of regulatory, argument for a system and
tried to define adventitious presence, thresholds genetically, issues
around process versus product, standards for organics, and so on.

So, we had actually fleshed out several dimensions of the regulatory
system in the U.S. that has been facilitating for coexistence so when I
saw that sentence that\'s where my mind went in all of these different
ways that the regulatory system has been facilitated. This should be in
the enabling factors.

But, to Greg\'s point, we should flush it out.

MS. DILLEY: Michael. I\'m saying Michael. Do you go by Mike or Michael?

DR. ENGLER: Mike.

MS. DILLEY: Mike.

DR. ENGLER: I agree. And it\'s not in the report because until you
mentioned earlier that that was some of the regulatory and legal aspects
I wouldn\'t have known how it could have promoted coexistence. And then
the last point here, the consumer demand is also very important, but, it
is kind of interesting that you all have danced around the fact that
it\'s higher cost production and it\'s the demand that demonstrates that
people will pay more for organic and some of the identity preserved-type
crops.

So, that\'s why I think you\'re having trouble with why this last point
is important.

MS. DILLEY: The market demands it and consumers are paying for it?

DR. ENGLER: Their demand pays higher price.

DR. CARDINEAU: Consumer demand and willingness to pay for.

DR. ENGLER: Yes, I think, and it seems to me, and I\'m new, is that some
of the coexistence issues are manageable but are higher priced. They\'re
expensive. Can be expensive.

MS. DILLEY: Mardi?

DR. MELLON: I think one of the most important things we have really to
say in this report is this notion that not setting thresholds, because
until we had our discussion I really thought \-- I mean, I didn\'t
appreciate that. So, I think that it\'s a very important part and,
again, that it is a feature of the regulatory system, the way the
regulatory system has developed, and, so, to that extent it\'s
appropriate as factors enabling coexistence.

It does seem to me, however, that there is a regulatory issue that is a
factor inhibiting coexistence and it is that the regulatory system,
whether by virtue of compliance or a standard, is not sufficient to
prevent the spread of adventitious presence and cannot do it and its
inability to do that actually makes it harder to deal with coexistence.

If we had a regulatory system that was effective enough to really
prevent contamination, most especially in the seed production, I think
we would be in a better position in terms of coexistence than we are
right now. So, I think both features of the regulatory system might be
laid out.

DR. LAYTON: And could we bring that back up when we get to the
adventitious presence, the key bullet under that. Okay.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. I have cards that are still \-- I don\'t know if
they\'re up again or they\'re still up from previously. Okay. Nancy and
then Carol.

MS. BRYSON: I just wanted to say that in the May 24th draft under the
factors enabling coexistence we had \-- there was a bullet saying, which
was phrased a little differently. It says" ,...a legal system enabling
participants in all market segments to have the ability to operate" and
knowing your comments on that adversely. So, it seems to me that we have
agreed that that\'s one of the factors that supports coexistence and we
can, you know, play around with language.

It\'s one that should have been in this section, but, we had some
repetitive overlap. But, it seemed to me that the committee as a whole,
since no one had commented on this 5/24 draft, had agreed that that\'s
\--

MS. DILLEY: What page are you on?

MS. BRYSON: Page 8.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Just as a matter of procedure, I don\'t think as a
general practice we can say that there is concurrence, agreed upon
facts, until we have a whole \--

MS. BRYSON: Yeah, that\'s fine. This isn\'t a new idea.

DR. DYKES: It is a good sign. But, there\'s been no comment in three
drafts.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I would agree with that.

MS. DILLEY: So a legal system that has the ability to operate. Carol.

MS. FOREMAN: Thanks to Mike I think I\'ve got a suggestion for the last
bullet. "The willingness of consumers to pay a premium for
differentiated food products based on an individual view..." etc. So,
that\'s in the marketplace.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Could you repeat that?

