> ![](media/image1.jpeg){width="6.5in" height="1.45625in"}
>
> Release No. 0077.02
>
> **of**
>
> **Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman's remarks**
>
> **to the National Association of State Department's of Agriculture**
>
> **Feb. 25, 2002 - Washington D.C.**
>
> **SECRETARY VENEMAN:**
>
> "Thank you all very much. Thank you so much. It\'s great to be back
> with NASDA, again. I really look forward to meeting with this group.
> As was mentioned, I have been to quite a few States this year. I\'ve
> had a chance to see many of you in your own States, and I think we
> just crossed over the halfway mark on our way to trying to do all 50.
> Maybe we\'ll make it soon, but it\'s not without a lot of effort.
> I\'ll tell you, traveling is tough these days.
>
> "What I want to do today is have a fairly informal session. I want to
> go through a few of the things that we\'re working on and then have
> some time for your questions and answers and really have some time for
> discussion because I figure that that\'s probably the most productive
> for all of us.
>
> "I did have the chance to meet with some of your governors yesterday,
> some of the folks and western governors. I was telling Sheldon I heard
> about roof rats, wild horses, and prairie dogs, and all kinds of APHIS
> issues I think. So it was kind of interesting. It was mostly a natural
> resources kind of meeting, though.
>
> "We, of course, have had a very, very, very busy year for our first
> year in office, and I really, really appreciate all of the support
> that we\'ve gotten from our State partners. It\'s been a critical part
> of what we do, and we truly appreciate the fact that we\'re able to
> work with so many of you and your staffs as we move forward on a
> number of critical issues.
>
> "When you look back at the kinds of things we face this year, from the
> threat of foot-and-mouth disease, and BSE being out there, and then we
> had Starlink corn, and citrus canker, and glossy- winged
> sharpshooters, and Asian long-horned beetles, and the list goes on and
> on, and all of these are things that really underscore the importance
> of Federal-State partnerships.
>
> "Then, of course, we had the events of September 11th, and I haven\'t
> met with this group as a whole since then, but now our partnerships
> are even more critical than ever. So I want to thank each of you for
> your personal involvement and commitment to make our program stronger
> and to work with us so that we can be more efficient and better
> coordinated because, as you know that is how we\'re ultimately going
> to be able to protect our food supply.
>
> -more-
>
> "In some of the visits I have had throughout the States, we have had
> the opportunity to highlight Federal-State partnerships. I was in
> Texas with Susan Combs not long ago, just earlier this year, in San
> Angelo, and we highlighted the partnership that we have in boll weevil
> eradication with the Federal and State Governments, as well as the
> homeland security issues.
>
> "Earlier or last year I was in Iowa with Patty Judge, where we signed
> a CREP agreement, and we\'ve done that with a number of your States.
> But those, again, are critical partnership, Federal-State partnership
> opportunities that we have and we\'d like to see more of as we move
> forward.
>
> "So I want to talk, to some extent, about partnerships today, but
> first let me give you an update on the farm bill. I know that you\'re
> going to have a discussion later on, I think, with\--is Chuck Connor
> coming today? And he\'ll probably go into more detail, but I wanted to
> give you an overall update.
>
> "We have now, as you know, entered into conference on the new farm
> bill. In the past several months, we\'ve been working with Capitol
> Hill and trying to achieve results on a good farm bill. In September,
> we published our book, \"Food and Agriculture Policy: Taking Stock for
> a New Century.\" Hopefully, all of you got a copy of that. I think we
> sent it out to everyone.
>
> "Then, in November, we announced the administration\'s support for the
> Cochran-Roberts bill, which we feel best meets the principles and the
> objectives that the President has put forward for a new farm bill.
>
> "So, as we go forward in campaign finance, Hunt Shipman, from our
> staff, and Chuck Connor are going to be the day-to-day contact points
> in the conference, along with many, many technical people from our
> various agencies who are already beginning to work with staff on the
> conference. It\'s a very, very long and difficult process,
> particularly given the fact that there are so many differences in the
> farm bill. I know that Mr. Connor will have time to talk with you
> about some of that today.
