He spoke at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Hello, everybody i hope you can hear me. My name is dan glickman. Michael moderator and former secretary my coat moderator and former secretary. We welcome you to this Bipartisan Policy Center food summit. We want to thank you all for being here. We want to thank our guests and secretary perdue who we will introduce in a minute. This has become one of the most talked about issues of the whole covid19 issues. Have to relate to the food supply from production to the processing to the distributing to the conception and how it affects farmers, how it affects processors and how it affects the average persons and the hungry. We are delighted to be here. We cannot delve into every issue because of the time but it is a way to start the discussion. We think you will have an interesting time listening to this very important issue about feeding this country. I would like to welcome everybody and thank you policy center for hosting this event and turned it over to my colleague. Thank you as always, dan glickman. It is my honor to introduce our first speaker, the 31st secretary of agriculture, sonny perdue. As secretaries, all three of us have faced trying times. 9 11,case, it included we are facing unprecedented challenges to the food system, as covid19 as the covid19 pandemic has spread around the globe. We want to say thank you very much, mr. Secretary, for joining us today to discuss these challenges and how the usda is responding during this extraordinary time. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you to my former colleague, secretary brenneman and secretary glickman. Bpc, to be with our host, which i had the honor of serving on our governors council. I appreciate the convening of this topic. Almost like every crisis has its own language. Who in america had thought about Food Supply Chain prior to now . I guess more americans are aware , we have often talked about the ,act that in modernday america most people think about food coming from the Grocery Store. Weh the Food Supply Chain, have had to grow that expectation of understanding what has happened here in america. I am even guilty of not productionng very and processing and logistics and Delivery System that we have in the united states. When we think about context of what we face over 50 of the food we consume, we had a production scheme, a very efficient, sacred eyes, integrated, sophisticated Delivery System, both for the production and processing and logistics and the delivery to the different sectors, one being the institutional setting. Consumer,ing for the mostly in grocery chains. When you thing about that, the process in the middle is processing for different consumers, different packaging and other things. What caused all the realignment, one of those 50 chains stopped very suddenly. I liken it to the fact they were an interstate. Really major crash occurs ahead, and two of those lanes are totally blocked. We all know what happens then. Thanks back up quickly. Things back up quickly. Why didnt you anticipate this . Questiont is the everyone is asking. Why didnt we anticipate this . No one could have anticipated this in the Food Supply Chain and the degree to which we were segregated in our production and process. No,ou former secretaries the usdas role to be flexible and to move quickly and realigning these dislocations and misalignments that we have in the supply chain in order to do that. Im very proud to see here, you have probably heard me say before, our motto is to feel like we feed everyone. This produced a real challenge. Regular supply chain of Grocery Stores. It is like a National Hurricane warning initially. People fled to the Grocery Store and shelves became bear, and that created more panic as we saw the people wondering if we were going to have enough food. That was the first question. Secondly, we had stores closing. Schools closing. Where do these kids get their nutrition from . We had to make very immediate flexibility there. We all had to do things by rules and regulation. We have certain criteria to try and preserve the integrity of the process, because this is public money and we have to preserve the integrity of that and maintain an integrity of the way things are handled and delivered. That also created an flex ability. We had many waivers initially to get these kids fed. It was amazing how communities reached out to get the kids fed. A lot of programs that way. One interesting one, this partnership with baylor university. Maclean global, a logistic company. Texaco joined together to deliver over one million meals a week for school kids in rural areas that could not get into the congo get a cup site. Into the congregate pickup site. Those are the good news stories. We had many other waivers. Certainly our pandemic ebt where we loaded the amount of School Lunches and breakfasts on the lunch kids, reduced so they could get food that way. Professionals, local School Systems and many in the private sector did wonderful things. We had our snap pub relation. Snap population. We had to continue to have flexibility there on Online Shopping. All those that applied. We had to do the program that helped to move food into our food banks and other things that are normally used for local disaster. We had household Distribution Program that is usually used for localized disaster when there is not access to Grocery Stores. We had to be able to use that. It required a lot of creativity and a lot of ingenuity. The one program that we are rolling out now we announced on friday that we are proud of. That is the Food Box Program. It is disheartening to all of us in agriculture when a farmer or producer puts their blood, sweat and tears into growing animals or vegetables or produce or milk and having to destroy that milk or dairy, produce or meet. It is the misalignment of not being able to get that protein where it needs to be. This Food Box Program is 3 billion of the 19 billion program. 3 billion will be that. Up and running with the contracts in place over local, regional distributors who have been used to using and serving the distribution market and restaurants. It is a great nationwide program. We look forward to that rolling out. The other thing we try to do is Program Early on on the helping to get those and other people who work locally to get food to those citizens who showed up at the food bank having lost their jobs. It has been quite a scramble. Farmers and producers are in a real bind. We have also had situation with our food processing, part of that shane part of that shane , we have to process and package it for consumer consumptions. We have had somewhat of a crisis in that area with many of our workers coming down with positive covid19s and we have had to work around having Meat Processing closed. The president s executive order helped us get some uniformity. We are still underneath what our capacity is pure it i think we can still say we are going to have meat proteins for the future. All of those plants are open now. Working very well. Usda has had its hands full. Our services crowd has been amazing. In a 24 hour session, our ams with its purchasing program and Delivery Logistics program to our Food Bank Network has been amazing. Im really proud. Having done all that with remote situations we cannot come together but we have been scraping all the time. I feel more tired when i go home now having been on skype all day long. Anyway, the team has been amazing. Im really proud of the group. I am proud of all of these workers from the farmers to the processors to the logistics and truckers who deliver this food, the Grocery Store, stockers, check out to make sure weve got a consistent supply. The most efficient, specific eight it sophisticated food chain in the world has been noble enough to continue to supply our people with a confidence that we can have food , and that helps to fulfill that motto of feeding everyone. Did