MS. FOREMAN: "The willingness of consumers to pay a premium for" and
then it\'s the rest of the differentiated food, etc. And we can do the
same thing with the regulatory. And I agree with Mardi that the
corresponding bullet down in the inhibiting factor.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Other thoughts? I think people are running out of gas
here.

MS. FOREMAN: What about dividing the relatively small size and limited
number of crops into two so that we can have a full thought expressed
there. I know it\'s repetitious but some people will only look at the
bullets.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I was just going to ask, is that something that we want
split bullet or do you want a footnote with a lot of information? What
do people \-- I\'m just trying to see folks think works.

DR. DYKES: I don\'t which bullet. Which bullet are you on? I apologize.

DR. LAYTON: On page 3, it\'s the third bullet.

MS. FOREMAN: The thing is that that bullet even broken apart there is
not a full thought. It says what is the \-- so that, let\'s see, is it
that the relatively small size means that they couldn\'t possibly do the
whole job? I\'m sorry, I\'m not going to be able at this time of day to
pull a thought out of my brain, but, I think the full thought isn\'t
there yet. We all know what it is.

MS. DILLEY: Jerry.

MR. SLOCUM: There are two distinct issues there. One, is that the GE
crops or commodity crops, they\'re not fruits and vegetables. That\'s
one thought. The second thought is that the scope of GE and conventional
production is so much larger than the organic production. And this is a
fast country that we live in. There\'s a place for all of them to exist
today. That\'s two separate thoughts.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: And what\'s his name, our shipper from Illinois?
Clarkson. Talked about the ability to be able to cherry-pick for markets
even though cherries aren\'t necessarily the issue here. But, that whole
issue of scale and the ability to do that in relatively small markets.

MS. FOREMAN: So, the relatively small size of the organic crop acreage
could not meet the demand of the American people or the \-- I told you I
wasn\'t going to be able to do it this time of day.

MS. DILLEY: Guy.

DR. CARDINEAU: In relation to Jerry\'s comment about overlap between
organic and GE, there is some overlap because I think we had data in the
larger report that there was about two-tenths of a percent of organic
soybean and organic corn and there must be some organic cotton as well.
But, I think we know that there is zucchini and squash.

DR. MELLON: No, not just squash.

DR. CARDINEAU: Actually that\'s not true. There is zucchini because I
can show you the catalog. I looked it up.

DR. MELLON: Well, then the USDA and I have to talk.

DR. CARDINEAU: Well, they\'re calling it summer squash but I think it\'s
actually \-- you and I would call it zucchini. But, I think they\'re
classifying it as squash.

DR. MELLON: Okay. I thought it was yellow crookneck squash.

DR. CARDINEAU: They\'re both in the category.

DR. MELLON: That was deregulated. Zucchini has not been deregulated.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. The point is there\'s some overlap.

DR. CARDINEAU: The point is, is that one of the reasons this can exist
is that there is largely no overlap between organic and GE crops, but, I
think we\'ve got to be careful about saying there is no overlap.

DR. MELLON: Right, that\'s true. Correct.

MS. DILLEY: Adrian.

DR. POLANSKY: I just want to point out in addition to that, that\'s part
of what I was wanting to hear, that also, I mean, there\'s in a way even
though there\'s a very small percentage of organic production in corn,
for example, you do have conventional, GE, and organic, you know, as it
breaks out and then to a very lesser degree other than commodity crops.

But, the percentage of organic relative to the non-organic in either
area, whether we\'re talking about corn, soybeans, and commodity crops
or whether we\'re talking about fruits and vegetables, it\'s relative to
conventional but it\'s still, you know, a very small percentage.

So, in either case it\'s a small percentage was what I was wanting to
make sure was clear. I just wanted to make that clear.

