Transcripts For CSPAN2 Secretary Sonny Perdue On Agriculture Outlook 20240713

Outlooks. We will also hear from the usda chief economist at this forum. It is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] good morning, everybody. If you could please find your seat. I would like to welcome everyone to usda 96 annual outlook forum. Usda oldest annual meeting. I am stephen, deputy secretary of agriculture. It is great to see everyone here this morning. This years theme is that innovation imperative. Shaping the future of agriculture. This is a fitting theme for the secretary to announce something we have been working on at usda called the agriculture innovation agenda. We are excited to share more with you this morning. I am joined in this room by many of you that are working to shape the future of our agriculture economy. It is important that we take stock, not only where we are today, but also where we need to go to meet a growing Global Demand with rising standards of living at a time when producers are dealing with uncertainties in the farm economy and the conditions needed to farm, including the climate. Our chief economist doctor Rob Johansson will provide an indepth overview of the state of the farm economy. There is a lot to take in. 2019 was certainly not a typical year. There were many factors influence in the economy including extreme weather, trade and policy changes and importing and exporting countries to name just a few. Following the talk, the secretary will outline some of the amazing progress we have seen and should be talking about more in the agriculture sector. As i mentioned, he will also tf what we are calling on this call the continuing trend of success that we have seen to meet the future challenges. Including doing our part to make sure we are growing enough food to feed a population that is likely to grow to 9. 7 william people by 2050, while at the same time conserving our Natural Resources for the future. That will be followed by a fireside chat that the secretary will have with John Hartnett, founder and ceo of svg vendors a platform of corporations, universities and investors focused on food and agriculture industries. Secretary perdue and doctor hartnett will discuss the future of agriculture challenges facing the sector and emerging solutions that could address them. Tomorrow, secretary perdue will be joined by his colleagues as ministers from argentina, canada and mexico for a session titled feeding the world through innovation. They will discuss cooperative approaches to promoting agriculture innovation and global trade as foundations of global Food Security. A recurring theme that you will hear through this conference is this, innovation. Innovation will be the key to sustaining the success of our sector. Here at usda we are working to reframe this narrative on agriculture. Speaking of the future, i also want to acknowledge our 30 University Students that are in attendance as participants in this years years agriculture outlook forum. They are here participating in usda 2020 future leaders and Agriculture Program. There attendance in this forum capped off a week long trip here to washington, d. C. , the program selects 20 universities undergraduates and 10 graduate students based on essays on agriculture careers and challenges. These students majoring agriculture related studies, including business, economics, communications, nutrition, food science and veterinary studies. Finalists are selected from universities, hispanic serving institutions and nongrant nonlandgrant college of agriculture. The future leaders is supported by academic institutions, corporations and government institutions dedicated to promoting the education of the next generation of agriculture. This year sponsoring organizations include the university of maryland Eastern Shore and farm credit. This program is one of the many efforts that we have among u. S. Da, the 1862 land grant institutions, the 1890 historically black colleges and universities, the 1994 tribal landgrant colleges and universities and hispanic serving universities. These partnerships support Capacity Building initiatives and bolster education and Career Opportunities for students interested in a career in agriculture. I also want to acknowledge, as part of that, the 10 graduate students that we have in attendance as part of that program. The Usda Economic Research service partnered last year with the Farm Foundation to create a new Agriculture Scholars Program that takes these 10 graduate level students of agriculture through a Yearlong Program of agriculture related training. The objective is to inspire and train the next generation of agriculturalists interested in policy, commodity market analysis, and agriculture finance and other applied fields of economics. Can we have all of our 2020 future leaders and Agriculture Program attendees stand and lets give them a round of applause. [applause] be sure to seek them out during the breaks. These are some of the sharp young minds that we wanted agriculture and i know you want as well. With that, i would like to say here is our chief economist doctor Robert Johansson who unveiled the departments outlook for u. S. Modernday markets and trade in 2020 and discuss the u. S. Farm income situation. Doctor johansson. [applause] thank you so much. Thanks everybody for joining us today. Thank you for those comments, mr. Deputy secretary. Of course, welcome to the 96 annual agriculture outlook forum. We have a Great Program for you. Our theme this year as he just talked about innovation imperative. That is appropriate in many ways. He just enumerated some of them. I will highlight two that will underline some of the comments i make today. First, 2019. The year filled with uncertainty for agriculture in many ways and innovative responses were necessary by farmers to get them through the year. Second, innovation and agriculture will continue to shape our future. What can we expect for 2020 . I know you are waiting with baited breath. Lets get to the numbers. I want to talk about three main themes today. 2020 is a big year for trade, of course. Our top agricultural partners. That will help sales and prices. Second, Crop Production should rebound from last year. We expect record crop, meat and dairy production. Third, the economy continues to show signs of stress, the egg economy, other more helpful signs. Low Interest Rates reducing borrowing costs and strengthening land values. Lets start with the global economy. In january, projected lower Global Economic growth. The downward revisions from the pink, the dark red line on the slide there, may not look like much, but he equals a loss by potential of 1. 5 trillion over that time. With all that revision due to declines in emerging economies such as india. Such tanks have responded. Collectively cutting Interest Rates 71 times across 49 different countries. Still that being said, higher Global Growth in 2021 and 2022 is expected which should increase our opportunity to sell abroad. Those estimates by the imf did not account for the most recent outbreak of the coronavirus in china which has been affecting most of chinas economy. The shanghai composite fell by 10 in january with the emergence of the coronavirus. It since has started to recover. We are tracking this on many levels. Globally, we have observed significant disruptions in shipping and supply chains. We would expect less spending by chinese consumers. Particularly in the first quarter. Higher value products such as meat. Private sector forecast, lowered their estimates of chinas firstquarter gdp by two percentage points. Far too early to tell what the final impacts will be. Most of those operations expect the second quarter, Third Quarter and Fourth Quarter two rebound. Any perceived risk of uncertainty often strengthens the u. S. Dollar. That is what we saw last year as a safe investment. Trade uncertainty and Interest Rate cut kept the dollar strong in the first part of 2019. Over the second half of the year, the dollar depreciated against several currencies. We sell moderation of tensions between the u. S. And china, we sell resolving uncertainty above brexit and we did see some Higher Oil Prices in the second half of 2019 which supported both the australian and canadian currencies. We also sell Interest Rate cuts as i mentioned earlier by seven Central Banks such an russia which helps support their currency which is the ruble. The coronavirus has led to an appreciating dollar not affected in these sides. Despite the mixed economic signals headed into 202020, there is been an important progress on trade that im sure we will talk about a lot over the next two days. That will improve access 2020 and beyond. Three main trade deals that we will hear about today and tomorrow cover over half of u. S. Exports. The usmc a will lower trade fiction between our north American Trading partners and is expected to grow the u. S. Export market more than 41 billion in 2020. The japan u. S. Agreement will also help lower tariffs by more than 7 billion in u. S. Egg exports. More importantly it will equalize Market Access for sectors such as u. S. Beef and pork similar to those enjoyed right now by the eu, australia, new zealand, canada into japan. And there large 7 trillion market. The phase i deal with china will boost sales to main agriculture customer. There remains much more work to do such as gaining better access to the nearly 1. 