Remarks
                                  by
                    Deputy Secretary Rich Rominger
          National Association of County Agricultural Agents
                 San Antonio, Texas -- July 30, 1998
Don Drost, thank you very much. Before he passes the gavel to Gary Hall
tonight, I'd like to say a few things about Don. He started out a year ago
with some big ideas for this organization. He aimed to work more closely
with all of us in USDA -- particularly with Miley Gonzalez and the
Research-Education-Extension folks, and he's done that.
Don wanted to strengthen the ties between the Association and national
farmers' organizations. He thought America's producers and rural citizens
would come out the winners from that kind of a relationship. He's done
that, too.
For this week's program, he went outside the Association to include the
national leadership of the Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union, and the National
Farmers Organization. I believe this is the first time ever there's been
such tremendous farmer representation on the program, and that's something
we all appreciate.
     This kind of give-and-take falls in with the letter and spirit of the
Agricultural Research, Extension and Education Reform Act that the
President signed last month. I was there for that signing. I want to tell
you that the Act includes 13 references to the need for the agriculture
research community to get a better sense of regional and even multi-state
priorities from local stakeholders. Thirteen. Actually, I didn't count. But
those who did tell me that's about right. The Association and Extension
have long been out-front in getting stakeholder input. This kind of
leadership among county ag agents is one very good reason why Extension --
in many ways -- is a model for the rest of the land-grant system.
I also want to welcome Gary Hall, of Nebraska, as incoming president,
and recognize the work of Vice President Curtis Grissom, from Athens,
Alabama.
All of these gentlemen have a done a fine job representing the interests of
county agents in Washington this year.
     It's good to be here with all of you and, when the mercury is
reasonable, it's always good to be in the great state of Texas. Texas was
the birthplace of our 34th and 36th Presidents -- Dwight Eisenhower and
Lyndon B. Johnson -- and it's home to some of the nation's best folklore.
In fact, there's a story in Presidential folklore about LBJ not being too
keen on getting up early in the morning. It's said that early mornings were
such a concern of his that he had a special shower installed in the White
House. The folks who put it in called it a  mini car wash.' It was big,
cold and powerful. Your typical shower has eight to ten pounds of pressure.
This one had 120. When a workman turned it on, he got pinned to the wall.
Maybe coffee would have been better.
These days, even LBJ couldn't get a shower like that in Texas. They say
there's a dude ranch in west Texas, with a sign in every bathroom: "No more
than three inches of water in the tub. Out here we can't afford to spend
water like money."
     That's just as true right now as the very old farm story about the
traveler who stopped to view a dry-blasted crop of corn. "Looks kind of
short, don't it?" he asked the grower.
     "Yep," he said, "she's shorter than when she was little."
From central Texas, across southern states, crops are shorter than when
they were little...if they came up at all. Here in Texas, especially for
cotton, it's a classic agricultural drought in the worst sense, when timing
is everything. It's a three-strikes-and-you're out summer.
As you know, it was too dry to plant. Even if farmers managed to get
crops in the ground, the crops wouldn't germinate. And even if  they did,
they'd only wither in the sun once they came up. It's a lose-lose-lose
situation for the southwest -- the worst in 18 years for Texas and
Oklahoma, and one of the worst since the 30's Dust Bowl.
Probably the only good thing that can be said for Mother Nature is that
she doesn't play favorites. Trouble spots are all over. As the front-line
connection with farmers and communities, you know the situation better than
anyone from Florida's fires to the Northern Plains battling disaster after
disaster -- bad weather, wheat disease, tough foreign competition, falling
prices linked to troubled Asian economies, crashing farm incomes.
Secretary Glickman has toured many of the stricken states in the past
few weeks -- this week Texas and Oklahoma. We've declared all Florida and
Texas counties, and most of Oklahoma, eligible for disaster assistance.
Forty-nine Texas counties have the go-ahead to hay on Conservation Reserve
Program land. This will remove a source of fuel in wildfire areas, and give
livestock a feed source while hay supplies are running dangerously low.
For the Northern Plains, the President has directed us to buy more than
80 million bushels of wheat. In the best humanitarian tradition, the wheat
is going where it's needed most -- to the hungry in places like Sudan and
Indonesia. The purchase cuts two ways -- it helps the U.S. push forward
against famine and starvation around the globe. At the same time, it will
reduce crop surpluses and could boost wheat prices by as much as 13 cents a
bushel.  Congress has also taken quick bipartisan action to exempt
agricultural trade from U.S. sanctions against India and Pakistan following
their nuclear tests. Pakistan is the third largest market for U.S. wheat,
and the top market for white wheat.
     On a policy level, President Clinton this month signed the National
Drought Policy Act of  98.  This puts USDA squarely in the lead of federal
drought efforts. This policy will guide our handling of drought disasters.
It will build on the regional work of the past two years of the Western
Drought Coordination Council, which I've co-chaired, and guide drought
legislation in the next century -- we hope.