MS. DILLEY: Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yeah. Well, we have only 22 percent of organic
corn or organic soybeans, we have three percent of the acreage in IP,
non-GM corn and soybeans. So, this acreage is not that small. So, there
is actually presence of IP acreage for commodity crops that has to go
right next to GE and coexist in a very separate way.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Do you have a citation for that because we didn\'t have
that in the paper?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yeah, I can give you citations.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Actually, we may not be bringing any statistics in now
and it may not be relevant but I\'d like to have it.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I can give you citations.

DR. MELLON: Those are very interesting statistics.

MS. DILLEY: So, just in terms of our first pass at the factors enabling
coexistence, anything in there that you don\'t see that should be in
there?

MS. FOREMAN: When we come back around on this I\'d like to make some
small suggestions. I can offer them.

MS. DILLEY: Yeah, I\'m sure there will be.

DR. MELLON: Are we still on the enabling?

MS. DILLEY: Yes. We\'re not going to move into inhibiting until
tomorrow.

DR. DYKES: Just a general comment. I think this is kind of where Greg
was coming from. I think we\'ve got to be careful that we don\'t mix
differences about the market that are truly happening with coexistence.
I think that\'s a fine line there that we got to be careful because
there\'s a set of facts that are true about coexistence and there\'s a
set of facts that\'s true about the changing dynamics of the
marketplace.

But, those two things may not always be linked together. So, I just want
to throw that out there. Sometimes I think when we get talking about
this, we kind of transition from coexistence to the marketplace and,
like I said, there are true facts, there are true statements about both.
Just kind of going back to where Greg was coming from and our comments,
are they connected to coexistence?

I\'m just throwing that out as a comment.

MS. DILLEY: Carol?

MS. FOREMAN: I actually think Michael\'s made a good point. But, I also
think the language that they used to introduce that section is really
very well qualified to cover this. Several features have contributed and
they include. I mean, that\'s pretty \-- that\'s let you differentiate,
well, yes, in this case it was, but, in that case it perhaps wasn\'t.
It\'s a pretty qualified statement.

DR. DYKES: I\'m not saying that they aren\'t, but, I just think in my
own discussion of this if I\'m not careful I\'m transitioning from
coexistence to the different aspects of the marketplace.

MS. FOREMAN: I think the point\'s well taken.

MS. DILLEY: So to the degree that we can really draw specifically how it
enables coexistence I think that\'s really what we\'re looking for. So,
are there any other bullets under there that we need more explanation to
tie it more directly to how it\'s enabling coexistence?

MR. SLOCUM: Abby, in the first one, the corporation and market
orientation of stakeholders, I think that I\'ll offer two more additions
to that list that are in Greg\'s piece. One would be the organizations
that represent consumers, the NGO\'s, and I don\'t know how to phrase
the other part but certainly the government, state, national, and local
that regulate this industry, you know, they have a market orientation.

The response the U.S. Government is taking to these newer technologies
is very different than the approach that governments around the world
have taken.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Do you want that included here or talk about expanding
the legal and regulatory system?

MR. SLOCUM: If you expand that then I don\'t think you have to put it
here. But, I didn\'t know, had we come to a consensus that we\'re going
to \--

DR. SCHECHTMAN: I was going to ask that very question.

MR. SLOCUM: Okay.

DR. LAYTON: Oh, I thought we had moved that one bullet.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: It wasn\'t enough. And there was discussion \--

DR. CARDINEAU: Greg argued there wasn\'t enough information, but, I
think we were talking about trying to flush it out a little bit more and
I think Jerry\'s comment may add to flushing that out a little bit more.

DR. LAYTON: Okay.

DR. MELLON: Jerry, could you flush it out a little more? Are you trying
to say that the NGOs are not doing their jobs?

MR. SLOCUM: No, no, no. Take a step back here. The NGOs' approach to
this has been a much more responsible approach than that from your
sister organizations around the world or your brother organizations
around the world. Your approach to it has been much \-- it\'s not been
nearly as frantic or nearly as fanatical. It\'s been very much more
methodological and let us understand it and we\'ll try to understand you
if you try to understand us.