4 billion consumers in india. Our trading negotiators and president s are working on that as we speak. I will put up a site here and hopefully this works. The first time ive tried this. This shows some of what we are expecting and trade, and excited to see. This is a timeline of different economies and the size of the bubble. Reflects how much u. S. Product they are purchasing from us. Their per capita gdp is along the x axis. A lot going on there. What did we see . Japan was our largest market at about 8 billion. At that same time, our experts concentrated mostly on the eu and canada. U. S. Exports at that time to china where less than 1 billion. Experts were only 240 million. Gdp per capita of 700 per person in india at 600 per person. This changed dramatically. 1994. U. S. Ag exports grew 300 . In 1995, wto officially commence boozing access globally. 2001, china entered the wto. Hitting almost 26 billion in 2014. U. S. Exports over the last half decade have declined under increased foreign competition and in 2018 exports will dramatically under the disputes of our Major Trading partners bringing us to, we will watch it one more time and then ill go to the next slide, i just talked about all of this. China in india starting together. China opens to the global marketplace. Growing dramatically as well as our exports. India yet to take off. Highlighting the importance of getting into that market in the future. Where are we today in 2020 . Forecast at 139. 5 billion. Up 4 billion from last year. China forecasting at 14 billion for fiscal 2020. Up from 10 billion last year. That reflects Public Information available right now in phase one. The trade outlook forecast based on a fiscal year and this outlook also reflects uncertainty, as i mentioned earlier. Our top market in 2020 is currently expected to be canada forecast at 21. 5 billion. Mexico forecast up to 19. 8 billion. Eu and japan slightly down for fiscal 2020. Again, just to emphasize a calendar year, phase one commitments are not reflected in a fiscal year calculation completely. One question we get is where do we expect the largest growth to be an import demand over the next 10 years. Global demand especially emerging markets expected to grow global exports. The prospect for additional u. S. Exports over the next 10 years a strong growing at least to 183. 6 billion. Overall, trade projected to increase by 37 million tons up 17 . Big markets in mexico, egypt and south america. Soybean trade expected to increase by 36 million tons. Up 24 . Mostly in china. Global wheat trade expected to increase by 30 million tons. Up 60 mainly in africa and the middle east. The world meet trade expected to grow by 9 million tons. All right. Lets turn to the 2020 crop and livestock sector. I know many of you are excited to see the slides. Lets recap in 2019 what we saw. Drawing a lot of attention and critiques of usda forecast. 2019 was a very wet year in much of america. Spring planting delays led to slow maturing corn and soybean crop. At harvest wet weather has still hindered progress. A surge in demand for drying capacity and some shortages and price hikes occurred in many areas. In parts of north dakota, minnesota, wisconsin, early heavy snow fall on of what ground ended fieldwork early. Harvest in the spring. As you know today, we are coming out with our early estimates for the 2020 year. This is what we had last year for corn in 2019. Our estimates are based purely on supply and demand. We do assume normal weather. Of course we know that it is fairly wet out there right now. The First Official estimates reflect the planning surveys that will be released at the end of march. In june last year we reduced our acreage reflecting observed weather condition at the end of june. They released the report which was used in july. Given the high corn prices at that time to plant corn, not surprising that farmers said they would plant more corn and that was reflected in the july estimates. In august, begin to report monthly survey based data. Acreage yield estimates coupled with administrative data and satellite information. As you all know in august, surveys came in from producers noting fewer acres planted than expected, but higher yields had been forecasted earlier. Take that roughly 15. 9 million bushels. Above the july estimates. Different from the average trade estimates from many of you in the room by more than 600 million bushels. What did we see . Many farmers outside and outside analysts felt it did not reflect the poor planting conditions that were seen on the ground in many states. What the estimates did reflect was farmers saying. Fsa and rma. The december futures falling quickly by 0. 50 a bushel. Further frustrating farmers dealing with difficult planting conditions. One thing we heard this year is why doesnt usda use satellite information to help them with their estimates. We have been using satellites for many years and we have been Getting Better each year as those data improve our ability to estimate Crop Production. You can see how improve satellite information and improved usage of administrative data has helped usda to find their estimate over time. Going back to the 70s, we have not seen a year where the corn Crop Forecast in august was more than 7. 5 off since 1995. The deviation less than 5 over the past five years. The blue here is our estimates in august relative to the final and the orange is the average trade estimate relative to the final period lets look ahead now to 2020. Where are we going to plant all of those acres . Corn, soybean, wheat, cotton, barley and oats average 257 million acres over the 2012 2014 time. Looking at the principal crop acreage, acreage was down in 2019 by almost 16 million acres which, most of that coming from soybeans down 13 million relative to 2018. Looking across the United States we saw significant planting, on planted acres in 2019 relative to 2018. Where are we going to put those acres this year . We would expect a good portion to go to corn and soybeans in 2020. Lets look at what the fundamentals are. Global stocks relative to use to see what we think about the upcoming demand for those commodities. Strengthening in the Balance Sheet for corn and soybeans relative to wheat and rice. We would expect better returns for those commodities of corn and soybeans. Similarly, we expect growing Global Demand for varied diet and increased Animal Protein that continues to stimulate the demand. Not just the United States, but improving their output. Brazil is optimizing their land as well utilizing double cropping, resulting in more soybean acres and a second crop overtaken brazils first season crop. Current production in brazil is at roughly 4 billion bushels of corn and 4. 6 bushels of soybeans. In addition, decisions will be affected by a number of other factors, such as expectations about trade and tariffs and prices compared with rising input costs. The future prices point to a larger u. S. Corn crop. The ratio has dipped to four year lows. In addition we know that local demand and transportation costs will drive regional planting. For example, soybean to corn prices currently favored the planting of more soybeans in the upper midwest, compared to planting more corn on the eastern corn belt as well as the southeastern part of the United States. Under anticipation of return to normal trade was some growth in those markets boosted by trade agreements, we project that Soybean Prices will rise modestly up a nickel to 880 a bushel. Supported by lower stocks compared to last years record level. In contrast, corn is expected to decline 0. 25 to 3. 60 a bushel with larger corn acres and expected return to trend deals. Wheat prices are expected up 0. 35 to 4. 90 a bushel reflecting low ending stocks. Cotton prices remain low. Global conditions and the return to more normal trading patterns with china remain a significant uncertainty for the Cotton Market in the coming year. Last years planting difficulties, as i mentioned, resulted in 13 million fewer acres of soybeans compared to what is equivalent to roughly 6 million. That reduction supports an increase in soybean acreage to roughly 85 million acres. Up 12 . Rising 4. 3 million acres to 94 million following last years plant supported by new crop prices that are relatively favorable to corn. Wheaton cotton acres are down. Lets turn to meat and dairy production. 2020 production of meat will set another record at 108. 8 alien pounds. Meat production will increase about 1 . Pork about 4. 