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PUTTING FOOD ON THE TABLE: 

A REVIEW OF THE IMPORTANCE 

OF AGRICULTURE RESEARCH 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

November 2, 2017 

Serial No. 115–35 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

November 2, 2017 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 5 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 9 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Daniel Gerstein, Senior Policy Researcher, RAND Corporation 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 14 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Dr. Stephen Higgs, Associate Vice President for Research and Director, Biosecurity Research Institute, Kansas State University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 31 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 33 

Dr. Stephen P. Moose, Denton and Elizabeth Alexander Professor, Maize 

Breeding and Genetics, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 42 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 44 

Dr. Elizabeth Wagstrom, Chief Veterinarian, National Pork Producers Council 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 53 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 55 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 61 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Daniel Gerstein, senior policy researcher, RAND Corporation ..................... 78 

Dr. Stephen Higgs, Associate Vice President for Research And Director, Biosecurity Research Institute, Kansas State University ...................................... 84 

Dr. Stephen P. Moose, Denton and Elizabeth Alexander Professor, Maize 

Breeding And Genetics, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign ......................................................................................... 91 

Dr. Elizabeth Wagstrom, Chief Veterinarian, National Pork Producers Council ........................................................................................................................... 97 
Page

IV 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Report submitted by Representative Roger W. Marshall, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 104 
(1) 

PUTTING FOOD ON THE TABLE: 

A REVIEW OF THE IMPORTANCE 

OF AGRICULTURE RESEARCH 

Thursday, November 2, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:35 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. The Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing titled ’’Putting 

Food on the Table: A Review of the Importance of Agriculture Research.’’ I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening 

statement. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine federal agriculture 

research including the scope, importance, value, and impact of such 

research. Agriculture research is a broad term that can include the 

study of diseases that threaten the nation’s animal agriculture industry and public health. It can also refer to research to increase 

and improve crop and yield production through advancements in 

science and technology. In other words, we rely on the research to 

help protect the Nation from disasters, and we rely on it to help 

prepare us for the future, one in which agriculture research will 

benefit from developments in precision and automated technologies 

such robotics and artificial intelligence. 

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, agriculture research is an important topic for my constituents and for me because agriculture is 

such a critical industry. According to the Virginia Department of 

Agriculture and Consumer Services, agriculture is Virginia’s largest industry by far with nothing else coming a close second. People 

are actually surprised that Virginia—for those of us in northern 

Virginia, we might be a little surprised that agriculture still holds 

as the top industry. The industry has an economic impact of $70 

billion annually and provides more than 334,000 jobs in the Commonwealth. 

In the 10th Congressional District, agriculture’s key role is felt 

far and wide, from the rows upon rows of apple and peach orchards 

in the western counties to the ever-growing wine industry, craft 

breweries and distilleries. We also have dairy and cattle farms too. 

Our distinguished panel today represents a variety of perspectives to explain the value and impacts of agriculture research. We 

will hear about the food security and economic and national security implications of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack on our 

crops and livestock. We will also hear about industry research efforts and practices, and an academic perspective on innovative efforts to more efficiently increase and improve crop yields. 

These are important considerations because agriculture research 

impacts all of us. As an example, one need only go back to the 

avian flu outbreak—which I’m not sure if I might be having a flu 

outbreak here—of 2014 and 2015, which resulted in almost $900 

million in expenses to federal and state governments, the slaughter 

of more than 50 million birds, and an estimated cost to the U.S. 

economy in excess of $3 billion. 

I look forward to hearing about federal and other stakeholder agriculture research efforts from our witnesses today. I hope to understand how the research is coordinated and complemented to protect America’s food sources so that we may all continue to safely 

and abundantly put food on our tables for the foreseeable future. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:] 
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognize the Ranking Member, 

the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, for his opening statement. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, for holding this 

hearing and the witnesses for being here today. Certainly in my 

State of Illinois, agriculture is huge, so there’s no question that 

people know that. 

Often, the major research issues that we talk about here on the 

Research and Technology Subcommittee are not the subjects of everyday dinner conversation. But today, we are actually talking 

about dinner. I was hoping to see some product here for us this 

morning, but that’s all right. 

Putting safe and affordable food on the table is something many 

of us take for granted. However, there is an entire ecosystem of innovation and public-private partnerships that make it possible for 

farmers to continue to meet the needs of a growing population. 

Agricultural science is multidisciplinary, spanning fields from engineering to economics. As Dr. Moose from the University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign can attest, UIUC’s Crop Sciences department includes research in statistics, ecology, environmental 

sciences, plant biology, horticulture, plant genetics, plant pathology, and weed science. 

Likewise, major discoveries and innovations that assist in crop 

production come from unexpected places. For example, new genetic 

editing technologies that began in a microbiology research lab 

promise major leaps forward for agriculture. In another example, 

NASA supported the development of satellite image refinement 

software for its research that also helps agricultural researchers 

study the effects of population and climate on crop field acreage. 

Agricultural researchers work closely with farmers to help translate all of this science into practice, while farmers continue to help 

define the research agenda for food security. Research and development is a system of feedback loops, not a linear path. There’s rarely a clean line between basic and applied research in any field of 

inquiry, and today’s topic is no exception. 

It is important to remember this as we examine the need for 

flexible, sustainable federal support for agricultural research. Both 

government and private sector investments support agricultural research. Multiple federal agencies support efforts to advance our 

Nation’s leadership in agricultural research. These agencies work 

in close collaboration with the agricultural industry. Unfortunately, 

as federal budgets are tightened, academic researchers have less 

funding to move their science through the development process; 

therefore, the private sector supports an increasing share of agricultural research. 

While the private sector has an important role, we must continue 

to provide a balance of public and private funding in order to ensure both a pipeline of basic research and a research agenda driven 

by the needs of farmers and the public. Our lack of dedication to 

sustainable funding could cost us global competitiveness in certain 

areas of agricultural technology and put our food security at risk 

within the lifetime of many of us. 

A number of factors can affect the quality, availability, and safety of the plants and animals that help feed our families, including 
10 

extreme weather, pests, and disease. In the face of emerging infectious diseases and new technological tools such as genetic editing, 

we must also be vigilant about intentional contamination and disruption of our food supply. I hope there is some discussion today 

about how researchers and industry are taking into consideration 

the agricultural impacts of a changing climate and growing population, and how those factors will help shape the research agenda. 

On the biosecurity front, which is one focus of this hearing, several 

of the today’s witnesses will testify about the critical need to implement sustainable funding policies for the new National Bio and 

Agro-defense Facility under construction in Manhattan, Kansas. 

Now is the time to consider a federal strategy to increase the 

scale of agricultural research across the relevant agencies, encourage balanced federal-private sector partnerships, and ensure that 

our future agricultural workforce is equipped with the necessary 

science and technology skills to meet the food and biosecurity challenges of today and tomorrow. 

Finally, I would like to note that agricultural research also has 

applications beyond food security. For example, the Department of 

Energy recently awarded UIUC five years of funding to establish 

one of four new Bioenergy Research Centers that will provide a 

new generation of sustainable bioenergy and other bio-based products. 

I thank all of the witnesses for being here today to share their 

expertise, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski, and given my 

challenges with my cold and my voice today, I’m going to defer to 

Mr. Marshall to be able to introduce our witnesses, which also include someone from his district, so thank you, Mr. Marshall, for 

taking over those duties. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, and let me 

just start by saying thank you to the SST staff who’s done a fabulous job of organizing this. I had no idea how much work it might 

be, and you all have been a thrill and an honor to work with, and 

to my staff as well. Lauren Orndorff, my science, space, and technology staff person, has done a great job organizing the witnesses 

and so honored to be able to introduce you all. 

First is Dr. Daniel Gerstein, who’s the Senior Policy Director at 

the RAND Corporation. He’s also the Adjunct Professor at American University in Washington, DC. Previously, Dr. Gerstein served 

in the Department of Homeland Security as Acting Under Secretary and Deputy Under Secretary in the Science and Technology 

Directorate. He graduated from the United States Military Academy and has a master’s degree from Georgia Tech, the National 

Defense University and the U.S. Army Command and General 

Staff College. He also earned a Ph.D. in biodefense from George 

Mason University. Thanks, Dr. Gerstein, for coming. 

