00:00:00.000 - 00:00:13.280

Let me apologize for the last-minute time change, which I think cost us some audience. The First Lady needed the room for an event, and what the President and First Lady need has a certain

00:00:13.280 - 00:00:29.400

priority around here for reasons that we all understand. So we did have to move it, and sorry for the inconvenience, but thanks to those of you who were able to make it. Nonetheless, we really do appreciate it.

00:00:29.400 - 00:00:41.580

Before I really get going, I want to recognize a couple of folks who are very important in our agricultural research establishment. Dr. Sunny Ramaswamy, the Director of the National

00:00:41.580 - 00:00:55.880

Institute of Food and Agriculture, is here down in the first second row. And Dr. Ann Bartuska, who is the Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics.

00:00:55.880 - 00:01:07.320

Her boss, the Undersecretary, for all of those things, Dr. Kathy Wotecki, will be introduced and heard from later, and her bio is in the materials that people got coming in.

00:01:07.320 - 00:01:21.680

And we are sorry to be missing Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, but we lost her in the switch. But let me, on behalf of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology,

00:01:21.680 - 00:01:35.160

affectionately known as PCAST, which I have the honor of co-chairing, welcome all of you to this release of the PCAST's latest report, our report on enhancing U.S. agricultural preparedness.

00:01:35.160 - 00:01:49.960

Separately, and in my capacity as the President's Science and Technology Advisor, but more importantly on behalf of the President, I really want to thank PCAST and in particular the members of the PCAST Working Group on

00:01:49.960 - 00:01:59.140

Agricultural Preparedness, which did so much good work on this report. I think it's really an outstanding job. Of course, you might think I have to say that,

00:01:59.140 - 00:02:11.240

but this is really an outstanding job. And I think you'll agree on reading it, as I hope everyone will, every page, every word. It brings into focus a number of issues that while widely

00:02:11.240 - 00:02:25.040

underappreciated in the larger science and technology community are in fact extremely important, not only for our agricultural research enterprise, but for our research enterprise and our economy

00:02:25.040 - 00:02:38.340

more broadly. I say underappreciated because unlike the situation a couple of generations ago, most people in the country today, and I think I'm afraid to say most scientists and engineers,

00:02:38.340 - 00:02:54.780

are not especially attuned to agricultural issues and perhaps are even less attuned to the enormous importance that research and development in the agricultural sciences play in underpinning our continuing agricultural productivity and

00:02:54.820 - 00:03:10.120

in a very real sense our security and our prosperity. But I think it only takes a few moments of contemplation and in a sense looking at the data, which I always recommend, to recognize how essential the country's agricultural

00:03:10.120 - 00:03:21.120

enterprise is. The economic dimension is a big part of that appreciation. Of course, as the PCAST report notes, exports of agricultural products produced a $34 billion

00:03:21.120 - 00:03:36.980

trade surplus in 2010, a $37 billion trade surplus in 2011. And while we're no longer primarily a nation of farmers, as we once were, the agricultural sector is still responsible for one in 12 American jobs.

00:03:36.980 - 00:03:47.960

But beyond its economic impact, the U.S. agricultural sector provides a foundation for world food stability and security, supplying most of the food aid to developing nations around the world.

00:03:47.960 - 00:04:00.360

And of course there can be no political stability without food security. At the foundation of this remarkable agricultural enterprise is a world of research and development that in

00:04:00.360 - 00:04:13.360

this country at least dates back to our founding fathers. Our founding fathers in this country were deeply committed to agricultural science. And over the decades and centuries the R&D component

00:04:13.360 - 00:04:25.500

of our agricultural enterprise has made the U.S. farmer among the most efficient in the world. Since the 1930s, just to give a few examples, yields of staple crops such as soybeans have more

00:04:25.500 - 00:04:34.100

than tripled. Corn yields have increased fivefold. And these successes stem directly from the investments we made in basic and applied plant, animal,

00:04:34.100 - 00:04:48.220

and agricultural research across the federal agencies. And of course the translation and implementation of that research by land grant universities and by the private sector. I'm going to leave it to my colleagues from the U.S.

00:04:48.260 - 00:04:59.660

Department of Agriculture and to study co-leader Dr. Dan Schrag of PCAST to go into the details with you. But there's one take home message that I want to leave you with from this report.

00:04:59.660 - 00:05:16.320

And that message is really how important it is that this remarkable history of improvements in agriculture through research and development must continue going forward. We cannot rest on our laurels.

00:05:16.320 - 00:05:25.760

As the report documents, we face some stiff challenges in the decades ahead to our agricultural system. I won't talk about those. I'll let others.

00:05:25.760 - 00:05:38.080

But I'll simply say that happily they are not insurmountable challenges. And I want to point out one very important thing in particular, especially in these times, which is that PCAST doesn't simply

00:05:38.080 - 00:05:48.980

look to Congress and say provide more money. That's important. We do call for more financial support in some areas. But the report also calls for important structural changes in

00:05:48.980 - 00:06:03.180

how the Department of Agriculture and the federal government support agricultural research. And along with the rebalancing of the agricultural research portfolio, it can go a long way toward ensuring that America

00:06:03.180 - 00:06:21.280

continues to be the world leader in agricultural production and preparedness for many decades to come. So I commend to all of you what I think is a very irrational and implementable approach to advancing U.S.

00:06:21.280 - 00:06:36.540

agricultural productivity, stability, sustainability, and more. As you can see from your agendas, at this point I was supposed to introduce Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. But I can't because she's alas not here.

00:06:36.540 - 00:06:48.840

But I'm at this point going to pass the baton to PCAST's own Dan Shrag. Dan is a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and in the School of Engineering and

00:06:48.840 - 00:07:00.080

Applied Sciences at Harvard. And he is the director of the Harvard Center for the Environment, as well as a very productive member of PCAST and the co-leader of this study.

00:07:00.080 - 00:07:14.560

And he will be followed by USDA Chief Scientist and Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics, Dr. Kathy Wotecki, who may say a little bit about what Kathleen Merrigan would have said, as well as offering her own thoughts

00:07:14.560 - 00:07:35.900

on this report. So at this point, Dan, it is all yours. Thanks to John Holder. And I've got to say, I don't know how previous PCASTs work,

00:07:35.900 - 00:07:47.160

but this PCAST is a highly collaborative, engaged group of individuals. And I thank John Holder for his leadership, really, in stewarding this report all the way through to

00:07:47.160 - 00:07:57.960

the finish. He has really supported this effort from the beginning. And it's a very important reason of why we're here today. I want to start out just thanking somebody who was also

00:07:57.960 - 00:08:07.460

not here. Unfortunately, this was scheduled when my co-chair of this working group, Barbara Shaw, couldn't be here. As many of you know, Barbara is a plant biologist at

00:08:07.460 - 00:08:19.160

Washington University in St. Louis, the Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences, and an incredibly forceful and articulate spokesperson within PCAST championing this report from the very beginning.

00:08:19.160 - 00:08:28.480

And so really, she has been my partner and guide throughout this process. And I'm really sorry she's not here, but we really have to acknowledge it because this

00:08:28.480 - 00:08:39.900

report really started from her and is really her vision. And we see her wisdom throughout this report. So thank you to Barbara. There were two other PCAST members who contributed substantially

00:08:39.900 - 00:08:51.400

to the working group, Rosina Bierbaum and Mark Gorenberg. They also, their wisdom was very influential in getting us to this study. And I want to make clear to all of you that this was a highly

00:08:51.400 - 00:09:04.300

collaborative group with a working group of people both from academia, from government service, and from industry. And I just want to quickly name the working group,

00:09:04.300 - 00:09:19.460

Sharon Clay, Jeff Dangle, David Fischoff, Mollie John, Don Latham, Frank Mitliner, Thompson Clare, who's with us today, and Chris Somerville. In addition, the working group worked with through a series of

00:09:19.460 - 00:09:36.380

workshops, people from across the agricultural sector, from industry, from government, from former leadership of the Department of Agriculture, and of course, academics as well. And all of those, all of that input was extremely important.