>
> "Let me just quickly go through the principles, as outlined many times
> by myself and by the President. We want a new farm bill that provides
> a safety net for our farmers, but does not encourage overproduction
> thereby depressing prices which, as we all know, is self-defeating.
>
> "We are hopeful that we will see farm savings accounts, another kind
> of risk management tool for farmers and ranchers, which would
> complement the more traditional programs.
>
> "We want a farm bill that\'s consistent with our international
> obligations. In other words, we have certain commitments that
> don\'t\--our WTO commitments, keep in mind, do not keep us from
> supporting our farmers. It\'s not a matter of how much, it\'s a matter
> of how. And so we want to make sure that our programs are as
> consistent with the so-called \"greenbox\" policies as possible.
>
> "We want a farm bill that helps farmers and ranchers address
> environmental concerns. As you know, both the House and the Senate
> bills have more money than ever for environmental programs, and so we
> think this is a positive step forward, and I know that Mark Rey is
> going to be here visiting with you on a panel later today and will
> probably talk more about the specifics of some of these provisions
> that have been discussed.
>
> -more-
>
> "Finally, the farm bill should adhere to the budget agreement. As you
> know, the House and the Senate Budget Committees both agreed on an
> amount over baseline for 10 years of \$73.5 billion. They agreed to
> that last year. The administration then, in the 2003 budget, reflects
> that number. Now you may think, well, of course, it reflects that
> number, but our budget people have told me this is the first time they
> have ever seen an administration put in a number for a farm bill
> before the farm bill is passed. So I think that shows a real
> commitment on the part of our administration to this farm bill and the
> funding for it.
>
> "We do have concerns, however, about the front-loading, the so-called
> front-loading of the Senate bill, which would spend substantially more
> amounts of that money over the first five years, thereby undermining
> the baseline for the out-years. And so we want to make sure that the
> money is spread out relatively evenly over the 10-year period.
>
> "Then, of course, one of the difficult things and a top priority for
> us this year is going to be farm bill implementation. Never an easy
> task, and the fact that there are so many new kinds of provisions
> being discussed in the farm bill means, of course, that this is going
> to be a lot of work for our folks, and they are already anticipating
> new programs. In preparing for that, I\'ve had the opportunity to go
> out and meet with our employees in Kansas City, where a lot of this
> work is done, and they are preparing, as we speak, in our FSA rural
> development and NRCS, in particular, for the implementation of the new
> farm bill.
>
> "As I mentioned earlier on, one of the things that we\'ve dealt most
> specifically with over the past year is something that involves all of
> you probably the most, and that is protecting our agriculture against
> pest and diseases. I mentioned many of the challenges we face this
> year. Obviously, last year I know when I met with you in May, we were
> in the midst of dealing with foot-and-mouth disease. We had many of
> your State veterinarians in, worked with them. Again, appreciate the
> good work of the veterinarian from California, who was loaned to us to
> help us out on this.
>
> "We\'ve dealt with Karnal Bunt again, Starlink corn, citrus canker,
> clementines and the issue that came up with live Med fly larvae, and
> we had to cut off Spanish clementines.
>
> "We released our BSE Harvard Risk Assessment report, which I think was
> a real achievement, a 3-year study, that shows that the risk of
> getting BSE in this country is very low, and if we were to get it, the
> likelihood of it spreading was very low because of the precautions
> we\'ve already taken, and we are going to continue to take further
> actions as the science becomes more and more clear.
>
> "I applaud all of you for everything that you\'ve done in your States,
> particularly since September 11th. Many of you now have new programs
> where you\'re looking at the security of the food system. You have
> websites with specific measures. We, too, are working with the entire
> food chain to determine how we can best achieve homeland security from
> the standpoint of our food supply. It involves everything from
> production to processors to transportation to retailers. Everybody in
> the food chain is involved in this effort. The trade associations are.
> I know farmers are much more vigilant, particularly livestock farmers
> who are not letting as many people come onto their properties these
> days. And so we\'ve made strengthening all of these programs a top
> priority even before September 11th, but now after September 11th we
> have to worry about not only unintentional threats to our food supply
> and our agriculture, but intentional as well.
>
> -more-
>
> "Deputy Secretary Moseley is going to be speaking with you tomorrow,
> and he will talk in more detail about our homeland security efforts.