we do every thing perfectly . I am not saying that. We worked as hard as we could to mix sure people who needed our food mostly were able to get that. Thank you all. I look forward to hearing the rest of you all. Ok. I think we are going to introduce our panel. They have been a couple of changes in the panel, so i want to make sure that people know we are going to go through for people first. The president of the American Farm bureau. Delighted to have you. President and the ceo of north American Meat institute. She is going to be talking a lot about processing industry. What is happening in terms of preparing this meet for the t for the mean consumer. Talk about the distribution of food and the retailing side. Finally, katie fitzgerald, ebt and ceo of feeding america who will talk about the impact on the nations food bank, the nations poor, maybe talk about the snap program, as well as this enormous increase in the numbers of people because of rapidly increasing unemployment who are in these food bank lines , that we have not seen since the great depression. Iven that, i am gone to start that i will go to juliana, and then leslie and then katie. If you would each talk for about five minutes on the challenges you see in the Food Supply Chain , and how it affects your business, your members and what you do. Start. Everybody is on mute when they talk. Thank you so much. What i was saying is i feel privileged to be among you all today. Thank you for having me on to be voice for American Farmers and ranchers. We will talk about the production and how the pandemic has affected us. Of course, in five minutes, there no way you can talk about american agricultural agriculture. I will talk on the hotspots we have been talking about. Of course, i describe the situation we are in in agriculture like the perfect storm that we have experienced. It didnt start with the pandemic. Agriculture during the last seven or eight years has been a declining economy when everybody elses economy has been booming. Ours has been dwindling behind. Having a difficult time with this last ingredient of perfect storm after all of the natural disasters and everything that we have experienced in the trade war. We are appreciative of the that the president has brought to the agriculture and the last two years. We look forward to working with him. The perfect storm has caused an increase in the last 12 months ending march 2020 of increase in bankruptcies. 627 bankruptcies, 27 of the year before that. We are concerned about the ability of our farmers being able to repay debt, and the flex ability that the Financial Markets are going to allow for our farmers going to the future to be able to get operating loans to plant future crops. Of course, a main player and how we survive the financial position we are in is going to be the program that the secretary is going to deliver to act. Om the cares very appreciative of the president signing it. We thank congress for putting it out there we know the secretary and all of his employees have worked very hard. We look forward to that happening and what comes in that package is going to really determine how much how soon our farmers, how they can hold onto their future. One of the things we have been talking about is severely critical, the Processing Plants and problems we have had in getting our animals protein harvested. It is also dairy, poultry and pork. Vegetables. The processing part of it is really has just hit us in the face. See what important link that is in the food chain. Thatumber one concern is the employees on the farms, the employees and Processing Plants, employees at the Grocery Stores, everybody along the chain be safe in the things that we can do to protect them and their families after they get through working. This is the new normal. Who knows . This is the food chain we operate in today. It didnt happen overnight and it didnt happen in a vacuum. It is going to end up shaping agriculture in the future. As farmers is we have to get the processing part of this right. We have to find solutions to the problem. We have to get back to 100 capacity, because we all know that pipeline leading animals to harvest, that pipeline is full. And itpeline backs up costs millions and millions of dollars to our farmers. I went to say thank you to the secretary i want to say thank you to the secretary. We are really excited. We reached out and asked to sign on to the letter with us to have a conversation about creating a program such as that. We think they have done a tremendous job. We were delighted to see them deliver that out. I understand it is very possible with more than 600 people putting in plans to be able to utilize that. 600 Companies Going to put people back to work. Theres going to be food and farms. We are excited about being a part of that. We congratulate the secretary and his people on developing that program. One of the areas, i dont think we have talked about enough that im really concerned about is our heart land. That is what is going to happen with corn. Wethis pandemic, of course have had a war among oil people. Ahanol is a big part of america. Did tohat Rural America help our country become energy sufficient, being able to not depend on the rest the world for our energy. Corn in Rural America made a major role played a major role. Now those plants are shut down. It is going to affect oil prices. With the Processing Plants having problems, we have less animals going to be fed in the near future. That is going to be less corn consumed. Corn is really facing a difficult time and im really concerned about what is going with that. Ethanol is so important to Rural America. We need to focus on what is going to happen and how we make that industry survive, because it is an important link in what our farmers depend on. Of course, we also are real concerned about the new phase i trade treaty. Are some Difficult Conversations going on about many areas in our society. Those conversations could make the reality and the goals and phase i trade agreement with china difficult. Need phase i 40 billion worth of purchases that china promised to exercise this year. We need that to happen. It would help think the now Commodity Prices and help our farmers. We have had tremendous challenges. I could go on and on and talk, but cant stop talking about agriculture. My concern about bringing young people into agriculture. A young man ak young woman to consider agriculture when we are going through such difficult times . We have to make agriculture a bright future. We have to get it back on a profitable ground. We can draw people back to the industry and prepare this industry for the future. Much. You so thank you very much. You have ended right when i tell you to and. End. Next we have juliana potts. She has a huge background in agriculture. She will talk about the processing side of the picture which is the area that has received the most attention lately, and the one that has been in gridlock for the supply chain. Juliana . Thank you so much, secretary glickman. I am honored to be with you all today. Represent my role is to represent a lot of the processing, but meat and poultry processing has been very highprofile in the recent weeks. Secretary perdue also touched on some of the things that the viewers here have been reading about. It is my pleasure to go back and talk about some of these challenges. What we have done to address them, and how we are looking at toing forward, as we begin see turning the corner on these packing plants, and other processes getting back up to full capacity. Way back in february, when it became clear that we were going to be facing this pandemic, members of our organization across the entire spectrum so from the very Large Companies to the very small, began meeting weekly by telephone through the trade association to share best practices. They were very proactive in the kinds of things at their Processing Plant to deal with what