And my next witness is our own Dr. Stephen Higgs, who’s the 

Associate Vice president for Research and Director of the Biosecurity Research Institute at my alma mater, Kansas State University, and we both got our purple ties on. Go Cats! This institution 

is a unique biocontainment research and education facility. Dr. 

Higgs is responsible for oversight, coordination, and expansion of 

the Institute’s Biosecurity Research and Education programs. The 

Institute is located next to the National Bio and Agro-Defense facility, which we call NBAF back home, a biosafety level IV facility 

which is currently under construction and when completed will 

make Manhattan, Kansas, the Silicon Valley of bio and agro-defense. As it becomes operational, Dr. Higgs’ proximity and experience will be invaluable to bringing that operation online. Previously, Dr. Higgs served as the President of the American Society 

of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene as well as Editor in Chief of Vector-borne and Zoonotic Diseases. Dr. Higgs earned a bachelor of 

science with honors in zoology from the Kings College in London 

and his Ph.D. in parasitology from Reading University in the 

United Kingdom. Welcome, Dr. Higgs, to Washington, D.C., and we 

look forward to your testimony. So much appreciate the tour you 

gave us back home as well. 

The next witness is Dr. Stephen P. Moose. He’s Denton and Elizabeth Alexander Professor of Maize Breeding and Genetics in the 

Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on understanding how gene 

regulatory programs may be modified for crop improvement. Dr. 

Moose spent two years as a Project Leader at DeKalb Genetics Corporation in Monsanto Company using biotechnology to enhance 

corn grain nutritional quality. Dr. Moose received a bachelor’s of 

science degree in biology from Case Western Reserve University 

and a Ph.D. in genetics and crop science from North Carolina State 

University. 
14 

And finally, Dr. Elizabeth Wagstrom is our final witness, Chief 

Veterinarian of the National Pork Producers Council. During her 

career, Dr. Wagstrom has worked the intersection of animal and 

public health including as a practicing Veterinarian, an Epidemiologist and Public Health Veterinarian, an industry organization staff member and in academia. Dr. Wagstrom holds a doctor 

of veterinary medicine and master’s in preventive medicine degrees 

from Iowa State University. 

And we start with our testimony by recognizing Dr. Gerstein for 

five minutes to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY DR. DANIEL GERSTEIN, 

SENIOR POLICY RESEARCHER, 

RAND CORPORATION 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Well, thank you very much. I’m very pleased to be 

here. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member 

Lipinski, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee. I thank 

you for the opportunity to testify today on federal research and development for agricultural biodefense. 

Since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) in 2003, the Department in complete coordination with the 

Department of Agriculture has served in a central role in agricultural biodefense, particularly in research and development. During 

my service as Acting Under Secretary and Deputy Under Secretary 

of the Science and Technology Directorate, my duties included oversight and support for U.S. agricultural biodefense R&D including 

the work at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, or short, 

Plum Island, several academic Centers of Excellence related to agricultural biodefense and tens of millions of dollars annually in research and development funding. 

It is also during this period when DHS led by the S&T Directorate developed the justification and secured funding for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) at Manhattan, Kansas, as the replacement for the Plum Island facility. 

My testimony today will largely draw on these experiences. In 

my remarks, I’d like to place federal R&D efforts for agricultural 

biodefense in context. To do this, I will develop several themes. 

First, federal agriculture research must be considered within the 

global biological threats that span a broad spectrum from emerging 

infectious disease to the deliberate use of biological pathogens. Second, agriculture security is a national security and economic security issues. Third, U.S. laws, policies, and regulations are part of 

a larger international system of disease monitoring and reporting. 

And finally, robust, well-coordinated biodefense R&D is an essential component of maintaining a healthy and vibrant agricultural 

sector. 

In the interests of time in my oral remarks, I’ll focus on the 

fourth theme regarding federal agricultural biodefense R&D, specifically developing several important areas of emphasis that 

should be considered. 

The first is, research and R&D solutions must be systems-oriented. Investments have to be balanced and there are no silver bullets. A comprehensive system must include threat awareness, prevention and protection, surveillance and detection, and response 
15 

and recovery. Second, good disease monitoring will be important to 

continuity of business. Early detection, rapid response and recovery, and ensuring accurate communications across all interested 

governmental and non-governmental entities is essential. These 

areas require appropriate R&D support and funding. Third, crosssector collaboration including end-user participation will be vital 

for developing preparedness and response capabilities. Livestock industry and producers, government officials including state and 

local animal health officials, the biopharmaceutical industry and 

veterinarians, first responders, and diagnostic laboratories must all 

collaborate on research and development to identify solutions that 

will be essential. Fourth, opportunities to field-test technologies 

worldwide should be identified. Countries with endemic zoonotic 

diseases of interest to the United States government and agricultural sector should be identified and approached to ascertain their 

willingness to work as partners for countermeasure and vaccine 

trials. Fifth, next-generation zoonotic disease training should continue to be developed. Education programs that target gaps in the 

agricultural biodefense workforce to include in research and development would be extremely useful. And finally, consistent funding 

for agricultural biodefense efforts is essential. Achieving the level 

of protection for this area will require specific investments in research and development in facilities such as Plum Island and 

NBAF. It also implies that state and local communities have the 

necessary funding to operate and maintain the labs that are part 

of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network. To do otherwise creates unnecessary risks for a $1 trillion portion of the U.S. 

economy. 

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss federal R&D For the agriculture biodefense sector, and I look forward to your questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gerstein follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And we’ll now recognize Dr. Higgs. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. STEPHEN HIGGS, 

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH AND DIRECTOR, 

BIOSECURITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY 

Dr. HIGGS. Good morning, Chairman Comstock, Ranking Member 

Lipinski, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Stephen Higgs and I’m the 

Director of the Biosecurity Research Institute, the BRI, at Pat Roberts Hall, Kansas State University. It’s a privilege to be here today. 

The BRI’s mission is leading through research and education to 

protect agriculture and the public from biological threats. Over 20 

different pathogens have been studied at the BRI but recent studies are focused on agents listed as priorities for the National Bio 

and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). The State of Kansas committed $35 million to the NBAF Transition Fund to support activities aligned with the NBAF mission. Additional funds have been provided by federal agencies including the 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, and from stakeholder industries, notably the National Pork 

Board. 

For the first time since the 1980s, we have conducted livestock 

studies with the zoonotic Rift Valley fever virus in the United 

States. As I speak today, we are assessing susceptibility of whitetailed deer to Rift Valley fever virus. This is an important collaboration between Kansas State University and the USDA’s Arthropod 

Borne Animal Diseases Research Unit. 

Using currently circulating Japanese encephalitis virus, another 

vector-borne zoonotic pathogen, we have infected North America 

mosquitoes and domestic swine. The BRI is the first non-federal 

U.S. facility ever to be approved to work on African swine fever 

and classical swine fever viruses. 

To perform NBAF-related agricultural research since 2011 over 

250 people have been trained and passed the background checks 

required for registration to work with so-called select agents that 

are NBAF priorities. Fellowships to train transboundary animal 

disease professionals have been supported by funds from the Department of Homeland Security although we have unfortunately 

heard that they lack the funds to support this important NBAF-related training beyond 2018. I did, however, meet the deputy administration of USDA’s Office of National Programs to discuss collaborative efforts between the University and the USDA for NBAF 

workforce development. 

As the first operational land grant university, Kansas State has 

150 years of committed agricultural research, some of which is described in my written testimony. As I comment more on NBAF, I 

am not representing the views of DHS or USDA. NBAF is not just 

a replacement for the aging Plum Island. NBAF will provide a critical new capacity to enhance the Nation’s ability to understand and 

respond to the world’s most dangerous pathogens. NBAF will enable research with livestock infected with agents requiring biosafety level IV containment. It’s remarkable to me that other coun-
32 

tries have federally funded laboratories to do such work but the 

United States does not. As in other countries, we must have a longterm federal funding commitment to support not just the operation 

of NBAF but also the vitally important research and training that 

will be performed there. 

