Town Hall Meeting


MR. ZUICHES:	You've raised the issue of teamwork, and I'd like to follow up with a question that specifically addresses that. In addition to USDA, FDA, and EPA, what could the state departments of agriculture, the universities, and the grower community do to address the GMO question?

MR. JESERNIG:	I grant I could absolutely agree with the secretary that we have to focus around this issue and take it on directly. We are going to be working in a couple different areas. We are partners with APHIS on the approval process as we work through here. With the independent science that the land grant university can bring to the table, I think that it is critical that we have credible, independent science to support this, the arm's-length point the secretary came up with. The other side of it is I think it's very important to emphasize the benefits that the secretary pointed out to the environment. If you have more people coming into the world and you have a set amount of land and if you can't increase production on that land, you're going to bring more land into production, and it's going to be less productive, highly sensitive land, environmental areas throughout the world that are going to be destroyed. So I almost think a couple of things are very important. One is to really focus on the fact that we need to have a constant message on this issue. It has to have credible science behind. It's got to have independence behind it, but very importantly for us, I think it is important to emphasize the benefits to the environment and the consumer and to the world on production agriculture and biotechnology. Everybody has a part to play in this, and if we don't repeat it again and again and again, it's very easy for it to slip into hysteria, when the science doesn't back that up. So I see it as B the critical centerpiece is FDA, USDA, Environmental Protection Agency there, but various departments of agriculture also are part of that approval chain, and we're going to be leaning very heavily on that in the community, in our land grant universities.

MR. ZUICHES:	Thank you. The next question shifts gears pretty dramatically. It's from Jim Baker. The importation of raw logs and wooden packing material poses a great risk of bringing insects and other exotic pests into the U.S. which could devastate our forests. As trade grows, so will this risk of environmental damage. Will the Clinton Administration seek WTO rules which protect the U.S. from exotic pests? If not, why not?

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	Well, let me first say that we have worked on this because it's affected the Asian long-horned beetle issue in Chicago and New York City and perhaps elsewhere, where we have changed our rules with respect to packing materials coming in from China. And they seem to be working fairly well right now in terms of not using untreated wood pallets in order to bring materials in. This speaks to a much bigger problem, however, and that's the issue of invasive species and exotic pests. Some of you have seen the issue with respect to the West Nile Encephalitis. How did that come in? The changing weather, if we are, in fact, warming up to some degree, does that make the United States more susceptible to diseases like malaria and encephalitis that we've never had to deal with before? What will it do to agriculture? The kinds of pests that you see in the tropics, if they come into this country, what will it do to the primary road crops that are being grown? The President put together an interagency task force of myself, Secretary Babbitt and Secretary Daly to try to come up with a total U.S. Government policy to deal with the issue of invasive species, they're coming in from logs, they're coming in from animals, or coming in from people. And I don't know whether this will be a WTO issue or not. I think it relates to the right of the government to deal with its own public health and safety protections, and we will have that right because the WTO will have no impact on that.

MR. JESERNIG:	We at the Department of Agriculture again work cooperatively with APHIS on this, and actually one of the success stories that really wasn't publicized was the fact that we had Asian long-horned beetle found in the state of Washington in Whatcom County. But we moved quickly enough to be able to hold it and stop it there, and that is the kind of early warning we need throughout the United States and in Washington state, which is very trade dependent. As the secretary pointed out, it's not just with basically critters of diseases. We have in the aquatic arena the zebra mussel, you've got the green crab, the spartina, all kinds of invasive species that we have to work on. One of the things we'll be working on hopefully, again, not in this session but the upcoming legislative session cooperatively with WSU, is to see what is the total capacity of state government, meaning WSU and the State Department of Agriculture, around entomology and plant pathology. And actually my initial inclination is that capacity isn't what it needs to be, and we'll probably be looking at the legislature to increase that capacity for both WSU and our department.

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	I would say that globalization, this is not a dark side of globalization, but with products flowing more freely, people traveling more freely, this is certainly something that happens as a result of that, and it means that not only does it require cooperation, but it frankly requires probably a significant enhancement of resources necessary to have people on the ground at airports, at seaports, you know, monitoring this problem. Otherwise, it could destroy U.S. agriculture. The long-horned beetle if unchecked could have a dramatic effect on destroying hardwood forests all over the country, and it's just one species.