was going to come our way, because it was rolling across the coal country. The whole country. Things like additional sanitation, extra communication about how to work within the pp ifand stay within it was available ppe if it was available. Things communicated about being with people who were sick outside of the plant, so screening questions. Every opportunity, sending people away who were exhibiting any symptoms or answering yes to any of the screening questions. This all started towards the beginning of this whole thing, and yet we knew it was coming, and we have seen a tremendous amount of covid that has happened within the workforce of our Processing Plants. We were in constant communication with usda, with osha, and with ecdc on getting and with the cdc on getting as local Health Authorities and state Health Authorities took different approaches, as things began to come up in their community. In addition to some of the challenges with covid in the workforce and plant, there was a lot of absenteeism due to fear. Harvesting ofe animals and the processing of meat is a very laborintensive activity. , andquires physical labor the labor situation even before covid for our plants was very tight. Any challenge you ask about pretty much in the first top one ,r two would be the workforce and the ability while the top priority our companies was always the safety of the workforce, and continues to be the slowing of the lines in the slowing of processing and the closure as we have seen rolling across the country in different geographic areas. It is something that began to produce the kind of back up in agriculture of our livestock. That had become a critical problem couple weeks ago. House,ng that the white usda and other agencies stepped up to address in quite an extraordinary way. We believe that we are the first industry outside of defense that has been the subject of a defense production act order, executive order anyway. That was a sign that we really needed to have that kind of federal involvement in getting our plant back up to speed because it had become so critical. We are looking at all of the challenges that we have Going Forward to get our food service up and running. Our First Priority is the safety of our workers, and to get our plants back up to speed 100 , so we can process the backlog animals. Thank you. Thanks for being sick synced in your discussion just being succinct in your discussion. We are glad you are here but we have had a couple of folks who could not be here. I want to make sure that folks know that they can use the q a tab for questions, if they have them, so there will be questions asked. If we dont get them, we will try to answer them the best we the best way possible. Third speaker is leslie, president and ceo of fmi. People ther to distributor, the people who get the food from the farmers to the consumer. Leslie, you might talk about this from your perspective. The retailing side. Thank you, mr. Secretary. It is a pleasure to be with all of you. Im happy to talk about the experience we had. Clearly these have been unprecedented times that have come for all of us in the industry to establish and enact new precedents in the industry and almost do it overnight which has not been an easy feat. I am proud to say that we have been able to rise to the occasion. Theres some specific areas that have we have been focused on in the retail sector, particularly, one is the references you have heard to the supply chains. The number of customers coming into our stores have driven extraordinary demand at a time when supply was being tested in ways that we have never been tested before due to some of the things we heard about, labor shortages, plant closures and this Unprecedented Demand that we have experienced. It is been overwhelming. What we have seen is our industry suppliers have responded with new alignment with description pacing. E have realigned the supply products that normally would have been destined for the Food Service Sector, we have worked very hard to figure out how to repurpose those. Fmi created a partnership with the Food Service Distributors association to redirect some of those Food Service Products to the retail sector. We have even grown that since that initial partnership to a Broader Partnership now that matches buyers with sellers across the supply chain. Clearly the squeeze on the supply chain has been important for us to address. We have also had customer online capacity. We were experiencing a gently sloping upward trend to Online Grocery shopping, and overnight it became more of a rock climb for us and it for us as an industry, as we had doubling and in some cases tripling of demand for home delivery, store pickup, which most of us referred to as click and collect. All of these changes have clearly challenged us both taxing the technical and Technology Capacity of our Member Companies stores, online ordering systems, as well as the physical pickup and delivery capabilities. The third area that we focused on is unparalleled safety requirements. What we have seen is the Grocery Store in many ways has become the social hub for the community, because no one is going anywhere else but to the Grocery Store. We have hadtexts, to be very mindful and served as a model for safe distancing while people are in the stores. I think this is another way that we have demonstrated clearly what has been referred to as how essential food resale retail is during any disaster situation. Our industry responded with the safety requirements like limitations at the store, both on the numbers of people who could enter the store at the same time, as well as in some cases the numbers of products that people could buy in various categories. We have done specific instore social distancing protocols. It shows how far six feet really is when youre standing in a checkout line. We have doubled down on cleaning and sanitizing protocols. We have created special hours for our special needs customers. We have established new precedents in Customer Service and employee safety through the use of sneeze guards, masks, wipes, and the list goes on. Veryext area that has been important is testing the mettle of the workforce. Frankly, people who go to work in food retail and in other parts of the Food Distribution chain, i think do not have in their job descriptions that they are to be a public hero. I would say that all of the folks throughout the distribution chain have been exactly that. They have been heroic and how they show up for work when they wouldve preferred not to. This demand for labor is something that our stores have clearly recognized, and we have worked closely with them to try and help them work on hiring the hundreds of thousands of new employees that have gone into the Food Distribution sector since this whole thing started. We created an online Talent Exchange to help allow our customers, our companies who have employees who are not being deployed currently to know about openings that are happening in the Food Distribution system and creating that match, so that those individuals can find positions, and our companies can be staffed appropriately. 