[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AMERICAN AGRICULTURE AND OUR NATIONAL SECURITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 4, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-33
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
agriculture.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas, Chairman
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas, COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota,
Vice Chairman Ranking Minority Member
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma JIM COSTA, California
STEVE KING, Iowa TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
BOB GIBBS, Ohio SUZAN K. DelBENE, Washington
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia FILEMON VELA, Texas
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
JEFF DENHAM, California ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
DOUG LaMALFA, California PETE AGUILAR, California
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands
TED S. YOHO, Florida ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska
MIKE BOST, Illinois
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
______
Scott C. Graves, Staff Director
Robert L. Larew, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Conaway, Hon. K. Michael, a Representative in Congress from
Texas, opening statement....................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Peterson, Hon. Collin C., a Representative in Congress from
Minnesota, opening statement................................... 5
Witnesses
Negroponte, Hon. John D., former Ambassador; Vice Chairman,
McLarty Associates, Washington, D.C............................ 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Submitted question........................................... 49
Beckham, D.V.M., Ph.D., Tammy R., Dean, College of Veterinary
Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS............... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Submitted Material
Matz, J.D., Marshall L., Principal Attorney, Olsson Frank Weeda
Terman Matz PC (OFW Law), submitted statement.................. 47
AMERICAN AGRICULTURE AND OUR NATIONAL SECURITY
----------
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2015
House of Representatives,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room
1300 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. K. Michael
Conaway [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Conaway, Goodlatte, King,
Thompson, Gibbs, Crawford, Benishek, Denham, LaMalfa, Davis,
Allen, Bost, Rouzer, Abraham, Moolenaar, Newhouse, Kelly,
Peterson, Costa, Walz, McGovern, DelBene, Lujan Grisham,
Kuster, Nolan, Maloney, Kirkpatrick, Plaskett, Adams, Graham,
and Ashford.
Staff present: Haley Graves, Jackie Barber, John Goldberg,
Josh Maxwell, Mary Nowak, Mollie Wilken, Scott C. Graves,
Faisal Siddiqui, John Konya, Mary Knigge, Matthew MacKenzie,
Nicole Scott, and Carly Reedholm.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM TEXAS
The Chairman. This hearing of the Committee of Agriculture
regarding American agriculture and our national security, will
come to order.
Please join me in a brief prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we
ask, Lord, for your wisdom and guidance this morning on our
deliberations. The issues that face our country and our world,
quite frankly, we will be talking about this morning. Please
give us ears to hear and lips that speak the truth. Forgive us
where we fail. And, Lord, we ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
The hearing will come to order. I thank our witnesses for
being here, as well as the others.
Many of you may be wondering why the Committee on
Agriculture would be holding a hearing on national security. A
former Chairman of this Committee, the Honorable Kika de la
Garza, would often tell a story when asked how long can a
nuclear submarine stay underwater? The simple answer, until it
runs out of food.
With fewer and fewer Americans connected to production
agriculture, many in Congress fail to recognize the importance
of sound agricultural policy to our national security. Sitting
on the Armed Services Committee and now chairing the
Agriculture Committee, I find myself in a position to highlight
this important relationship.
Agriculture and national security are intertwined in many
different ways; whether it is ensuring that food is available
to meet nutritional needs for both those within our own borders
as well as those around the world, or ensuring that food coming
into our borders is disease and pest-free, or guaranteeing that
farmers and ranchers have the needed policy tools in place to
continue producing food and fiber.
It is my hope that in this hearing we can begin to examine
the threats and vulnerabilities to agricultural security, as
well as discuss the economic significance associated with those
threats.
The food and agriculture industry in the United States is
not only crucial to the public health and welfare of this
nation, but is an important force in the economic, social, and
political fabric here and abroad. The U.S. food and agriculture
industry is almost entirely under private ownership, and is
composed of an estimated 2.1 million farms, which are the
foundations of our nearly $1 trillion food and fiber business
with over $150 billion in exports for Fiscal Year 2014. In
2013, 16.9 million full and part-time jobs were related to
agriculture, which is approximately 9.2 percent of the U.S.
employment force.
From a security standpoint, there are an array of sectors
ranging from farms with relatively open croplands to highly
secure food and dairy processing facilities. At the retail end,
small neighborhood cafes operate in markets with large
supermarket chains and nationally franchised restaurants.
Continuous changes in the way that food is produced,
distributed, and consumed present new challenges for ensuring
its safety and security.
While increasing global trade presents opportunities for
raising food safety and quality standards to levels
commensurate with those of the United States, it also means
increasing the amount of food coming into this country. In
fact, the total volume of U.S. food imports has increased 60
percent over the last decade. This heightens the importance of
ensuring that products entering our borders meet our quality
and safety standards.
Near-term threats to food security include weather,
conflict, diseases, resource constraints, and environmental
degradation. For example, large exportable supplies of key
components of food production, such as phosphates, potash, and
fuel oil, come from states where conflict or government actions
could cause supply chain disruptions that lead to price spikes.
In addition, monitoring and controlling outbreaks of
agricultural diseases will become increasingly difficult as the
world becomes more integrated, disease vectors shift, and
domestic animal populations grow and become more concentrated.
Historically, our food safety, plant protection and animal
health regulatory systems have assumed the accidental
contamination of food or inadvertent introduction of animal
disease or plant pest. The prospect of an intentional, or
terrorist, attack on our food and agriculture industry raises
grave concerns that present challenges for producers and
policymakers alike. We intend to dive deeper into the Federal
role and responsibility for preventing, detecting, and
responding to emergencies in future hearings.
I want to thank our distinguished panel for joining us
today to discuss the role U.S. agriculture plays in maintaining
a strong U.S. economy and stability around the world.
Today we will hear from Ambassador Negroponte who served as
the first ever Director of National Intelligence. Prior to this
appointment, he served as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State,
and had several appointments as Ambassador to Honduras, Mexico,
the Philippines, the United Nations, and Iraq. He has firsthand
experience protecting the national security of this country,
and I want to thank him for his service and leadership.
I also look forward to hearing from Dr. Tammy Beckham, Dean
of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State
University. Dean Beckham also has served as Director of the
Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases; Director of the Texas
A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory; Director of the
Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, a part of the
USDA's Plum Island Animal Disease Center; and she served as a
Captain in the United States Army where she served at the
Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. Dr.
Beckham, we are glad to have you, ma'am.
While much of today's hearing will focus on threats and
vulnerabilities to domestic and international food security, we
must remember the importance of our producers here at home.