In 2015, the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense 

published its national blueprint for biodefense. Sadly, the most important conclusions were that the U.S. lacked leadership, a strategic plan and dedicated budget for biodefense. Last January, two 

panel members held a hearing at Kansas State titled Agrodefense: 

Challenges and Solutions. Congressman Roger Marshall provided a 

Congressional perspective. Interestingly, in the subsequent report, 

it was recommended that the DHS and the USDA should develop 

a business plan for NBAF. When in Manhattan members met leaders of the Kansas Intelligence Fusion Center. With expertise on 

diseases of plants, animals and people, members of the Center’s 

biothreat team helped to evaluate many reports related to biological threats to U.S. citizens and agriculture. 

Eighteen years ago, President Wefald of Kansas State testified 

before the U.S. Senate’s Emerging Threat Subcommittee to discuss 

biological weapons, the threats to our agricultural economy and 

food supply. With little tangible action since then, we face a prospect of managing under crisis conditions a biological event that is 

spreading out of control from state to state. These threats go far 

beyond disrupting our ability of putting food on the table. They 

have serious consequences on employment, trade, and global economy. 

And on that note, I thank you for the opportunity to talk. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Higgs follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. We now recognize Dr. Moose. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. STEPHEN P. MOOSE, 

DENTON AND ELIZABETH ALEXANDER PROFESSOR, 

MAIZE BREEDING AND GENETICS, 

DEPARTMENT OF CROP SCIENCES, 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 

Dr. MOOSE. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking 

Member Lipinski, and other distinguished members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you putting food on the table. 

I come to you today with a very personal commitment to this 

topic. My wife and I both grew up on farms. We were brought together by a state-sponsored fellowship for graduate school at North 

Carolina State University. We farmers became scientists. We have 

since devoted our lives through both education and research to 

bringing science back to the farm. 

I will discuss with you three topics today: the government support of agriculture research, the partnerships among farmers and 

scientists and the private sector, and then the value of agriculture 

research. Although I’m using examples from my own personal experience, I’m here to represent the broad enterprise that is agriculture research. 

So looking at the support, Abraham Lincoln sprouted agriculture 

research in this country through the creation of the People’s Department, the United States Department of Agriculture. He also 

created through the Morrow Act the land grant universities. From 

their beginnings, land grant universities have shared with the federal government and they’re the core of this shared responsibility 

of agriculture research. The largest piece of the federal research pie 

supports university research through competitive grants, and these 

come primarily through the USDA but also the National Science 

Foundation and, as Mr. Lipinski mentioned, the Department of Energy. Federal funding supports a healthy diversity of small exploratory research to large, multi-institutional centers. Furthermore, 

agriculture research is filled with many interagency partnerships. 

States and local communities also partner extensively on technology transfer and business development through Agriculture Innovation Districts such as the Research Triangle Park in North 

Carolina where universities are often the nucleus for job growth. 

Lincoln’s vision also considered fundamentally linked research 

and education. This year the University of Illinois celebrates 150 

years of teaching farmers to become scientists and scientists to 

study the farm. We train the next generation of science leaders and 

the workforce. 

So let’s talk about partnerships. There’s a long history of cooperation with agriculture research. I show in the picture, it’s actually the longest running plant genetics experiment in the world, 

which I actually continue, me and my team. This experiment began 

in 1896 when a professor went to a local farmer’s field, sampled 

ears of corn, and then decided to select for higher or lower grain 

protein, and the goal for this was to improve nutrition for animal 

feed. He did not know that this experiment would continue annu-
43 

ally for the next 120 years, and as shown in the picture are my 

graduate students who completed that 120th cycle of this experiment. 

In addition to the valuable knowledge we’ve gained about plant 

breeding, the earliest commercial corn hybrids, the parents, came 

from this germ plasm. Also, high-oil corn, which is a value-added 

trait that’s been marketed since the 1990s, came from this experiment. So you just really don’t know when this research will pay off. 

During the last 15 years, the National Science Foundation, the 

Plant Genome Research program, the USDA, as well as DuPont 

Pioneer and Monsanto Company, have supported this experiment. 

So let’s talk about the value then of these investments. Agriculture research generates tremendous long-term benefits to the 

U.S. economy. I show in the next slide there where just the example of corn, average corn yields in the United States. This tremendous increase has been powered by the compounding benefits of advances in science that I list there with genome editing and Big 

Data now being the emerging fields, if you will. And so these will 

drive further enhancements and yield nutritional quality and environmental resiliency. Each bushel of corn yields $300 million at the farm gate and $1 

billion to the U.S. consumer. Interestingly, for each of the technologies I list there, there was a lag period of at least a decade or 

more from the time of the initial discovery to the commercial application, and so one significant value of agriculture research is to reduce the risks for commercial adoption. 

Finally, the last thing I will say is that there’s an essential value 

to agriculture research that helps connect science with society, it 

connects farmers with science, and farmers to society, a three-way 

loop. So only two percent of our population is now engaged in agriculture. The other 98 percent are interested in food and through research, they’re interested in research, so that value is immense. 

So working together, future agriculture research will continue to 

put farm and food on the table. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Moose follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognize Dr. Wagstrom. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ELIZABETH WAGSTROM, 

CHIEF VETERINARIAN, 

NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL 

Dr. WAGSTROM. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and members of the Subcommittee. I’m Liz Wagstrom, the Chief Veterinarian of the National Pork Producers Council. 

The United States is the lowest cost and most technologically innovative producer of food in the world. It is the globe’s top exporter 

of agricultural products and has the safest food on the planet, and 

it’s that way because of our historical commitment to research. To 

maintain our position in the world and keep our country food-secure, we must devote more resources to agricultural research. We 

need a commitment to research to help America’s farmers and 

ranchers continue to feed this country and much of the rest of the 

world. The UN’s food and agricultural organizations says food production needs to increase by 70 percent by 2050. That need will be 

met through research into more effective food production. If we 

don’t produce more food for our growing population, are we going 

to start importing more and more of it to the United States? Are 

we really going to be okay with relying on some other country to 

provide for us? Yes, food is a national security issue. 

The benefits of research should be obvious. In case it’s not, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, for every dollar 

of federal agricultural research funds invested, $20 is returned to 

the economy. Through better genetics, better feed rations and new 

animal care and housing methods, all based on research, hog farmers now produce more pigs on 78 percent less land using 41 percent 

less water than 50 years ago. That’s why the U.S. pork industry 

has been a strong supporter, funder and user of agricultural research. 

The National Pork Board as the federally established checkoff 

program has spent a significant amount of its annual budget on research over the past 10 years, funding 851 projects at more than 

$61 million. One disease the pork industry has invested research 

dollars on is porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome. PRRS 

is a viral disease that can cause reproductive failure in breeding 

sows and respiratory issues in pigs of any age. It is the most economically significant disease now affecting U.S. pork production. 

Through an almost 30-year-long public-private collaboration starting with the identification of the causative agent of what we called 

mystery pig disease, we have made significant progress in dealing 

with this disease. One of those efforts, a PRRS host genetics consortium, brought together the pork industry, USDA’s Agricultural 

Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Genome Canada, private companies and universities to conduct 

multiyear studies to understand the genetics of PRRS virus infection. That has led us to the brink of developing a PRRS-resistant 

pig. This would be a huge step forward. 

The recent outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus points to 

the vulnerability of U.S. agriculture to emerging and foreign animal diseases, and one of the diseases we and others in livestock ag-
54 

riculture are particularly worried about is foot and mouth disease. 

An outbreak today of that disease would cost pork, corn, beef and 

soybean sectors alone $200 billion over 10 years. We are urging 

Congress to establish and fund through the next farm bill a robust 

manufacturing managed vaccine bank to respond to an FMD outbreak. Research can help address the alarming gap in the government’s preparedness for an FMD outbreak so in addition we are requesting $30 million a year for the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, which conducts diagnostics, as well as $70 million 

a year for block grants to the states. 