390,000currently impacted workers. They have joined the Talent Exchange via the companies they previously worked for so they can be available to be hired by other companies. Finally, trickle work that we have all done with the secretary critical work that we have all done with the secretary at the federal level in the state and local level. I have to give a shout out to all those Government Agencies who have worked so hard with us on making sure that we gain access to the safety where we need it. Making the necessary, regulatory and other adjustments that secretary perdue referenced. All beene always been invaluable to us and allowing us to do what we need to do to meet our customers needs. I know we will hear more about this from katie, but certainly the work that has been done in the snap arena has been tremendous in making sure we can meet those who need help the most. Maybe for the first time have had to ask for help. We are doing everything we can to make that as painless, and is easier process as possible. I would say enclosing that these times have put the supply chain to the test. We have had some hits and we have suffered some cuts and bruises. I think we have proven that our system is incredibly resilient and stronger than ever. We look forward to continuing to demonstrate the importance of this industry, and what we are capable of. Thank you very much. Before i get to katie, i am delighted to talk about the essential workers all the way through from the farmers to all of those folks in the meat and poultry industry who workday , to your grocery workers, people sometimes we ignore or didnt think how important they were to our lives. This has caused a new appreciation for those who work hard every single day to deliver the food, produce it, process it. I appreciate you mentioning that. Katie, vp and ceo, the president was unable to be here but we are delighted you are here. In addition to giving statistics about what is going on, how you dealing with millions they were working. Overnight they are not working yet many are eligible for snap but havent taken advantage of it just yet. The speed and repetitive of this crisis we are having and how you are at the front lines feeding millions of people is just amazing. We appreciate the efforts of you and your team. You may want to talk for a few minutes, and then im going to recognize my colleague. Thank you so much, secretary glickman and of course secretary perdue. We are honored to be a part of this panel. I will start by building up building off of what leslie said. Which is extending our appreciation for the tremendous heroes showing up every day in the 200 food banks that are part of feeding america, 60,000 agencies that are part of our network. Many folks dont realize that during the course of an average dependsat food system on 2 million volunteers. Every day americans are coming out even in the midst of this pandemic to show up and make sure their neighbors and former coworkers and others have the food they need to nourish their families. If you have not had to serve food, people come to that experience with a great deal of shame and embarrassment. What we have tried to communicate all across this great land is this is why our system exists. Why we enjoy this public and private partnership with the Food Industry and government to make sure in peoples time of need, when they are afraid of not being able to feed their children, if they know they can rely on americas food system. In terms of demand, we have seen an incredible surgeon demand. Surgech and demand in demand. We have gotten data that shows food banks are experiencing a 70 increase in the number of people who are seeking Food Assistance across the communities. We serve every community in the country. Of those people, 40 are consistently folks who have never had to ask for help with food. Aey are trying to navigate very complex system, scared, cannot predict their future. We are trying to meet those folks where they are, reassure them and makes sure they know that food is going to be there for them. We could not do that without the tremendous support from private industry, as represented on this panel and the role of the federal government. Our best estimate right now, we did a sixmonth Impact Analysis but our sixmonth analysis tells us that we can estimate that we will see 17 million more americans experience Food Insecurity as a result of the pandemic. That is a 46 increase. The 37 million americans who were food insecure prior to covid19. 18 million are children. We have a tremendous challenge and we are going to continue to need the vital support of the federal government as we move forward. We have been delighted and provisions that have been put into place, the first two acts that have gone through congress. The establishment of the coronavirus Food Assistance program, farmers to families box program as well as the waivers and other flexibilities. What we do know is that this increase in demand is going to continue for some time. We are modeling with some of the brightest folks in the country, trying to get a grip on what that might look like, as we look out 12 months. We expect to see this increased level of demand. We are going to need to continue to see increases in snap. We support a 50 increase in benefits and snap. Would like to see the minimum benefit allowed to be at 30 rather than 15 for individual snap enrollees. It is one of the best ways we can solve these problems for American Families. Peoples ability to go in, purchased the food they need, to keep that supply chain flowing smoothly. We dont want to see American Families spiral into financial rowan because of what has happened. To keep our Food Industry, our farmers and families able to access that food, snap is just a ofdous food economic course we would like to continue to see the level of support that areas togiven in other make sure our farmers can move products from fields and ranches into families homes. Our food banks are doing their level best to be ready to receive that food in those boxes. We at feeding america are working very hard to connect them with distributors. We will not rest until we make sure that we are meeting the needs of the American People are ok, thank you. I appreciate all four of you for remarks. I will turn to my colleague to start the questions. Thank you very much. In q2 our panelists. These were excellent presentations. Really established where we are on multiple issues. It is likely that the situation, this crisis going to last for some time. All of you really have talked about the change that is happening. Where do you think that the food system will go from here . What kinds of things will continue to accelerate, in terms of practices . Are there policies and regulations that may need to be changed . If we can hear from each of you, just sort of on the future side of this. Maybe we will go in the same order of the way we spoke on the initial panel. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. No one really knows what the future holds, and how this will have a permanent effect. I do know that theres going to have to be a lot of thought, and especially on the pipeline, protein into the Processing Plants, and how the Processing Plants may adapt to that pipeline. , heou think about a farmer is here to raise a million and a half birds like i do. All of my financials are built on producing those birds, and all of a sudden i have to cut back 30 or 40 , or the company that is providing the birds is going to start cutting back. Then we start falling back into some financial difficulties. It is going to have to be some leniency and financing. There is going to have to be some adjustment. I think there is going to have to be some increase in cost of production of food, so that farmers can handle what might cause us to have some cutbacks, just because the food chain is going to take time for them. This is not a food issue. This is not a supply issue. Issue. To call it an it is an adjustment. Some people are doing the best they can do under an and buying patterns of a consumer. We have heroes on one end of this chain to another. They have been amazing pit we have been noble enough to handle this and i have worse problems than we have. And not have worse problems than we have thank you. Us to lookthat for usda wasys in which able to assist on a shortterm basis. Labeling not ath food safety regulation, but a labeling regulation to allow things that could not go into food service to be redirected to retail. Those kinds of things as we continue this slow process. We all believe it will be a very slow process to get back to food service and retail and more of 5050 situation. We are going to need to do a lot of thinking together with our government as to how we