DR. LAYTON: Could I suggest that the words may be as growers, commodity
and specialty product handlers, processors, retailers, and consumers and
the NGOs that represent them?

DR. SCHECHTMAN: The organizations.

DR. LAYTON: Or the organizations that represent consumers?

MS. GEISERT: Represent them because you might have different folks.

DR. LAYTON: That\'s right.

MR. SLOCUM: You have the Grocery Manufacturers of America that took a
responsible approach to this. They needed to be encouraged of course,
Michael, but, they did.

DR. LAYTON: So, retailers, consumers, and the organizations that
represent all of them or retailers and consumers and the organizations?
I don\'t know how to do that.

DR. MELLON: Your average consumer organization wants to be thought of as
primarily having a market orientation? I mean, that is not the way we
\-- responsible, we love. Market orientation, we don\'t. It\'s just not
our thing.

DR. LAYTON: It\'s cooperation.

DR. DYKES: Even though the thought is well-intended to be put here, I
would say don\'t put that in.

DR. LAYTON: So, don\'t put that in?

DR. DYKES: I agree with the theory before it. I also hear what Mardi\'s
saying to put in there some organizations don\'t like to be thought of
as a market orientation or responsible folks of the market or something
but not a market orientation.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. So we\'re leaving the list as is.

MS. DILLEY: Brad, what did you say?

MR. SHURDUT: Seed companies are technology providers. I mean, we come at
this with a cooperative and market orientation and that\'s part of the
value chain for stakeholders.

DR. LAYTON: Technology providers could go in.

MR. SHURDUT: Or seed companies.

DR. MELLON: How about participants in the supply chain?

MS. GEISERT: Our list is going to continue to grow.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I mean, we have all stakeholders, growers,
specialty producers, handlers, processors, retailers, consumers.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: How about just an e.g.?

DR. LAYTON: E.g. Just take out the parentheses? Okay. Then nobody feels
left out.

DR. DYKES: The attempt of the parentheses is to give you \--

MR. SLOCUM: The breadth.

DR. DYKES: Yes, the breadth of it. Yes. I kind of like \-- you put an
e.g. and then \--

DR. LAYTON: E.g. or such as?

DR. DYKES: Then you don\'t leave anybody out.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. E.g.

MS. DILLEY: I\'m worried about this group arguing about e.g. at 4:30.

DR. CARDINEAU: Put that in legal and regulatory?

MR. SLOCUM: We\'re attempting to flush it out.

DR. MELLON: We\'re going to talk about that.

DR. CARDINEAU: I\'ve got some ideas about it.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Where are we?

DR. CARDINEAU: So, "...a legal and regulatory system at both the state
and national level that provides direction for market entry and provides
stability and certainty for all market participants." Is that \--

DR. MELLON: We\'re saying that exists and \--

DR. CARDINEAU: I took this direction for market entry because you have
to jump over regulatory hurdles to be certified organic. You have to do
certain things for that. You have to jump over other regulatory hurdles
to enter the marketplace with genetically engineered products.
Conventional products are not really regulated per se.

MS. DILLEY: So, you\'re really merging that with the bullet that appears
at the bottom, the four factors inhibiting coexistence so that kind of
combination of providing predictability and the legal system providing
predictability?

DR. CARDINEAU: I mean, I think we need to put something in about the
legal regulatory system because I do think it promotes the activity and
I do think it provides direction to those individuals that are involved
in developing these products. If you\'re an organic producer you have to
follow certain rules and regulations. And if you are a GE producer you
have to follow certain rules and regulations.

That direction is very clear in the United States, so, I think it\'s \--

DR. MELLON: It\'s even clear in Europe.

DR. CARDINEAU: It\'s clear that you can\'t do it in Europe.