5 and broiler production up about 4 . The increase in production over the past 10 years has been accompanied by increasing shares in production exported. More than 25 of our pork production expected to be exported and nearly 20 being exported of dairy. More than 220 billion pounds expected for 2020. I am going to let you take a look at this slide real fast. There is a lot going on here. Trying to encapsulate with what is going on in one slide. Theres a lot going on. [laughter] i can even use a pointer on this one. What do we see . Significant declines in pork production. China in particular. China hog production down 195 million head and we expect reduction of another 80 million in 2020. Chinese pork prices have spiked to 150200 of what they were a year ago. In 2019, most exporting companies, particularly the eu, increase their exports to china. Dramatically increasing their imports globally with purchases of 150 from 2018. We expect a larger portion to come from the u. S. In 2020. Lets look at the loss in China Consumption supplies. Far larger than all of global trade and pork. We will take some time to resolve. A drop in China Consumption significant. 15. 8 Million Metric Tons. Total trade, 4 Million Metric Tons plus another seven. We have a significant hole there and protein that will be felt with other proteins such as beef, poultry and again higher exports of pork coming from the United States. What do prices show . Despite levels, expected to close unchanged for 2020. Slightly up. Strong demand for pork domestically and internationally expected to support increased hog prices. Broiler prices to come under pressure for higher production levels. Going down slightly, but fairly unchanged. Mel prices expected to strengthen slightly in 2020 as well. Lets look a little bit closer at dairy. Youve heard about that in the news over the past year. We know that u. S. Milk production is expected to grow by 13 over the next 10 years, but milk prices only expected to increase about 5 . As with other sectors, growth and production has been through increased gains and animal inefficiencies with steady increases with milk per cow. However, mary remains a sector experiencing significant structural reform. Following as production has been increasing. Recent usda census shows how the distribution of dairy farming operations have been changing from one with many dairy farms to one with fewer but much larger operations. More than half of u. S. Dairy cows are being milked and operations with 1000 or more cows. Five times higher than we saw 20 years ago. The reason for this is apparent in this chart. Join the cost for dairy farms across the state. The chart shows that the majority of dairy operations have cost the production greater than the all milk price. The majority of milk production is occurring now and operations costing higher than the price. We would expect to see continued consolidation in the dairy sector. Lets turn now to the farm economy and foreign policies. U. S. Farmers, as i mentioned, face a number of natural disasters in 2019. Usda responded with all the tools available to making timely payments for lost claims in Crop Insurance policy and utilizing sweet disaster programs. In addition to those tools, implementing the wildfire and Hurricane Program plus using the funding provided by congress. Providing payments in addition to Crop Insurance that produces affected by natural disasters in 2018 and 19. Stepping back, this is something that i typically show at the beginning of this presentation. We look at sentiment of farmers over the past year relative to where we were in february of last year. We can see that by and large, most of these that we track, whether that is corn price, Consumer Sentiment from michigan, the barometer from the cme survey, the rural main Street Survey done by creighton, Dow Jones Industrial average or the housing market, are all up relative to this time last year. Certainly, Farmer Sentiment was volatile over this time. In may it fell due to increasing trade tensions. May was the lowest barometer index since october 2016. In june, the barometer rose with the announcement of a new program for 2019. In july the price rose with the knowledge of widespread plant and so did the barometer. However, in august, as we just talked about, more acres than we expected, sentiment fell. In december, the prospects of improved trade, Farmer Sentiment continue to improve. In january, a large boost to optimism signed by the u. S. This is a new record. Indicating that farmers are very optimistic about the next six months. Lets turn to Farm Household income. Family farms. Income is a good benchmark to look at when thinking about the health of family farms. We can see that overall family Farm Household income stretches from Household Income stretches from negative 8000 to more than 300,000 with a median roughly a 72,000. Typically found to be above the median u. S. Household income. This chart illustrates roughly 50 of farms out there that do not earn positive returns from farming. We also know that more than 50 of u. S. Farms have principal operators that are either retired or live another job as their primary occupation. Growing u. S. Economy helps Farm Household income but low Commodity Prices in recent years have weighed on farm income. Farm income we see has rebounded slightly since 2015. In part, particularly last year, due to high levels of identities and government payments. In 2020, we expect net farm income to rise. With higher cash receipts. We also expect lower Farm Program Payments and lower indemnities. Even though input costs will be rising. We will talk about that at the end here. Usually when we think of disaster payments, we are normally talking about Crop Insurance. In this case, Crop Insurance still covers the bulk of most losses due to weather. We saw in particular, an increase of more than 4 billion. Along with the top for that, they will show up 2017 and 1819 numbers as sitting on top of those years. It has been important, but, again, this portrays the importance of the program to providing that basic safety net for producers to weather risk. Similarly, the 14. 5 billion in payments for 2019 will be paid out in 2019 and 2020. You can see here how those Program Payments were targeted to the states most affected by the retaliatory tariffs with mfp exceeding 5 million in eight States Running from texas to north dakota and over to indiana. A picture of the states they are on the right showing trade that is affected by tariffs and the picture on the left where Program Payments are expected. For this year, farm debt is forecast at 425 billion with 265 in Real Estate Debt and 161 million in nonReal Estate Debts. Overall the farm sector debt is near its peak from the early 1980s. Equity is forecast to increase very slightly. 7 in 2020 wild that is anticipated to increase slightly by. 5 . That is what is the ratio for the farm sector at 13. 6. That is still low, but the highest we have seen since 2003. Both Interest Rates and inflation are expected to remain low in 2020 which is cat Debt Financing manageable and helped maintain equity through higher farmland values. Those values can mask areas of greater vulnerability. Very highly leveraged Balance Sheets above 71 has been slowly rising for several sectors including corn, soybeans and hog. The number very highly above. 4 that asset ratio about one in 12 feared that his remain constant over time. Sitting at about one and 16 right now. Fairly constant over time. We have seen a lot about bankruptcies. I put some slides together about that. The rate has remained low. Over the past nine years. While it has increased yearoveryear by 24 , the rate is still low historically. What is helping with that much market Interest Rates and inflation remain low. We look at states. Some that show higher than average bankruptcy rates. Others, such as maine, michigan and florida where bankruptcy rates have been lower than the average. By and large, most states fewer than two bankruptcies per farm inline with the the historic average. On average. If you are below the redline, in 2019 you at higher bankruptcies. Higher than the 10 year average. Above the redline. Lower than the average. Overall, going into 2020, the outlook for many farms look better than it did last year. Expectations of better trade, expectations of Better Weather and continue low Interest Rates. Nevertheless, the farm Balance Sheets rename farms without significant land equity. Total cost including land rent generally exceeded, exceed expected revenues in many regions with cash flow difficult for soybean and wheat in particular. This does not include government payments. It is not included in here. The 2193 payments for mrp are not included in here. This just underlines in many places farmers that are renting land will have a difficult time showing cash flow. If you own your own land, it is a different story, of course. That is the highest cost here. They are in better shape going into 2020. Putting some summary slides together here. First of all, Current Conditions as i pointed out. Towards an improved outlook in 2020. Trade deals are expected to improve our access and opportunities abroad. Return to normal trade with our Major Trading partners with lower friction should lower cost to producers and improve return. The economic fundamentals are stable. Interest rates remain low and that will keep borrowing costs down. Equity remains high relative. We have stable land values. Weather conditions are likely to be better. That is