As you can tell, animal agriculture could use a lot more research 

dollars. Unfortunately, the commitment to agriculture research 

seems to have waned. According to USDA, public-sector food and 

agriculture research and development was 50 percent of the agency’s budget from 1970 through 2008, but by 2013 had fallen to less 

than 30 percent. 

One factor contributing to the decline is the increased operating 

costs of federal research facilities. It’s estimated that the annual 

maintenance and operating costs of such a facility are ten percent 

of the cost of building it. So over and above research dollars, there 

must be a commitment to operating funds for federal agriculture 

research facilities such as NBAF, which is scheduled to open in 

2022. These infrastructure needs are a critical issue. As an example, because of maintenance issues, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center cannot at this time conduct food animal research onsite, and that’s a full five years ahead of the expected opening of 

NBAF. There must be a renewed commitment to funding research 

which will allow America’s farmers to effectively feed a growing 

world population, improve public health, and strengthen national 

security. 

In conclusion, the U.S. pork industry strongly supports and urges 

a significant increase in funding for federal intramural and extramural agricultural research to help America’s farmers and ranchers continue feeding a growing world with safe, wholesome and nutritious food. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Wagstrom follows:] 
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59 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, and I now recognize myself 

for five minutes of questions. 

Dr. Wagstrom and Dr. Gerstein, you both note in your testimonies that increased travel and trade between nations combined 

with the convenience of global travel would potentially make it 

easier today for a foreign animal disease to spread quickly once introduced in the United States, and we’ve certainly seen that in the 

past. But why have we really had limited instances of that happening, and what are the best practices for us going forward? 

Dr. WAGSTROM. One of the best practices going forward is continuing to look at our customs and border protection. We on the 

farm have responsibilities for biosecurity and to make sure that we 

are careful about what we bring into our farms. We are definitely 

in the pork industry concerned. We have not seen foot and mouth 

disease since 1929, but since 2013 we’ve had an incursion of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus. In 2009, we had H1N1 influenza that 

spread through the pandemic globally, and we are now dealing 

with an outbreak of what’s called Seneca Valley virus, and so all 

three of those have told us—have proven we have vulnerabilities 

that we need to address. I’ll yield. 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Thank you. Yeah, I agree with what Dr. 

Wagstrom talked about. I think it begins with customs and border 

protection being able to seal our borders. When agricultural products come through, they need to be properly inspected. There are 

protocols for that. We do on a routine basis find animals that 

should not come into the country, and of course they’re turned 

away. 

But there’s more that needs to be done. Here’s where research 

and development can really be key. We need to think about concepts such as pen-side diagnostics and having those available so 

that we can do a rapid testing of the livestock and ensure that if 

there is an issue, it’s rapidly addressed. To the extent possible, we 

want to identify as early as we can so that we can take actions and 

then return the food supply to its proper state. So I think that’s 

one example. We also—— 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Now are those being used now? 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Well, there are some pen-side diagnostics that 

have been looked at in terms of research and development. I’ll 

leave it to, you know, the experts in terms of how much they are 

using them within the different industries but we had been—when 

I was with Homeland Security, we had been looking at pen-side 

diagnostics as something very key. 

I think the recent responses to diseases such as Ebola and Zika 

point out that we have a lot of work to do, research and development in areas such as threat awareness. I remember going to a 

session with the former head of the Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention about a month after the Zika virus had come into 

the country, and he made the comment that, you know, before this 

we had about an eighth of an inch thick file on Zika and today it’s 

five inches thick. Well, I mean, we can’t wait until something occurs and then react, and this means that we have to work globally 

with partners, we have to understand how disease is progressing, 

we have to make sure that all of our systems, biosurveillance, are 

tuned so that when something occurs, it can be an immediate re-
62 

sponse and not wait and be reactive. Those are just a couple 

thoughts. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And Dr. Higgs or Dr. Moose, if you have any comments on that. 

Dr. HIGGS. Well, we talked about diagnostics but the key thing 

is actually getting those applied where we need them. We have relatively poor surveillance. We don’t look at most of the material 

coming in. We have a group at the BRI, the National Agricultural 

Biosecurity Center, who’s doing some pathway analysis to look at 

routes by which pathogens could make it into the country, but if 

we don’t have the surveillance out there, then we’re already sort 

of behind the curve. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

Dr. MOOSE. I would only add that in addition to the animals, 

there’s also plant diseases that can have a serious impact. We’ve 

had those happen in the past, not in recent history, but we know 

worldwide there’s, for example, a fungus that’s had a big problem 

with wheat, a big impact on wheat production. Luckily it’s not been 

in the United States. The same goes for soybean. South America 

deals with a disease that luckily we don’t have here, but we don’t 

have it here because in part there’s a surveillance system in place. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

And I now yield to Mr. Lipinski for five minutes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. I want to start by talking about innovation hubs and incubators. It’s something that I’ve spent a lot of 

time on here in this Committee, not necessarily on the side with 

agriculture but something that I know we all know can be very 

helpful. So I wanted to ask Dr. Moose, I know in your written testimony you describe the importance of Agriculture Innovation Districts such as University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Illinois 

Research Park. Can you expand on the approach of the research 

park to supporting early-stage businesses, what are the key strategies that you use, how the federal government may be able to help 

more on that? 

Dr. MOOSE. Sure. So at the University of Illinois, we do have a 

research park, and what its function is, is to take these great ideas 

from the campus and provide assistance in both the physical infrastructure and support for business development. The also serve to 

connect those early startup businesses with the business venture 

community. It doesn’t have to be necessarily just venture capital 

but we’ll call it the investment community, and so those connections then help transition—it’s called the valley of death often 

where there’ll be an idea, has a great potential, but then fails to 

reach commercial application. And so the research park at Illinois 

has a number of ways it does that. I actually have personal experience with that. My wife’s company was gestated, if you will, or nurtured in enterprise works at the research park. They now are based 

in Texas but they’re one of the leading sorghum seed genetics companies. And there’s another one also called iCyt that has a very 

new technology on how to type both animal and plant genetics, and 

that technology has really changed how we do that kind of work, 

and that was started in a lab actually down the hall from me. The 

research park helped transition them into a business and now 
63 

they’re a subdivision within Sony Corporation. They were brought 

into that field. 

And there are many examples of this all throughout the country 

of usually universities being the nucleus but not necessarily where 

again ideas are nurtured and cross through that, I call it de-risking 

where there’s a huge risk. There’s often talk about balance between 

research and development and industry and university work, and 

the way I like to describe that is, there’s an R&D, research and development, and companies are really good at the D. They have a 

big D and a little R. Universities are a big R and little D, and then 

things like the research park would be the ‘‘and’’, the ampersand, 

that in between that helps make those links succeed. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Is there anything that the federal government can 

do better to help this process, help anything like what University 

of Illinois is doing and others? 

Dr. MOOSE. I believe so. I think there are a number of federal 

agencies that recognize this technology transfer aspect. For example, the NSF now has what’s called I–Corps where the idea is that 

young entrepreneurs who have a good research idea, they actually 

can be supported for a period of time to investigate the business 

prospects, and they can do this in a way where they’re not jeopardizing their career in a sense by taking time off, if you will, from 

the academic track. So that’s one example. The USDA also has 

started those things. And then just the base of research, the federal 

support, enables those good ideas to happen, and also the facilities 

that may be there. I know, for example, the research park at Illinois makes use of the resources that are on our campus because 

of federal and state support. So possibly just identifying where 

those can happen more fruitfully would be an important role of the 

federal government. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, and thank you for the commercial 

there for I–Corps. As many of my colleagues on the Committee 

know, I’m the one who for many years has been talking up I– 

Corps, and I know University of Illinois has done a great job in 

terms of the number of teams that go through I–Corps, so it’s good 

to hear how successful that has been. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. MARSHALL. [Presiding] I now recognize Dr. Abraham for five 

minutes. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Dr. Marshall, and thanks for spearheading this hearing. In my opinion, this will be one of the more 

important hearings that we in Science, Space, and Technology hear 

in the entire year. 

Dr. Gerstein, I read your book, ‘‘Bioterror in the 21st Century,’’ 

and I really think it should be required reading for every Member 

of Congress if we’re responsible for legislating and appropriating 

money for bioterror. It’s eye-opening, and as you alluded to, the 

mass casualty count could be horrific. It would pale to anything 

we’ve ever seen before. 