00:09:36.380 - 00:09:49.620

Finally, two PCAST staff members, Amber Hartman-Schultz and Mary Maxson, were both incredibly important in making this happen, not just logistically, but actually in the recommendations and structure

00:09:49.620 - 00:10:03.580

of the report. They were really partners in all of this. So thank you to Mary and Amber, you guys are heroes. So one final thank you really is to the leadership of the USDA.

00:10:03.580 - 00:10:17.820

This was a collaborative report, not in the sense that they actually wrote it or told us what to say, but ultimately, PCAST's report to the President has to be acted on by the Department of Agriculture to a large extent.

00:10:17.820 - 00:10:30.820

And really, the wisdom and advice and engagement of Undersecretary Wotecki, who we'll hear from for a minute, also Roger Beachy, and then later on, more recently, Sonny Ramaswamy, was absolutely critical in

00:10:30.820 - 00:10:40.320

actually getting the result that we have, which we think is both important but also actionable and we hope will be effective. And so thank you to both of you,

00:10:40.320 - 00:10:54.140

but we'll hear from Kathy in a second. We also benefited from data from science and technology. PCAST is a group of scientists and technologists. And so as a result, the Economic Research Service and the

00:10:54.140 - 00:11:03.740

Science and Technology Policy Institute, as well as NSF, provided data for this report that was critical to reaching the conclusions that we did. So we thank their support as well.

00:11:03.740 - 00:11:12.480

Okay, so let's do a very brief overview of this report. I'm not going to spend a long time on it. You have the executive summary. Hopefully, many of you have actually read the report by now.

00:11:12.480 - 00:11:24.940

I can tell you, as somebody who slaved over every sentence in the report, that it's actually incredibly well written. It actually makes wonderful Christmas gifts. So you might think about that.

00:11:24.940 - 00:11:38.340

It's a wonderful report. But in all seriousness, I think it's important for me to just briefly give you a sense of how we got to where this report ended up.

00:11:38.340 - 00:11:53.020

We really started asking, what are the challenges? What are the issues in front of us that are a priority for agriculture in the decades ahead? We were all aware of how important agriculture has been in

00:11:53.020 - 00:12:04.860

this country's history. It was, to me, a little ironic that we were doing this report in the 150th year after the Morrill Act and how important that is, not just to agriculture and the research

00:12:04.860 - 00:12:20.620

development of the United States, but also to the democratization of education in the United States. Really, it was the land grant institutions that gave access to education and all that comes with that across the nation,

00:12:20.620 - 00:12:30.480

to parts of the nation that really didn't have access before. So this was an incredible, important part of our history. And so in thinking about its role going forward, this was a very important time.

00:12:30.480 - 00:12:41.880

And as John Holdren mentioned, agriculture is incredibly important to our economy. It's incredibly important to our jobs, and our economy, and also to the world in terms of food

00:12:41.880 - 00:12:55.800

security and stability. What's interesting to us is that agriculture perhaps has become a victim of its own success. It has been, the improvements in agriculture in yield have been

00:12:55.800 - 00:13:09.740

so phenomenal that actually there was been an assumption almost that this state could continue, that essentially with actually no more investment in research that agriculture would continue to flourish.

00:13:09.740 - 00:13:20.660

And in some ways, that's actually happened partly because of the investment of the private sector. So the private sector's investment in agricultural research is substantial and very healthy and very vibrant.

00:13:20.660 - 00:13:32.800

And at the same time, over the last three decades, federal funding for agricultural research has been roughly flat. This is at a time when science budgets in other areas of science

00:13:32.800 - 00:13:46.500

around the country have grown by a huge amount. So this is an interesting backdrop for this. And really one of the immediate questions in front of us was the balance between private and public and the overlap between

00:13:46.500 - 00:14:00.340

private and public funding for research. What was clear to us after discussions with people from across the spectrum in the agricultural research community was that actually there were private and public sector needs

00:14:00.340 - 00:14:10.500

that were actually quite different. But there were a number of emerging challenges for agriculture that required a research investment that were really in the public domain, that the private sector was not

00:14:10.500 - 00:14:19.760

going to do on its own. And that in fact there were some important areas that just either required partnership with the private sector or really required a sole public investment.

00:14:19.760 - 00:14:33.520

And that was something that came out very clearly. I can talk briefly about what some of these challenges are, clearly managing new pests and pathogens, invasive plants and other organisms incredibly important for the future.

00:14:33.520 - 00:14:50.560

We have sort of gotten lulled into a sense of security by some of the advances, but in fact things like wheat rust and other things are emerging once again as a danger to our agricultural system and it's very important to continue efforts on that.

00:14:50.560 - 00:15:04.460

Water, obviously water in all of its components, both quantity and quality. This summer's drought and really the summer before in Texas are extreme examples of this, but this is going to be a

00:15:04.460 - 00:15:22.080

continuing challenge going forward. And so we have to think again about water efficiency and all of that goes along with water use and its relationship to plants, animals and the entire agricultural activity.

00:15:22.080 - 00:15:37.720

We also identify the environmental footprint of agriculture, things from greenhouse gases to also to fertilizer runoff and pollution in streams and waterways, soil quality, again a lot of this is agricultural practice,

00:15:37.720 - 00:15:51.180

a variety of good science and engineering that is involved and this is an important area of investment as well. Climate change, I think more and more the climate science community and I'm a member of that community,

00:15:51.180 - 00:16:07.480

recognizes that extreme events and heat waves are more and more connected to the rising greenhouse gases that we're continuing and this will also affect pests and pathogens, although really the impact of climate change on agriculture

00:16:07.480 - 00:16:21.920

and pests is sort of a new field in some ways. It's really, some of the most important work is less than a decade old and so there's a lot of new people coming into this field and it's discovering a lot of room.

00:16:21.920 - 00:16:34.020

For example, recently there was just a paper that's come out on the role of adaptation and how farmers historically have adapted to the change that we've already experienced. Really one of the first studies that has analyzed this

00:16:34.020 - 00:16:45.140

carefully and that's kind of amazing. There's a lot more good work that needs to be done. At the same time we're dealing with climate change, there's the challenge of bioenergy and really bioenergy

00:16:45.140 - 00:17:01.360

is just one component of a broader bioeconomy that we've talked about and so this is an additional demand for agriculture at a time when agriculture is already asked to do quite a lot and we can anticipate partly in response

00:17:01.360 - 00:17:16.160

to climate concerns but also in response to other concerns about security and other energy issues that we will expect greater demands on the agricultural community for producing fuel as well and that's going to be a major

00:17:16.160 - 00:17:28.020

challenge and finally the broader challenge of global food security. The truth is we feed the world. We are the major supplier of food aid in the world and we have

00:17:28.020 - 00:17:39.560

to maintain that ability partly for our own national security because stability in other parts of the world actually matters to us. So I think we can step back and say each of these challenges

00:17:39.560 - 00:17:50.720

by themselves is actually a difficult one. Each of them involves multiple disciplines. Each of them involves a variety of complex basic science and applied science issues and they're not going to be solved.