hard to forecast going into the new year. We do know that there is a lot of grain out there. A lot of precipitation we have seen the last few weeks and months. We would expect that conditions would be better than the historic conditions we saw last year. That should improve outlook for client hundred corn and soybean products as well as other commodities. Up to be 2019 based on signals we are seeing right now. Record production and beef, pork and poultry. Growing export access from meat exports reflecting the trade, phase one deal with china, usjapan agreement and continued Global Income growth in 2020 and 2021. Crop and livestock production in line with our countries to the south. In brazil we continue to see corn and soybean expansion in production. Agriculture productivity remains remarkably strong. That is something we will hear about over the next couple of days. Technology and innovation key to maintaining market profitability and feeding a global population. What are our expectations for the next 10 years . Production of crops in the u. S. Should reach 612 metric tons over the next 10 years. These are not the main commodities we are talking about today. The main eight. That is up about 10 from this time, from current, the same amount or slightly less. Increasing productivity is something that we will continue to hear about. One of the only ways to ensure decent livelihoods. It will help us meet global Food Security challenges and manage scarce Natural Resources. We know that markets are competitive which drives producers to be efficient and innovate. U. S. Farmers have shown time and time again that resilience and ability to compete globally. We know that more people have improved access for food in the coming 10 years as food prices fall and Economic Growth boost purchasing power. Yet, much work remains. The number of people that are food insecure and 28 teen had risen to 820 million. Roughly 10 of the global population. U. S. Producers and innovators have a vital role to play in responding to that demand. We can see the number of under nourished is moving in the wrong direction here if we are to meet our un target of zero hunger by 2030. As i mentioned, u. S. Producers and innovators will have a vital role to play. Challenges facing agriculture such as limited land, water and natural disasters. Now, it is my pleasure to introduce usda 31st secretary of agriculture sonny perdue. He will be speaking today about the agriculture agenda and will sit down with his guest josh hartnett. Please welcome secretary perdue. [applause] good morning. Welcome, everyone. Looks like we have a full house here today. We are delighted to have you here for the 96th annual agricultural outlook summit. It looks like some of you may have raise your hand if you are here for the first one. Some of you may have made it to the first one. We are happy to have you here today. Our theme this year is the innovation imperative. Shaping the future of agriculture. We are delighted to have you here. I dont think we have told the story of agriculture very well. What we will be doing over this next year is sharing where we have been, as far as a footprint to where we want to go. That will include, certainly, and agricultural Success Story, but an agenda. You dont need to read that all at one time. I will go one by one. You valedictorians out there trying to take notes, we will have more of that Going Forward. The Success Story of american agriculture. Farmers are pretty good about producing. They just are not good about telling what they have done. Most of them are quiet, sit behind the farm gates and dont talk about much about what happened. This is the story of the last 90 years of u. S. Agriculture. 400 increase in food and fiber production. Increased productivity with fewer resources. That is what the story is here. What does that mean in that way . We have opened export opportunity to the fact that if we look at trade, we have offered export necessities and because we are producing more than we can consume here, we are contributing to the trade balance in the United States. More importantly, we have kept food prices low, reliable for our American Farm families. Consumer families all over this country and an amazing way. That is what is making americans spend less on their paycheck than almost anywhere, really, anywhere in the world. We have some facts to back that up. Here is what the story of american agriculture has been. Producing more with fewer inputs u. S. Output is almost tripled here. Dribbling three times up there while input has increased by a 10th of a percent annually. You can see here the line of total agricultural output and what our economists say, doctor johansson will tell us the total factor productivity for agriculture has been wonderful in that way of measuring the inputs versus the output versus the inputs, which you see down here with the inputs there. It has been a great story. The measure is an indicator of how the sectors have been. It is a great story to tell. We really have not done that. How have we gotten there . This is the key. Innovation has made this possible. Farmers are great innovators. Great entrepreneurs. Great ingenuity. Many of the equipment that we see from the majors today started in a farm shed somewhere. You know that. Looking for a better way to do whatever they needed to do. They design things. They welded it. They built it. They have innovated their way to success. That is what has made this possible. Farmers are not always the biggest advocates for their successes. They tend to stay behind the farm gate and do what they need to do in order to become better about what they are doing. It is important for us to illustrate the truth about american agriculture. It is really important as we go forward in doing that. We understand that the United States model of privatesector innovation and our science based regulatory approach encourages partners to adopt the latest technologies there. That is what we want to deal. You see the productivity increases here. Technical logical advances there we see it all the way back to 1929. All of the various types of things, irrigation and robotics milking and satellites and biotech issues, drought powered research. Innovation has driven, helping that record place of 400 accruing agriculture productivity over these years. That is why we want to continue to do that. We have to focus more on aligning those things as we go forward in that way. Embracing innovative tech elegies allows farmers to become more efficient while ultimately improving their bottom line, keeping costs low and productivity high. Even in the dairy sector which has been under quite a bit of stress, you can see there productivity gains over the last several years. Ninety years ago we had this many cows and now we have 60 less, fewer cows. Guess what. Twice as much milk. That is one of the reasons. So productive we overproduce, really, keeping these costs low for our consumers while the livelihood of dairy has been under stressed. Interesting thing over here at the same time. Hearing a lot about methane emissions from cattle and dairy cattle. Dropping over 50 as we have gone forward there. We see, also, we know about precision ag. Adoption of precision agriculture technologies is enabling farmers to again improve productivity. I remember when i went to the Farm Progress show in 2017. I saw the technology there ripping that soil. Placing about half of the nutrients there typically done and in the spring coming back and placing it in the very same technology with a 20bushel per acre increase. That is quantum type of productivity increases we are seeing in agriculture that is driving, the innovation driving these kind of technological advances here. Data driven decisionmaking. Digitalization. The best farmers used this great ai on top of their shoulders for many years. Making the best decisions. The most successful farmers have been the best about that. When we are digitizing that, several decimal places to the right where they can make even better decisions and even the ones not as successful looking at that data and making better digital tide decisions Going Forward for american agriculture. Less input. Better utilization of water using sensor technology, Optic Technology for the future. Again, innovation will continue to drive. These self searing vehicles. 