America has the safest, most affordable, most abundant food
supply in the history of the world, and that is not by
accident, it is by design. Sound agricultural policy has been
an integral piece of our ability to feed and clothe not only
our nation, but the world. Agriculture is the backbone of the
economy, and throughout history America has been able to not
only survive, but thrive because our agricultural safety net
helps farmers weather the bad times. We must never forget there
is no food without the farmer.
President George W. Bush eloquently summed it up when he
said we are a blessed nation because we can grow our own food.
A nation that can feed itself is a much more secure nation.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conaway follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. K. Michael Conaway, a Representative in
Congress from Texas
Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing. Many of you may be
wondering why the Committee on Agriculture would be holding a hearing
on national security. A former Chairman of this Committee, the
Honorable Kika de la Garza, would often tell a story when he was asked:
``How long can a nuclear submarine stay under water?'' The simple
answer, until it runs out of food.
With fewer and fewer Americans connected to production agriculture,
many in Congress fail to recognize the importance of sound agricultural
policy to our national security. Sitting on the Armed Services
Committee and now chairing the Agriculture Committee, I find myself in
a position to highlight this important relationship.
Agriculture and national security are intertwined in many different
ways--whether it is ensuring that food is available to meet nutritional
needs for both those within our own borders as well as those around the
world, or ensuring that food coming into our borders is disease and
pest free, or guaranteeing that farmers and ranchers have the needed
policy tools in place to continue producing food and fiber.
It is my hope in this hearing we can begin to examine the threats
and vulnerabilities to agricultural security, as well as discuss the
economic significance associated with those threats.
The food and agriculture industry in the United States is not only
crucial to the public health and welfare of this nation, but is an
important force in the economic, social and political fabric here and
abroad. The U.S. food and agriculture industry is almost entirely under
private ownership and is composed of an estimated 2.1 million farms,
which are the foundations of our nearly $1 trillion food and fiber
business with over $150 billion in exports for FY 2014. In 2013, 16.9
million full and part time jobs were related to agriculture, which is
approximately 9.2 percent of total U.S. employment.
From a security standpoint, there are an array of sectors ranging
from farms with relatively open croplands to highly secure food and
dairy processing facilities. At the retail end, small neighborhood
cafes operate in markets with large supermarket chains and nationally
franchised restaurants. Continuous changes in the way that food is
produced, distributed, and consumed present new challenges for ensuring
its safety and security.
While increasing global trade presents opportunities for raising
food safety and quality standards to levels commensurate with those of
the United States, it also means increasing the amount of food coming
into this country. In fact, the total volume of U.S. food imports has
increased 60% over the last decade. This heightens the importance of
ensuring that products entering our borders meet our quality and safety
standards.
Near-term threats to food security include weather, conflict,
diseases, resource constraints, and environmental degradation. For
example, large exportable supplies of key components of food
production--such as phosphates, potash, and fuel oil--come from states
where conflict or government actions could cause supply chain
disruptions that lead to price spikes. In addition, monitoring and
controlling outbreaks of agricultural diseases will become increasingly
difficult as the world becomes more integrated, disease vectors shift,
and domestic animal populations grow and become more concentrated.
Historically, our food safety, plant protection and animal health
regulatory systems have assumed the accidental contamination of food or
inadvertent introduction of animal disease or plant pest. The prospect
of an intentional, or terrorist, attack on our food and agriculture
industry raises grave concerns that present challenges for producers
and policymakers alike. We intend to dive deeper into the Federal role
and responsibility for preventing, detecting and responding to
emergencies in future hearings.
I want to thank our distinguished panel for joining us today to
discuss the role U.S. agriculture plays in maintaining a strong U.S.
economy and stability around the world.
Today we will hear from Ambassador Negroponte who served as the
first ever Director of National Intelligence. Prior to this
appointment, he served as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and had
several appointments as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the
Philippines, the United Nations, and Iraq. He has first-hand experience
protecting the national security of this country, and I want to thank
him for his service and leadership.
I also look forward to hearing from Dr. Tammy Beckham, Dean of the
College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University. Dean Beckham
has also has served as Director of the Institute for Infectious Animal
Diseases; Director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic
Laboratory; Director of the Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic
Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plum Island
Animal Disease Center; and she served as a Captain in the U.S. Army
where she served at the Army's Medical Research Institute for
Infectious Diseases.
While much of today's hearing will focus on threats and
vulnerabilities to domestic and international food security, we must
remember the importance of our producers here at home. America has the
safest, most affordable, most abundant food supply in the history of
the world, and that is not by accident--it is by design. Sound
agricultural policy has been an integral piece of our ability to feed
and clothe not only our nation, but the world. Agriculture is the
backbone of the economy, and throughout history America has been able
to not only survive, but thrive because our agricultural safety net
helps farmers weather the bad times. We must never forget that there is
no food without the farmer.
President George W. Bush eloquently summed it up when he said
``We're a blessed nation because we can grow our own food. A nation
that can feed its people is a nation more secure.''
The Chairman. And with that, I will turn to the Ranking
Member for any comments that he has.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. COLLIN C. PETERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA
Mr. Peterson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
welcome today's witnesses to the Committee.
A strong ag sector and stable food supply is critical to
national security, and agriculture has an important role to
play when it comes to our country's national security
interests. It is something I don't think a lot of people really
understand, and I appreciate the Chairman giving a shout-out to
our former Chairman, Mr. de la Garza, who was a great Chairman
of this Committee for many years.
The Chairman. And a Texan.
Mr. Peterson. A Texan, yes. And I am probably the only
person left on this Committee who could recite the submarine
story by heart because I heard it so many times. But he made
his point, and it is a very valid point.
Today's hearing will allow us to examine the threats and
vulnerabilities to agriculture and the economic impacts that
these would have. And as people know, I have a particular
interest in high-path avian influenza, and I look forward to
discussing this and other threats to agriculture.
And with that, I yield back.
The Chairman. Well, we now turn to our panelists. We
normally have a 5 minute rule, but given the unique nature of
what today's hearing is about, and the opportunity to set a
foundation for a grand strategy associated with our country as
we weave agriculture and its security into the process, I will
ask our witnesses to be respectful of time but don't worry
about the 5 minute clock, because we really want to hear what
each of you have to say.
So with that, Ambassador, the floor is yours. That same
flexibility with the clock would not apply to Members.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. NEGROPONTE, FORMER
AMBASSADOR; VICE CHAIRMAN, McLARTY ASSOCIATES, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Negroponte. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Peterson, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss the relationship between national
security and agriculture. And before I give a brief summary of
my testimony, I would like to mention that I knew Kika de la
Garza. I knew him very well because he was also head of the
U.S.-Mexico Congressional Caucus that used to meet
periodically, the two legislatures, and he led the delegations
down to Mexico City all the time. And, of course, being from
the border area there in Texas, and having a Latino background,
he knew Mexico extremely well.