become flexible in allowing that to happenbasis. We were so grateful to be able to have those conversations as we had a lot of stuff that backed up, a lot of products that backed up right away as food service went down. A lot of members ended up donating a lot of product to feeding america. All across the country. Those are great shortterm things. You asked about longerterm solutions. We are beginning to think about them, and want to have a role in how we become more flexible and more aligned. Maybe that is the word of the day. More aligned so that when we have the next hopefully not a pandemic, but when we have the next challenge to our Food Supply Chain, that we have learned from this experience, whether it is in some kind of regulatory flexibility but also proactive steps that industries are able to take to be as prepared as possible. We would welcome those kinds of further conversations with the whole supply chain lined up. Thank you very much for this question. This is something we are spinning a lot of time thinking about. As you might imagine, Shopping Patterns have drained have changed dramatically. You also may be aware that we have been tracking at fmi shopping trends. Years. E than 40 this is something we take very seriously. We typically do it once a year but since we started in this pandemic situation, we have been tracking about weekly. To see what changes we are seeing among shopping behaviors. What i can share with you is we are now making lists in ways we havent before. We are thinking clearly on what it is we want to buy instead of just going to the store to see what looks good. We are doing planning for the first time in a while. Also talking to others in the household. It is no longer a situation where the primary shopper just goes and buys. We are talking to each other. We are talking to each other about what we would like to have. Also we are adjusting where we shop. Prior to the pandemic, we had reached a point where most shoppers were shopping about 4. 4 different retail banners in a month. That is now down to one or two different banners. We are not going far away from home, and we are trying to buy as much as we can in as few visits as we can. We also have noted changes in eating habits. Study of more than about 1000 american adults, we found that 70 of the participants said they change their eating habits during covid19, and 36 of those said they were eating healthier than they had been before. I think what will be interesting to see is if the sales data proves that. That is what we are being reported from consumers. Also i think an improvement we have seen is concerns regarding access to food has lessened over time. About 36 ofe from being concerned about having access to food at the end of march two just about 25 now. That is an improvement that we think is critically important. The other thing i would mention quickly is family meals. As you may remember, one of the things we promoted for a number of years is National Family meals month which is held in september. It has become more of a movement now. People are engaging in it pierced certainly in these last couple of months, much more frequently. It will be interesting to see how this focus on family meals and eating at home together, how that influences social behaviors which is part of why we have promoted family meals, because of the positive social effects eating as a family. We are quite intrigued to see how that is going to affect our behaviors Going Forward. Finally, in my opening comments i talked about Online Shopping. The meteoric rise in Online Shopping that we have seen in the last 60 days is something that would have been hard to predict. In january of this year, we predicted that some of the numbers we have seen in the last three months were numbers that we might achieve over the next five years. This has all happened quickly. The question remains, how much people want to rely on someone else to do their picking in the stores for them. Whether that convenient factor that they have enjoined enjoyed through this process, the safety of security factors during a pandemic is something they want to continue to do as we come out of this situation. We are quite intrigued to see how Shopping Patterns will change, and we will be tracking those and look forward to chances to report on changes in the future. Thank you. I will go quickly to build on what others have said. For us, i would say the two things that panned out when we think about the future of how we hope we can respond more effectively in the future is making sure we are trying to bridge that gap between farm to food bank. Painfulit was so painful, as yl are aware, and zippy mentioned it, to watch farmers dispose of milk or dispose of animals, when there were thousands of people in line, asking for Food Assistance. Towe would love to continue work on policy solutions that will help us accelerate the bridging of that gap, when this country needs to do it in a very agile way. Capacity,me opportunities to build greater capacity in the food bank, charitable food system, and that is one way to make sure that that system can quickly help the farmers across this country, if needed. The last piece i would just reiterate is the Critical Role that s. N. A. P. Can play in making sure our country can depend on surges in demand, what may be going on, it is a program that is designed really well to complement the ongoing role of our Food Supply Chain, and we want to very much continue to see those adjustments there. Thanks, if i so, may add a question, and i will address this to julie anna, but anybody can answer. You know, so many parts of the American Economy have become so much more concentrated, whether it is airlines, banking, or food and agriculture, so there has been a lot of discussion about and poultryt processing, where we have far fewer plants producing more food , and then something happens, then you have more people affected, just because you have fewer plants. I want to know if you can just talk about that and talk about what you see in the future, as you deal with that issue, particularly as you deal with the issue of health and safety for people who work in the industry. So, thena well, concentrate the concentration on the consolidation into a number of, you know, a small number of companies, and i will for focus on the beef area a bit, has been relatively constant for about the last 30 years, so it has not been something that has increased in concentration, you know, if you will, in recent times. There are very expensive things to do to run efficiently, so what you have the benefit to it is that, for the last 20 spentor so, families have only about 10 of their disposable income on food, so part of the efficiency of the system that we have been discussing here this afternoon of theme from the size plants and the difficulty that happens when you have one that has quite ahat Significant Impact on the overall capacity for getting animals through the system and getting through, getting to the consumer, when there is one last summer,s, there was a fire actually at a kansas facility. What we had here with the pandemic was nationwide, and because of the nature of this virus, the nature of the spreading throughout the workforce, you had, you know, significant downturn in capacity. At this point, i believe, even with the plants that have come back online, we are still running, reduced by about 24 capacity on the pork side and about 31 on the beef side. Now, that is trending in the right direction in terms of getting back up to speed, but it does mean that the attention to health and safety of the workforce is paramount. It has been, as i mentioned earlier, it is a very laborintensive, physical activity to processed meat and is it cant be done without our heroic team members, who show up every day in these challenging times to do that. So what we have seen is, in addition to a lot of the proactive things that we have , to addressplants