60 of our arable acres today regardless of what kind of crop you are growing. I used to take pride in the straight row. I cannot compete with these. Probably many of your farmers cant either. We will keep reminding people of the access of reliable, affordable connectivity in rural america. What does it depend on . Rural broadband. Also in the fields for this corrected kind of precision agriculture to really take place. We will have to have that. One of the most transformative things we can do from an infrastructure perspective that really matters as we go forward. We need to continue doing that. Not only have we done a great job productivity wise, but farmers doing a much better job from a conservation perspective. They live on the land and they are smart enough to know they do not want to poison that land for future generations. Their goal is to pass that land along to the next generation. I remember very clearly, my father telling me, son, our responsibility whether we own it or rent it is to leave it better than we found it. That is what farmers are doing today. This is important. Since 1980, farmland has increased over 49 million acres while forest land has increased over 3 million acres. That contributes to the Greenhouse Gas issues in that way. Another thing here, farmers are doing a much better job because they realize it helps their productivity. They are doing a great job here with 45 decline and soil erosion from 822012 including water and wind erosion declining by 45 . That is a real conservation effort. With modern technology, we can even do better knowing what no tail and cover crops, conservation tillage now used widely. It is still not universally adopted it what we hope to do, people, farmers adopting these kinds of technologies and make a difference in that way. The good news is, it is, essentially, what the story is doing much, much more with much much less. That is what we want to talk about as we go forward. We know with all of the successes that we have had that there are challenges ahead. There will always be challenges. You read about them in the press. Others about the challenges Going Forward. The challenges of the World Population. Most people will tell you the World Population is expected to be about 9. 7 to 10 billion people by 2050. That is a lot of hungry mouths out there to feed. Our auto usda since we began is to do right and feed everyone. That is a challenge. There are challenges ahead. How are we going to feed everyone while doing right . That is the sustainability goal we will talk about here in a few minutes. The challenges of feeding everyone, almost 10 billion people while doing right and the environment and social goals as we go forward. Today, we want to announce a new innovation agenda Going Forward. That is what is going to drive the success. Agriculture innovation agenda. The real question is, how are we going to do it . A Department Wide effort. Programs and research to provide all farmers with the tools that they need to be successful as a leader in the global effort. We recognize that our rollout usda is to support farmers of all sizes. We see some very innovative farms creating different things. I was in michigan a few weeks ago and this young man who was 32 years old who left all wellpaying job was operating on 3 acres. Guess what he was growing . Flower shipping all over the world. Weve got a lot of innovation. A lot of creativity out there. We challenge ourselves to set goals and prioritize innovation and to hold ourselves accountable. Usda goal is to stimulate the innovation of american agriculture. Achieving that shared goal of increasing and doing more with less and increasing u. S. Agriculture production by 40 while we reduce our contribution to the footprint by half in 2050. We think that that is attainable. It is a stretch goal. It should be. We think we can get there. Here is what we are going to do. Stimulate so innovation american agriculture can work towards a shared goal of production by 40 on cutting the environmental footprint by half in u. S. Agriculture by 2050. It will take all of us to do that. Between the public and the sector and the private sector. That is how we defined doing it right feeding everyone as we go forward. How will we get there . How will we get there . We are going to get there strategically by working together with an innovative, creative private sector from the farmer on the ground to our Great Research public and private entities here. We are going to do research. I will align programs. We are going to have a scoreboard. That is what we want to do Going Forward. Research. Our plan to develop and Innovation Strategy that aligns and synchronizes public and private Sector Research. Synergizes that. Communicates with one another what we are doing, where we need to go. One of the questions we need to answer as far as what we can do to help to achieve these goals through public and private research Going Forward. We have so many things. Digitalization automation. Prescriptive intervention and systems based on Farm Management many, many kinds of things. It is amazing out there. I get a chance to travel all over the country and the world. Look at what is happening out here. Interesting things like light Spectrum Technology regarding their influence on plants. The kind of opportunities that we have never imagined before. Research is part of that. We want to align our programs as our customer facing opportunities with both fsa dealing with partners and dealing with our producers out here. These two farmer groups. We want to align the work of that research and deliver it through cooperation with Extension Service and communication tactics across the globe of aligning the work of our customer agencies. We can integrate those Innovative Technologies and practices into our programs. As you well know, many times government regulations flag technology. They lag what is really happening out in the world. We want to be ahead of that. We want to be shoulder or shoulder aligned to the regulatory perspective acknowledging the changes taking place. Many times it is hindered by the technologies that are available because of the regulatory structures. Moving out through innovation. Improving coordination here between our research and programs. We can fasttrack the implementation of the cutting and technology. That is important as well. We have to measure. Metrics and data is important. The usda is in a great place. Doing it in a way that preserves private. We know farmers are very private about their individual data. The same way we would be about our tax returns. We need to guard this data. Accumulating the data. Also, making sure that we preserve that data and use it for the right way. As we go forward and moving out, creating a review of productivity conservation data and analyzing the production to make the best decisions Going Forward. If you do not measure and have the data, we have a lot of very clear priorities that will come from the big data. I am from the old school of vince lombardis, if you dont keep score you are just practicing. We cannot afford to just practice in this Going Forward. If you will do right and feed everyone you better keep a score. So, we are looking pretty good here about 20 50, usta 99, 100 is not where we want to be in 2050. We want to smack them. We want food loss and food waste, you know this about that and just think about it we could reduce food loss and food waste all away from the feel of what we leave their to the consumers plates what we are leaving there and it is amazing. We are so blessed in this country to have an ample supply of food that we have taken it for granted and friendly, we are just wasteful about it. We cannot afford to do it if we will have the imperative of doing right and feeding everyone across this world, we got to do this a part of the discussion we believed champions it to with us and the various sectors of Convention Areas and resorts and other places we will bring our retailers into this and make this a goal for all of us. Certainly, we want to do more with us and we believe agriculture can be part of the solution and sequestering carbon rather than emitting carbon through the techniques that we know work and nrcs already has plans and goals and demonstrations of Carbon Sequestration and the good news about this is while we can sequester carbon it also produces soul health which improves productivity so farmers went by doing right and they went by sequestering carbon using the techniques that help keep that carbon in the soil and improving the productivity of those soils as well. From a Water Quality perspective we know in a lot of places we have allowed nutrients to escape our fields and we are doing a better job there and we can do even better in our goal is to reduce that nutrient runoff both of our fields and farms by 30 by 2050 in that way. Again, we think farming can be a real contributor to our air quality through renewable energy. We have seen that already through our ethanol and Biofuels Industry but we think we can do more in that way by creating a better environment for renewable fuels. Hopefully, really, moving forward with goals of 15 of our Transportation Fuel moving to that. These are all important goals but we will have a scoreboard that keeps track of these we will not wait till the buzzer sounds 00 because you know its progressive and we will have really annual types of indications of trends of where we are in providing data to the industry and to the world to know that we are serious about this and serious about making these goals. By collecting or timely information that is useful to our customers i think we can ensure we are putting points on the scoreboard in making these scores but as we go forward. We want to win, we want to win big. I mean, look at they are. Its exciting when you win. You celebrate when you win. It is really important to win. That is what we want to do as we go forward in the winning for