I also want to mention that during the course of my foreign
service career and diplomatic career, I had nine overseas
postings altogether during the 44 years that I worked in
government, but I can hardly think of a place where I served
where agriculture didn't figure prominently in one way or
another in the situations we were dealing with. Whether it was
a crisis of some kind, or whether it had to do with our
analysis of local, political, and economic conditions; you
can't understand another country in most instances unless you
understand something about their rural areas and agricultural
conditions.
And I was thinking, my first assignment in 1961 was to Hong
Kong. And you would say, ``Well, what does that have to do with
agriculture?'' Well, back then, we were trying to figure out
whether there was a famine in China. And we didn't have the
means of intelligence that we have today, we would just send a
satellite and go survey a little bit of the terrain and so
forth, and we would probably be able to figure things out
pretty fast, but we couldn't back then. We relied on refugee
reports, we relied on people pouring over Chinese language
newspapers that got smuggled out of China. Remember, there was
the Bamboo Curtain at that time. We had a whole basement of a
warehouse in Hong Kong where we got all these newspapers, and
then we had people translating these articles trying to look
for traces of information about what the agricultural
conditions were in China at that time. And we used to have some
fierce debates amongst us as to just how bad conditions were
because our intelligence wasn't that good.
Vietnam, of course, I served there, and what more important
a country in the area for rice production, the Mekong Delta,
fabulously fertile country. I was there during the war from
1964 to 1968 and, of course, agricultural production during
those wartime conditions dropped precipitately, and a country
that had been exporting 1.5 or so million tons of rice in 1939,
before World War II, by the time of the Vietnam war, was
importing food. And that was one of our major programs, a
commodity import program, to satisfy the food needs of the
Vietnamese people during the course of the war.
I can go on. Ecuador, biggest banana producer in the world.
Mexico, of course, myriad agricultural issues, had to do with
NAFTA--the whole NAFTA question intersected. And how are
subsistence farmers in Mexico going to fare in the wake of
becoming more globalized as the Mexican economy has. And Iraq,
of course, my last post abroad, we are talking about
Mesopotamia, the land of two rivers, where, an ancient
civilization, they were practically the inventors of
agriculture as we know it. And by the time I got there, believe
me, there was nothing in the way of agricultural production.
And it was really a sad story, and I don't think it has gotten
much better since. But maybe some day they will restore their
irrigation system that they had, which wasn't bad, and grow the
date palms back that Saddam Hussein had cut down, down in the
marshland areas, and so on and so forth. So you cannot escape
the importance of agriculture.
The other thing I would like to say as a general
observation concerning America and its standing in the world,
agriculture is a public good for us, I mean, and the way we
have conducted our agriculture over the past century and a
half. And it is a global public good as well. How many times
have countries faced severe food shortages and crises where
they relied on us to help breach that gap, whether it was
Russia during certain very difficult times during the period of
detente, and elsewhere around the world? We owe that,
obviously, to our farmers, but we also owe it to farsighted
policymakers, starting with Abraham Lincoln back in 1861 with
the Homestead Act, and all that that has implied ever since.
And thank goodness, we have kept up and nurtured the policies
that were developed then.
I see I am already practically out of time. Let me just say
with regard to my testimony, initially, I discussed some global
trends, the globalized supply chain, which is becoming more
important every day. I discussed how the issue of resource
security, especially water, may become to us in the decades
ahead what oil has represented in the past. And we don't have
to look far beyond California to see that. But in the Middle
East it is a serious problem. They say that Syria's drought
over the past several years has been a really exacerbating
factor to the population there, and of course, helps create
fertile ground for recruitment for terrorist groups. If people
are unemployed, subsistence farmers are out of a job, they have
no water to grow crops, they are very vulnerable to these kind
of predatory behaviors by people like ISIS.
On a positive side, the rising global middle-class, and
that is going to--resulting in changes in consumption patterns,
especially in the rich and middle-income countries. And that
has its positive implications for United States agriculture in
terms of demand for more value-added products. We saw that in
Mexico in the wake of the NAFTA, and our exports of value-added
and finished agricultural products is very good.
There is the trend of skepticism of science, especially
biotechnology, that has been an issue, especially with
genetically-modified crops. I think most of us here in America
see that as a problem and an issue with the countries that have
been resisting that, and it is going to be something we are
going to have to deal with as we go on in the future.
There is the long-term trend of rising energy prices. It
doesn't seem that way right at this moment with the low price
of oil and the low price of natural gas, but the longer-term
trend is going to continue to be high, and how agriculture
copes with the rising input costs.
And then last, I would say there is the exclusion of too
many people from the global economy; some 1.4 billion
subsistence farmers around the world who cannot make ends meet,
and who are becoming even increasingly marginalized by our
increasingly globalized economy. I can think, again, back to
Mexico, of those maize farmers, the corn farmers in Mexico who
grew corn for subsistence. And obviously, once we got the NAFTA
and we succeeded in getting the agricultural sector trade
opened up between the two countries, with just a couple of
exceptions, this was going to be a threat to the subsistence
farmers in that country, and all the social ramifications of
that issue; people coming from the countryside and into the
cities. And as you know, in Mexico they don't necessarily stop
when they get to Mexico City or Monterrey or Guadalajara, they
just keep on coming up to the United States. So there are a lot
of implications to the fact of subsistence farmers not being
able to squeeze out a living.
Let me stop there, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I ran over, but
there is so much to talk about.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Negroponte follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. John D. Negroponte, Former Ambassador; Vice
Chairman, McLarty Associates, Washington, D.C.
Thank you Chairman Conaway, Ranking Member Peterson, and Members of
the Committee. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the
relationship between national security and agriculture.
Agricultural Megatrends
Before I focus on the agriculture and national security nexus, I
wanted to look at some of the major trends affecting global agriculture
to provide some background. With a pressing need to feed the future
world of nine billion people and manage emerging national security
challenges, we need to look at the big picture as we map our way
forward.
One trend is toward an increasingly globalized supply chain with
our food supplies increasingly dependent on trade. While access to the
world market has generally reduced food prices and improved access to
food during local production shortfalls, it also highlights the need to
secure market access for our agricultural exports while ensuring the
safety and reliability of our imports. Looking further out, it may also
necessitate consideration of how to secure food supplies for
potentially vulnerable U.S. allies such as Japan.
A second issue is the evolving relationship between food and
resource scarcity. Over time, rising competition for limited resources
such as water and arable land could affect political stability and
shift military priorities. For example, this could fuel further
instability in the Middle East, where water scarcity in particular has
the potential to aggravate interstate conflict. Water scarcity plays a
significant role in both Syria and Iraq, where rivers, canals and dams
are military targets. Over time, these and other resource constraints
along with pressures from climate change could slow down increases in
productivity.