DR. DYKES: I would argue it\'s not always clear in Europe.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. I\'m kind of lost where the cards have been up. Nick,
I think you\'re next and then Alison, Leon, and then Michael. I just
don\'t remember the order. So, Nick.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: I was agreeing with Greg\'s point that we need to
verify the connection between legal and regulatory system. After hearing
the discussion, my conviction has been strengthened. So, in fact, I
think that if you would separate bullets in the legal and regulatory
connections. In my view, the issue of regulatory applied in a regulatory
approach in certain areas like, for example, not nailing down a
threshold, a threshold for adventitious presence has made all the
difference in the world on the success or the ability to have
coexistence.

So, there are some elements to the regulatory system that enable
coexistence which is what this section\'s all about is about enabling
factors. The issue that we have a process versus product for the
standards for organics enables production and coexistence in the context
of the U.S. So, that is some of the elements of the enabling of the
regulatory system.

In the context of the legal system, what allowed the discussion that we
had was the fact that we have a legal system that when you have a pollen
flow issue you can actually take your case to the court and have that
decided. We\'ve had a number of cases like this go to court and be
decided ultimately defining, in essence, a *status quo* for delineating
the issues around coexistence.

So, we may flush out these issues so we don\'t go around and around what
it is that we are talking about. And I think that\'s going to be very
important.

MS. DILLEY: Alison?

DR. MELLON: I agree.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: I actually was speaking to the point we were looking
at earlier. I just \-- I\'m questioning and, correct me here, whether
consumers have a market orientation and are part of the supply chain.

MS. FOREMAN: Thank you. As I said, I have some little things I wanted to
\-- I don\'t think the supply chain\'s a necessary phrase in that
sentence.

MS. DILLEY: All right.

DR. VAN EENENNAAM: Just cooperation and market orientation for
stakeholders. Are consumers market-oriented?

MS. FOREMAN: Oh, yeah.

DR. LAYTON: Are market-oriented.

MS. DILLEY: So, \--

MS. FOREMAN: If you take that phrase out then it doesn\'t take anything
away and it doesn\'t add that dissonance.

MS. DILLEY: Leon, and then Michael, and then Nancy.

MR. CORZINE: I\'m just wondering if we\'ve flushed out enough in that
next to the last bullet as far as the relatively small size of organic
crop, da, da, da. That could cut both ways, couldn\'t it? So, I\'m not
sure if it\'s \-- is it, we really think it is a relevant point?

MS. DILLEY: I thought \-- yeah, I thought Jerry talked about two aspects
of that. That helped lay that out a little bit more.

DR. LAYTON: Are we going to flush that out?

MS. DILLEY: It\'s not flushed out.

MS. FOREMAN: Because I started and ran out of gas.

MS. DILLEY: Okay. Well, the two lines that I wrote somewhere in here \--

MS. GEISERT: I think it related to the commodity \--

MS. DILLEY: The commodity crops.

MS. GEISERT: \-- and then the scope.

MS. DILLEY: Right.

DR. DYKES: I think your point, Leon, is going to the fact that small
acreages can also be a damper to. I\'m asking if your point, didn\'t you
say cuts both ways? The fact that you might be able to approach this
better with larger acreages.

MR. CORZINE: Right. I mean, and you can \-- once again, it isn\'t just
an organic issue. It can go to any specialty or identity preserved. It
could be \-- I\'m not sure that if it\'s a small sized crop that I\'m
wanting to produce that it actually is an enhancement to coexistence.
It\'s an enhancement to what I can derive from the marketplace. But, is
that a coexistence \--

MS. FOREMAN: But, it means you can\'t meet the full demand for a
particular product with squash, for example. You can\'t meet the whole
demand for squash and you can\'t provide it all at a price that people
\-- it\'s a premium product. So, you have to have the conventional out
there as well in order to meet the needs of the market.