the world and doing right and feeding everyone as we go forward but you know the challenges are meeting the food and fiber, fuel and feed and environmental demands of the future will require some challenges and will require all the things we talked about, innovation is the key, aligning the public and private sector as we go forward in the real question is will you join us two will you commit yourself out there and youre very various specter or influence to do the right thing of u. S. Agricultural innovation agenda. This is the mission should you choose to accept it. Will you accept . [applause] now, i would like to invite to the stage someone who has accepted that mission and it is John Hartnett who is quite an innovator and investor here and well talk we will have a chat, fireside chat here about the kind of innovation, hes a futurist and so many ways and he has done a lot of things and i want to invite john to the stage so we can have a conversation about the innovation imperatives shaping the future of agriculture. Thank you, mr. Secretary. [applause] as i indicated, john accepted that challenge, that Mission Impossible of doing more with less. John i think i should have come out of the ceiling on a robe down here. You missed the robe, we werent quite secure and we did not want you falling. Nonetheless, you are an innovative guy and thankfully i read your bio and its Pretty Amazing what you been involved in. I told john earlier i dont know if your member the palm pilot but was one of the early innovators in that area of the palmpilot and he was delighted to know i was a palmpilot user as we went forward. He has leveraged those kinds of technological skills and become interested in the food sector as well, knowing how important it is so john, i appreciate you making the trip to talk about the alignment of the private sector and the Public Sector as we go forward. You are the founder and ceo of spg Ventures Investment in Technology Firm and you founded drive which i had the opportunity to visit with you last year in california and leading agate innovation, food innovation and ecosystem comprised of the top food and Technology Systems using that digitization that we talked about for doing more with less and very innovative kind of ways. I know that is your bio but what do you really do, john . Benin silicone valley for 22 years. You might notice i dont have a silicone accent, because im originally from ireland. I got my agriculture credentials here so i dont want to be accused of being a techie. I did eight, nine, ten years of age i drove my first tractor and i bailed haley in county clare in ireland and walked on a dairy when i was waiting, 15. My early years were in agriculture and thats where i got my big values. In Silicon Valley i had an opportunity to be there for basically the revolution of the smart phone. Everyone in the room here today has a smart phone in their hand and it has changed our lives but in the 90s that did not exist and we had to project forward to say okay will this or how will this happen and we looked at thy trends in terms of connectivity and how that would project forward, driving costs down and getting inside the computing to fit in your palm so we invented the smart phone and created a 5 billiondollar business, and over nine years but that is my thats part of my background. About ten years ago i set up spg ventures and we set up an accelerator to accelerate companies so having been a ceo of a set up Company Companies dont happen easily. It is hard work in hiring a Great Team Building manufacturing so we took the approach to build an accelerator and bring key mentors around those companies to be able to help them drive forward. Getting them weaned as a challenge. [laughter] yes, so i think that is my early days and i got into the agricultural world by accident. I think Everybody Knows Silicon Valley but obviously california is one of the richest lands in the world obviously, a leader in the fresh food category and even though Silicon Valley you came here last year and it was phenomenal for you to come down and walk field and meet with farms and meet with the Technology Companies of Silicon Valley but even though we were an hour apart the world of agriculture and technology we were Community Meeting as best as we should and tried to align that was a big part of why we started to do this. That leads into my next question. You heard the outline of the goals today of doing more with less and using innovation and technology to get there. Talk to me or talk to us about how that aligns with what weve already seen in the private sector and aligning with the Public Sector for these audacious goals of feeding tumbling people by 2050. First of all, these goals are bold and ambitious but its something we need. Its probably the most important industry on the planet, touches every family and every life on this planet. This is probably the most Important Mission for all of us. I think that alignment with entre nous errors my exterior is has been on for doers can change the world and bring new innovation, new technologies together and disrupt industries and if you look at the sequence of events over the last course of 20 years with syntax or entertainment or how use information this is, from individuals and entre nous errors that have done that. The world of agriculture is not straightforward. Its a conflict industry and a conflict supply chain. Having these goals sets the bar so aligning the industry and aligning entrepreneurs and aligning innovators with the problem and understanding of how they will solve those problems and use the technology and innovation to solve these problems and this is something we did drive in california and we brought up from Silicon Valley up to orris a lot in his value Salinas Valley and talk to the innovators about the problems they had around labor, food safety, Water Quality water scarcity et cetera. The key thing is to enable innovation and to unleash innovation you got to direct it and focus it on the problem that you are most feeling the pain. I think that helped drive a lot of the innovation Going Forward. Thats a big change of what we at ust have a recognized trade weve got to ask the right questions to solve the Biggest Challenges of agriculture. What i would like to hear your honest appraisal of how does usda do a better job as a neutral arbiter of not picking winners and losers but facilitating the private Sector Research with where we need to go in that way and helping to synergize and synchronize both the production challenges and what are the best producers asking the needs to be solved next and helping to align the research between both of the public and private sector . What role do you see usda plane and that . Obviously is a Critical Role in terms of theres a lot of innovation out there. I think over the last five, ten years farmers are seen more sensors and applications and more data and more solutions and i think theres so much confusion out there in terms of been able to understand the best technology i should be using to solve the challenges there. Guidance and education and putting a roadmap out there for farmers to understand and see what are the top technologies they can apply and we adjusted our thrive top 50. We evaluated 3. 5000 over 90 countries around the world. Maybe explain what thrive is and how the competitive aspect of thrive almost like an agricultural Food Production chart shark tank kind of thing. Yet, we set up thrive as an accelerator to accelerate innovation to solve the problems of the agriculture sector. We also worked with major backups that are Companies Like aero farm who are scaling on the controllable environment Agricultural Sector and working with these on for doers on one side and at the same side we are working with farmers so we are working with western growers and over to another thousand in the United States and working with the likes of land o lakes across the midwest to understand the challenges of the former and then at the same time we are working with 3. 