The next trend is the rising global middle class, which is expected
to double in size in the next decade. According to the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization, the world must increase food production by 50
to 60 percent to satisfy expected global population growth and changing
consumption patterns by 2050. This could transform markets for many
food products. In East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, per capita meat
consumption by weight is projected to increase by 55 percent and 42
percent by 2030. These changes will put pressure on the food production
system, but will also create immense opportunities for U.S. and global
agricultural producers.
At the same time, changes in our food system have also driven the
fourth trend, changes in consumption in rich and middle income
countries. Consumers are increasingly looking for products that are not
only healthier but also have other characteristics. This not only
includes products that are lower in sugar, fat and salt but those that
address environmental, animal welfare, labor and other concerns. These
increasing demands on the food system could reduce productivity, but
could also allow entrepreneurial farmers to get better prices for high-
value and differentiated products.
Rising consumer demand for value-added products has partially been
driven by rising anxiety about and skepticism of science. While Western
Europe has traditionally been least trustful of the food and
agricultural industry, this trend of rejecting modern agricultural
production technologies has spread elsewhere, including within the
United States. This has been most evident in the deepening suspicion
about agricultural biotechnology and support for mandatory labeling. If
science skepticism accelerates, this could undermine our ability to
increase production enough to feed the world.
The sixth trend is driven by energy prices. Since energy prices are
one of the largest expenses in agricultural production, food prices
rise with energy costs. At the same time, energy demands also divert a
substantial amount of agricultural production. In the United States,
around 40 percent of corn production is used for ethanol. While energy
markets are famously volatile, rising long-term energy prices could
drive up production costs and divert more crops to fuel use.
A seventh trend is the continuing exclusion of too many farmers
from the global economy. According to the United Nations, 1.4 billion
people cannot fulfil their most basic needs--and many are subsistence
farmers. This continuing poverty makes millions vulnerable to weather,
disease, price changes or other issues--and can drive many other
problems, including refugee flows and political instability. Including
poor farmers in development can increase resilience and prevent
problems from worsening.
The last trend is the changing world of agricultural trade policy.
Although the World Trade Organization (WTO) is still in place, the
organization may be overtaken in the future by a growing number of
alternative bilateral or regional trade agreements--which numbered more
than 600 in 2010. The number is higher now because of new agreements
such as the recently completed free trade agreement between the
European Union and Canada. These rules could complicate our ability to
access markets globally--but also offer an immense opportunity if we
open trade too.
At the center of all of these worldwide and regional trends is U.S.
agricultural production. The United States plays a critical role in
global agriculture since we are world's largest producer of beef,
soybeans, corn and poultry and a top exporter of products as diverse as
almonds, apples, cotton, raisins, sorghum, pork and wheat. Even in our
highly globalized economy, America is still often the world's swing
supplier of food.
The Agriculture-National Security Nexus
All of these trends offer a mix of threats and opportunities for
the United States--but with the right approaches we can minimize the
former and maximize the latter. These issues can be clustered into the
global security, homeland security and economic realms.
On the global security front, energy security, access to natural
resources, and continuing ability to trade food globally will be
central to maintaining our security--and that of America's allies.
Central to this will be the ability to move physical product through
open sea lanes, the limitation of trade restricting measures, and
ensuring access to reasonably priced energy and other resources.
Homeland security is connected to agriculture because of the
importance of America's global supply chains and food safety issues.
Although these issues have not been front and center because of the
strength of the U.S. regulatory system and our status as a major net
exporter, the risks do exist.
The economic dimension is tied to both farm income and to the
effects on consumer prices. Domestically, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture estimates that livestock and poultry production alone
generates more than $100 billion a year in revenue. The U.S. food and
agriculture sector has also benefited tremendously from trade is
exports totaled $152.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2014. At the same time,
Americans spend a little more than six percent of disposable income on
food, one of the lowest levels in the world. The food and agriculture
sector creates immense benefits for both producers and consumers--both
in the United States and worldwide.
Building our Future Security
All of these topics raise the question of what is to be done. While
there is not sufficient time to look at the issues in detail, I would
like to offer a few thoughts--some of which were cited in documents
such as the recently released Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)
on Global Food Security, along with two Development of Homeland
Security Presidential Directives: HSPD-7, ``Critical Infrastructure
Identification, Prioritization and Protection'' and HSPD-9, ``Defense
of United States Agriculture and Food.''
Infrastructure: Agriculture is extremely dependent on roads, rail,
electricity, water and other physical infrastructure. As mentioned in
HSPD-7, it is important for Federal departments and agencies to further
advance efforts to protect critical infrastructure and key resources by
preventing, deterring, and mitigating deliberate efforts to destroy,
incapacitate or exploit them by working across agencies and with state
and local governments and the private sector. Reducing the chances of
attack will likely require increased investment in vulnerable or aged
infrastructure and a continuing evaluation of new and emerging threats.
Biodefense: One specific kind of threat is the theme of HSPD-9,
which focuses on the risks of biological attack on U.S. agriculture.
The consequences of a successful attack range from economic damage to
threats to food safety and public health. Although there have been no
large-scale attacks, it is important to strengthen surveillance,
monitoring and tracking and to enhance nationwide laboratory networks
to ensure food, veterinary, plant health and clean water. As Federal
retirements continue apace, we need to build up talent for the future
in these areas.
Resource Strategy: Since agriculture is so tied to energy, water
and other resources, we may consider these items themselves to be of
strategic importance. In the decades to come, water could become to
global strategy what petroleum is today, since declining food security
could contribute to large-scale political instability and conflict.
These problems could be aggravated by climate change--which may disrupt
resource availability. To ensure that the United States, its allies and
other strategically important countries have access to food, we may
need to reimagine a grand strategy around these resource issues. The
ICA mentions Africa, the Middle East and South Asia as particularly
vulnerable to resource constraints.
Agricultural Research: In order to feed a growing global middle
class and a population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, we need
to increase food production. Given the constraints on land, water and
other resources, the only way to do this is to boost productivity.
Unfortunately, funding for vital research at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) has stagnated, while the need to produce food becomes
more pressing. This needs to change.
Trade Policy: One vital consideration is market access--both for
U.S. exporters and those in other countries. As noted earlier, exports
boost U.S. farm income and create jobs--and trade can fill in gaps in
local food supplies and allow access to lower cost products. Beyond
this, exports from poor countries also can support their farm incomes
and boost regional and global food availability. Advancing these goals
will include both support for free trade agreements such as the Trans-
Pacific Partnership and measures that open the U.S. market, such as the
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the General System of
Preferences. Stronger trade agreements could also work against a repeat
of 2008, where more than 30 major food exporters restricted trade in
order to stem rising domestic food inflation--at the cost of their
trading partners.