> He\'s doing a great job in heading up our Homeland Security Council at
> USDA and working with many of the groups.
>
> "Our fiscal year 2003 budget calls for an additional \$146 million in
> new spending for homeland security efforts through USDA, with
> particular focus on the APHIS areas. Our staffing for the Ag
> Quarantine Inspection Program will be increased to nearly 4,000 staff
> years in fiscal year 2003 if our budget is approved. This would be a
> 55-percent increase from staff levels at the beginning of 2001 and the
> highest levels ever. So we are taking these issues very seriously.
>
> "In addition, we got \$328 million in the Defense Supplemental
> Appropriations Act, largely due to the efforts of some in the Senate,
> particularly Senator Roberts, who has been very strong in pushing for
> homeland security efforts on the part of USDA.
>
> "These resources will invest in critical areas, additional inspectors,
> new computer technologies, X-ray equipment, dog teams, research and
> renovations at our key laboratories to help improve the strong systems
> that we already have in place.
>
> "Last year we provided States nearly \$2 million in additional
> resources for homeland security efforts, and in the coming weeks,
> we\'re going to be looking at some State resources out of the homeland
> security money that we have obtained from the Defense supplemental
> appropriations. Our team is putting together the parameters, and we
> hopefully will have some information out to you in the fairly near
> future.
>
> "I, also, want to tell you that we\'re working, the President in his
> State of the Union the other day talked about a Freedom Corps
> initiative. One of the things that we are looking at is the
> possibility of adding veterinarians into that effort, based partly on
> that experience with sending veterinarians to the U.K. during the
> foot- and-mouth crisis, it occurred to us that veterinarians would be
> an appropriate group of people to add to the Freedom Corps initiative.
> So we will be looking at that as a possible partnership with the new
> Freedom Corps initiative that the President announced.
>
> "Now I also want to talk for a few minutes about trade because,
> obviously, that\'s what I was listed on the agenda as talking about
> today, but I felt I needed to update you on a few other things as
> well. As you know, trade continues to be critical to the agriculture
> in our country. It\'s critical to the agriculture in almost all of
> your States. We grow so much more than we can consume in this country,
> and we have to continue to open new markets so that we can continue to
> have outlets for our product.
>
> "In the past year, we launched a new round of trade negotiations in
> Doha. It was not an easy task, particularly, after the failed meeting
> in Seattle, but agriculture was high on the agenda. We were able to
> maintain the language that we believe needed to be there, and so we
> are very hopeful, as we go forward with the new WTO agenda, that we
> will be able to make significant additional market openings and
> reducing of trade-distorting subsidies as a result of new
> negotiations.
>
> "We\'ve also worked hard on trade promotion authority. It passed the
> House of Representatives by an overwhelming one-vote margin. Now we
> are hoping that the Senate will vote as quickly as possible on trade
> promotion authority so that we will have that additional credibility
> at the negotiating table, whether it\'s on bilateral agreements or
> regional agreements or the WTO itself.
>
> -more-
>
> "We were in Canada, in Quebec City, for the Summit of the Americas,
> where we launched the Free-Trade Area of the Americas, and we\'ve
> continued to fight, particularly to open up markets, but we have
> encountered a number of issues over the past year relating to sanitary
> and phytosanitary issues involving trade.
>
> "We continue to fight biotechnology regulations and nonapprovals in
> the European Union, and we haven\'t ruled out filing a WTO case. We
> are very involved now in the biotech regs that are pending in China
> and even the President raised this on his trip there last week.
>
> "Just last Friday, we announced that the poultry market to Japan is
> again open, after about a month or longer trade dispute that was, in
> our view, completely unjustified due to avian influenza, which is not
> even a reportable disease under the OIE.
>
> "Wednesday, we were able to announce that after a 10-year negotiation,
> we have gotten at least partial market opening for our table grapes
> into Australia.
>
> "And just a week or so ago the administration announced its decision
> to pursue actions regarding the unfair trading practices of the
> Canadian Wheat Board which, as you know, is a State trading
> enterprise.