5000 on for doers that are solving so we are sitting in the middle and weve driven programs to address the problem with the farmers and also bring the Community Together so seven years ago we founded the ad tech summit with forbes media and the whole idea about that was to try to challenge was to bring the ecosystem together and bring farmers, researchers, innovato innovators, entrepreneurs, corporate Technology Companies so we can get after these problems. Its accommodation of the foundation of what were doing and the ecosystem of bringing that to get up in place that are the programs around accelerating technology, identifying the problems of the farmer and investing behind those as well but we have worked closely and carefully with the industry to identify these challenges. Well, it sounds like you and svg ventures and five are doing what im telling all of us to did do today, align the public and private sector and youve gone to farmers and you gone to taking the match with entrepreneurs, technology, innovators, and finding solutions that way. That is what i hope to add usda and say Public Sector partner of facilitating more of that. To have specific recommendations of how we can engage . As you know you are not the only one but theres a lot of interest in Silicon Valley and the food is sector and a lot of investment and a lot of interest in it is almost like after the Technology Revolution they have discovered that the Food Industry and the Food Supply Chain really needs focusing. Yeah, look, when investors and Silicon Valley Big Companies look at this sector the agro food sector in the supply chain is in a billiondollar industry. When you look at the graphs you talked about in terms of going population and growing to 10 Million People but also changing consumer 50 of the Current Population is jen izzy or millennials who are changing the way they are consuming and eating food and at the same time you got the challenges around water scarcity so it is hard to keep doing what youre doing and how to innovate. That is where we focus on the innovation in those areas but then as we kicked into this we have to get the entre nous errors aligned with the problems. How we did that was we put a challenge out to entrepreneurs and instead of a generic challenge in saying lets increase productivity by 50 we are saying robotic automation will make this impact, controlled environment will make this impact. Bioscience will make this impact. Digitization and data will make this impact. Breaking down the aspects of it and putting a challenge out to 5000 entrepreneurs from around the world and getting them to come up with the ideas, innovation and then pitch live on stage five years ago we brought entre nous errors from around the world into western like a group like this and the sharks on the stage for the farmers asking the tough questions in terms of how much will this cost me and how will it improve my yield so its putting the entrepreneur and the farmer together and the dressing goes challenges and those problems like the challenges i think will be very impactful. I think we need to go out to the industry with these challenges that you have set the bar and go out, not just industry in the United States but worldwide. Countries on the world here like israel, he visited netherlands earlier this year and i just came back from australia yesterday and you look at countries in canada, brazil, they have all the same challenges print they are innovating as well so how can we collaborate with those countries as well and get the best of the best from these countries to make it more competitive with what we are doing. Its a combination of the global aspect, aligning the problems and focusing on these. I love what you have done here. Having a scorecard and having it right up there transparent with regard to this is the bar we are going for we will hold a team accountable for this and these are this is the roadmap and then we will measure this year by year to see how we are performing. I dont say american football but i say soccer and rugby and you can be on the team but if you dont score goals, you are not winning. We got to score those goals. Having that transparent view i think will be important moving forward here. What you described it as far as segmenting the focus of research i did not have time to get into it this morning but that is exactly what we want to do with our usda agricultural Research Service is to identify the real challenges about where the barriers and limitations here and deal with those things in various sectors and i know doctor hutchins will be talking more to our industry as a whole about that to do that as we go forward. We look forward and that is a great strategy and i hope you dont mind us copping that. I know what is on the mind in my mind in the mind of many people out there we want you to give us a peek into the future. You have a frontrow seat at some of these titans of industries that are burgeoning out here where they are just sprouting out of the ground or growing goods and tell us what you see and what is the future of some of the exciting things that you think will help us meet some of these goals. I think i look at it in a couple of ways. We are looking at entrepreneurs and technology they have venture capitalism investing into the future and where venture capitals going and saving the best for the future in terms of technology but when we did the analysis of where these dollars are going in terms of better capitalists obviously bioscience will continue to drive the way in terms of driving doing more with less but precision agriculture will step up in a really big way and i think investment in controlled environment agriculture theres a billion dollars already gone into this as a category from the private sector so comedies like arrow farms have raised six and a Million Dollars and they are no longer a startup but these committees are scaling and growing leafy greens and testing varies today and i see this as being a really interesting supplement to the challenge we have. I dont see controlled environment vertical farms as a competitive force and i do see supplementing what were doing but i see it as the key path Going Forward. I also see in terms of supply chain itself putting farms in the Distribution Center is definitely going to be in the next two years. Robotic automation has played a major role in what we are doing today and i think investment into this space again has does not have the same level as it should be and i think this is an important area where we can drive Automated Vehicles that are there was no one on the vehicles that are doing the weeding and feeding and driving solutions they are and i think that is what we will see companies you met in Silicon Valley, a Company Called Blue River Technology these are technologies that exist and i think i did not realize that this was a company that you helped accelerate. We were in the Salinas Valley and these two guys showed me this machine where, as you know, they will put i believe it was cabbage there and many seeds in the row and then you had labor come through and then out the most unproductive in a space they are to leave a hardy plant there that are regular space for this machine autonomously went down the row and had optics there that would choose the most healthy looking seedling that had come up there, inject some nutrients into that and unfortunately for those weaklings and put them out of their misery. That was what i saw autonomously and i think about a crew of 25 laborers doing it five, ten times faster so that was a great example and i saw a ride there what innovation sensor technology, Optic Technology can do autonomously determined that was Pretty Amazing. One other thing is one thing you know that are driving robotic automation picking strawberries will be Pretty Amazing to see that scale every day. The other one is data. Data is one of the issues that is out there. Data without ai and analytics it is useless but at the same time is a challenge in terms of sharing that information so this will play a key role in terms of the future. Secretary, i would say one thing that we were in the smartphone industry when apple announced they were coming in to the iphone of 2007 with the technology around for ten years before hand. When the internet started the technology was around for 20 years so i dont think it is something that will be invented in the next couple of years that will be the big breakthrough. It will be adoption of the technology and again this is where it the usda can help farmers that adopt this technology and i also feel like some of the big players that are sitting on the sidelines today google and amazon and microsoft they are starting to embrace this space and once they come in i thank you will see that Inflection Point in terms of their productivity goals. You talked about something and i want to go back to it for a second because traditional agriculturalists, traditional producers see this futuristic thing and may feel threatened. You mentioned. Specifically this will be an evolution there and it will be complementary not to replace it but it wont disrupt to the point of through the adoption of these techniques that most people will move to but it will not disrupt a livelihood aside from helping them become better so it will become complementary rather than desecrating. Yeah, i guess if we look at vertical farming why doesnt any farmer here have their own vertical farm and why cant they run their farm in a supply chain as well . I thank you will see this change but there are couple of early players like driving today and i think they will set the bar and show the way. That is become something that farmers can deploy themselves in a supply chain and i think it can be. With the local sourcing that Consumers Want today and knowing where they came from that is a part of it. The other thing i mentioned in my presentation was i love your advice and counsel on how usda from a reglet tory perspective can be aligned and we dont necessarily we cannot leave the technological revolution there but how can we make sure that regulations dont inhibit or hold it back in that way. It is a challenge here in usda and dc to make sure our Regulatory Environment presents is interested and