Support International Agricultural Development: A final issue is
the pressing need to support farming systems in the developing world.
Boosting agricultural production not only increases world food
supplies, but it can reduce the vulnerability of political systems to
weather, conflict and other shocks. Boosting rural incomes can reduce
hunger, prevent the emergence of disease and reduce migration to the
cities or as refugees overseas. The key to successful development is to
develop market-oriented systems that improve the operation of
agriculture as a business by working with farmers, host governments,
investors, civil society and private industry.
There is more that needs to be done beyond the issues already
mentioned. We need to reduce crop and food waste that costs
approximately \1/3\ of all global food production. To boost production,
we should focus on trade capacity-building to allow farmers in
developing countries to compete in the global market. In many
countries, there needs to be an assessment of counterproductive
government policies that tax producers and undermine food availability.
Finally, we need to find a way to encourage agriculture and food policy
to align with science on such issues as biotechnology.
Although there are many challenges on the way to feeding the future
world of nine billion, we can enhance both national and global security
if we make the right choices now.
Chairman Conaway, Ranking Member Peterson, and Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this
morning. I look forward to answering your questions.
The Chairman. Well, thanks, Ambassador, and we will get to
our questions here shortly.
Dr. Beckham, 5 minutes. And again, thank you for your
service in the United States Army. I appreciate that.
STATEMENT OF TAMMY R. BECKHAM, D.V.M., Ph.D., DEAN,
COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE, KANSAS STATE
UNIVERSITY, MANHATTAN, KS
Dr. Beckham. Thank you. Well, good morning, Chairman
Conaway, Ranking Member Peterson, and Members of the House
Committee on Agriculture.
My name is Tammy Beckham, and I am the Dean of the College
of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University. I want to
thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today regarding
the importance of American agriculture and its relationship to
U.S. national security.
So as we have heard, the U.S. agricultural sector is very
diverse, it is complex, and it is a highly integrated
enterprise whose health and productivity is vital to the
national and global economy, the safety and security of our
food systems, and ultimately the health and safety of the
public health sector.
U.S. agricultural enterprise is a $1 trillion business, the
largest exporter of food, and employs approximately 9.2 percent
of American workers. And as I testify before you today, U.S.
citizens reap the benefits of a robust agricultural industry
that provides them with access to safe, abundant, and
affordable food. U.S. consumers spend on average only 6.4
percent of their annual expenditures on food, and if you
compare and contrast this to the 11 to 47 percent globally, the
robustness and productivity of our agricultural enterprise
becomes readily apparent.
This is indeed a privilege that, as you well know, does not
exist globally. There are currently 870 million people around
the world that do not have access to safe and nutritious food
in a sufficient supply, and by the year 2050, the global
population is expected to exceed nine billion people. The very
elements that make the U.S. agricultural system robust and
productive are also the same ones that make it vulnerable to a
natural or intentional introduction of a biological agent.
The U.S. agriculture and public health systems, while free
from devastating diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease,
African Swine Fever, and Rift Valley Fever, as well as other
highly pathogenic livestock diseases, emerging, and zoonotic
diseases, are increasingly becoming a risk for an introduction
of these pathogens. It has been estimated that over 75 percent
of all emerging pathogens are zoonotic, and that zoonotic
pathogens are twice as likely to be associated with an emerging
disease than non-zoonotic pathogens. The impact from these
diseases can lead to devastating economic and public health
implications. A study that was recently completed by Kansas
State University researchers predicted that costs associated
with Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in the Midwest U.S. and in
the cattle industry could result in a total of $188 billion in
losses to the livestock industries. In addition, we recently
learned firsthand from Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus, or
PEDv, high-path AI, just how significant these disruptions to
our economy can be.
All these things said, it probably wasn't until the 2014
Ebola virus disease outbreak in the U.S. that our nation's gap
in preparedness for an emerging and zoonotic disease were fully
realized. We lacked licensed medical countermeasures, the
scientific knowledge about Ebola virus disease in animals and
livestock, and a trained workforce that was able to handle
these types of diseases and knew what to do. And simply said,
during this outbreak, the meaning of the term One Health took
on new significance.
In order to mitigate the threats and vulnerabilities, and
protect U.S. agricultural enterprise and our international
markets, we must act immediately to address these gaps in
biodefense. Despite a large amount of progress since 2001, the
nation is still woefully under-prepared, and a coordinated and
comprehensive biodefense program is lacking. Success in
addressing the gaps will be heavily dependent on an organized,
strategic, and well-funded approach, and this approach should
institutionalize the One Health concept. It should be highly
collaborative in nature, it should leverage all available
resources, and encompass an international and global health
component. We cannot ensure political stability abroad without
addressing global disease issues and food insecurity at the
international level. This will require strong U.S. leadership
and engagement through initiatives such as a global health
security agenda.
Coordination of a true One Health approach to biodefense
has not materialized. Nowhere is this more highly visible than
in the stark contrast between human and animal biodefense
funding. During Fiscal Year 2014, 61 percent of Federal funding
for biodefense was allocated to the Department of Health and
Human Services, but by comparison, one percent of the Federal
Government funding was allocated to the USDA for agricultural
biodefense. If the nation is to establish a robust biodefense
strategy that includes the commitment to institutionalize the
One Health concept, funding levels must be increased to the
agricultural sector, and they must be strategically utilized.
The U.S. agricultural sector is critically important and
intimately linked to national security in the U.S. Simply
stated, U.S. ag security is national security. At this moment,
it is critically important that the U.S. Government and its
private partners come together and work to add both a sense of
urgency and direction to the nation's biodefense preparedness
efforts. Appointing a central office and council that could be
responsible for developing and implementing a more coordinated,
cohesive, and collaborative national biodefense strategy would
be a large step in this direction. Furthermore, a leader or
council that could assemble a robust team of Federal and
industry partners could help lower barriers that prevent our
ability to truly implement the One Health initiative. Barriers
to the One Health initiative could be overcome with time,
collaboration, interdisciplinary programs and budgets to
support and incentivize working together to prepare our nation
for the next emerging disease event. Indeed, the One Health
concept must be understood, adopted, and become part of the
fabric of the way we approach biodefense.
And finally, Chairman Conaway, Ranking Member Peterson, and
Members of the House Committee on Agriculture, I want to thank
you for the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the
importance of agriculture to national security, and I look
forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Beckham follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tammy R. Beckham, D.V.M., Ph.D., Dean, College of
Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Good afternoon Chairman Conaway, Vice Chairman Neugebauer, Ranking
Member Peterson, and Members of the House Committee on Agriculture,
My name is Tammy Beckham and I am the Dean of the College of
Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today regarding the
importance of American Agriculture and its relationship to U.S.
national security.