the health and safety of the workers face shields, face masks, dividers in hallways, dividers in places where they are putting on and off their protective equipment, and in cafeterias, places where they come into the plant those are the kinds of things that need to be communicated over and over again, not just to the effective in very ways, but also in the communities where these plants are operating, so that the for those workers between the plant and the Economic Activity that is going on and these communities is part of the equation when we think about what we are why they are operating and how they are operating. Theink that for, you know, companies themselves that own numerous plants, they are all different sizes. They are not all, you know, massive plants. They might own several plants, a fair number of plants, but they are not all the same size. So i guess that is the tradeoff with the kind of consolidation that happened three decades ago, a price that you pay for food, for meat and poultry, anyway, at the Grocery Store, that continues to be acceptable to our consumers. Sec. Glickman great, thank you. Ann . Yeah, i would like to followup a little bit, because i think the issue of forefronteen fairly full news media, and i do not know where to comment with guards to the Grocery Stores, but reuters ran a story yesterday, and the headline was, as u. S. Meat suppliesall sick and dwindle, exports to china soar. Now, you talked earlier about the importance of trade, and julie anna, you just talked about the issue of the reduced capacity in the plants. This access for consumers and yet maintain our excellent markets, which, our export markets, which, as you indicated, are so important. Ladies, please go first. Uhoh. So it is the impact for been tremendous and to all of us in the meat keeping the best quality beef, pork, poultry, you know, raised by our hardworking American Farmers here, you know, in our export market. It has been a tremendous success story. World, and we do it in a way that is efficient, environmentally sound, and keeps our american agricultural economy, you know, in a tremendous spot most of the time , when those markets are available to us. When we if we go to not exporting in some way, some sort of export control, at this point, that will have the impact of raising prices here at home. For, you know, if you have heard the phrase soerything but the oink, every part of the animals that are harvested, that are raised and harvested, are used somewhere in the system, and so there are a lot of parts of the animal that maybe arent here not popularw, are here for our consumption but are very popular in other parts of the world, so that kind of ingenuity and that kind of an ability to maintain those our agricultural economy strong, feeds people around the world, and has the impact of making us all a little closer together, i think. Can so we would not want to give if we dontkets have to. I think the real challenge is getting these plants back up to capacity, so we can deal with the backlog that we have. I think leslie said it very well, you know, we have been dealing with really increased demand, and incredible as we have seen, the same numbers that i have seen, that leslie was talking about, this past week, with meat in the news, we are seeing demand numbers at the Grocery Store that were like they were at the beginning of the pandemic. Tohink that the ability depends to produce just on getting the plants back to a situation where we are moving things into the system that is already there, as efficiently as possible. Saying going to end with i am, like leslie, very optimistic about the resilience of the Food Supply Chain, so there is no need for concern that what is being exported is going to impact our supplies here at home. Zippy we farmers always think of americans first, safety of employees, regardless of what link in the chain, always first. But when you talk about trade, everything has been running smooth, and everything in agriculture is a pipeline and a chain. We need to be able to sell those products across this country. Anna he item that julie spoke of is right. The world has different cultures in it. They like different parts of the animals. Chickens, animals really do not like the thigh meat, and they really do not like the claws. They can go somewhere else. As a chicken farmer, i like that to happen. The only thing is the other thing is, we want to continue to trade with these countries, because u. S. Secretaries know secretaries know how difficult it is to create a so it is very difficult. Uh, sensitive area that we have to talk about, what we have to keep those trading lines open for the future of agriculture. I wouldr thing, too, like to speak to his we talk about small family farms. 95 of farms in america are ies, and thatl is wonderful, but what is the definition of a family farm today . It is. Family farm today . It is not like the 1950s. You have a dad, a son, a nephew. There is a difference, and we have to move that economy to have a market for it. And we are in a global market, whether we like it or not. I heard secretary produce a it. Secretary perdue say it. What sets us apart from the world is our ability to produce quality and deliver it on time, our infrastructure, and that is what sets us apart from the world, and if we ever break that confidence with the rest of the world, we may never gain those markets back. Julie anna absolutely. Sec. Glickman so i have a question, probably more for katie than anybody. There are a lot of questions about s. N. A. P. And this new food box that the usda is going to get to consumers, whether it is through the feeding America Program or elsewhere, and the question is that s. N. A. P. Used to have a much greater bipartisan support for it, and it has become more partisan in recent years. Youi am just curious how see the relationship between s. N. A. P. And all these millions of people coming in and signing up and participating in the food bank system. I mean, are you encouraging folks to go into the s. N. A. P. Program if they qualify, for if theirgs permit qualifications, or waivers are needed . Because a lot of people may see the food bank lines and say, well, we do not need a s. N. A. P. Program, it is like in the great depression, you see the lines, brother, can you spare a dime . Ae food program has been wonderful way to get access to quality food and nutrition. It is too long of a question, but i wonder if you can answer that. Katie i will just build on what you laid out there, secretary glickman. We know that in a precovid environment, for every meal that the charitable Food Assistance network in this country provides through feeding america, and it is 200 food banks serving every county in the united states, that can provide nine meals. Scale, a solution that is beyond what the charitable sector can provide, and when you are in an environment that we are in, all of us together right now, with this unprecedented level and surge in demand, it is the right solution to be deployed, along with making sure that we are doing everything we can to optimize the charitable food system as well. Food banks all across this country, make sure that people are, again, 40 of whom right now have never had to access charitable food in their life, as they are coming to food banks, that they are not only leaving with food, and we cant wait to have the farmer to food es coming online here soon, that they are leaving with those boxes, but they are also learning about white programs, and s. N. A. P. Being the dominant program, that they can call low qualify for it. Again, from our point of view, it is a nonpartisan situation. We hope people can look at it that way, because it really doesnt so much for our retail partners, it does so much to make sure food is moving through the supply chain, and it boosts local economies. For every dollar invested in s. N. A. P. , it is producing 1. 