that the Regulatory Environment they have created has been almost a part of the economic boon that we are seen as tax policy. People want to know which manures want to know that you will not hold me back because ive got a great invention so how do we do a better job aligning usda reglet tory issues with dad and i know one of the things were dealing with right now is new briefing techniques, how do we do that with animals in that way. This is a very complicated and big challenge. Regulation will slow down innovation and will slow down the flow and rates of what we are trying to do but at the same time you need regulation and the significant data out there on peoples businesses and farmers need to be sure about what is going to be done with their information in terms of privacy so i think there is definitely a role here to make sure that there is regulation but at the same time this data could make it much more productive if its interpreted and at a lighted so the balance is important. One of the areas i would say moving on in terms of how we can drive somebody that why cant we set up super farms in a couple of key locations across the United States and start to lead the world and build excellence whether in Silicon Valley or on digital and automation within Research Triangle in different locations and i think it is appointed for us to identify these key technologies whether about controlled environment, automation or applied Technology Side but set up areas of excellence where we can lead not just only research but super farms where we can bring onto manures from all over the world and put their technology and demonstrate to us that this will reduce the cost, increase productivity and we can lead the world here. This is an opportunity to create super farms that can demonstrate this and obviously with connectivity being a big issue and a big challenge its hard to enable without activity so a few weeks ago my kids with Power Outages in california and my kid came to me and did not realize this that the lights were off and do not realize the power was off but the only think they realize was there was no wifi so. [laughter] if you think how important that is in terms of every role for environment this is to me in terms of mission this is the Biggest Mission we have. If we want to enable in light up the farms and enable and take one on from the back of the farmers we have to try that connectivity and also by having super farms where we can showcase 5g and some of these areas and show the best of innovation and what it can do these will be great issues where we can drive it forward. I thank you just gave usda a good idea here to create certainly if we can put 5g in our nfl stadiums we can put it in our super farms. I know that i did visit in north dakota, the governor who had a career in microsoft they were creating a smart Farm Environment there doing many of the things you are about. I love the terminology super farm and i love for usda to be facilitating that going to congress and saying lets create some demonstration plots out here for the future because those ideas come from Silicon Valley they need to be proven in the field and someplace. Thats right. I just came back from australia so we are in melbourne and the government is driving hard for connectivity and theyve created an initiative but the whole idea is to have a farm of the future that has that and if you look at canada today theyve come out with these super clusters whether around next Generation Food and protein, nextgeneration in terms of data on the next generation automation and robotics so i think we need to we are leading the world already but i think we need to be careful that we dont get complacent. I think having this focus in terms of having these clusters aligned with challenges that will go out to the Industry Worldwide has on for doers solving the problems and increasing productivity and reduce our footprint by 50 and breaking that out and putting the challenge out there to every entrepreneur and bringing them over here and putting them on our super farms and the super farms demonstrate the future and thats bring that to the United States, to the midwest and across the west coast. The ecosystem we have in the United States is fertile for that. We have privateSector Research, Public Sector research and we are talking about trying to align we got entre nous oriole innovators and demonstration farms over that. We also have an Extension Service from our landgrant universities that is good at getting the best the best ideas of the most productive ideas out to a wide crosssection of people so just like we were talking today we know the things that can produce soil and health over cover crops but we dont have universal adoption yet there and that is what we need to get the best ideas of how soil health. I happen to believe soil health may be one of those Quantum Leaps that we see as we understand more the biology going on in the soil itself from eight productivity and we gain a lot of genetics and will continue to do genetics improvements but i think soil health is also a huge component. Absolutely some of the technologies are already there that are two young girls from Stanford University set up a Company Called and they are four years old and the company is growing and scaling and they are focused on this area and making and driving the whole area on soil health. How can a company like that scale and how can we get that adoption of their technology into the fields and across the u. S. John, you challenged us and we want the globe to thrive and feeding everyone in doing what were doing right. I think your contribution we are delighted youre focused in food and agro food sector of the supply chain and helping us to accomplish some of these go old goals that we have and i look forward to continuing our relationship and we want to invite you to help us hold the usda accountable and as you see things that could enable and facilitate this, the technological advances that will help us get there, i hope you will feel free to help us do better. Thank you very much, secretary. Its been an honor to be here. I know in my last ten years i spent much more time in this industry and ive been humbled by the industry and i have been passionate about this industry because its investing in our future and when i look at our children and our families this is the industry that will make a difference to our world and to our health and also to our families. Nothing more important than this industry and thats why am here and motivated to make it happen. I think the producers in the audience today and across this will hear this and its they are very proud to hear you say youve been humbled by the challenges and the complexities of production agriculture. That makes somebody like you that is on the cutting edge of innovation and make us feel better out here. It is easy to manufacture a smart phone and its difficult to do things [inaudible] some people think its easy farming. [laughter] [applause] Congress Returns this week from the president s day recess. When the senate gavels and today at 3 00 p. M. Eastern wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin will deliver the traditional reading of washingtons farewell address. Later in the week the senate will take procedural votes onto antiabortion measures. The house is back religiously to work on tuesday with their first votes expected wednesday, later in the week the house will have a bill that would ban all flavored tobacco products, including ecigarette. See live coverage of the house on cspan and the senate here on cspan2. Also this week defense secretary mark esper and joint chiefs of staff chair general mark millie will be testifying about the president s 2021 budget request. That will be live wednesday morning at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3 come online at cspan. Org or you can listen with the free cspan radio app. Tonight on the communicators. From the state of the net conference Justice Department associate attorney general and former fbi general counsel on Encryption Technology and privacy. If facebook and to end encryption its platforms the company itself will lose this ability into whats happening on its platforms and its about 70, 75 of those will go dark and never even learn about it and think about the children being abused as we speak that we will not be able to track down. My view is that lon foresman needs to rethink its approach to encryption in light of the fact that Congress Wont act and in light of the fact that there is significant Cyber Threats and embrace encryption instead of trying to find ways to socalled breakage. Thats not what the trying to do but in other words it needs to embrace encryption as a way to enhance the Cyber Security and therefore the security of all americans. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. President trump and the first lady are traveling in india today and tomorrow. They visited the taj mahal earlier and before that the president spoke at a rally with indian prime minister. President trump announced a three billiondollar deal that will sell u. S. Military helicopters to india