Agricultural Security and its Relationship to National Security
The food and agricultural system in the u.s. is one of sixteen
critical infrastructures whose assets, systems, and networks are
considered to be so vital to the U.S. that their incapacitation or
destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, the national
and global economy, public health and safety, or any combination
thereof. The agricultural sector has been deemed a critical
infrastructure for the U.S. in that the health of this enterprise is
critical to ensuring the nation's economic viability, the safety and
security of our food systems, and ultimately, the health and safety of
the public health sector.
The U.S. agricultural sector is a diverse, complex and highly
integrated enterprise whose health and productivity is vital to the
national economy. Agriculture in the U.S. is a $1 trillion business and
this sector alone employs approximately 9.2% of American workers. In
2013, agriculture and agricultural-related industries contributed $789B
to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) \1\ and in 2012, domestic
animal agriculture (e.g., livestock and poultry production) produced
approximately 1.8M jobs, $346B in total economic output, and $60B in
household income.\2\ Furthermore, in the U.S., consumers spend on
average, approximately 6.4% of their annual expenditures on food. This
percentage is extremely low when compared to other countries whose
expenditures range from 11% (Switzerland) to 47% (Pakistan).\3\ U.S.
farmers and ranchers work hard to keep food prices low and are only
able to accomplish this through increased efficiencies in production.
Increased efficiencies have been gained through technological
advancements in industrial food production. Threats that jeopardize our
production and the security and affordability of the U.S. food system
have the potential to disrupt our social structure and cause political
instability.
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\1\ USDA Economic Research Service. http://ers.usda.gov/data-
products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/ag-and-food-
sectors-and-the-economy.aspx.
\2\ Economic benefits of the Livestock Industry. iGrow, South
Dakota State University Extension. July 2014.
\3\ USDA Economic Research Service. http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-
products/food-expenditures.aspx#.UuE9EHn0Ay5.
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The bulk of the agricultural enterprise is almost solely owned and
operated by the private sector, and the U.S. is currently the world's
leading exporter of food. When evaluating the impact on the economy,
the food supply and the nation's jobs, it is clearly evident why this
industry is deemed a U.S. critical infrastructure. Any disruption to
the daily operations and/or productivity of this enterprise would have
significant impacts on Americans' livelihoods, our food supply, the
economy and our public health. Simply said, U.S. agricultural security
is national security.
In addition to understanding the importance of the agricultural
industry in the U.S. and its role in supporting national security, it
is also important and critical that we understand the role of global
food security in securing the homeland. Currently, 870 million people
around the world do not have access to safe and nutritious food in a
sufficient supply.\4\ By the year 2050, the global population is
expected to exceed nine billion people. Nearly all of the growth is
expected to occur in developing countries. Feeding nine billion people
will demand that food production is increased by 70% and more
specifically, that food production in the developing world double.\5\
Meeting these growing demands will be critical if we hope to maintain
political stability in increasingly volatile regions across the globe.
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\4\ USDA. Food Security. http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/
usdahome?navid=food-security.
\5\ How to Feed the World 2050: Global agriculture towards 2050.
High-Level Expert Forum. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rome
October 12-13, 2009.
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Food insecurity and scarcity is well known to be one of the most
potent drivers of political instability and social unrest. In fact,
according to the Lugar Center, ``global food security has both foreign
policy and national security implications for the U.S. Diplomatic
efforts to maintain peace and stability are much more difficult
whenever there are food shortages contributing to extremism and
conflict''.\6\ Perfect examples of this have been seen throughout the
Middle East and North Africa, where countries import over \1/2\ of
their food.\7\ Food insecurity in this region often leads to underlying
structural pressures that can result in rioting and other public
displays of dissatisfaction, or sociopolitical instability. In fact, it
is well documented that although the Arab Spring was not about food
insecurity, it is likely that the rapid rise in international food
prices caused middle class urban populations in these regions to
experience acute food insecurity, which provided the necessary
motivation for the people to generate unrest.\8\ Therefore, it is easy
to see how U.S. investments in food security and nutrition for
developing countries and areas of conflict is in the interests of the
U.S., as international food security and U.S. national security are
tightly intertwined.\9\
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\6\ Global Food Security. The 2050 Challenge. The Lugar Center.
http://www.thelugarcenter.org/ourwork-Global-Food-Security.html.
\7\ Barrett, Christopher B., ed. Food Security and Sociopolitical
Stability. Oxford University Press, 2013.
\8\ Food Insecurity and Unrest in the Arab Spring. Thomas Tree,
Sept. 7, 2014. http://www.e-ir.info/2014/09/07/food-insecurity-and-
unrest-in-the-arab-spring/.
\9\ Food, national security intertwined, experts say. Eric
Mortenson. Capital Press, June 18, 2015.
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Threats and Vulnerabilities of the U.S. Agricultural System
As I testify before you today, U.S. citizens reap the benefits of a
robust agricultural industry that provides them with access to a safe,
abundant and affordable food supply that is readily available on the
shelves of grocery stores nationwide. This is indeed a privilege that
as you well know, does not exist globally. However, the very elements
that make the U.S. agricultural system robust and productive also make
it vulnerable to a natural or intentional introduction of a biological
agent. In fact, perhaps now, more than anytime in our history, the
agricultural industries are at risk from a variety of threats that have
the potential to severely disrupt our economy, our food supply and
cause great harm to our public health sector.
Threats to our U.S. agricultural system can come in a variety of
forms to include a natural introduction of a foreign (transboundary)
animal, emerging, and/or zoonotic disease or an intentional
introduction of a biological agent (agro-terrorism) into our
agricultural systems. These threats would result in significant
morbidity and/or mortality, cause great economic harm, adversely impact
and/or disrupt our food supply and/or contribute to an adverse public
health event. Many of these agents do not require weaponization, can be
easily obtained, and exist naturally in areas in which terrorist groups
such as the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qa'ida, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram,
and others who intend to harm the U.S. operate. In addition, the risk
from emerging infectious and/or zoonotic diseases continues to threaten
our animal, plant, and public health sectors.