70 in economic gain in local communities, and that is what our communities need right now. I cannot speak to, you know, obviously, there are folks who have a variety of feelings about the food program, but we believe the evidence is overwhelming that it is a terrific solution for the american family, farmers, and the Food Industry. If i could also add to that, let me to say on behalf of the nations retailers, we are out partners with the usda in executing the s. N. A. P. Program through our stores, and for our organizations, we are almost always, i think, annually, some of the largest contributors to the nations food banks as well. So we are involved in both aspects of this, and i think it is a Critical Role for our industry to play, certainly for the retail and wholesale sector, and we will continue to do so. We have worked closely with feeding america for many years and look forward to continuing to do that, as well as with usda on the s. N. A. P. Program. Sec. Glickman thank you. Sec. Veneman if i might now just follow up a little bit on looking at food aid and the need out there, which i think you both ably kind of put on the table, i think there has been a lot of creativity during this time of crisis, with all of the children who are out of school and the replacements that are being used for School Lunches. So some people are picking up lunches at the schools, they are picking up food. Some people are, you know, theres school buses that are being used to to deliver the food to the children. And there is also this new pbt ebt program for the replacement of School Lunches. Has there been any discussion around how the summer feeding programs will work . All it be could it be continuation of the school lunch, current ebt program and other programs that are going on, or is there a possibility that we will not have that kind of continued opportunity for getting food to these children during the summer months . Katie so, secretary veneman, i am happy to start there. We very much would like to see the noncongregate rule, which for federalved nutrition programs for children, continue through the summer and, frankly, as long as schools would be out of session. Personalak from experience as the former food 53k ceo that there are counties in central and western toahoma that our ability feed children in the summer months dropped off precipitously because of congregate feeding rooms in Rural America rules in Rural America. It is very difficult to get meals to children who live, you know, out in Rural America and farm communities and cannot get to congregate feeding sites. One of the things we hope people will see from this is the trend tremendous leadership the usda has gone to waive that and make sure the children can access those meals and take them home has just been a godsend for families all over this nation, and we would love to see newinued creativity and thinking about how we can best meet childrens needs through that kind of program. And then the pandemic ebt solution is really critical, ease the consumer to be able to get that food, the equivalent of those meals, and the Grocery Store, retailers. Has so wellwho articulated the commitment of american retailers to purchase paid in s. N. A. P. Both of those are really critical solutions. Sec. Glickman thank you. , bill, dowondering you have any live questions you would like to ask . He is the leader. No, go right ahead, mr. Secretary. You have quite a few questions that have come in from outside did we should try answering them. A lot of the public support for feeding programs, the s. N. A. P. Program, summer feeding programs, i wonder if, you know, you are all involved in this in one way or another, from producing the foods to disturbing the foods. How do you gauge the public support during this time period . Anybody can answer. I will jump in real quick to say we have been overwhelmed with the embrace that americans have had around recognizing the food and security their neighbors and wanting to gin and help, and whether that is making wanting to pitch in and help, and whether that is making a contribution to feeding america, which has been tremendous to the inordinate amount of offers we have gotten from private industry to come in and stand beside us and food banks and trucks,eezers and the outpouring of generosity is so emblematic of who we are as americans, and c. A. R. E. S. Our experience and, again, our experience has always been that Food Insecurity is most always address when it ,s a Publicprivate Partnership the tremendous role of the federal government and the state governments. The states have been very involved of her dissipating in the rules and waivers, deploying soional guard to food banks, it is a testament to people, so we did not want to see anyone of us hungry and afraid of how we are going to feed our children. It is just tremendous. Leslie i would totally agree. Im sorry come zippy, go ahead. Zippy go ahead. Leslie i agree with katies comment. The Publicprivate Partnership has been critical in recent months. I have one company that has gone directly to farmers and bought product and then turned around and donate it to local food banks. Just think this compassion and outpouring of support for our neighbors is something that is unprecedented, at least in my lifetime, and something that i think is so critical to trying to achieve our goals here, which is to make sure that all of our citizens are able to be fed. Sec. Glickman and can i just intervene . Is the lack of refrigeration a problem that we could address in some ways, through either federal, state, local, private sector help . The transportation and refrigeration, as you watch farmers get rid of milk or whatever, and then there is no way to get from point a to point b except on a very ad hoc basis. That was a question that was asked by the audience. Leslie you know, from my perspective, i think that is a challenge. I was eight as may be less of a challenge today than it was 60 days ago or 45 days ago, when we were so concerned about meeting this overwhelming demand of items being sold at retail. If there is a little less pressure, so we are not feeling of the stress about where we would find enough truck drivers, where we would get enough vehicles to transport products, etc. And i think the ability to redeploy things from the Food Service Sector into the nonfood activities hasd made a huge difference on that front as well. Zippy secretary glickman, we have heard a lot of concerns or not farmers were still going to farm this year, siu started the stillfarming, so we started the stillfarming, and 50 million people, all over the world, have responded to that hashtag. I am not a big social media person, but i thought that was impressive. My wife said that is a really unbelievable accomplishment. The other thing is we simply wrote the letter with feeding america, through usda, and the word got out. We constantly are having Companies Call us and say hey, we have got refrigeration, we have got trucks, you know, just every week we have another company or another farmer or someone calling, saying, how can we be part of this . How can we help . And we pass those on to the people who can take that in and make it work, so we have just been overwhelmed. You know, like 9 11, this is kind of a 9 11 moment for us, and it brings the best out of americans. I am just real proud of our country, from the top to the bottom. Well, and i will just build on what julie said earlier, and zippy, we at feeding america, and everyone involved in the supply chain, want to make sure that on the others of this and there will be another side of this some day that we have a supply chain, which has been resilient and strong but comes out even stronger, and a terrible food system that, frankly, also comes out stronger a charitable food system that, frankly, also comes out stronger. Of thehave been reminded value that the charitable food system plays both in the supply chain but also making sure that on my