January 20, 2012
Ann, thanks very much for that warm introduction. Ann Bartuska is a highly regarded member of our team at USDA and the Secretary and I value her leadership in the research, education and economics mission area. Thank you, Ann.
It's an honor to be part of this conference and USDA once again is a proud co-sponsor. I want to recognize the Advisory Group that defined the five themes and all of the organizers for what must have been a difficult job … wrestling the complex topics in this program into a very clear and timely title: "Environment and Security." That says it all.
I also appreciate the emphasis on the connections between the security challenges we face—in climate change, energy, the environment and food –because those connections are what we're about at USDA.
We can't divorce agricultural trade policy from global food security any more than agriculture can just produce commodities like corn, cattle, and cotton.
Flowing from agriculture's bounty are other commodities—air, water, soils, wildlife habitat, landscapes—on which we all depend for our well-being and which make agricultural production possible.
In a simpler time, conservationist John Muir said, "When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
We've known this for a long time in agriculture. Witness Farm Bills that have evolved in past decades from a focus on production agriculture to a 2008 Farm Bill with 15 titles that recognize agriculture's scope.
Witness, too, the recent political and economic instability caused by food prices in many countries of the world.
In a sense, agriculture is "hot" these days. It's back on people's radar screens, both because of the challenges facing agriculture and the global challenges that agriculture can help solve.
I'd like to talk about these challenges for a few minutes, starting with the urgency of food security. America's producers are on the front line of the pressure to feed growing global populations with a fixed—and increasingly challenged—natural resource base.
The Challenge: Food Security
You all know the realities of this global century.
About 925 million people now suffer from hunger. The United Nations projects that the world's population will reach 9.3 billion by 2050. That's up 2.3 billion from today, and will continue to grow to more than 10 billion by the year 2100.
At the same time, rising incomes will increase the number of middle class consumers by the year 2050. These people will demand higher quality food products like beef that require more inputs.
In the face of these two pressures—population growth and rising incomes—the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the demand for food will jump by 70 to 100 percent by 2050. Production in the developing countries will need to almost double.
Yet water shortages … a fixed land base … less arable land … competition for energy resources … and climate change are challenging the world's capacity to produce enough food.
U.S. Response: Feed the Future
Responding to the challenge, global leaders attending the G8 Summit in Italy in 2009 committed to "act with the scale and urgency needed to achieve sustainable global food security." They pledged $22 billion over three years in new investments in agricultural development.
The G-20 Ministerial that Secretary Vilsack attended last summer reinforced this effort by increasing market information and transparency … strengthening research collaboration … and reaffirming the importance of trade to address food insecurity.
For our part, President Obama supported this multinational effort by calling for a major shift in the U.S. approach to food security.
While chronic hunger threatens those suffering directly from food shortages, the problems associated with hunger are broader. They affect governments, countries and communities. The big-picture goal of Feed the Future—the President's initiative to attack the root causes of global hunger—is to advance global food security that, in turn, advances global stability.
"The true sign of success," the President has said, "is not whether we're the source of perpetual aid that helps people scrape by. It's whether we are partners in building the capacity for transformational change."
Feed the Future is a "Whole of Government" approach, led by the U.S. Agency for International Development under Administrator Raj Shah. You'll have a chance to hear from Administrator Shah a little later today.
Through a pledge of $3.5 billion over three years, the U.S. will increase agricultural growth and improve nutrition … supporting sustainable, broad-based economic growth.
Feed the Future is country-led and focused at the local and community level. It's tackling food security through a combination of research, partnerships, capacity building, trade and developmental assistance.
To do this, we're using the best of USDA results-driven science against the highest priority research targets.
Along with sustainably advancing the productivity frontier, we're working with USAID and partners on food safety and nutrition.
We're focusing on fortifying staple crops with vitamins and nutrients, and working with communities on the diversity of their diets. We're working with partners to transform key agricultural production systems … like South Asia cereal … East Africa highland … and the maize-based system of Southern and Eastern Africa.