MS. DILLEY: Nick, you want to chime in on this?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Yes. The discussion about the smallness of acreage
wasn\'t in the context of demand. It was in the context of production,
production capacity, and the idea is that any time that you have small
acreage you can basically fit it in different places. You can find areas
which, you know, and don\'t take organic, you know, you can take a small
area close to the river and put yellow corn acreage so that you don\'t
have large IP costs.

So, the idea was always about that if you have small markets you can
skim or cherry-pick from commodity crops and find no adventitious
presence. It happens with the seed industry today in terms of exports in
Europe, right, and you can also fit those acres in a lot of different
places.

So, it\'s always been \-- the discussion has always been the context of
production.

MR. CORZINE: Okay. I see that and I agree with that. I would think maybe
we should insert. If you want to leave the word organic in there it
should be the small size of the organic or other specialty crop acreage.

DR. MELLON: You also made, I thought, a point about the infrastructure
that is as long as the specialty market is small you can find these \--
you know \-- you can find \--

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Extra space.

DR. MELLON: \-- extra space, but, if it were a third of the market then
you would not be able to do that and your ability to keep the two
separate becomes concomitantly more difficult.

MS. DILLEY: So is that what we\'re looking for, the relatively small
size of organic or other specialty crop acreage compared to conventional
and genetically engineered acreages?

MS. FOREMAN: Don\'t you have to say why.

MS. DILLEY: Yes.

MS. FOREMAN: As Nick just did.

DR. LAYTON: Could you just repeat that?

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: This is a lot of words, guys. I don\'t know. Say
it in a few words.

DR. LAYTON: Allows for \-- relatively small size allows for \--

DR. MELLON: To fill in isolated acreage and \--

DR. LAYTON: Allows for the ability \--

DR. MELLON: \-- infrastructure.

DR. LAYTON: \-- to grow those crops. I don\'t know.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: How about we draft something and present it
tomorrow? I mean, it\'s late in the day.

DR. DYKES: Two things I want to add on that I don\'t think we\'ve
captured in here so far. I thought the presenters all made the point of
one of the key pieces of producing all three and I remember Cameron
especially, the biology of the crops and knowing what the biology of the
crops are that you\'re growing regardless of whether they\'re going to
be GE or organic or conventional. What time they flower, when they
flower, what crop goes after another crop, those kinds of things.

DR. LAYTON: Does that go under ability of farmers to manage
co-production of the different crop types on their own farms and in
between farms? Actually, I think that\'s on their own farms and among
farms.

DR. DYKES: Maybe it does. I thought the biology of the crops was one of
the \-- to me, is one of the key things that we\'ve heard in the
presentations.

DR. LAYTON: And you can put in parentheses crop biology.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Communications.

DR. LAYTON: Crop biology and communications.

DR. DYKES: Which is another key thing we heard which is communications.
I guess the other one, and I don\'t know if we had it captured in here,
I thought the other thing that we heard in all the presentations is that
it enables coexistence in the U.S. was the historical familiarity with
it and historical experience so you can deal with it, as Bowen said, for
a long, long time and I would say we spent more times in state farms of
agriculture about corn growing next to cotton than we have any of these
other issues we\'ve talked about.

DR. LAYTON: So, there is a really separate bullet that says that
historically farmers have all have been able to work through coexistence
issues that were not dealing with genetic engineering or organic and so
we have a system that allows us to continue to do that.

DR. CARDINEAU: Best principles and practices.

DR. LAYTON: Principles and practices flow over into organic and GE.

DR. MELLON: Isn\'t that the ability of farmers to manage co-production
of different crops on their own farms and between farms?

DR. LAYTON: But, you\'re not saying that there\'s been an historic
tradition?

DR. DYKES: I\'m just trying to get the historical perspective in there
that this isn\'t new here in the U.S.

DR. CARDINEAU: Why don\'t you just say "historical" in front of it,
"...historical ability for farmers to manage co-production of different
crops on their own farms and between farms."?

MS. DILLEY: Nancy and then Mardi.