00:17:50.720 - 00:17:58.360

We're not going to come up with solutions to any of these next year. These are going to be continuing challenges. Many of them the agricultural community has worked on for a

00:17:58.360 - 00:18:08.000

long time. Some of them are emerging in the agricultural community but this is going to be a sustained effort over many decades and that's really the pattern that we have to step up but the

00:18:08.000 - 00:18:20.600

magnitude of these problems really means that we need to focus the attention on this area. So in the report we look at the research enterprise and ask the question are we really prepared for this?

00:18:20.600 - 00:18:32.920

I don't want to go through all of the details of our findings. Let me just say very simply really from these challenges we conclude that in fact we're not prepared to meet all of these in the current system.

00:18:32.920 - 00:18:48.060

There are many things in the current agricultural research system that we should be very proud of but one of the challenges is that as the funding has remained flat, as the private sector has invested so much effort,

00:18:48.060 - 00:18:56.320

there's currently a lot of overlap, a lot of overlap between the private research and publicly funded research. Now some of that overlap is a good thing.

00:18:56.320 - 00:19:08.200

Clearly you don't want complete separation of the activities. There's a training important component and there's also a lot of knowledge transfer between the two but our working

00:19:08.200 - 00:19:17.520

group felt that the overlap was a little bit too much and that there actually were some of these challenges that weren't getting enough attention from the public funding that were clearly in the public domain and that the private sector

00:19:17.520 - 00:19:30.940

wasn't going to do enough. So there's an opportunity for rebalancing here. The second important point is that the allocation of research support is currently dominated by non-competitive processes

00:19:30.940 - 00:19:47.540

and in every other sector of scientific research they tend to have a much higher fraction of competitive awards and as a result there was a PCAST concern that this might actually hinder innovation.

00:19:47.540 - 00:20:02.120

So PCAST recognizes the incredible importance of the agricultural research enterprise to the country. So we recommend actually a substantial new investment in agricultural research.

00:20:02.120 - 00:20:18.440

Substantial new investment that you can think of as really a reinvigoration of agricultural research in all areas both in research and training of the workforce and education and also in the infrastructure that's required to get it done.

00:20:18.440 - 00:20:30.780

We essentially go through a variety of details in this. We recommend a basic research component really funded through the National Science Foundation. NSF plays an incredibly important role in basic science

00:20:30.780 - 00:20:44.540

research and in some ways they have for a variety of reasons their attention to basic research and supportive agriculture has waned a little bit. We want to invigorate that and reestablish that so we recommend

00:20:44.540 - 00:20:56.780

a new allocation of money for that effort. We also recommend substantial additional competitive funding to grow the competitive programs within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

00:20:56.780 - 00:21:07.480

We also have some important areas where we felt that actually synergy between the private sector and the public sector was incredibly important. And we looked at the Department of Energy and they were very

00:21:07.480 - 00:21:24.500

successful hubs and energy frontier research centers and also some of the efforts on biofuels, the U.S. the DOE centers but also the BP Center at Berkeley that is a public-private partnership with a substantial focus of funding

00:21:24.500 - 00:21:35.960

on a challenge. And we thought that this actually might be an incredibly important mechanism for the USDA as well to actually set up a series of public-private partnerships around some of

00:21:35.960 - 00:21:48.460

these grand challenges letting the different groups actually define what the scope of that challenge was but bringing partners from the agricultural research service, from academia and from the private sector together in a

00:21:48.460 - 00:22:00.440

consortia, in a series of consortia that would actually work on a variety of these challenges. We think that is an experiment well worth doing. Separate from the research investments themselves,

00:22:00.440 - 00:22:16.940

one of the recurring themes that we heard both from academia and from industry was the need for training new students. Agriculture used to attract the best and the brightest and there's a concern that the students coming in to graduate

00:22:16.940 - 00:22:26.800

programs, there are still wonderful students across this country but that we were worried that we were not necessarily drawing and attracting the very best students from the sciences.

00:22:26.800 - 00:22:38.600

Agriculture, these challenges of agriculture are so exciting. They're so important scientifically that we should be attracting, we should be competing with biochemistry, with molecular biology, with earth sciences,

00:22:38.600 - 00:22:51.300

with engineering, with any other science program in the country. And so PCAST recommends an investment in expanding and broadening the fellowship program at the USDA.

00:22:51.300 - 00:23:04.460

Other science agencies, NSF, NIH, and others, NASA, et cetera, have very vibrant graduate and postdoc fellowship programs that attract, that really help the community attract the very best and the brightest.

00:23:04.460 - 00:23:20.620

We feel an investment in graduate fellowships and postdoctoral fellowships will really in some ways create this innovation ecosystem and increase the sort of level of enthusiasm and energy within the agricultural field.

00:23:20.620 - 00:23:31.340

And then finally, in addition to a variety of other things I'm not going to mention here for lack of time, we recognize that infrastructure is a big challenge. One of the problems is that, you know,

00:23:31.340 - 00:23:42.940

the original vision for agriculture was a distributed system where there was lots and lots of institutions doing agricultural research at a very local scale. The problem is that as science has advanced,

00:23:42.940 - 00:23:52.520

we have large facilities that can't be duplicated at every single institution. We just can't afford that kind of level of investment. So there needs to be a sort of overall plan for investment

00:23:52.520 - 00:24:02.580

in infrastructure. We need a new investment and new money in infrastructure, but we have to be competitive about it so that we actually fund key institutions to provide centers and then give

00:24:02.580 - 00:24:13.020

access to other institutions to those facilities. And I think under Secretary Witecki has already worked towards this, but this is something that clearly needs more attention as well.

00:24:13.020 - 00:24:25.640

So with that, we'll have time later on to ask specific questions and we'll have time for the panel as well. But let's move on and hear from Under Secretary Witecki and get her thoughts, and then we'll move on to the panel.

00:24:25.640 - 00:24:39.180

So let me just briefly introduce Kathy. She's, as John said, the chief scientist at the USDA and the Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. She oversees the USDA R&D components and institutes,

00:24:39.180 - 00:24:49.620

including NIFA and the Agricultural Research Service, the Economic Research Service, and the National Agriculture Statistics Service. She has, over the years, worn many hats from industry to

00:24:49.620 - 00:25:04.120

government and academia, and I can just tell you that working with her has been just a joy and a privilege because she really has laid out some of the challenges, but also given us the space to really come to these

00:25:04.120 - 00:25:18.280

conclusions, bringing the community along. And so I really appreciate her efforts on this. Thank you, Kathy. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Schragin.

00:25:18.280 - 00:25:36.000

And good afternoon, everyone. Both Secretary Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Merrigan have had an enormous interest in this project right from the beginning when the first question arose,

00:25:36.000 - 00:25:50.920

you know, how well-prepared are we to meet these agricultural challenges and really what is the role of our science agencies in addressing these challenges? And both of them wanted to be here this afternoon.