 THREE ASPECTS OF THE SAFETY NET
Let's talk safety net  first, in an unconventional way, by thanking
all of you for being the first level of support to rural America this
summer, without question.  Mother Nature has taken over the headlines with
drought, fires, grain gluts. But the real story is counties, counties,
counties --people who are hurting and people who are helping.
People like the Extension folks involved in setting up the new Drought
Relief Information Center at Texas A&M in Laredo .... and those in Marion
County, Florida, who helped convert a 4-H camp into a shelter for
firefighters, providing emergency relief from the danger and pressure of
their jobs.
USDA appreciates your work. If we left some county agents out of the
loop -- we're not doing our job right. Not only do we recognize the
traditional partnership with the land-grant system and cooperative
extension we need your partnership and the educational connection to get
the job done.
First, at this time especially, as USDA continues to downsize at the
local level, the work of local extension grows in importance. In addition,
the Farm Bill stresses local involvement in conservation, for example,
which has got to draw on the knowledge and skill of county agents if these
programs are going to work.
And second, 21st century sustainable agriculture will depend on farmers
who are up-to-date with technology. It will depend on producers who are
sophisticated about issues from global warming to the relationship between
our urban and rural areas. These farmers, in turn, will demand knowledge,
education and information from their county agents in ways perhaps
unprecedented in the 84-year history of extension professionals.
Let me explain these two points.
CURRENT DEMANDS ON COUNTY AGENTS
In terms of current workload, USDA's been streamlining aggressively to
cut the size of our workforce by about 22,000 staff years by 1999. We've
been co-locating county-based agencies into one-stop service centers, some
of which include the local extension office, to make the most of declining
resources while improving customer service. We're cutting the number of
field office locations by more than 1,000. And we've contracted for a
thorough, independent study of the farm and rural program delivery system
of our county-based agencies -- FSA, NRCS, and RD -- to see what the
workload is as a result of the  96 Farm Bill and what else might need
changing.
      This is a consummate team effort. For USDA agencies, it means sharing
resources for administrative efficiency and serving the needs of farmers
and rural America. For our partners in county extension, it means there are
fewer of us and more pressure on you to meet farmers' needs at the local
level.
       One need that's been really tough to meet, especially here in Texas
and in the Northern Plains, is helping farmers manage risk. The simple fact
is that the Farm Bill yanked the safety net out from under farmers. When
President Clinton signed the legislation, prices were very strong. But he
warned us all that the bill wouldn't offer what farmers need when prices
plummet, and that day has come.
       There's no question the government has a role in helping farmers
through hard times. So we've worked to bolster the safety net in ways
ranging from export credits to helping rural America. But crop insurance is
the first line of defense for most producers. Although we've improved on
the program and expanded it to new crops, it's still not enough. It's got
to be fairer and more affordable. We want to extend marketing loans when
crop prices are low or transportation problems make marketing difficult.
And farmers should be given more flexibility to plant other crops when
their primary crops fail.
     Overriding all these efforts is basic education. We've just allocated
about $3-1/2 million to fund risk management research and education
programs across the country. Working with you, with state universities, and
public and private sector partners, we're trying to cover the range and
complexity of risk with limited funding.
Workshops tailored to lenders factors that influence choosing the
right risk management strategies measuring risk tolerance workshops on the
special situations of dairy and grain farmers helping young, small-scale
and limited resource farmers limit their risk exposure.
This education is comprehensive. It's needed more than ever.You've heard
of MediGap. This is a kind of AgriGap. Farmers are facing a double whammy.
We don't have funding for a comprehensive national risk management
education program. At the same time, producers' exposure to risk has
dramatically increased under Freedom to Farm. We need agents to step in,
and get the word to farmers about all their choices -- from crop insurance
to alternative marketing tools to futures and options.
       And while I'm standing here urging you to fill this education need,
I'm aware of your concern that the Farm Bill, in some ways, took the
education mandate away from you. That's not the case.
      The Environmental Quality Incentive Program under the Farm Bill is a
response to the land. For years, the land has been telling us that things
must be done differently if we're to address our natural resource problems.
EQIP is a model of locally-led conservation.
       But it's also a very inclusive partnership. The Farm Bill instructed
our Natural Resource Conservation Service to get the most environmental
benefits per dollar spent under EQIP. And it gave us a three-part mandate.
Like a three-legged stool that can't function with one leg missing, NRCS'
job is to provide a package -- the best possible financial, technical, and
educational resources available to get solutions to farmers and
communities.
Driven from the bottom up, from field and State offices, the process of
identifying state priority areas begins as a local partnership.
      Your involvement from the start, on local work groups and state
technical committees, is a key element in developing competitive funding
opportunities. Around the country, Cooperative Extension is helping
communities improve the nation's watersheds, and educate the public about
its role in environmental sustainability...... a natural resource education
plan in the Sand Springs Project area in Dickinson County, Kansas a
local work group in Chautauqua County, New York to tackle nitrate problems
in water supplies ... educational displays in Missouri focused on "Healthy
Watersheds, Healthy People" ... EQIP proposals and a Clean River Day in the
Massachusetts Franklin Conservation District ... and I could go on.