MS. BRYSON: I agree that we need to work some on the legal and
regulatory thing, but, Nick, I\'m not sure I agree with your suggestion
that we separate legal and regulatory although I think we need to
clarify the bullet and the reason for that is you seem to use the word
legal to relate to liability lawsuit kind of stuff and regulatory to
relate to a combination of what it is that the government does and what
the market does.

And I see them as entwined in this sense. All of the regulatory
structure that we have that APHIS puts in place, including things like
the EIS that we were talking about this morning, is the way the agencies
implement the legal authority that\'s handed to them from Congress to
regulate this area of the world.

So, I don\'t see separating that piece of regulation from legal, but, I
understand that you\'re also using the word regulation not solely in the
sense of what the government requires but in terms of market structures
so maybe we can think about it in that context.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: Right, and mostly I was thinking that if we were
going to flush out with either examples or some qualifying sentence
separating some of those it might be useful because, I mean, we would
end up with a very large bullet. But, excellent point.

MS. DILLEY: Jerry.

MR. CORZINE: But, Nancy, there is another aspect to the legal system
that if I\'m farming next to Bowen and Bowen\'s got a Roundup Ready^®^
crop and we have \-- for God\'s sake, we have it next to mine, you know,
then that is a real incentive to make coexistence work.

MS. BRYSON: I agree. I was just saying legal \--

MR. CORZINE: There\'s two different aspects of legal.

MS. BRYSON: Yes, two different aspects of legal. Yeah.

MR. CORZINE: Maybe that deserves a bullet in and of itself.

DR. KALAITZANDONAKES: And it makes it in that context that I mean
referring to legal all along.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: The tort system.

MS. DILLEY: All right. Michael and then Sarah. Michael Dykes? Sarah?

MS. GEISERT: I will admit by now I\'m feeling a little confused on what
bullet points we\'re keeping so my suggestion might be as we maybe
highlight which ones are going to be there and maybe tomorrow think
about starting out with here are the bullets we heard you wanted
included and a little bit of the added because it\'s getting a little
late.

I do think there\'s the other part of legal that we contend with; just
to add in there is what we also heard which is true. We deal with the
legal that the government tells us and we also deal with the legal that
we made an agreement between us and WalMart or us and Costco or the
buyers and the sellers and I think when you look at the clarity of
agreements based on clear, fair, viable, and achievable stuff in cases,
that has allowed Lynn Clarkson and others to sort of differentiate.

But, those are, in our mind, legal contracts and, so, I think there are
multiple aspects of legal that when we take it out of the regulatory
framework do deserve some additional attention. Again, the U.S. has
allowed these contracts to be written so that some may want this
specification and some may want that and, therefore, again, you\'re able
to meet the demands of the market because we haven\'t set the thresholds
in the regulatory framework.

So, I believe they\'re two different parts and I think there\'s more
elements to legal that we\'ve talked about in the past where I do think
the importance of the regulatory we have to highlight was, again, our
insight into thresholds.

DR. DYKES: And I think to Michael\'s points and the points you\'re
making and the fact that the AP policies are what it is goes to
Michael\'s point. It allows the market to find the different subsets,
they\'re willing to pay different amounts. Those who are willing to pay
the most have the tightest requirements. Those who are not willing to
pay you don\'t have to abide by all those different kinds of contractual
arrangements.

I mean, it allows the market to represent a lot of different sectors.

DR. LAYTON: So, that\'s where marketplace and coexistence overlap
totally?

DR. DYKES: Totally.

MR. SLOCUM: Without coexistence you don\'t have a place in the
marketplace.

DR. LAYTON: I know. I\'m just saying we talked about making sure that we
kept \-- we made sure we were talking about when they overlapped totally
as opposed to when they get \-- and I want to make sure that\'s where
they do.