dime it can pivot to meet the needs of hungry americans, and we very much wanted to make can meet thet needs but more so in the future. Sec. Veneman and if i could ask one question that was asked from the audience, and it was about how do we continue to discuss an issue that is near and dear glickmano dan and my heart, which is Nutrition Security . Leslie, and your remarks, you say people seem to be even healthier, but it is something that we probably want to start watching. And i think it is particularly important now, when we know that this covid disease is impacting have dietrelated diseases like obesity and diabetes. More severe impact showing on these people. So i think we cannot lose sight in the discussion of food, that nutrition really has to underscore everything in the long run. So i dont know if anyone wants to comment on this, but i think it is a very important question. I will comment, and thank you for raising it, secretary veneman. I think it is a very important part of the equation. You know, ive referenced nutrition in a couple of contexts in my opening comments. What reporters are reporting what people are reporting to us, as they are at home, and the data will tell us shortly, probably, whether in fact what they report they are doing is what they are actually doing in eating healthier at home, but i would also say that one of the reasons we have been so supportive of family meals and this notion of a emily meals movement is because we know that home, arels, cook at more nutritious. The data shows they are just morefamilies eating at home have lots of other social benefits as well. I am hopeful that in addition to what our informers we are , the fact thatus we are all eating together at unprecedented levels in my lifetime will have the desired effect of having us focus on a more nutritious diet than we might normally have if we were just running around with chickens like chickens with our heads cut off. Hopefully this will be a good way to begin to focus on nutrition and the way we are feeding our families. The dietary guidelines for american processes just winding up, and we will be getting that report out, pandemic or no pandemic, i believe the work has been done. Believe thet time i panel that many looked at, many of looked at birth to 24 months. Pregnant women. We are any a good place to begin thinking more holistically about how we feed ourselves Going Forward with all of these people , including the three teenagers in my house who have been doing more cooking since we have been home. I think about all those people who have gotten online and ordered cookware because for the first time they were try to figure out what to do with what they picked up at the Grocery Store. Are positive things we can focus on in Public Policy as we continue this conversation Going Forward. There is a link from the past that is being broken. Our extension into the food systems, agricultural education as to how food is grown, why we do certain reduction, that lack of reaching back to our children and teaching them early is becoming very obvious to us. I know there a lot of places children can learn, but there is nothing like having a professional stand in front and talk about food nutrition as a child in a classroom setting or professional talking about agriculture and why we do certain things on the farm. We have budgets in local boards,nts and school that is being strained and becoming less and less a part of our childrens education and life. Think of all the wonderful benefits we had growing up with that kind of education. I think we are missing a lot of that now. Sec. Glickman well said. I will turn it over to an to close. This was not intended to explore every aspect of the supply chain issues. Others canvpc and get your involvement to continue to develop these issues. It is not just food, it is nutrition, it is health, it is poverty, it is jobs, it is trade. Probably the food system is the most important part of our national and global economy, and when something happens to it, it should cause us to evaluate it from top to bottom. I want to thank you and turn it over to ann to close the event. Ann i want to say thank you also. What a terrific panel. We cannot have had a better group and we appreciate your time and we certainly appreciate everybody who asked questions. There are too many to answer. Hopefully the questions will inform our thinking as we go forward and talk about these issues in greater detail. I wanted to make a few observations before we close. One thing is very clear. This pandemic has impacted every part of the food chain. That is clear from the discussion today. As the secretary said in his opening remarks, prior to this pandemic, 50 of the food in this country was going throughout of home outlets, whether it is restaurants or ,ood service, School Lunches and when we lost that out of home market, supply chains have been challenged. There is no question. Weve seen food go to waste. Very painful to see that in the newspapers and on the television. At the same time, we have seen people who are waiting in line for hours at food banks because they have lost jobs and livelihoods. I think one of the things we annaheard, i think julie mentioned the need for flexibility and alignment. All of you have brought out how the Food Distribution system as a whole has been realigning quite quickly. It has only been about 50 days. Accelerate. Ill technology linking farmers to alternative consumers as we talked about Food Purchasing like the statement that we are today where some of the grocery outlets thought we would be in five years in terms of online ordering, grocery pickup, delivery of groceries, meal kits, restaurant food eats, all ofr to changelikely Consumer Behavior over the long term and particularly the shortterm as this pandemic does not seem to have a short life. Obviously there has been interruptions in the meat supply , and this may accelerate trends towards more plantbased diets and alternatives. We dont know. There is certainly a need for innovation throughout the food chain to make it more responsive to changes in demand and to protect workers. There is likely to be changes will be needed in the harvesting to protect the workers and make sure we can get the food out of the field. To one important point we have made. That is that the entire food chain must find ways to protect the workers from the disease so we can continue to have a viable food chain. Workers,t is the farm the truck drivers, the grocery clerks, or those delivering the food to the homes, all of these people need to not only be saluted, but we need to protect them from this disease and do everything we can. We did not talk about the impact of the Global Crisis on the global food system, but this Health Crisis around the globe could become a global food crisis causing hunger unrest around the world. That would clearly affect our national security. That is something we all need to keep in mind Going Forward. I would like to say thank you to the panel, thank you to the 600 people who joined us today. We hope this is only the beginning of the conversation about how we address all of these challenges ahead. Thank you again so much. Sec. Glickman thank you for being all. Thank you for being on, especially our panel. Thank you so much. Tonight on the communicators and author talks ,bout his book, antisocial online extremists, technical utopians, and the hijacked of extremism. They say we will just disrupt everything and have every hierarchy we know crashing down. Whatever happens next, it will probably be fine, but we do not know what it is. Andow know it was not fine into that power vacuum came rushing people i call the gatecrashers, which are nihilists, trolls, liars, bigots, propagandists. Communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. House friday,e President Trump hosted a recognition ceremony to honor frontline workers for their contributions during the coronavirus pmi