00:25:50.920 - 00:26:05.820

We thought we were going to have Deputy Secretary Merrigan provide her view and comments on the report, its findings and its recommendations. But sadly, with the last-minute time change,

00:26:05.820 - 00:26:20.100

she wasn't able to be here. We do have with us, though, some additional very important people from the department that I wanted to recognize. In addition to Dr. Ramaswamy, the director of our

00:26:20.100 - 00:26:32.780

extramural program, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, we also have President Dr. Ed Nippling, who is the administrator of the Agricultural Research Service and Dr. Cynthia Clark, the administrator of the

00:26:32.780 - 00:26:46.020

National Agricultural Statistics Service. And we have several members of the Economic Research Service who played an important role, as Dr. Shrag said, in providing some analysis and data in

00:26:46.020 - 00:27:00.340

response to the needs of the committee that put together this report. Dr. Mary Bowman, the administrator of ERS, has been in Rome this week at a very important conference

00:27:00.340 - 00:27:19.800

convened by the United Nations that's examining how do we improve worldwide our agricultural statistics. And Dr. Clark is also with Dr. Bowman been playing very much a leadership role in these UN activities to improve

00:27:19.800 - 00:27:34.760

agricultural statistics worldwide. We look at these activities of ERS and NAS as being an essential part of our research infrastructure as well. So we really regret the change in timing.

00:27:34.760 - 00:27:46.900

We're glad that everybody's been able to join us in person or by video. And the fact that this distinguished and diverse group of scientists in the President's Council of

00:27:46.900 - 00:28:03.580

Avires on Science and Technology has focused its time and efforts on examining the future of agricultural research and our nation's preparedness to meet the food, fiber and bioenergy needs of the next decades is very heartening to

00:28:04.180 - 00:28:20.120

us who look at agriculture as being a key part of our nation's critical infrastructure and economy. In fact, if you look back over the 150 years that we've had a department of agriculture, science has been part of it

00:28:20.120 - 00:28:33.760

from the very beginning. And that work has enabled America's food security, as Dr. Schrag has already pointed out. And it's also laid the groundwork for a lot of breakthroughs

00:28:33.760 - 00:28:49.700

in plant and animal physiology, biochemistry, genetics, human nutrition, food science, food safety, as well in fields that are further afield, chemistry, medicine, environmental science.

00:28:49.700 - 00:29:06.320

And agriculture actually was the birthplace of the whole field of statistics to begin with. So in addition, the Department of Agriculture is also the place where other federal agencies were born.

00:29:06.320 - 00:29:20.480

The Food and Drug Administration grew out of programs in the Department of Agriculture, as did parts of the Environmental Protection Agency. But too often we failed to tell our own story,

00:29:20.480 - 00:29:38.520

so we thank you very much, PCAST, for helping us to do that. I specifically want to thank Dr. Holdren, the co-chairs of this study, you've heard from Dr. Schrag, also Dr. Barbara Shaw, for their leadership and specifically

00:29:38.520 - 00:29:51.520

also to Dr. Amber Hartman-Schultz of the PCAST staff for the work, Amber, that you've done in coordinating the report and also in helping to get us all here today this afternoon.

00:29:51.520 - 00:30:09.160

It seems fortuitous to me that this report is the first to be issued after the report that PCAST issued last Friday. Last week's study was of the future of the U.S. research enterprise broadly writ.

00:30:09.160 - 00:30:26.820

And that report reaffirmed President Obama's goal that U.S. total R&D expenditures reach a level of about 3% of our gross domestic product. So our competitiveness definitely depends on that.

00:30:26.820 - 00:30:41.180

And I was kind of intrigued by that number. So I asked the Economic Research Service to give me an estimate of the expenditures on public and private agricultural research as a percentage of agriculture GDP.

00:30:41.180 - 00:30:56.280

And they tell me that that number is 1.9%. So both public and private sectors have a ways to go to meet this goal for agriculture. If you look at the 3% goal as applying across different

00:30:56.280 - 00:31:10.780

sectors of the economy, and I think it also underscores your overall recommendation that the U.S. increase its investment in agricultural research. The recommendations that PCAST makes in the report that

00:31:10.780 - 00:31:23.980

it's releasing today provide an excellent opportunity to launch some important initiatives, even in the midst of what is a somewhat bleak outlook with respect to appropriations.

00:31:23.980 - 00:31:38.940

As it points out, the public investment in agricultural research should focus around the grand challenges posed by emerging threats such as new pests and pathogens, limited water availability, impacts of agriculture on

00:31:38.940 - 00:31:50.960

human and environmental health, and adaptation to a changing climate. By recommending increased partnerships and collaborations beyond what we're already doing,

00:31:50.960 - 00:32:03.040

we can move forward on some recommendations within our current appropriations. So work can also begin on the new innovation ecosystem that's recommended, leveraging the best from our current

00:32:03.040 - 00:32:14.300

infrastructure. On examination of the report, I want to highlight a few of the areas in which I believe that we can begin working to strengthen our work.

00:32:14.300 - 00:32:30.180

The first is in the rebalancing of the portfolio. The report recommends a gradual rebalancing of the agricultural portfolio away from intramural and formula and capacity funding and toward a more competitive environment.

00:32:30.180 - 00:32:45.380

The 2008 Farm Bill that authorized our programs and created the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and its Competitive Grants Program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, what we call AFRI,

00:32:45.380 - 00:33:01.280

laid an important foundation for this rebalancing. And I think this recommendation actually reaffirms the budget strategy that's informed the President's budget requests for AFRI over this last several years.

00:33:01.280 - 00:33:16.640

So as we rebalance, we need to maintain also a strong intramural program to fulfill what are the necessary and uniquely governmental responsibilities, such as providing the evidence base for regulatory action,

00:33:16.640 - 00:33:29.300

performing the sensitive research that protects our animal and plant resources, responding to accidental and deliberate contamination of our food and water supplies, preserving genetic collections and providing

00:33:29.300 - 00:33:43.000

infrastructure for long-term fundamental agro-ecosystem science for agricultural statistics and also in the areas of economics. Another recommendation is to conduct a review of regulatory

00:33:43.000 - 00:33:56.660

policy for agriculture. And while the agencies in my mission area are not in the regulatory realm, they often perform the research that regulators need for decision-making.

00:33:56.660 - 00:34:08.560

And we're ready to assist with a review of federal regulatory policy for agriculture. And we are leading for the department its efforts to implement the President's Memorandum on Technology

00:34:08.560 - 00:34:27.980

Transfer and preparing our first annual report on that effort. PCAS recommends that six multidisciplinary innovation institutes be created and focused on the emerging challenges. We have some models that we've been experimenting with over

00:34:27.980 - 00:34:43.840

the last couple of years in AFRI. The Coordinated Agriculture Program grants have provided grants to challenge the scientific community to build consortia aimed at solving critical problems.

00:34:43.840 - 00:35:02.840

And so far, this CAP approach has funded some very innovative work in genetics and genomics as it relates to legumes, wheat, barley, and rice, as well as bioenergy feedstock development, new approaches to preventing obesity in the human

00:35:02.840 - 00:35:19.060

population and climate mitigation. Today, with the U.S. Agency for International Development, we're awarding five grants, totaling over $5 million for research to improve the production of the common bean.

00:35:19.060 - 00:35:32.560

And this is one of the world's most vital food crops. The projects under the President's Feed the Future Initiative will address production challenges faced by smallholder producers.

00:35:32.560 - 00:35:51.060

This year, the Agricultural Research Service launched what we're calling Long-Term Agro-Ecosystem Research Network, or L-T-A-R, that links 10 of the intramural laboratories and 60 universities on a regional basis to focus on water,

00:35:51.060 - 00:36:07.280

soil, and other environmental studies important to sustainable intensification of agricultural production. And as we incorporate the concepts of One Health into our program, the concept of One Health unifies plant, animal,

00:36:07.280 - 00:36:23.980

and human health, and recognizes that their interests are really inextricably linked, both here in the United States domestically as well as globally. So we'll be looking to the models that PCAS has pointed us

00:36:23.980 - 00:36:40.440

to in the report, as well as some of these experiments we've been doing ourselves as we consider how to implement this recommendation on new centers of excellence for innovation. I'm really pleased that the report pays attention to a number

00:36:40.440 - 00:36:54.500

of very important infrastructure issues and human capital issues that are critical for our country's future. The report acknowledges the aging and increasingly obsolete infrastructure for agriculture research.