DR. DYKES: There\'s another way to look at it. You can almost say that
that\'s a place for the marketplace coming back with some coexistence
process to expose really how well it\'s working. Because when you start
having contracts to supply against different kinds of \-- contracts to
supply against different kinds of contracts that fit different market
needs the verifiable test is you\'re going to find out how well
coexistence really are working.

And I think the U.S. what we\'ve found is you can do that as Lynn
Clarkson and others have told us. The higher the effort required the
more cost there is.

MS. SULTON: Have we in the past talked about contractual requirements
separate from legal requirements when we said contractual requirements.
Is that getting at what we\'re talking about now?

DR. LAYTON: We did in traceability and labeling.

DR. DYKES: Traceability and labeling. We did that all over again.

MS. SULTON: We probably made that distinction.

DR. LAYTON: We called them contractual agreements.

DR. DYKES: So, I would suggest, getting back to Sarah\'s point, it seems
to me as though tomorrow we need to kind of start with all the bullet
points that Nancy and Daryl had in what was previously called Executive
Summary, put those down with the bullet points we have in the section 3,
Factors Enabling Coexistence, and then edits that we come up with today,
and then tomorrow I think we can decide that some of those are the same
and can be combined, some of those need to be split into two, whatever,
but, if we take two sets of bullets along with the edits and kind of the
thoughts of what\'s been expressed here, we can come up tomorrow with
one set of bullets that will capture the thoughts.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: With the additional work on the revised legal whatever
it is.

MS. DILLEY: Yeah. I think that\'s a good goal and probably I\'ll have
bullets missed a little bit towards the end here.

DR. DYKES: Why is that, Abby?

MS. DILLEY: Because you lost me on the contracts and the legal and how
that all fits together and it didn\'t fit together so well for me.

DR. DYKES: Just leave the fourth bullet point in from up above and \--

DR. LAYTON: Commercial agreements based on clear, verifiable, and
achievable specifications is a clear bullet point and needs to move
down.

DR. DYKES: It would be 98 percent of what we just talked about the last
30 minutes.

MS. DILLEY: All right.

DR. DYKES: It seems like an awfully good place to \--

MS. DILLEY: Call it a day?

DR. DYKES: Call it a day.

DR. LAYTON: Okay. We have a couple of housekeeping duties to finish up
with. So, I would recommend that all of those look at those and come up
with some edits on the ones that we particularly pointed out to because
we need to have good words tomorrow. Some of us are excellent
wordsmiths. Others of us are not.

Okay. Second housekeeping item was that some of us are going to go to
dinner tonight and we need the exact address because some of us may not
be going from the hotel. So, Michael.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: Just before we get to that, I just want to sort of
check. You\'re going to try, of course, on this end to go back over our
notes and make sure that we have the pieces that we think we have.
We\'ll talk about that after the meeting adjourns. So that maybe we will
another copy of where we think we are in the beginning as a piece of
paper to bring to folks in the morning.

The restaurant for those who are planning to go out this evening, again,
is The Blue Duck Tavern. Its address is 1201 24th Street, N.W. I think
the nearest Metro stop if you should choose to go by Metro is probably
Foggy Bottom. And the reservation I told you 6:15. It\'s actually at
6:30 and it\'s in my name.

So, again, we will start again at 8:30 tomorrow morning with coffee
available a little bit earlier.

DR. LAYTON: Coffee at 8:00.

DR. SCHECHTMAN: And thank everyone for a productive day and for the
cooperative spirit and we\'ll see you all this evening and tomorrow.

(Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the meeting was adjourned to reconvene on
Thursday, August 2, 2007 at 8:30 a.m.)

[]{.underline} Digitally signed by Beverly Jason

[ELECTRONIC CERTIFICATE]{.underline}

DEPOSITION SERVICES, INC., hereby certifies that the attached pages
represent an accurate transcript of the electronic sound recording of
the proceedings before the United States Department of Agriculture.

![](media/image1.png){width="3.0458333333333334in"
height="0.8909722222222223in"}

Beverly Jason, Transcriber