The field of genetic engineering, genetic modification, whatever 

you want to call it sometimes gets beat up pretty bad in the press 

but if my medical history serves me right, I think this goes back 

to maybe 30 or 40 years ago when the pseudorabies vaccine with 

recombinant DNA was actually on the scene and unfortunately a 
64 

lot of people don’t understand that hep B vaccines, interferon that 

we use for cancer, all these wonderful things in technology and 

medicine that not only save lives but feed our world are due to research and technology. 

Dr. Wagstrom, you said that, you know, we’ll need 70 percent of 

food production increase by 2050, which means, you know, we’re 

looking at 200 bushel acre soybeans, 300 bushel acre corn which 

is not obtainable now, but if we are expected as America to feed 

the world as we heretofore have always done, then we’ve got to get 

there. 

We have in this Committee and it’s certainly gone national and 

worldwide now, we’ve heard about the CRISPR–Cas9, the genetic 

engineering technology. I know, Dr. Gerstein, you’ve written extensively on the horrors of CRISPR in a bioterrorist’s hands, and we 

know the wonderful things it can do with single and now multiple 

gene mutation as far as curing children with leukemia, curing possible children with sickle cell, those types of deal. 

So I guess my question, and all of you are eminently qualified 

to weigh in on this, where do we go from here? We need to move 

forward. We need to move forward very quickly, and you know, 

what’s the next step in your opinion? Dr. Gerstein, I’ll start with 

you and just go down the line. 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Well, thank you for that, and thanks for the plug 

for the book. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. It’s a great book. 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Thank you. So you know, I’m going to come at this 

from a Department of Homeland Security perspective and say that 

what I worry about is either accidental use of something or deliberate use of something that results in a catastrophe, some sort of 

biological pathogen, and so I’m going to kind of stick to those. 

When I talk about areas like CRISPR as a technology, I don’t talk 

about it as being a danger but it could be a danger if the technology is misused, and so the key for us is to understand that in 

the realm of biotechnology, much of the area has become very 

deskilled. You know, if you talk to people from the old weapons 

program that we had back in the ’50s and ’60s, they talked about 

people at the bench with good hands, and today, many of those 

technologies don’t require good hands and you can do fine in preparing pathogens that can be very useful as biological weapons, or 

you could make manipulations to genomes that could actually be 

dangerous. And so I worry about monitoring the different areas 

where the technology is being used and understanding what a potential—an individual with, say, nefarious intent could be doing 

with that. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why the Director of National Intelligence in 2016 had identified the gene editing as a 

worldwide global threat, and that caused a great deal of fervor, but 

I think what he was signaling was that biotechnology has gotten 

to the point where it really does reside in many cases not just in 

labs but in our communities as well. 

Dr. HIGGS. I’ll just make a comment on CRISPR–Cas9. I was on 

the National Academy committee reviewing that technology. I suppose it was the speed of development which shocked me. By the 

time we held our first meeting, I was getting emails, for $120 you 
65 

could buy these kits suitable for high school students to do this. It 

was just astounding. 

Dr. MOOSE. Thank you also for this question. I view the genome 

editing field, of which CRISPR–Cas is sort of the main technology, 

it will revolutionize how we improve crops because crop improvement through biotechnology, I will call it tinkering, it’s like playing 

with Lincoln Logs whereas the CRISPR–Cas, we will be able to basically take a genome and it’ll be like a word processor—edit, 

change a letter here or there—and do that in a designed way. So 

the speed and precision at which we’ll be able to do that is wonderful. 

I use the example of our 120-year experiment. We actually in my 

lab right now are trying using CRISPR–Cas to see if we can accelerate that to a five-year time frame. We’re trying to make some of 

those same changes that breeding took 120 years to accumulate, 

can we do this in five. So the speed and precision will be phenomenal. 

That said, and it’s been alluded to in the earlier answers, that 

also democratizes, if you will, the ability to practice this technology, 

and so that may be a real role for the federal government in how 

do we connect the technology with society, with the end users, and 

make that so that the recognition of its potential and the responsibility to use it is—that society understands that and is engaged in 

that process. I yield. 

Dr. WAGSTROM. Thank you for the question. Obviously technology affects all sorts—all areas of agricultural production, especially in pig production. We look at it as a way to help us maximize 

animal health and animal welfare and help us produce that 70 percent more food. For us, obviously PRRS is an immense issue. It’s 

a pathogen that causes a lot of secondary bacterial infections, probably one of the reasons we use some of the antibiotics we do. So 

we look at developing a PRRS-resistant pig, we think we’ll not only 

be able to have healthier pigs but use less antibiotics. We also see 

technology as a potential to help us develop alternatives to the current antibiotics we use that may have less antibiotic-resistant consequences throughout the food chain. 

I sit as—I’m a liaison to the Presidential Advisory Committee, 

our council on combating antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, and 

we’ve actually—one of our recommendations in our last report is 

that we put together an Innovation Institute within the USDA that 

would help people who are researching alternatives to 

antimicrobials and other areas try to go through an uncertain regulatory process because these are uncertain where they belong in 

the regulatory chain and get those commercialized. So we look at 

not only a technology as improving pig breeding but also improving 

our tools to raise our animals. 

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Dr. Marshall, for the extra time. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I now recognize Mr. Beyer for questions. 

Mr. BEYER. Thank you, Dr. Marshall, very much. 

My favorite line in history is that America was born on a farm 

in Virginia. It’s really important that you all are here, and I really 

want to thank Chairman Comstock and Ranking Member Lipinski 

for putting this on. 
66 

It’s especially important because this Administration has repeatedly undermined science, particularly in agencies where science 

should be the key component. Just this week, Secretary Pruitt 

issued a directive to prevent scientists at the EPA from serving on 

the agency’s Scientific Advisory Board if they have had even one 

EPA grant. And last month, Kathleen Hartnett-White was nominated to chair the Administration’s Council on Environmental 

Quality despite the fact that she denies overwhelming scientific 

consensus on climate change and has said on the record carbon 

emissions are harmless and should not be regulated. 

And unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is no exception. Sam Clovis, who was the Administration’s pick to be the 

Chief Scientist, is not a scientist of any kind, much less an agricultural scientist, and we just learned this morning that he’s withdrawn his application nomination for that. 

So the American people, Republican, Democratic and everything 

else, deserve a higher standard of experience and accomplishment 

from the top scientific leaders in our government. We’re very 

pleased to have top scientific leaders with us here this morning. 

Dr. Moose, I’m fascinated with your background as a geneticist, 

and I’m much impressed by the work of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. We’ve been arguing that all of nature’s ecosystems 

are perennial polycultures. Agriculture is largely annual 

monoculture, which basically is short-term, high-yield perspective 

rather than the long term. And 85 percent of human populations’ 

calories come from annual crops. There are perennials—olive trees, 

grapes, alfalfa, things like that, fruit trees—but their work is trying to figure out how do we move agriculture from annuals to 

perennials, first by the domestication of wild perennials or by the 

perennialization of existing annuals. So as a maize breeding and 

plant geneticist, what’s your perspective on the work of the Land 

Institute and this notion of moving to perennial polyculture to 

avoid soil erosion, all the bad things that happen when you have 

to turn the soil every year? 

Dr. MOOSE. Yes, so thank you, Mr. Beyer. I am aware of the 

Land Institute. I think they have a very—it’s a good approach that 

they’re taking. There are clear environmental benefits, sustainability improvements that can be achieved with perennials. I believe part of the reason that much of our agricultural systems are 

an annual base, and first they are more productive on an annual 

basis, so you will get higher yields from an annual crop than a perennial crop because the perennial crop is actually investing some 

of that photosynthesis below the soil, which is obviously a good 

thing too, but that’s one reason. 