MR. JESERNIG:	We have cooperative efforts to work on this. It's the series of them that could be devastating. And we're actually worried that we're going to have to -- as Jim pointed out, we have to make sure we have the resources available to deal with that at dockside. I mean we've got -- one of the happy times I have is implementing the Asian gypsy moth spraying over the city of Seattle, which if I could find any section of real estate in the world I'd rather not do that, it would be Seattle. But the little critters don't go to Ferry County or Wahkiakum County. They tend to come where the ports are. And so we have Pierce, King, and actually Wahkiakum County where we're working on Asian gypsy moth issues cooperatively with APHIS. And the problem is is that it would not just impact agriculture if you have those established. It impacts trade, and so all trade needing the ability to ship, whether it's by ship or by plane, is impacted.

MS. SWOSKIN:	All I would add is that one of the important parts of the WTO is that it does put in place some due-process provisions so that as you're taking care of these very difficult problems, that you're not putting yourself in a position to have your trading partners use these as an excuse to keep out trade. There's a balance there that we have to work at, and we have to work with a lot of other international organizations to ensure that we're actually taking the right steps and not, as he said, harming trade.

MR. ZUICHES:	That was an excellent question because it obviously affects not just forests but all agriculture and our own personal human health as well. The next two questions directly relate to the wheat industry. They're from Gretchan Bork, who is a representative of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, and I need to put this in context. The issue is the pursuit of a lower tariff on high-quality U.S. durum exports to the European Union. How do you and the administration plan to correct this situation, and how soon can it be done?

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	I actually don't have a specific response to that issue. All I can tell you is that perhaps we could talk for a few minutes afterwards where I could address it a little more directly. I don't know if any of the team here -- no. Okay. We'll talk about it then.

MR. ZUICHES:	The next one is also from the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. This is a much larger issue, and that is the funding of the Export Enhancement Program at the 1996 Farm Bill authorized level of 579 million. How do you and the administration plan to correct this situation, and how soon can it be done?

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	Well, first of all, we have used the EEP program in a couple of circumstances. There was barley, and there was some poultry product, I believe, that was used. But let me -- so that you understand this, the Export Enhancement Program allows us to take grain from government stocks and basically bonus that grain when we sell commodities elsewhere. So if we sold, let's say, the country of Indonesia four bushels of grain, we can add a bushel, a fifth bushel, out of U.S. stocks. That, therefore, reduces their price to some degree. The problem with that is that it has the impact of doing two things. One is since the Europeans subsidize their exports at the rate of about 15 times what we do, it is likely that they will do the same thing and have much greater resources to do it than we do. Second of all, it would work to cheapen our grain, which would probably increase dramatically Canadian imports into the United States. What we have chosen to do instead is to dramatically increase our food assistance around the world because then we can target it to those countries that need our help. For example, this year we will provide 10 million metric tons of food assistance around the world compared to an average of 2-1/2 million tons every year in the 1980s and early 1990s. Actually we're five times higher this year in food assistance, mostly wheat, than we've been in the past. And by the way, that -- the amount of that dwarfs the amount in the EEP program, that is we're spending much more than 500 million dollars to basically provide wheat and other products to people who need it, who are hurting, who are hungry. And the reason why we think that's more effective is that it doesn't impact the subsidies hat Europe would likely do, and it allows us to get the product to people who actually need it. The president has said to me, he says, "I want you to use the authority, the food assistance authority" -- this year it's 10 million metric tons, last year it was about 3 million metric tons, the previous year was about 2 million metric tons -- "I want to use it at whatever amount that you need to use it at." And of course, the only limit there is we've got to make sure that it doesn't displace commercial sales because your goal is to try to sell this product as well as just to give it away. I guess my point is that we're probably lowering stocks much, much more by the food assistance program, which is targeted, rather than the EEP program, which isn't targeted.

MR. ZUICHES:	I think everybody in this room, including the secretary, has a vested interest in the answer to this next question from Dixie Riddle, although I don't know if the secretary will be able to answer. When will President Clinton sign the Ag Appropriations Bill?

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	What's her name, Riddle?

MR. ZUICHES:	Dixie Riddle.

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	His name -- oh, okay. But the last name is Riddle?

MR. ZUICHES:	Riddle.

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	This is a riddle. I'd say fairly soon, within the next few days. On Thursday, the continuing resolution, which funded the government for three weeks, is up, and that means that those appropriations bills that have not been signed will mean those departments and their programs cannot run and function. There have been a few bills that have been signed, so the President would need to have a continuing resolution from Congress to continue to fund the rest of the government. The Ag Appropriations Bill has been passed out of both the House and the Senate and sent to the President, and while we have some concerns about the emergency aid part of the bill, my judgment is it will be signed, and it will probably be signed in the next few days.