The U.S. agricultural and public health systems, while free from
devastating diseases such as Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD, since 1929),
African Swine Fever (ASFV), Rift Valley Fever (RVF), and other highly
pathogenic livestock and zoonotic diseases, are becoming increasingly
at risk for an introduction of these and/or other emerging and/or
zoonotic diseases. Impacts resulting from an introduction of a high
consequence disease, agro-terrorist and/or bioterrorist agent into U.S.
agricultural systems have been studied and published in peer reviewed
journals. Studies indicate that the magnitude and severity of an
introduction of a high consequence disease into U.S. livestock or
poultry herds/flocks would be large. For example, a study recently
completed by Kansas State University researchers predicted that costs
associated with an FMD outbreak in the midwestern U.S. could result in
a total of $188B in losses to the livestock and allied industries and
up to $11B to the U.S. Government.\10\
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\10\ Economic impact of alternative FMD emergency vaccination
strategies in the Midwestern united states. Ted C. Schroeder, Dustin L.
Pendell, Michael W. Sanderson, and Sara Mcreynolds. Journal of
Agricultural and Applied Economics. Volume 47, Issue 01, Feb. 2015. Pp.
47-78.
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In addition to publications highlighting the economic and social
impacts of a disease incursion, we have learned first hand from recent
experiences that the social, economic, and political fall out from
emerging disease incursions can be devastating. In fact most recently,
the U.S. has witnessed the incursion of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus
(PEDv) in our swine herds (2013), highly pathogenic avian influenza
(HPAI) in our poultry populations (2015) and last but certainly not
least Ebola virus (EBOV) disease in our public health sector (2014).
This demonstrates our vulnerability to newly emerging and re-emerging
pathogens.
In the case of PEDv, the cause and route of introduction into the
U.S. swine population has still not clearly been elucidated.
Nevertheless, over \1/2\ of the U.S. sow population was infected with
PEDv, and the industry lost 10% (7M) of the piglets born to these sows
during this outbreak.\11\ More recently, the introduction of HPAI virus
into the U.S. poultry population resulted in approximately 7.5M (7.5%)
of the U.S. turkey population and 41.1M (10%) of the commercial chicken
population being depopulated. The total indemnity costs for this
outbreak was approximately $191M.\12\ The PEDv and HPAI outbreaks have
reminded us that although we have made significant progress as a nation
and as a sector preparing for both natural and intentional
introductions of transboundary, emerging and zoonotic diseases, they
remain continual threats to the U.S. agricultural system and we still
have a tremendous amount of work to accomplish.
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\11\ PEDv Dominates the Pig World. Gene Johnston. September 11,
2014. http://www.agriculture.com/livestock/hogs/health/pedv-dominates-
pig-wld_284-ar45068.
\12\ Update on H5Nx, Mia Torchetti, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, National Veterinary
Services Laboratories, August 18, 2015.
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It was during the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in the U.S. where the
meaning of the term ``One Health'' took on a new significance and some
of the greatest lessons were learned and largest gaps in biodefense
highlighted. Gaps that were highlighted include but are not limited to:
(1) a lack of available, licensed medical countermeasures (MCMs), (2) a
lack of available scientific evidence to support informed decision
making on the risk of EBOV infections in companion animals and
livestock to our public health sector, (3) a lack of available training
for veterinarians, state and local animal health workers, first
responders, and our medical counterparts that would properly prepare
them for handling a high consequence zoonotic event, (4) a lack of
policies and procedures that define appropriate handling of
contaminated medical waste, and (5) a lack available scientific
evidence to support informed development of policies and procedures for
appropriate handling/care of potentially exposed companion animal and
livestock. As such, it was during this outbreak that the term ``One
Health'' came to the forefront for the majority of the veterinary and
medical community.
This increased risk of the above mentioned threats to the U.S.
agricultural and public health systems can be attributed to several
social, environmental, and economic factors. First, there is increased
movement of people, animals, plants, and products globally. Global
commerce and air traffic moves at speeds that defy the ability to
detect and prevent movement of diseases from their source in the early
stages before detection. Indeed, animals and people can move and travel
prior to clinical signs of a disease, thus arriving in another country
already infected and able to spread the disease to people or animals
they come in contact with. Second, trends in livestock production in
the U.S. have resulted in more specialized, intensive, and concentrated
farming practices where large numbers of animals are produced on a much
smaller number of premises. These vertically integrated systems manage
movements of animals and animal products to ensure a ``just-in-time''
delivery to the next location (e.g., feedlot, finisher, packer, and
retailer) in the food production system. Our livestock production
systems execute a large number of animal movements daily. As an
example, it is estimated that approximately 1M swine and 400K cattle
are in transit to the next location in the production system at any one
time during the day. An introduction of an agent either naturally or
intentionally into these intensive farming systems could lead to wide-
spread distribution through these movements within hours of its
introduction into the system. Furthermore, in the event of a disease
outbreak in which a ``standstill'' or quarantine of animal premises is
the primary control strategy implemented in the U.S., maintaining
business continuity through the controlled movements of animals is
critical for food security and animal health and welfare.
Next, obtaining agents that can be utilized to promulgate an agro-
terrorist event and/or a bioterrorist event against our agriculture and
public health sectors does not require advanced capabilities. Many of
the agents on the list of those most likely to be utilized to execute
an agro-terrorist and/or bioterrorist event (such as FMDV, ASFV, and
Ebola) are readily available in countries throughout the world and do
not need advanced capabilities or weaponization. As mentioned
previously, these agents are readily available in countries in which
terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qa'ida, al-
Shabaab, Boko Haram, and others who intend to harm the U.S. operate.
Last but certainly not least, we must not overlook the natural
occurrence and emergence of diseases whether agricultural or zoonotic.
Factors that lead to the emergence of disease include changes in
socioeconomic, environmental and/or ecological circumstances.\13\ It
has been estimated that over 75% of all emerging pathogens are zoonotic
and that zoonotic pathogens are twice as likely to be associated with
an emerging disease than non-zoonotic pathogens.\14\ In addition, there
are approximately 320,000 unknown viruses that infect mammals and that
have not yet been identified and/or characterized.\15\
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\13\ Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature. Kate E.
Jones, Nikkita G. Patel, Marc A. Levy, Adam Storeygard, Deborah Balk,
John L. Gittleman, Peter Daszak. Volume 451; 21FEB2008.
\14\ Taylor, L.H., Latham, S.M., Woolhouse, M.E. 2001. Risk factors
for human disease emergence. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 356:983-989.
\15\ Anthony, S.J., et. al. 2013. A strategy to estimate unknown
viral diversity in mammals. M. Bio. 4:e00598-13; doi: 10.1128/
mBio.00598-13.
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Although the social, environmental and economic drivers of risks
are critical to understanding the threats to the sector, there are
additional factors that contribute to the vulnerability of the U.S.
agriculture and public health sectors. For many of the diseases that
threaten our industries, we lack the necessary MCMs for early
detection, identification, response, and recovery. Although we have
made significant advances with the U.S. licensure of the first FMD
vaccine that could be manufactured in the U.S. and the validation and
deployment of molecular assays capable of supporting early detection
and response to the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN),
in order for us to effectively detect, identify, characterize, respond
to, control, and recover from an outbreak of a known or emerging
pathogen, we still have much to accomplish.