The second one, though, is also this risk on the farm. If I have 

a perennial—and so I know a little bit about this because I study 

miscanthus also, which is a perennial grass that’s been touted as 

a possible bioenergy crop, a dedicated bioenergy crop, and it’s an 

amazing plant. There’s a lot to learn from it. But one risk that 

comes with that is, it takes three years to establish and get to productivity. The stand may last 10, 15 years but we only have one 

variety of that kind of plant for bioenergy. So if a disease was to 

come in, it might wipe out that crop and we would not have many 

options in terms of replacing it. So annuals offer a flexibility which 
67 

reduces risk, and I guess what I would advocate in terms of the 

best systems are those that combine the benefits of annuals with 

the benefits of perennials, and so research in that area is going on. 

I believe it would be good to increase that effort. 

Mr. BEYER. Great. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Higgs, you said and wrote, and I’m going to quote, ‘‘A concern 

was expressed’’—this is in the Blue Ribbon Study Panel—‘‘that the 

President’s fiscal year 2018 budget request would eliminate all agriculture and animal-specific research by the DHS Science and 

Technology Directorate.’’ I’d just love if you could please emphasize 

for all of us that this is a matter of national security and shouldn’t 

be partisan at all. 

Dr. HIGGS. No, you’re absolutely correct, and the beauty of this 

panel is that it is bipartisan because the needs of this country go 

beyond politics in terms of food and agriculture. We all eat. And 

having the funding to do that research is absolutely critical. I alluded to our training that we’ve got and that Homeland Security 

seems not to have funding to sustain that training after 2018 at 

the moment. We hear about the levels of funding that is required 

to do the research and the training but that is not being translated 

into those funds actually being appropriated to support that. 

Mr. BEYER. Great. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I now recognize Mr. Lucas for questions. 

Mr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and before I turn to Dr. 

Wagstrom for a specific question, I think it’s worth noting the wondrous system that we have in the United States. I mean, the Morrow Act of 1862, a couple of you are from those institutions. For 

the first time in the history of the world with President Lincoln’s 

signature on that Act, we made it possible for someone who did not 

come from wealth or social status to go to college, to have an opportunity in agriculture or mechanics in the sciences to have a college 

education, a most amazing accomplishment, and the technology, 

the training that’s come from that. 

A lot of times some of my idealistic friends here in Congress say 

why we should spend public dollars to do anything, let the private 

industry do it all, but you produce the scientists who fuel both 

higher education, research, and the private industry, correct? 

You’re the pipeline that produces the brilliant people who go on to 

drive that, so that is important, that coalition, that combination, 

those public resources in producing our next generation of scientists. 

We talk about the animal and health and plant issues. USDA 

and sometimes again we on the Ag Committee, and I share both 

that Committee assignment and this one, are criticized for the people that we have around the world but we literally have agents in 

foreign countries examining plants and animals before they come 

to the United States. We have people in foreign countries because 

agriculture is a free-flowing trade, we have people looking at disease issues there before they can be certified to bring their product 

into the country. So the investments we make, which are sometimes not so exciting in the eyes of the appropriators and some of 

other colleagues, are very necessary. The biggest USDA research 

facility outside the United States is, what, Mont Pierre, France? 
68 

Been there for a century looking at things that come into the country beforehand. 

Now, a little more of a particular focus, Dr. Wagstrom. We’ve 

talked earlier about foot and mouth, or as my grandfather called 

it, hoof and mouth, the most amazing, viciously aggressive virus 

that we’ve kept out of the country for 88 years, which does still 

exist in other continents and places around the world. Visit with 

me for a moment if you would a little more in detail about the 

Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 9 from 2004 

about establishing a national policy to defend our agriculture and 

our food systems, and in particular the concept of the national veterinarian stockpile of vaccines. 

Dr. WAGSTROM. Thank you, Mr. Lucas. We have a very small 

North American bank, very small. It wouldn’t vaccinate all the pigs 

and cattle around Guymon, Oklahoma. It’s that small. What we 

need is a vaccine bank that will protect us against all 23 strains 

of foot and mouth disease that are circulating around the world. 

Mr. LUCAS. And foot and mouth is an example of one of the 

things we need to be prepared to—— 

Dr. WAGSTROM. Correct. 

Mr. LUCAS. —defend ourselves against, one of. 

Dr. WAGSTROM. Correct. So we not only need a vaccine bank with 

at least 500 million doses of those 23 strains, we also need a diagnostic laboratory network that has got surge capacity to be able to 

diagnose not only infected animals but we have to be able to diagnose that animals are not infected and are safe to move to slaughter or to move to other facilities. We need to have foreign animal 

disease diagnosticians on the ground and trained to be able to diagnose those animals. We have a—we’d love to have a pen-side test 

but the consequences of having a wrong diagnosis on a potential 

economic devastation if we say this animal’s infected with foot and 

mouth disease and it’s not would be devastating. So having a 100 

percent accurate test on a pen-side test is very difficult. So we 

need—in addition to that as a preliminary screen, we need our diagnostic labs to be able to communicate with our state veterinarians not only in their state but also the states surrounding them 

where animals may move. We need to have seamless information 

that state veterinarians can look at from the farm through the diagnostic lab into the federal system of data collection so that they 

can make decisions on if an animal’s safe to move, if a quarantine 

zone needs to be connected. 

Our system of data collection and transfer from private farms, diagnostic labs, state veterinarians, and federal veterinarians is broken. The National Pork Board is investing almost $1 million with 

the DHS Center in Texas A&M to try to help put together systems 

to visualize data that will help us out in an outbreak. That’s privately funded. We also need public funding to fix those data systems. 

Mr. LUCAS. Tolerate me for just a moment, Mr. Chairman, because agriculture, we produce almost everything everywhere in the 

country in some quantity. We’re not just talking about one central 

vaccine stockpile. This has to be regionally placed for whatever particular disease we’re trying to protect ourselves from to be available 

instantaneously, and I assume my other friends over here would 
69 

note that viruses change subtly, constantly in the wild so the stockpile has to be adjusted to reflect what’s virulent and available out 

there. It’s not a sexy topic, Mr. Chairman, but it would be of critical nature. Would my friends on the panel agree briefly? I guess 

they all agree. 

Dr. WAGSTROM. We all agree. One thought just to put it in perspective, there are a million pigs a day that are on wheels moving 

in a truck somewhere across this country, about half a million cattle on wheels every day. So we don’t have the likelihood of having 

a small outbreak on one farm in a remote area of the country. It’s 

going to be a nationwide outbreak. 

Mr. LUCAS. I appreciate your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Let the record show that Mr. Lucas and the 

Chairman of this Committee hearing thinks that biochemistry is 

sexy, so I’m all in. 

Okay. Next we recognize Ms. Bonamici for questions. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you to our panel. The district I represent out in the great State of 

Oregon has quite a bit of agriculture, mostly specialty crops, and 

this hearing is about the importance of agricultural research. 

Sometimes we have to take a step up and talk about the importance of agriculture. I think a lot of people in this country are still 

very detached from the source of their food. I think efforts like 

Farm to Table help with that so that people in urban areas understand that farms are important and agriculture is important for 

their food. 

I wanted to ask you, recent articles have discussed an alarming 

decline in insect populations and also pollinators. This obviously affects agriculture. Are any of you looking at this, and if so, what are 

you finding? Dr. Moose, it looks like you want to say something. 

Dr. MOOSE. My experience with pollinators is, growing up on the 

farm, we had bees. We raised bees. We raised honey. So I know 

about the issue that you speak. It’s one where science has yet to 

quite figure out exactly what the cause of the decline is. There are 

a number of possibilities, and it’s probably a combination of factors. 

That said, in the last few years there’s been a rebound, if you will, 

and we also don’t understand how that has happened either other 

than I think as spoke to earlier about the cows and pigs on wheels, 

bees are on wheels as well, and some of that practice may have 

contributed to the colony collapse, et cetera, again, not definitive 

but there have been changes in that to some extent because of the 

concerns around that, and maybe it’s just correlation but the fact 

that there’s been a reduction in the movement and then less of an 

issue with the pollinators may be connected. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. Climate change affects food security. 

How does that shape your research agenda? How are you looking 

at with increasing temperatures, increase in severity of weather 

events? Dr. Moose again? 