00:36:54.500 - 00:37:10.120

And Congress also took notice of this this past year and asked the Agricultural Research Service to prepare a capital investment plan for its facilities across the United States. This plan was delivered to Congress earlier this year.

00:37:10.120 - 00:37:28.120

The land grant university system is also in much the same situation as it relates to agricultural research facilities. And there is no currently funded authority for the department to competitively fund new research facilities and

00:37:28.120 - 00:37:42.580

to renovate or replace aging infrastructure at our largest agricultural research institutions. So work on this issue has to be a priority and we really have to be focusing on our infrastructure needs.

00:37:42.580 - 00:37:57.080

I might just add a footnote there that we do have the authority for doing this, but it simply has not been funded since 1987. The one exception to that are the historically black colleges

00:37:57.080 - 00:38:11.880

that we call the Colleges of 1890 for which there is about a $20 million competitive program currently within the NIFA portfolio. Working to ensure a well-educated agricultural

00:38:11.880 - 00:38:26.240

science workforce is critical for the success of rural America but also for one of our largest industries here in the United States and that's food and agriculture. We look forward to working with the National Science Foundation

00:38:26.240 - 00:38:40.960

to expand competitive fellowship programs that both NSF and NIFA support. We work already with NSF on a broad range of research topics in the genetics and genomics area, biodiversity, robotics,

00:38:40.960 - 00:38:55.240

as well as in the area of climate change. And I've spoken with my colleague Dr. Subra Sirash as has Dr. Ramaswamy about identifying further areas in which we can collaborate.

00:38:55.240 - 00:39:07.940

Finally, the report recommends that a science advisory committee be formed to advise the Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics. At USDA, we've got a lot of advisory committees, but we

00:39:07.940 - 00:39:24.400

don't have one that does this. We do have a stakeholder committee, the neary board that provides advice to the secretary and to me about our research programs, education, economics, extension, they've even delved

00:39:24.400 - 00:39:42.960

into the statistics programs recently. But it would be most useful to have a really cutting-edge science advisory group that would help us in further sharpening our focus on science.

00:39:42.960 - 00:40:00.160

I hope that we'll be able to form such a group expeditiously once we get reauthorization of our programs in the agriculture reform, food, and jobs act. And I look forward to continued collaboration with members of

00:40:00.160 - 00:40:14.260

PCAST, with our colleagues and other government agencies, with scientists and public and private universities, and in the private sector. My thanks to all of you in PCAST for the work that you put

00:40:14.260 - 00:40:27.720

into this report and to the many people that you consulted, because I know there were many of them. With adequate and well-considered investment, we'll continue to push the frontiers of knowledge and maintain

00:40:27.720 - 00:40:37.340

what really has been stunning momentum for agriculture's growth. So thank you for all very much. Thank you.

00:40:37.340 - 00:40:55.180

Thank you. Thank you. We'll ask the panel to come up right now. We'll get Kathy back up here in a little while to beơi

00:40:55.180 - 00:41:18.140

So, thanks to all of you for joining me here today. Let me just briefly introduce you. You have heard their bios, so I don't need to spend a lot of time on this. To my left here, Ellen Bergfeld is the CEO of three scientific societies in agriculture,

00:41:18.140 - 00:41:39.660

the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society representing about 30,000 scientists and related professionals. Thomson Clare, in the middle, was one of our working group members as part of this PCAS process. Thom is a plant physiologist and agricultural scientist.

00:41:39.660 - 00:41:54.820

He's worked in the agricultural research service at the University of Florida and most recently at North Carolina State University. And unfortunately, Norm Scott, who is the chairman of the National Research Council's Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, or Banner, couldn't be here today.

00:41:54.820 - 00:42:05.740

He had a family issue. But on his behalf, we're very happy to have Robin shown. Thank you, Robin, for coming. Robin is the director of Banner, and she has a long history in science policy, working

00:42:05.740 - 00:42:22.940

on a full range of issues, but very much agriculture has been a big focus for her. So thank you, Robin. So let's actually start off with you, Robin. So Robin, the PCAST report really benefited enormously from previous work by the NRC.

00:42:22.940 - 00:42:40.300

And although we didn't just take your report as a starting point, we actually ended up in many of the same places. And do you want to reflect a little bit on your perception, having worked on that Banner report, on the recommendations here and how they resonate?

00:42:40.300 - 00:42:57.500

Sure. I didn't work on these reports because several reports were produced over many decades actually looking at agricultural research and recommending that there be more competitive research grants given.

00:42:57.500 - 00:43:18.460

And I think the reason that the NRC panels over the years thought that greater attention to competitive grants was important was in part not because you couldn't make advances or innovation in other ways. After all, as you noted in your opening remarks, we've done remarkable things in agriculture

00:43:18.460 - 00:43:48.700

with only a small amount of money going to competitive grants, but that they fulfilled sort of a balance and a portfolio for the whole approach to agricultural research. And ultimately I think what competitive research does is press people for rigor and moves the scientific enterprise forward because you have to perform or you don't get another grant.

00:43:48.700 - 00:44:03.420

You produce information that you publish, other people can build on it, your work is examined by peers. I mean, obviously there's been criticisms of the peer review process within the academy itself.

00:44:03.420 - 00:44:25.900

High-risk research doesn't necessarily always get funded, multidisciplinary research is hard to review if you only have a review panel that's narrowly focused. But I think in balance, it's felt that if you really want to be considered a serious scientific organization, you've got to have the rigor that competitive grants provide.

00:44:25.900 - 00:44:44.180

That's great. And Tom, in our working group discussions, you were a constant reminder to us of how important the training was and the training role of agriculture, how important it was to actually find the best students, attract them and actually give them a solid foundation

00:44:44.180 - 00:45:00.700

from which to take this research enterprise forward in the future. The competitive grants program, not just the fellowships, but also this rebalancing actually affects the education environment as well. Do you want to comment on that?

00:45:00.700 - 00:45:18.180

Let me comment. First, let me say I was on this panel pretty well all through the gestation and I want to thank Dan and Barbara for their leadership in this effort. I was probably the dirt on boots agronomist on this panel and I was always coming up with

00:45:18.180 - 00:45:35.660

things that were kind of new to them, I think, or to new to others and fortunately I'm glad some of these things showed up and I guess that's why I respect our leadership because I didn't automatically discard all these things. I got to say, there's no question Tom was a dirt on boots agronomist.

00:45:35.660 - 00:45:49.540

We did actually have somebody, Don Latham, who would occasionally participate in our conference calls from his tractor in the farm, so we actually had some real farm perspective as well. Great.

00:45:49.540 - 00:46:02.980

Let me get to the education issue. I don't think many recognize how serious crisis we are in our education level. The number of crop scientists in the U.S. is now less than half of what it was 20 years ago.

00:46:02.980 - 00:46:19.260

That is, we have that many fewer scientists doing, meeting these more severe challenges and it's worse than that because I think the number of scientists in the private sector hasn't decreased. So virtually all this decrease has been in the public sector.

00:46:19.260 - 00:46:35.060

There are not that many plant scientists when you look around and the future is really dismal in how we're going to do that and we need this infusion of funding to bring in people that we can excite about the agriculture and excite them across the spectrum of disciplines in agriculture.