MR. ZUICHES:	As a recipient of research and extension funds through USDA, I'm also interested in the answer. The second question relates to your last point, and that is how fast can USDA turn around payments to be distributed to the farm community?

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	Some of the payments can be turned around very quickly, the MTP payments, the Market Transition Payments. And there will be a lot of payments. There will be the emergency payments. There will be an advance on next year's payments. I don't know what other payments -- what other -- Tom may want to answer that, if you don't mind, and use your mike. He will tell you a little bit -- this is Tom Grow, who runs our farm programs.

MR. GROW:	As the secretary said, some payments can be put out quite quickly, such as the MTP plus, but there's a whole host of other payments. For example, the disaster payments for the natural disasters, it's going to take a little bit more time, but we're looking at, compared to last year, putting out an advance so at least the folks can have part of that payment up front because that needs to be factored. There's the oil seed payments. That's going to take longer to put out because of the fact to administer the program is going to be very -- it's going to take a lot of work because we go back and use last year's yields, the previous year's yields, and then the other third-year yields and stuff. So again, that's going to take a little bit longer, but we're working through the process right now. But I can absolutely guarantee you on all of the programs, we're a lot farther ahead than we were a year ago because in anticipation of this bill being passed, behind the scenes, we have been, A, putting together the procedures to get the dollars out, and, B, working real close. So we're farther ahead than we were last year, and again, the payments will get out just as quick and fast as we possibly can. Those are just a few of the payments we're working with today.

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	I got a letter from Senator Gordon and some other members of the delegation encouraging us to think very kindly about the unique losses suffered here in the state of Washington as we deal with our crop loss payments. To give you some idea, this bill provides about 5-1/2 billion dollars of emergency market loss payments to producers, mostly wheat, corn, cotton, rice producers, and those payments will be gotten out as quickly -- a couple, three weeks at the latest. There's 1.2 billion, actually about 1.4 billion in crop loss and livestock loss disaster payments, but it's for '99 crop year losses, which means we have to wait until the end of '99. There could be citrus losses in Florida next month. You know, we won't know these losses, so I can't make the payments yet until the end of the year. But what we will do is we will provide advance payments. We'll have to take a percentage, protect ourselves in that process, and get an advanced payment out to help people. I would have to say that this is the second year that Congress has decided that the 1996 Farm Bill is not adequate, and I think the clear message of this -- people have said, "Well, will Congress ever revise the Freedom to Farm Bill?" I said, "They have, two years in a row." They said, "It doesn't work." They modified it because the formulas and the dollars aren't adequate to deal with the problem. And my guess is unless, working with the administration, Congress doesn't revise the basic bill earlier next year, we could very easily have another program like this next year. And I'm not sure that the public is going to tolerate year after year after year this kind of disaster bill, and I'm not sure agriculture wants this year after year after year. So we've got some ideas. We're going to try to -- Congressman Combest, the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, has basically stated that he does not believe that the '96 farm bill is adequate to address the problems, so he's going to hold some hearings early next year, and we will do our best to work with them to try to make some constructive changes in this program.

MR. ZUICHES:	Good. This next question also pertains to future farm bills. It's from Owen Jorgesen. Would it be possible for the government to establish support prices, i.e. a loan price, for alternate crops, such as flats, mustard, lentil, safflower, et cetera? It seems like this would encourage diversification and insurance where alternate crops would also help.

SECRETARY GLICKMAN:	Yes, I think it's an excellent question. One of the good things the Freedom of Farm Bill did was encourage people to plant alternative crops, but in a lot of cases, you couldn't buy crop insurance for those crops because there hadn't been production history, and so we basically had one foot on the brake and one foot on the accelerator in terms of doing what's called flexibility. And we're working to try to expand the amount of crops that are under crop insurance. But Congress can basically do anything it wants to in setting up additional loan or other types of programs, but I think the basic point of that question, if we're going to encourage crop flexibility, we have to remove the impediments from it.

MR. JESERNIG:	I'd just like to say that I really appreciate Dave Barr -- Dave's somewhere here in the room -- in his efforts to try and come up with the kind of flexibility that would make these things work for different crops. One of the things we've heard very strongly from various segments of the industry is that the -- just kind of a one size is the only way it can work, it won't work. And so at least here, I think we have the ability and the effort -- put a lot of effort -- that David Hischoff has put together to come up with some tools that will be useful for individual types of growers for some of the other commodities out there, and I just wanted to thank Dave for that.