     To give you a sense of the demand ... to fund the 60,000 applications
received in fiscal  97 alone, we'd need three times the money available.
This program works, and much of the credit goes to you.
COUNTY AGENTS' 21ST CENTURY ROLE
      Thank you for that, and thanks for all you're doing to help the
nation's farmers and rural communities gear up for the next century and the
new millennium.
Probably the first challenge is getting across the time barrier with our
technology intact. In just 519 days, at the stroke of midnight, when we
usher in the New Year, we'll also usher in an amazing age of possibility,
of advances in science and technology, a time when technology will widen
the circle of opportunity.
Ironically, as President Clinton has said, "this same stroke of midnight
will pose a sharp and signal test of whether we have prepared ourselves for
the challenges of the Information Age." A design flaw in millions of the
world's computers will make them unable to recognize the year 2000,
affecting billions of microchips that run everything from farm equipment
and satellite technology to VCRs.
C-S-R-E-E-S is launching a major public awareness campaign, more like a
blitz -- called Y2K -- on August 1st. It will target the ag community, and
we'll follow up with "tool kits" mailed to communication directors at the
land-grant universities in September. You're the first line of contact with
the ag community, so we're asking you to work with us and share these
materials with the people you serve. There's a lot at stake.
The fact is that as a nation we ask a lot of our farmers. In return,
they ask us to help them develop and stay up with new technologies, with
new science. Agriculture depends on this kind of advance, and the nation
depends on a prosperous, progressive agriculture.
You know our Research-Extension-Education system is the envy of the
world. It works like a giant gear, each part thriving because it turns with
the others. When President Clinton talked with farm broadcasters last week,
he stressed not only the importance of investing in ag research, but the
applications of that research. Without the educational reach of Extension,
research doesn't move to the field. It does no good.
The role of county agents will expand as farmers meet 21st century
demands -- like sustainable agriculture. This implies knowledge and
sophistication in areas ranging from biotechnology to precision
agriculture.
Both offer the opportunity to cut pesticide use and put less stress on
fragile lands.
     You are helping to move us all toward our goal of getting Integrated
Pest Management in place on 75 percent of the nation's farmland by the year
2000. With your help, we're carrying out a broad program of research to
meet needs identified by state and regional IPM teams.
     Farmers will need to be kept abreast of changing pesticide issues,
including the new Food Quality Protection Act. FQPA is still developing.
Over time, we'll need Extension to compile data and help farmers with the
continuing evolution of new chemicals and biocontrols.
     We'll also be looking to Extension to bring a reasoned, balanced
approach to controversial issues -- to put out fires, and not just the kind
burning in Florida. Global warming, for example, has taken lots of heat in
the farm press. The agriculture community fears the implications. But
there's another side to this coin. Agriculture can be part of the solution.
But farmers need knowledge to understand the possibilities.
They need to understand that agricultural technologies for managing soil
in a sustainable way are one means to decrease atmospheric carbon. They
need to understand agriculture's potential for sequestering substantial
amounts of carbon through soil conservation. In fact, some companies are
exploring the economics of buying up carbon sequestration credits from
farmers. And farmers need to explore biomass issues -- replacing fossil
fuels with agricultural energy sources to reduce atmospheric carbon
dioxide.
     Anyone involved in 21st century agriculture will be called on to deal
with our urban neighbors. This is an issue I've been deeply involved with
in Yolo County, California. What they're doing there is what we need to do
nationwide. We need folks to sit down and talk. We need to get builders,
developers, homebuyers, planners to understand that they -- as well as
farmers and ranchers -- will shoulder the cost of urban sprawl. And it
won't be cheap.
Farmland conversion doesn't happen in a vacuum. Farmland loss jeopardizes
the next century in ways the urban population and some rural folks haven't
come to grips with -- not just less food but air quality, water quality and
supply, energy costs, congestion, wildlife habitat, and the nation's rural
character.
     Whether we're talking about the Piedmont, Chicago, or my own turf --
California's Central Valley, the last great Mediterranean -climate,
agricultural production area left on earth -- the ramifications of
disappearing farmland are enormous.
Understanding the full issue and turning around the tide of development
demands education, and that's where you come in.
     It's my conviction -- having worked closely with the land-grant system
and having spent time in Washington  -- that the issues pressing on 21st
century agriculture are proof that there's a critical role for publicly-
funded research, extension and education into the next century. University
research and Extension are an important check on recommendations coming from the private sector. Under a public system, everyone benefits.
      But I began my career on the farm and in county-level issues. And
that's where I learned perhaps the most valuable lesson in government. If
you want to make changes that really help people, you have to do it in your
towns in your communities ... and in your counties.
This is a partnership that works. It's a classic. And classics adapt. As
agriculture's focus shifts increasingly to the local level, the importance
of county agents to the system will grow as we get ready for the next
century.
Thank you.
                                #
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