Fighting Ug99: USDA Research
Another core area of Feed the Future research is Ug99 … one of the highly virulent wheat stem rusts spreading across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Ug99 threatens crops that feed 1 billion people.
The U.S. is heavily involved in the public-private and international effort to reduce the damage.
We've provided more than 14,000 lines of wheat to be screened for resistance at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. We're using genetics to develop cultivars that are resistant to the fungus. For the first time, we sequenced the genome of the wheat stem rust pathogen, and released 53 resistant lines.
And last June, we broke ground on a USDA greenhouse dedicated to researching Ug99 in a partnership with the University of Minnesota. This represents a significant commitment by the U.S. government under Feed the Future to produce a stable, global grain supply.
In other areas, our scientists are working with private and academic partners on the productivity and nutritional quality of legume crops that are staple food protein sources in so many countries.
And we're addressing livestock production and health issues. In developing countries, livestock make up 80 percent of the agricultural GDP and many of the poorest populations live on marginal lands with small herds or flocks. We'll focus, for example, on developing a vaccine to control East Coast fever, a highly virulent cattle disease that kills over 1 million animals each year in Africa. And we're developing a genetic improvement program in Kenya to improve goat production.
Sustainability
We know that the choices we're making now— where to set research priorities and how to allot scarce dollars—will affect our ability to feed growing world populations while protecting the environment … as well as the future of our own farmers … and our economy.
The short definition for all that is sustainable agriculture.
Sustainability recognizes that our farmers can be responsible to their families and livelihoods … can be productive and profitable … and still be wise stewards of their lands and environment.
In a sense, it recasts for our times ancient wisdom passed through generations and across borders. A Kenyan proverb tells us, "Treat the earth well. It was not given to your by your parents. It is lent to you by your children."
While the concept of sustainability has been around for a long time, it's gaining attention and new understanding as we focus on the pressures on our resource base in this century.
Our farmers are the most productive in the world, and we must sustain that productivity. Over the past 60 years, yields per acre of major crops -- corn, soy, wheat, and cotton -- have doubled, tripled, and in some cases even quadrupled.
Along with the hard work and ingenuity of American farmers, science and technological advance stand behind this soaring productivity and the success story of U.S. agriculture.
As a result, U.S. agriculture is turning in a remarkable performance. Last year was the best we've ever had for American exports. They topped $137 billion, $20 billion more than the year before.
These are numbers every American should relate to because they mean jobs. Agricultural exports have a tremendous ripple effect, supporting more than a million jobs last year and generating an agricultural trade surplus of nearly $43 billion.
As an economy, we have a great stake in these export numbers and trade achievements.
And as a people, we have a stake in some harder issues: how do we maintain and expand this aggressive trade momentum that's vital to a competitive agricultural sector? How do we meet our obligation and respond conscientiously to the crisis of global hunger? And how do we achieve all of this without overburdening our land and resources?
Our research capabilities may not give us every answer, but they give us the tools to protect our fragile resources.
We must, for example, ensure the long-term viability of water resources. We must find ways to make sure we're not irrevocably depleting the water supplies that enable intensified commodity production.
Toward that end, today I'm pleased to announce that USDA is awarding 26 grants to ensure the sustainability and quality of America's water supply. The grants—totaling $13.4 million—will go to research, education and extension work on water-related issues in communities across the U.S.
These communities and rural areas depend on a safe and reliable water supply. Targeting issues from drought preparedness to the quality of the nation's surface and groundwater, these research projects will strengthen local economies and environments.
They're following another step USDA took just last week.
For the first time, we offered funding specifically for water quality trading. Developing support for markets in "environmental services" is a new approach that's still in its early stages at USDA. Our goal, with the $10 million we're providing, is to demonstrate that markets are a cost-effective way to improve water quality in areas like the Chesapeake Bay watershed … and that agricultural producers are critical to the function of these markets.