00:46:35.060 - 00:46:58.140

We've got many things to do and I hope we can make the spectrum pretty broad and we need to excite American people into this. It's pretty rare that you can go into graduate school now and find any U.S. citizens. That is not wholly bad but it would be nice to have some homegrown scientists who understand

00:46:58.140 - 00:47:18.300

how this economy works and how important food and agriculture is to the U.S. So I'm very excited about this recommendation that we really innovate things to support education for future scientists. Thanks Tom and Ellen, let's turn to you.

00:47:18.300 - 00:47:33.980

So you represent, as we heard, I said a large number of agricultural scientists. What is their perspective on this in terms of the grand challenges and the real issues they're facing both in their laboratories and on their farms? Absolutely.

00:47:33.980 - 00:47:54.060

I think the report is coming out at a very critical time at the same time within even the report, as it's written, it indicates that there have been numerous requests for competitive funds tating back to the early 1970s and we're not quite there yet. So it's a chronic issue.

00:47:54.060 - 00:48:14.700

We've not kept up with funding. The investments, as Dr. Roteki has indicated, have not been made in the infrastructure. We've got a lot of individuals who are trying to do really good work and they're spending an increasing amount of their time writing grants that are not successfully awarded.

00:48:14.700 - 00:48:34.300

And they're really wanting to do great work and are not able to because they're hindered by the lack of resources. So I think that as well as the state pressure, the lack of funding from the state side of things in addition to the federal side, they're looking at new ways to innovate, to work with

00:48:34.300 - 00:48:51.580

private industry and so forth, but they're really trying to get out there and do better things. As Tom has indicated as well, they're having a harder and harder time attracting students, not only at the graduate level and the post-graduate, but trying to get them through the pipeline,

00:48:51.580 - 00:49:13.220

attracting them into the pipeline in K through 12 side of things as well. So it's throughout the whole system that we're hearing the challenges and what we feel just reading through the report, it really addresses much of that need. Probably the biggest challenge though that we see collectively is how do we make this

00:49:13.220 - 00:49:31.100

attractive? How do we sell this to the broad general public and to our members of Congress that this is a critical need and we've not made the investments that we've got to do so for the future? From my perspective as somebody, as a scientist who's a little further away from agricultural

00:49:31.140 - 00:49:52.860

research, it's amazing to me how little exposure the rest of the scientific community has to agricultural research questions. One of the things we noted in the report is that there's been over the last couple of decades a phenomenal federal investment in scientific research in biology, in physical

00:49:52.860 - 00:50:14.140

sciences, really an explosion in the life sciences, really a truly amazing revolution. And yet, if we look at where agricultural research goes on, it is largely separate from other areas of the natural sciences. One of the things we commented on in this report was that in some ways there's an opportunity

00:50:14.140 - 00:50:30.300

to take advantage of these large federal investments through NIH and through NSF in other areas of science and actually transfer some of that progress into agriculture. Now some of that's happened. Tom, you've been exceptional in actually working across fields of agriculture but also

00:50:30.300 - 00:50:47.020

into other areas of natural sciences, but there are institutional barriers here. And one of the hopes is that we can actually create a more engaged agricultural research community that actually has stronger connections to molecular biology, to physics, to chemistry, to engineering.

00:50:47.020 - 00:50:56.340

Thank you, Father. Well, the big institutional hindrance is no money. If you give money, I guarantee you it will work with anybody. We're at that stage.

00:50:56.340 - 00:51:13.260

Well, we think there's really an opportunity, maybe, through these institutes or possibly just through competitive grants themselves, that this investment will actually reintegrate institutionally the agricultural sciences community. Does that resonate with...?

00:51:13.260 - 00:51:34.500

Absolutely. I think if the additional funds for both research and graduate fellowships were to come to fruition, that would present a very big opportunity. But I think, as you've pointed out, it does require an approach to reintegrating the other

00:51:34.500 - 00:51:54.660

sciences. And that means, I think, that the institutions now that play a major role have to perhaps rethink or re-visualize their relationship to those other sciences and to think about the problems in agriculture as system problems, much more complex, that require other disciplinary

00:51:54.660 - 00:52:12.220

involvement. And I think that kind of outlook is the kind of thing that gets people from other fields excited to see where they fit in, how they fit into solving certain problems. And that's, instead of just, say, the Agronomy Department or the Animal Science Department

00:52:12.220 - 00:52:33.980

or something very narrow, it's a more open way of inviting people in to be part of this exciting world of agriculture that those of us in it really know already. What's clear to me is that agriculture has grand challenges and great questions. And so it should be able to attract fabulous scientists from across the disciplines.

00:52:33.980 - 00:52:47.180

So, Ellen, just, we don't have much time left, we'll get some questions from the audience in a minute. But any last perspective on implementation of this report going forward? Boy, implementation.

00:52:47.180 - 00:53:11.780

I think getting the word out and what PCAST is able to do, having this report come from PCAST, I think, certainly is the first step to elevating the issue to a greater degree. I know on behalf of our societies, each time we're going to the Hill, each time we're going to be communicating with our members of Congress, we're going to have it in hand, we're going

00:53:11.780 - 00:53:30.780

to have specific requests based on the report and really try to get it out to that group of people. How we get it out then as well and take it all the way to the general public, get it out to guidance counselors, for example, for the K-12, how do we permeate into the general

00:53:30.820 - 00:53:50.380

population and talk about these issues, our grand challenges in a way that invigorates and causes some curiosity about our sciences. How can we feed this burgeoning population? How are we going to do it sustainably so that we're taking care of our natural resources

00:53:50.380 - 00:54:10.060

and making those questions stick in the general population? I think that's going to be our biggest challenge in terms of garnering support. Can I add a few words about the implementation? The key of any research activity is having sustained funds and while you may not have

00:54:10.060 - 00:54:24.540

noticed that there's limited research money out there and I think the optimism for having more has to be severely dampened. The place where there is money and there is a growing demand for people to participate with them are the private companies.

00:54:24.540 - 00:54:39.780

I've had it expressed to me several times, we need people to work with us to do some of these fundamental things. Unfortunately, the companies put most of their money in one basket. A lot of them put it in the biotech and it hasn't really produced much except for the

00:54:39.780 - 00:54:58.740

two genes that came out about 20 years ago. So they're in desperate need, they're going to universities now and saying what can we do, how do we get things going and I think this is one of the things the report has really put forward and really probably had helped to institutionalize it into putting together

00:54:58.740 - 00:55:17.500

these groups involving hopefully some more federal funding and the private funding to bring together public and private people to work together. And that's a little different in the relationship in the past. In the past the company said we want you to do this for us and they would give money to

00:55:17.500 - 00:55:36.260

do seed trials or chemical trials. We need a whole new framework where we're working with them, a more open atmosphere, a more interactive atmosphere and I think this is an opportunity we can move forward immediately no matter what the funding is at the federal level necessarily.

00:55:36.260 - 00:55:49.060

Thank you, Tom. You know, actually the person who's actually going to help us actually get this done and make this happen is undersecretary Wateke. So let's actually invite Kathy back up here for a second and then begin to take some questions

00:55:49.060 - 00:56:06.540

from the audience. But I want to start actually with asking Sonny Ramaswamy for his perspective because Sonny is a very important player moving forward in terms of enacting these recommendations through NIFA actually leading this charge.