Dr. MOOSE. Yeah. So clearly if you’re a farmer, you’re paying attention to climate both daily and seasonally, and so I think where 

the opportunity lies is that with the new technologies—it was mentioned earlier about NASA and their satellites. That technology 

and others like it that weren’t even from agriculture necessarily 

have a big impact on our ability to monitor at a level unprece-
70 

dented previously where all farms can become a research entity, if 

you wish. And so being able to track the variation in climate, to 

track to performance and the productivity in farms including the 

different systems—we have very different kinds of production systems and sometimes you will hear this system is better than that 

system. We had a question about perennial and annual. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Right, right. 

Dr. MOOSE. The ability to monitor those allows us to actually 

gather data to really say here are the benefits to that system both 

economically in the short term, environmentally in the long term, 

and this is an area—it’s only starting to begin now but there’s a 

tremendous opportunity with our, we’ll call it the Big Data revolution that every combine is instrumented with a GPS and is tracking, and many others of this area. 

I know in our own department we’ve recently hired a faculty 

member specifically to look into this question because we want to 

make sure again connecting farmers to the science to society that 

everyone who would be a partner in this is a partner. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. And I wanted to also talk a little bit 

about the workforce issue. I serve on the Education and Workforce 

Committee, and out in my state we have Oregon State University, 

our land grant university, which has extension services in every 

one of our 36 counties. They run a great 4H youth development 

program. Of course, we have our Future Farmers of America program. But I know, again, staying with Dr. Moose for now, you 

talked about you and your wife growing up on your family farms. 

How do we encourage the next generation to go into agriculture, 

even if they don’t have that family history that you have? And I’ll 

ask you quickly but then I’ll ask the other panelists as well. How 

do we make sure we have a workforce to address these issues? 

Dr. MOOSE. Yeah, so I can speak to that. In the University of Illinois, most of our students come from Chicagoland so we really do 

have this urban population, and I guess the way to convince them 

is that this type of research is exciting, and this is what I try to 

do on a daily basis, but I think when you see the advances in 

science, you know, a lot of students might think, you know, the 

doctor or the medicine is where the action is. When I was, you 

know, younger, certainly that was the case. I think that agriculture 

research, it has that connection that it could be the next big thing, 

and that is the kind of message that we try to convey to students. 

Ms. BONAMICI. I appreciate that. We will certainly need that 

workforce. Thank you. 

My time is expired. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I now recognize myself for questions as well. 

I’d like to, without objection, submit the Blue Ribbon Study 

Panel for the record, which several of our witnesses have referenced, and salute Senator Tom Daschle and his great work on 

this project as well. It’s been a joy to get to work with him. 

[The information appears in Appendix II] 

Mr. MARSHALL. I’ll start with my first question with Mr. Higgs. 

You discussed in the process of the Biosecurity Research Institute 

where you work has taken to ensure a smooth transition for NBAF. 

As you know, NBAF has the full support of the surrounding community as well as the support of Kansas State President General 
71 

Richard Meyers, who’s the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff. He brings a very unique perspective to this and the value of 

NBAF when it comes to national security. Can you discuss how 

quickly, specifically, how quickly can NBAF start their critical research once it becomes operational? 

Dr. HIGGS. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. So NBAF 

will become operational, fully operational, probably in 2022, 2023, 

and it will become operational with dependency on an appropriate 

workforce. It will take approximately 350 or 400 people to work at 

NBAF, and part of our mission at Kansas State is to help develop 

that workforce. We’re in constant conversation with Homeland Security, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and so forth. We 

have to align the training with the needs of NBAF towards 2023. 

Obviously there will be sequential employment of people at that facility, but it can’t become fully operational until it has all of the 

staff necessary. Both DHS and USDA are already in those conversations and thinking ahead, but we obviously need a solid plan 

to know what type of people we need and when, in order to enable 

that. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. I’ll go to Dr. Gerstein next. The Blue Ribbon Panel report mentioned several strategies to ensure NBAF is 

fully utilized including the private-public relationships. Earlier this 

year DHS proposed the closure of the National Biodefense Analysis 

and Countermeasures Center located at Fort Detrick in Maryland 

and still remains underutilized despite being brought online seven 

years ago. How can we ensure NBAF’s space and capabilities are 

fully utilized to their fullest extent? 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Well, thanks for that question. Let me start at the 

beginning and say I think it’s critically important that we not only 

fund the development of these facilities but we think about the 

long-term viability. In the case of NBACC, I think we’re losing a 

critical capability for bioforensics and for threat awareness that 

could put our country at risk. 

Now, turning specifically to NBAF, I like the idea of developing 

a strategy, that is, a public-private partnership, and I would just 

compliment Kansas for the tremendous support that they had 

given when I was in the Department. Just recognize that they had 

put forward approximately 25 percent of the cost to put that facility in—you know, to build it. And so I think that’s really a tremendous commitment but we have to continue that commitment into 

the lifecycle, and we have to ensure that, you know, we bring along 

industry, the biopharmaceutical industry as well, the pork producers and the livestock, cattlemen’s associations. These are all 

very important that they are part of working together to develop 

solutions for this industry. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Dr. Gerstein, are you familiar with the Fusion 

Center as well? Are you allowed to talk about how integral that 

can be with this process as well? It’s quite an amazing facility. I 

got to visit recently. 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Well, yeah, absolutely. Look, any time that you 

bring information and you fuse different capabilities, you bring different stakeholders to the table is extraordinarily important, and 

in this particular area, the $1 trillion, over five percent of the U.S. 
72 

economy, when we can bring that kind of throw weight into the dialog, it’s going to be beneficial. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I’ll finish up with Dr. Higgs. The BRI research 

also encompasses plant diseases with a focus on diseases like the 

fungus wheat blast. Wheat accounts for 20 percent of all calories 

consumed globally, making ag research a matter of food security. 

What kind of impact would wheat blast have on our ability to 

produce and export wheat, and what does BRI and Kansas State 

do to combat this deadly plant disease and others? And again, so 

proud of the Wheat Institute is doing there as well. 

Dr. HIGGS. Well, to answer the question briefly, it would devastate our wheat production. This is a pathogen from South America that can cause 100 percent crop losses. We’ve been conducting 

research in the BRI since 2009 to study wheat blast and look at 

wheat varieties that are resistant to that. We’ve done research for 

the Australian government, for example, who won’t allow that 

pathogen in the country. We’ve now seen wheat blast for the first 

time get into, Bangladesh and, India, and it is devastating their 

crops. So that research is critical and run by colleagues in the College of Agriculture. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. Thank you, everyone, for answering my 

questions. 

I’ll now recognize Mr. LaHood for questions. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

having this important hearing today on agriculture research, and 

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today and for your 

valuable testimony. 

The district that I represent in central and west central Illinois 

has two distinctions related to agriculture. First, it’s the eighth 

largest in the country in terms of corn and soybean production, and 

also our district produces 96 percent of the pumpkins produced in 

the entire world in our district, and we’re awful proud of both 

those. I like to tell people we’ve got some of the most fertile farmland in the entire world in central and west central Illinois. People 

are also surprised to learn that in the State of Illinois, the number 

one industry is agriculture. It’s not any industry in Chicago or 

other places, it’s agriculture, and we’re awful proud of that in Illinois. 

In my time in office, I’ve put together an Ag Advisory Committee 

that I meet with on a quarterly basis, and we talk about issues related to agriculture, and I’m amazed at the technology and the 

modernization of agriculture in all different sectors, whether it’s 

drought-resistant seeds or nutrients that are put on our farm fields 

or the technology that goes into our tractors and equipment. It continues to amaze me what goes on sometimes in a quiet way in agriculture, and obviously all of that work and the research that has 

been done has resulted in yields that continue to get stronger and 

stronger. Now, we’ve got to do some work on prices, but obviously 

the work that’s gone on has helped with our yields and really bountiful harvests that we’ve had. 

