MR. REDDING: Okay. MR. ANDERSON: I can see nothing with it. I sign onto it completely. MR. REDDING: Okay. Perfect. Laura? MS. BATCHA: I am absolutely generally supportive of it in both parts 2 and 3. I think the only question I have that I'm really posing to the rest of the folks on the committee that I'd like people's input on, the idea of strengthening awareness of coexistence seems, I don't know whether it's definitionally funny or whether or not, it's just somehow a little bit off to me, the way that that's characterized in terms of awareness of coexistence. Is it more about education on knowledge around tools for coexistence? It's something about that like awareness of coexistence that is, seems sort of inadequate to me in general and so I'm just wondering whether or not anybody else had the same reaction to those words. I'm not sure I have a solution but I'm posing the question. MR. REDDING: Marty. MR. MATLOCK: Marty Matlock. I'll respond. I didn't react to that at first because of the fear of wordsmithing but I think this is a bit beyond wordsmithing because this is conceptual. I think what's missing is the awareness of what of coexistence. The awareness of the importance of coexistence, the awareness of mechanisms for
coexistence. Coexistence itself is too broad to -- I think there's something that we, that's missing. MR. SCHECHTMAN: Well, the importance is there after coexistence in the phrase. MR. MATLOCK: I see that. MR. SCHECHTMAN: Yeah. MR. MATLOCK: And that's the reason I think it just kind of seems a little awkward there but the, I, but I was reticent to comment on it but I do agree with Laura that it is probably worth adding something else. MR. REDDING: Okay. So we're open to suggestions what that looks like. Angela. MS. Yeah. Maybe it could be just with strengthen awareness and the importance of coexistence, so we take out the of coexistence and the, and maybe that would take care of it because we address -- do you agree with that, Michael? I see a perplexed look. MS. I think it's the word awareness. I was going to suggest maybe just the word understanding which is still broad but if you read the paragraph, then it kind of goes into more detail so if you replace awareness with understanding, perhaps that adds some clarity even though you have to read the paragraph to understand aware, understanding of what. MS. OLSEN: I would support that.
MR. BUSHUE: I like that idea, just from the standpoint. I really like Paul's but I like this idea better I think because it then, frankly, it almost forces people into actually read the report. I mean, it does. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or not. MR. BUSHUE: Or not, yeah. MS. HOWELL MARTENS: Builds up expectations. MR. BUSHUE: For the 100 people who are going to. Yeah. I think it's -- I like that idea. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I agree. I think short is better. MR. REDDING: Short is better, so what's the proposal again? MS. OLSEN: Report of the AC21: Coexistence. MR. BUSHUE: And you could put the year in so there's, you know. MR. REDDING: We can't include successful? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can put it in red. MR. REDDING: Trying to apply, I mean, I guess the titles are important and what you call them, call a report. I'm trying to address some of the, the -- strengthening coexistence. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fostering. MR. REDDING: Fostering coexistence. I mean, something more enhancing coexistence. Something beyond.
Words are important but coming away with that respect for what everybody in this business does every single day to stay in it, I am amazed. You know, and however you want to borrow money to work every day to make that happen, good for you, right, but we should respect that. That, to me, is really important. Really important. And we want to capture that in the spirit of this report, that that really is, at the end of the day, a strong statement for the USDA, the Secretary and every one of us around the table. So thank you for engaging in this conversation, being constructive. There are some miles to go yet but I'm pretty proud of what we have so thank you. Okay. Any final? MR. SCHECHTMAN: A final word or two. First, I want to thank all of you for your energy, your commitment and your flexibility. There's things in this report for everyone not to like and maybe there's a few less of those today than there was at the beginning of the meeting yesterday. As I said earlier, in looking back on the previous efforts that groups have undertaken to come up with recommendations on bolstering coexistence, we know how difficult what you have moved towards doing today is to have accomplished. I don't know what the final votes are going to be from everyone on whether you're joining consensus and with or without comments but I'm really very encouraged and I think
DEPOSITION SERVICES, INC., hereby certifies that the attached pages represent an accurate transcript of the electronic sound recording of the proceedings before the United States Department of Agriculture: ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON BIOTECHNOLOGY AND 21ST CENTURY AGRICULTURE By: ________________________ Josephine Hayes, Transcriber