00:56:06.540 - 00:56:19.900

And so Sonny, you want to stand up for a second and give us a perspective and maybe a question for anybody up here. All right. Well, thanks very much Dan for inviting me to share my perspective and I really want

00:56:19.900 - 00:56:41.100

to convey my sense of appreciation as well to you and Barbara and of course, PECAST in general as well for the incredible amount of work that you've invested in developing a report, a very thoughtful report and you bring gravitas to the situation as it were. You know, I mean, when you think about the agricultural enterprise and it is one of these

00:56:41.100 - 00:57:00.540

things that's out of sight, out of mind for most people in America and in the world for that matter but particularly in this country and what you've done in shedding the spotlight on this endeavor, this very important endeavor of putting food on the table in the context of the population explosion, in the context of all the other challenges is a very important

00:57:00.540 - 00:57:21.780

opportunity for us to move forward and I thank you very much for doing that. And indeed, you know, as you said and as Dr. Woteki said as well, I mean, you know, this is 150 years ago that scientific agriculture was set into motion and so for 150 years, that endeavor has had a huge impact in America and the world and I hope this PECAST report

00:57:21.780 - 00:57:39.500

is going to have for set the agenda for that for the food and agricultural enterprise for the next many, many decades to come and I thank you for that. So already I think, you know, several of us have taken to heart having had the privilege of interacting with you and the others on PECAST and having had a chance to read the

00:57:39.500 - 00:57:58.340

report as well. We've already incorporated and Dr. Woteki and I and several of my colleagues, we've had some several conversations and about how do we move forward on some of the suggestions that you've made working with the other federal agencies as well as private enterprise.

00:57:58.340 - 00:58:16.540

We're in the process of creating what we call as knowledge partnerships and in going with this innovation ecosystem, these partnerships are very critical to addressing these challenges and we've already had conversations with the number of the agencies, federal agencies as well as some of the folks in private enterprise as well.

00:58:16.540 - 00:58:35.940

I'm very optimistic that we're going to make some headway in taking some of the suggestions that you've made and moving it forward. Another area that I hope has been part of the conversations during the farm bill conversations is to create an enterprise like the foundation for agricultural research that is to bring

00:58:35.940 - 00:58:57.340

private enterprise funding for food and agricultural research like we have for NIH, like we have for FDA and other agencies and I hope as we go forward people will really think about how can private enterprise come in and invest not just in what's of interest to them but from that altruistic perspective of societal benefit as well and maybe there's some opportunities

00:58:57.340 - 00:59:19.100

that the PECAS report can help Congress consider moving forward in that area. So I wanted to give that as a sort of a perspective and I want to ask you a question specifically you Daniel Shragg. As Ellen said, we've had a chronic situation of underinvestment in this unbelievable enterprise

00:59:19.100 - 00:59:43.260

in this world in America and the challenges that we address in the endeavors that we support. So that being the case, there's always been a chronic underinvestment and we've got the report that is now public and as Ellen said, our community that is watching us across the country will now take this forward, go to Congress and even with the state legislatures

00:59:43.260 - 01:00:07.500

to seek the funding that we need. Realistically speaking, from your perspective and tell me what you're thinking, what was the conversation behind the doors as it were when you have the ear of the gentleman who has got the ear of the president and as we go forward, the reality of realizing what has been recommended in the report.

01:00:07.500 - 01:00:28.660

Thanks very much. Thank you, Sonny. And I got to say, on the first comment you made about the private sector I think it was amazing to me how the wide variety of companies who participated in the various workshops and process that we led all said that although they weren't willing

01:00:28.660 - 01:00:48.660

to fund a lot of the basic research that wasn't going to lead to any product for them in some reasonable time, they would be more than willing to participate in co-funding a set of activities with a group of others and especially if the federal government were involved. So these private public partnerships I think are incredibly important because I think private sector is

01:00:48.660 - 01:01:13.060

willing to do their share but not necessarily on their own and I think that's a very important thing. As far as the perspective from John Holdren, let me give you this observation which is that in general when we PCAST have written out, I think this is, we now have how many reports, AMBER 16, 17 reports, something like that over the last three years. So it's

01:01:13.060 - 01:01:44.460

a very large number of activities going on and I would say that in general, given the current fiscal environment, there has been an extremely strong sense that one shouldn't ask for new resources, right? And so as you know, this report asks for substantial new resources and I can tell you that the leadership of PCAST, both Dr. Holdren and Dr. Lander,

01:01:44.460 - 01:02:06.740

didn't blink. In this case, the justification is clearly there. Will this happen in the current congressional environment? I'm no better at predicting that than you are. You're probably much better than I am in fact and I know that you will work tirelessly on Capitol Hill to make this happen and I'll be happy to help you if I can be of help. But I can

01:02:06.740 - 01:02:31.740

tell you that in terms of the level of support, there was the broad sense that asking for new money in this current fiscal environment is an extremely difficult thing but there was no question among PCAST that the situation in agriculture warranted it, that the strategy for how the investments should be made were considered strategic and appropriate and that

01:02:31.740 - 01:02:53.900

hopefully this will be successful. So, any other questions from the audience? Please, if you could introduce yourself briefly and then. I'm Con Nugent of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. I was gratified to see both in the report and in some of the remarks that you just made, allusions to the

01:02:53.900 - 01:03:23.500

ecology of agriculture and the deep embeddedness of environmental issues in agriculture and vice versa, particularly Dr. Bergfeld's remark on the need if you will to address that issue and I'm wondering if any of the panelists would care to go into why is it that perhaps the most environmentally important sector of the American economy seems to be either

01:03:23.860 - 01:03:54.180

separate from or even alienated from this larger, certainly more populous, Thompson Claire, environmental movement, ecology, this, that or the other thing and it's, are there opportunities that you foresee, whether they're fiscally or intellectually driven, for a reconciliation of the ecological sciences and industrial agriculture.

01:03:54.180 - 01:04:18.140

Tom and then Katherine Avan. I'd like to hear from the panelists but I also have some thoughts of my own on that. I think part of what we're suffering from is a lack of realization in the greater community at how our research agenda has really changed dramatically and this dichotomization of agriculture

01:04:19.900 - 01:04:46.340

on one side and environmental concerns on the other, for us doesn't exist. So I would strongly recommend that if you haven't taken a look at our action plan and at the white papers that are informing the directions and the major priorities in our research programs to do so, because it really lays out our current thinking, it lays out the structure

01:04:48.140 - 01:05:12.620

of the questions that we're addressing in our research programs and all of them are really focused on this central question of how do we sustainably intensify agricultural production. So it's agriculture embedded in the larger environment. Do you think that that will attract the U.S. citizens, the young U.S. citizens, the Thompson

01:05:12.620 - 01:05:23.620

Claire? I have to admit when I'm talking to students, this generation that's in high school and college right now, they're really motivated by that kind of question. Great.

01:05:23.740 - 01:05:45.700

If you put it in front of them, that's what happens. I get my students, my graduate students, not from applications to study crop science, but from those that have applied to study ecology because their level of background is very much higher than what embarrassingly so, what our undergraduate and agriculture have. And when I lay out what we're studying,

01:05:45.700 - 01:06:06.700

I say these are what you want to study and it has meaning. This is what people are eating and I've had been very successful. But I think, again, frankly, it's as much a fault of the environmental science community, which I'm a big part of, that we've ignored agriculture as much as that. I think agriculture

01:06:06.700 - 01:06:25.620

is actually paying attention to this. It's actually the environmental science culture, but I actually think it comes back to the institutional structure that we were talking about earlier. If you actually look at where the leading, not necessarily environmental science departments, but actually environmental scientists are around the country at institutions,

01:06:25.620 - 01:06:44.940

many of those institutions don't have agriculture programs. That's just the nature of the way, the history of the Merrill Act and the land-grant institutions, but many of the leading universities in the natural sciences that have top programs in ecology, top programs in earth science and meteorology and oceanography and other areas don't have big agriculture programs. There

01:06:44.940 - 01:07:07.140

are some exceptions to that and those play incredibly important roles. Those handful of institutions that are excellent across those areas really are incredibly important, but for a large part of the community of environmental scientists that the environmental groups talk to are in places, and I'm at one, at Harvard. We don't have an agriculture program.