Before my questions, I want to highlight a unique agriculture research facility located in Peoria, Illinois, that I represent, and 

that’s the National Center for Agriculture Utilization Research in 

Peoria, also known as the Peoria Ag Lab. The Ag Lab is run as 
73 

part of the Agriculture Research Service (ARS), which has been a 

vital agency within the Department of Agriculture. For over a halfcentury, this agency has done work to improve the lives of countless Americans and includes research on corn, wheat and soybeans 

as well as the distinction of developing the mass production of penicillin in the 1940s by Nobel Prize-winning scientists at the Peoria 

Ag Lab. Currently, the Peoria Ag Lab is designated to lead technology transfer for the USDA and focuses on bioenergy, renewable 

resources, and research for safe and healthy foods. To list all the 

examples of the impactful research done at the Ag Lab would take 

more than my allotted time but I would like to talk about a few 

and highlight the valuable research that goes on there. 

First, ARS scientists in Peoria developed the first American Petroleum Institute-certified bio-based motor oil from a seed crop, 

providing for growth in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors 

of the economy. Second, toxins produced by fungi during grain production and storage cause billions of dollars in annual losses to the 

U.S. economy and have had significantly negative impact on farmers and rural communities. The toxin detection technologies developed by ARS in Peoria were transferred to the private sector via 

licensing agreements to more than 30 companies and their widespread use has helped to ensure the safety of the food supply and 

help to promote job growth in the biotechnology area. Third, new 

biodegradable products that are nontoxic and inexpensive to 

produce have been prepared from renewable materials using a 

process that can easily be scaled by small or large businesses in 

any location. These products developed by ARS in Peoria can be 

used to control a wide variety of pests and pathogens, and combined with their low production cost will make this discovery a valuable new tool to help farmers and improve yield and promote economic development. 

Building off that discussion on agriculture research, Dr. Moose, 

I wanted to ask you, how can federal support of agriculture research, which our Peoria Ag Lab relies on federal research, ensure 

that America is prepared to lead in emerging science to continue 

to benefit our farmers and the U.S. economy? 

Dr. MOOSE. Yes. So the Peoria Lab’s a great example of this— 

the research that goes on there, the technology transfer, the impact 

that it has on the farm or through society, and so I would say I 

guess more examples like that would be beneficial, and the mechanisms, there are a variety of ways to do it. The USDA ARS runs 

that facility. There are others like it that are partnerships with either university or industry groups. 

But I think another aspect that could be sort of going forward 

and enhancing this is just convening at the table, having a voice, 

an opportunity for industry, government and society or the end 

users, we’ll call them, sitting down at the table, and those things 

happen just in our own—recently the people from the Peoria Lab 

are partners in our new Bioenergy Center that’s actually a Department of Energy-funded project with the University of Illinois and 

partners all over the country, and so through that center, we will 

be having this conversation and specifically around renewable energy from biomass and renewable products, and so the group at Peoria Lab that are partners, they’re a critical piece of that trans-
74 

lation from—we have plants that are valuable on the farm, they 

have unique properties, how can they be processed and added 

value. And the Peoria Lab is well positioned for that because industry, it might be too risky for them to do that type of work right 

now, but if we can transition that into a less risky and commercially viable option, then that would—the benefits will come. 

Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you. I look forward to working with you, Dr. 

Moose. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I now recognize Mr. Hultgren for questions. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you so much for 

being here. This is a very important discussion and I want to just 

say thank you for your time and your expertise. Also, I have to recognize this is the second day in a row that we’ve had someone representing one of our great universities from Illinois, so I want to 

keep the streak going. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I’m not 

sure who our witness will be then but we’re so proud of University 

of Illinois and all of our great universities. So thank you. 

As my colleagues have said, agriculture is so important, and certainly in Illinois, agriculture drives exports. I had the great opportunity last year to be in Taiwan, meet with the president of Taiwan, and also foreign and agricultural ministers there just to discuss how important and mutual importance of agriculture exports 

and specifically from Illinois. 

I also serve as Co-Chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights 

Commission and see that agriculture and food security as an everpresent force that compounds and exacerbates the basic lack of 

legal and human rights in conflict regions around the world. So we 

have to continue to recognize what we can do to make sure that 

food is available to every single person. 

Dr. Moose, I wonder if I could address my first question to you. 

Can you talk a little bit about how federal support for agricultural 

research can encourage stronger connections between farmers, scientists and society, and how specifically Illinois is helping to build 

those connections? 

Dr. MOOSE. Yes. So as I alluded to in the testimony that I gave 

and then in my written testimony, I think the federal government 

has this role of bringing the community together, the community 

of scientists, the interaction with society, and then because agriculture is so important to many districts around the country, it is 

why it’s a national issue. Every region of the country has their own 

climate, their own agricultural systems that operate there, yet we 

can learn from all of them. What a corn farmer does in Illinois he 

may learn from the farmer elsewhere in the country. So that’s one. 

Also, it was alluded to earlier, building the pipeline where 

through education, you’re not only educating the knowledge, there’s 

the networking, the interaction of people that I know certainly in 

my career at North Carolina State, it was the early days of biotechnology research, and it was recognized a workforce needed to 

be developed, and North Carolina State was one of the first to do 

that, and now my peers that I went through that program with are 

leaders in the industry, they’re leaders in government, they’re leaders in academia. We need to have that next generation also. And 

I think the unique aspect of that program and others like we have 

at Illinois, for example, our Illinois Plant Reading Center, industry 
75 

supports the graduate training. They don’t expect a research outcome. All they expect is, maybe we’ll have some good employees, 

you know, to hire down the road, and so I think that educational 

piece is really important, and it was integral to Lincoln’s vision. He 

considered education foremost to drive the research. 

Mr. HULTGREN. I agree. Let me open this up to everyone. 

Coming from Illinois, I see our National Laboratories as vital to 

our research ecosystem, building the large research facilities and 

unique one-off machines that no one institution or federal agency 

has the ability to manage, so again, these laboratories are so important to bring people together. The Advanced Photon Source at 

Argonne has nearly 2,000 users in the biological and life sciences. 

I toured Lawrence Berkeley this year and saw the great benefits 

of the Joint Genome Institute to multiple areas of research. Facilities like the Molecular Science Lab at PNNL also come to mind. 

Do you think that USDA is properly leveraging these facilities 

and other investments in our lab, and how can we better facilitate 

a more collaborative approach between different agencies so that 

we’re doing the best science and not duplicating efforts and facilities? I’d open it up to anybody. 

Dr. GERSTEIN. Well, I wouldn’t mind starting just to talk a little 

bit about Plum Island and the work that was done there. I was in 

charge of Plum Island. It was part of the Science and Technology 

Directorate when I was acting Under and then Deputy Under Secretary. So I worked with them very closely, and I always felt like 

Plum Island was really very much of a joint facility. I had Department of Homeland Security people and I had people from USDA, 

Department of Agriculture, and every time I’d go up there, I 

couldn’t keep straight who was from which organization, and they 

were literally working on the bench side by side. One of the outputs of this collaboration was the first ever what we call a diva 

vaccine for foot and mouth disease, and so that’s a great representation of where there is good collaboration. I felt the same with 

other agencies, for example, EPA and Department of Ag and 

Health and Human Services as well as Homeland Security. We all 

collaborated on difficult questions about how would one handle a 

foot and mouth disease event. For example, think about the large 

amount of just waste that would be generated if you had to depopulate a number of livestock across several different farms. You 

know, we were thinking about numbers in excess of 50,000 animals 

at a time that would—you know, you’d have to do something with 

all that waste. So, I mean, we worked very closely to try to collaborate, and there’s a lot of—believe it or not, even on the depopulation question, there’s a lot of research and development that goes 

into answering how clean is clean enough and how do you dispose 

of what could be very dangerous pathogenic material. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you. Five minutes, now six minutes, goes 

by way too fast. So we’ll follow up because I think this is an important issue of again how we can be continuing to build collaboration. 

Thank you all. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I do want to add my thanks to all the witnesses 

for coming today. It was an excellent education for me. Thanks for 
76 

your testimony and the Members for their questions and participation. 

The record will remain open for two weeks for additional written 

comments and written questions from Members. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(77) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Daniel Gerstein 
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Responses by Dr. Stephen Higgs 
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Responses by Dr. Stephen P. Moose 
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Responses by Dr. Elizabeth Wagstrom 
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(103) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
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REPORT SUBMITTED BY

REPRESENTATIVE ROGER W. MARSHALL
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