>
> "We need to think, also, we often hear people talk about trade in the
> sense of, well, you know, we\'re just not sure about trade. We\'re not
> sure about trade agreements. But I would encourage all of you, as you
> talk to your farmers and ranchers, to remind them how much they depend
> on trade, how much we export in this country and how much we stand to
> lose if we were to lose our export markets.
>
> "We export 50 percent of our wheat. This year we\'re going to export
> over 50 percent of our cotton, it\'s projected, about a third of our
> soybeans, 20 percent of our corn, meat and poultry, increasing amounts
> all of the time, up to 20 percent of our poultry now. And then there
> are specialty crops, where we export tremendous amounts of what we
> produce. I think in almonds, which are all produced in California, we
> export over 70 percent of what we produce, a billion-dollar-export
> market. People are often surprised by that.
>
> "But the fact of the matter is we cannot, we cannot ignore the
> importance of trade to the U.S. agriculture industry. It is critical.
> We have seen in recent years, as we have stayed by the sidelines in
> negotiating new trade agreements, other countries negotiate bilateral
> and regional agreements, and we sometimes get left behind. I like to
> use the example of the Chile-Canada free trade agreement. We\'ve been
> talking about a free trade agreement with Chile for over 10 years.
> Canada negotiated one, and now Canada has a preferential tariff and is
> taking our markets in both wheat and potatoes, certainly, not an
> acceptable situation. We also hope, as I said, that we do get Trade
> Promotion Authority as quickly as possible.
>
> "One of the other things I wanted to talk about just before I close
> today is a new initiative that we launched just a few weeks ago, when
> I was in Ohio with Fred Daily, and we were at Ohio State, and we spoke
> to the ag class there at the university, and we launched an initiative
> called Leaders of Tomorrow, where we are really reaching out to young
> people who will be the industry of tomorrow.
>
> -more-
>
> "Whether it\'s ag universities and going around, and we hope to speak
> to several ag universities this year, and then as we travel around the
> country, we are trying to have with us \"mentees\" from 4H and FFA to
> be with us for the day, to be on the stage
>
> with us, to go to the various events to see what a Secretary does as
> we\'re out traveling around, and it\'s just been quite an
> extraordinary experience.
>
> "When we were in Ohio, I had four young women who were with me, all
> leadership in FFA. Thirteen of the sixteen leadership positions in FFA
> in Ohio are held by young women. The Ohio Corn Growers gives the
> president an ethanol car for the year of the presidency. So I was
> driving around with these young women all around Columbus, Ohio, and
> it was really quite an experience for them and for me.
>
> "This is also the 100th anniversary of 4H and the 75th anniversary of
> FFA "this year. So we\'re going to be doing a number of events in
> conjunction with those, highlighting not only the importance of these
> two organizations, but tying it in with our Leaders of Tomorrow
> initiative as well.
>
> "As I said at the Ag Outlook Forum on Thursday, we know that it\'s
> been a tough and challenging year on many fronts. The current climate
> for agriculture has been hampered by natural disasters, it\'s been
> hampered by September 11th, a slowed U.S. and world economy, continued
> slow growth and demand for ag products, generally, but we do believe
> the future looks positive, and we do need to seize the opportunities
> that are before us.
>
> "There are many aspects of the food chain, whether it\'s farmers,
> ranchers, processors, distributors, policy makers and many others are
> actively engaged, and I know all of you are, in making agriculture
> grow and thrive in this country. It is a changing food system.
> Consumer needs and a consumer-driven system, new product development,
> value-added technology advances, food safety, bio energy, these are
> all examples of the kinds of changes we\'re seeing, and they are all
> impacting the way that we do business, but they are all providing
> tremendous opportunity for the future.
>
> "We want to continue to build the strong partnerships we have with our
> States. We need to build on our successes so that we can advance all
> of the important issues that are impacting agriculture, and I believe
> that our relationship and our partnership with the States is now more
> important than it ever has been before, so we want to continue to
> build that relationship. You are all critical to the success of
> American agriculture, so we look forward to continuing to work closely
> with you.
>
> "I want to thank you all, and I\'ll be happy to answer a few of your
> questions or hear your comments.
>
> "Thank you."
>
> \[Applause.\]