01:07:07.140 - 01:07:28.620

It's terrible and we need to fix that, but again, it's not necessarily that Harvard should start a school of agriculture. The challenge is really to create bridges so that the best environmental scientists at Harvard collaborate with the best agricultural scientists at other institutions. Other question here, please. Let's wait for the microphone because I think

01:07:28.620 - 01:08:07.860

we're being recorded. Yeah, Wes Jackson from the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. In 2002, Chris Field at Carnegie Institute of Washington and Stanford had a paper in science in which he, after a survey of natural ecosystems on a global basis, concluded that generally natural ecosystems have greater net primary production than the human-managed systems

01:08:07.900 - 01:08:55.060

that follow. As long as we have what I'll call limited hardware in the form of the annual, then we're stuck with something close to clear-cutting every year and not giving an opportunity for nature's processes to inform a research agenda. So part of the reluctance on the part of ecologists to get into agriculture is that they don't have an opportunity to take that

01:08:55.100 - 01:09:32.820

knowledge off the shelf that's been available accumulating for over 100 years. We have the LTER program with 26 sites around the country, well, ones in Puerto Rico, funded by the National Science Foundation for since 1980, and most of that knowledge sits there unavailable to be used in agriculture because of the wrong hardware. Now, for some time, we've had, now I think,

01:09:32.820 - 01:10:07.980

shown not only the possibility as well as the necessity for building an agriculture based on the perennialized major crops, corn, wheat, sorghum, and so on. So this takes long-term commitment to research. And if we could, as a nation, begin to make a commitment to a long-term ecological research effort, then I think we could promise the American people, the end of soil

01:10:07.980 - 01:10:37.740

erosion, the end of, that is beyond natural replacement levels, the end of fossil fuel dependency, and a great reduction in the chemical contamination of the land and water by having an agriculture based on the way natural ecosystems work and having the potential of greater net primary production. Now, how hard is that? And what is it that limits our imagination about

01:10:38.060 - 01:11:15.460

making that possible to our legislators or to a PCAST group? I think that the swarm of young ecologists that's sitting out there vibrating would quickly come into being a part of that research effort. Wes, thank you very much. And let me just broaden your question because this workshop we discussed actually talked about possibility of perennials carrying some of the

01:11:15.460 - 01:11:37.700

load in agriculture, but also other things as well. And Tom Sinclair in his discussions brought up a variety of plants that are currently not really used in agriculture, but potentially have the potential to contribute in the future in ways, especially as the climate is changing in unusual situations. And I think, again, part of our call for a new investment, both in basic research at

01:11:37.700 - 01:12:06.180

NSF and also in more competitive research at USDA, was to create this system where radical ideas could actually get supported and supported to the point where creative new approaches could actually be sustained. But Tom, why don't you comment on that more broadly? I mean, Wes has brought up an approach, or many approaches. Wes, we're using perennial crops all

01:12:06.180 - 01:12:24.620

the time in agriculture, most of it we let the animals go out and harvest. We don't drag it in. And, but, you know, there's no reason to exclude anything at this point, including the annual crops. And I think we need to exploit for the minimum impact on the environment and the maximum return to the farmer.

01:12:25.580 - 01:12:49.700

Okay, well, I think we have time for one more question over here, please. And then, and then we'll have to wrap up. Hi, Helen Shen. I write science news for nature. And what I wanted to know is this November, the California vote on GMO food labeling sort of exposed a lot of, you know, ordinary citizens'

01:12:49.980 - 01:13:14.020

fears and concerns about genetically engineered crops. And I was wondering, given that this report talks a lot about food safety and nutritious food and also food security, whether there were any specific recommendations or discussions about basic research on the health and environmental effects of genetically engineered crops and also communication of those

01:13:14.020 - 01:13:40.420

findings to the public. Kathy, do you want to comment on this? Because I know you get asked about this a lot. Yes, I mean, we, we within the research program that we're supporting are supporting quite a bit of genetics and genomics research in crops as well as in livestock. That research has been

01:13:40.460 - 01:14:19.380

enormously important for informing classical breeding approaches, as well as using the new genetic technologies to either do transgenic or cisgenic types of approaches towards development of mostly plants that have desirable characteristics. We feel that the application of this knowledge can be used across all of the different approaches towards agriculture, so that it's very

01:14:19.380 - 01:14:44.340

important to continue this fundamental research on the genetics of crops and livestock. We also think that the challenge that's ahead of us is so great with respect to sustainable intensification of agriculture, being able to provide all of the services that are being requested out of agriculture beyond food and beyond bioproducts into all of the other

01:14:44.340 - 01:15:04.900

ecosystem services as well, that we can't turn our backs on any of these approaches. So perennialization is in that basket too. But there's, there, so, you know, we're, we're approaching this, that we have to have a full portfolio of research for all of the different types of agriculture.

01:15:05.500 - 01:15:36.260

So let me just add to what, what Kathy said. You know, the big challenge I think here is highlighted as partly one of education. The concerns about genetically modified foods, I think, comes out of, and this is, this was a perspective I gained from writing the section on, on health and safety of the report. It's actually remarkable how incredibly safe our

01:15:36.260 - 01:15:57.820

food system is. It was something that we actually were very careful when we were writing the report because we had to acknowledge just how remarkable our current systems of protection are at the USDA and, and around the country. When there is a small outbreak of some, and it's very rare, but occasionally it happens, it makes headline news all over the country

01:15:57.820 - 01:16:19.740

because it's so rare. We just expect that we can take food from farms, transport at great distances, sell it in our local store, put it on your table, and you just know it's going to be safe to eat. That's remarkable. And I think it's, it's an incredible achievement of our entire agricultural system from the farm all the way to the distribution to the

01:16:19.740 - 01:16:43.580

table that, that we can actually have safe food and just take it for granted. The concern over genetically modified food, I think, much more so in Europe than here, comes from, I think, a lack of awareness and lack of education. And I think the most appropriate avenue is probably to increase the public's knowledge about what agricultural research is, what

01:16:43.620 - 01:17:02.460

agriculture is. I think people are unaware of actually how agriculture works and what are the achievements and the improvements that have been made over the decades, which have been phenomenal. Our society is sustained by the agricultural developments that occurred in this country over the last few decades. And I think, I think greater awareness and

01:17:02.460 - 01:17:23.980

greater education will go a long way towards that, that concern. Okay. Any, any other comments, final comments from any of the panel? Kathy, do you want to say any concluding words? Well, just again, a word of thanks to you, to Barbara Shaw and to all the members of the committee and the advisors. Thank you very much.

01:17:23.980 - 01:17:43.860

Great. Thank you, Kathy. And let me just say, let me just say, again, Barbara Shaw really is the, is the hero who's not here today and really deserves our, our great thanks and, and appreciation. And ultimately, let's, all of us, I hope, can help Kathy Watecki and Sonny Ramaswamy work hard to make this a reality, because that's really what we need to do next.

01:17:43.860 - 01:17:44.560

Thank you. Thank you, everybody.