And we have many other conservation and sustainability efforts underway that we're proud of:
- In 2010 alone, almost 21,000 landowners enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship Program. They put conservation enhancements on more than 25 million acres—about the size of Kentucky—to improve water and soil quality, enhance wildlife habitat and address the effects of climate change
- Secretary Vilsack and I are focusing on landscape-scale conservation rather than on lands divided by agency jurisdiction or other boundaries.
- And we're getting results as key areas like the Chesapeake Bay watershed and Mississippi River Basin apply the most effective conservation practices.
- We're working on what the National Academies calls "transformative" approaches to address sustainability.
High-yielding perennial grain crops, for example, have deep roots that hold soil in place and take up water and nutrients year-round. Compared to more typical annual grains that produce a big harvest and die each year, these plants could reduce demand for water.
USDA scientists are studying their potential benefits for global food security and the environment. We're developing genetic resources to breed perennial grains and we're funding work to better understand the genetic basis of perennialism.
- USDA's National Agricultural Library is leading a major cross-government effort to make data and information more accessible and transparent for sustainability labeling efforts.
- There's a move across government to compile vast stores of data and information into "cradle-to-grave" assessments. USDA –along with other federal agencies—is building the groundwork for comprehensive data sets in areas like carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental and socioeconomic impacts.
- And we're looking to unique land management approaches to working lands and natural resources, like agroforestry. In the past, the U.S. has under-thought and underinvested in agroforestry. But that has changed. The Secretary and I approach forests as critical assets and consider agroforestry vital to agricultural productivity, profitability and stewardship.
Climate Change and Energy
I want to mention, too, two additional areas of our work that are top priorities—climate change and energy security.
In 2009 and 2010, USDA invested in more than 22,000 renewable energy projects. We're pursuing the next generation of advanced biofuels by helping communities and companies build those biorefineries. We're funding regional research, and we're helping farmers to establish biofuel crops.
In the last few years, with the expansion of the biofuel industry, we've gone from importing 60 percent of our oil to 52 percent.
As a result of our biofuel industries, consumers across America are paying less for gas than they would otherwise. In fact, the rising use of ethanol cut wholesale gasoline prices by an average 89 cents a gallon in 2010. This is a great opportunity for consumer choice. It's a job creator, and it improves income opportunities for farmers.
And we're making steady progress. Last year, USDA entered a cutting-edge partnership with the Department of Defense to build a drop-in fuel for aviation from nonfood feed stocks that will be grown and created in rural America.
The Navy has agreed to purchase the fuel produced by biorefineries that we'll help build. The commercial aviation industry is excited about this opportunity. This fuel will allow them to have more stable pricing. It will help them deal with whatever greenhouse gas regulations may be imposed by other countries in the future. In addition, this is an absolute opportunity for us to grow thousands and thousands of jobs in rural America.
And in terms of climate change, I'm very proud of USDA's leadership in the Global Research Alliance. Launched at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009, the Alliance represents international research partnerships to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural systems around the world.
USDA is providing national and international leadership in understanding and managing greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration in agricultural systems.
The goal of the Alliance—through voluntary, collaborative efforts—is to contribute in a sustainable way to overall mitigation efforts while meeting the objectives of food security.
In this important work, as in our efforts across the board—from Feed the Future, to cutting-edge research, transformative approaches to sustainability, water quality, international leadership and new partnerships in research and energy—the connections among the challenges we face are loud and clear.
At USDA, we have some of the world's greatest research minds, policy thinkers, and social scientists working on these issues.
We also have some other folks working on them. USDA's voluntary, cooperative conservation programs recognize the truth that no Americans have more at stake in the health of the land than those who derive their living directly from it.
I'm tremendously proud of the ongoing efforts of our farmers, the nation's top environmental stewards. And I'm proud of our collaborations with agencies like USAID as we tackle the toughest problems of this century. Thank you.