Critical Needs Remain for Protecting U.S. Agricultural and National
Security
In order to mitigate these threats and vulnerabilities and protect
U.S. agricultural and national security, we must act immediately to the
critical needs remaining to be addressed. There is a critical need for
development and licensure of additional vaccines for the remaining
serotypes of FMDV and other high consequence animal and zoonotic
disease agents (Classical Swine Fever (CSF), ASFV, Hendra virus, RVFV,
Ebola, etc.). Along with the vaccines, we must develop and validate new
diagnostic technologies to help us detect and identify both known and
emerging pathogens. We must develop, in collaboration with the
industries and stakeholders, policies and procedures to allow for an
appropriate response to emerging disease affecting our industries. In
addition, we must work closely with our end-users, stakeholders, and
first-responders to develop a robust, integrated biosurveillance system
capable of capturing and analyzing data on animal, human and wildlife
health. This same biosurveillance system must simultaneously provide
useful information and incentives to encourage data owner
participation. We must work to develop data elements and standards that
can be utilized across the agriculture and public health sectors and
simultaneously work to develop policies that will allow for efficient
sharing of data while working to protect the confidentiality of the
data owners. We must work to identify incentives and provide rewards
for participation in early disease reporting among our agricultural and
public health sectors. We must work to prepare our first responders,
veterinary workforce and our medical counterparts through robust
training programs in early recognition, disease response, personal
protection, and biosafety. And finally, we must work to support our
state, local, and tribal governments in the development and exercising
of response plans. In order to accomplish these lofty goals, we must
work in multi-disciplinary teams to leverage knowledge and resources.
We cannot simply discuss the ``One Health'' concept, but we must
embrace it fully and ensure it is institutionalized across disciplines
and recognize the value of working together to protect the U.S.
agriculture and public health sectors, for indeed a healthy
agricultural system equates to a safe and secure food supply and a
healthy public health sector.
The ability to protect our agricultural industries, food supply,
and public health sectors from natural introductions of biological
agents, agro-terror threats, and emerging and re-emerging diseases is
heavily dependent on an organized, strategic, and well funded approach.
This approach should institutionalize the ``One Health'' concept, be
highly collaborative in nature, leverage all available resources and
encompass an international, global health component.
Since the formation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) in 2002 and with the release of Homeland Security Presidential
Directive 9: Defense of United States Agriculture and Food (HSPD-9),
DHS has assumed the responsibility to coordinate the overall national
effort to protect the critical infrastructure and key resources of the
U.S., which includes agriculture. However, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) still has the primary responsibility for protecting
the agricultural sector \16\ and does so with support from additional
agencies to include the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS),
the Department of Interior (DOI), the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the
Attorney General (AG). Despite interagency agreements that exist, the
coordination of a comprehensive biodefense program against agricultural
and human health threats is lacking. To date, an organized, multi-year,
well-funded strategy and commitment has not materialized.
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\16\ Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Response
Act, 2002. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ188/pdf/PLAW-
107publ188.pdf.
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For example, recent statistics indicate that during the FY 2014,
61% of Federal funding for biodefense was allocated to the Department
of Health and Human Services (DHHS). By comparison, 1% of Federal
Government funding for biodefense was allocated to the USDA for
agricultural biodefense. Perhaps just as significant is the discrepancy
between funding for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS, the U.S.
national repository of antibiotics, vaccines, chemical antidotes,
antitoxins, and other critical medical equipment and supplies), $510M)
\17\ when compared to its sister entity, the National Veterinary
Stockpile (NVS, <$4M). Likewise, in 2007, the Laboratory Response
Network had an annual budget of approximately $50M \18\ while the
animal health laboratory equivalent (the National Animal Health
Laboratory Network (NAHLN) receives only $6M annually to support its
operations. If the nation is to establish a robust biodefense strategy
that includes a commitment to institutionalize the ``One Health''
concept, funding levels must be increased to the agricultural sector
and strategically utilized. Only then will robust interdisciplinary
research programs and MCM development that include U.S. agriculture
begin to keep pace with and complement ongoing activities within the
human health and public health biodefense program. Of course,
appropriate metrics and accountability of the dollars must accompany
any increase in funding and this could be accomplished by an
interagency/industry panel such as the recently suggested White House
Biodefense Coordination Council.\19\
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\17\ Federal Agency Biodefense Funding, FY2013-FY2014. Biosecurity
and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science. Volume
11, Number 2, 2013. Pp. 196-216.
\18\ State Public Health Laboratories: Sustaining Preparedness in
an Unstable Environment. March 2009, Association of Public Health
Laboratories.
\19\ A National Blueprint for Biodefense. A Bipartisan Report of
the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense. October 2015.
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Conclusions
The U.S. agricultural sector is critically important and intimately
linked to the national security of the United States. The agricultural
and allied industries are leaders in world food production and provide
the citizens of the U.S. the safest, most affordable food supply on the
globe. At the same time, these industries are under tremendous
pressures from external forces and as such, they are also extremely
vulnerable to a wide-range of biological threats. Obviously, protection
of this critical infrastructure is vital to maintaining a safe,
affordable, and secure food supply, protecting public health from
emerging and zoonotic diseases, and maintaining social and political
stability at home.
Since the events of 2001 and the implementation of several key
homeland security presidential directives, we have made significant
advances in preparing our agricultural sector to face the challenges
posed by a natural or intentional (agro-terrorism) introduction of a
biological agent. However, as demonstrated recently during the PEDV,
HPAI and EBOV outbreaks, we are often reactive in nature and less
proactive when it comes to preparing for the next emerging biological
threat. As such, it is critically important that the U.S. government
and its private partners come together and work to add both a sense of
urgency and direction to the nation's biodefense preparedness efforts.
The recent report from the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense (A
National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership and Major Reform Needed
to Optimize Efforts [20]) provided strong recommendations
for building a blueprint to address our nation's gaps. The report's
authors called for appointing a central leader with the authority to
institutionalize biodefense and the ``One Health'' initiative. In
addition, the authors recommended the formation of a White House
biodefense coordination council composed of representatives from
Federal agencies, stakeholders and private industry. The formation of a
biodefense panel would allow for greater coordination and provide a
platform for the development of a more cohesive and collaborative
national biodefense strategy. Furthermore, a leader and/or council that
could assemble a robust team of Federal and industry partners could
help lower barriers that prevent our ability to truly implement the
``One Health'' initiative. Barriers to this could be overcome with
time, collaboration, interdisciplinary programs and budgets to support
and incentivize working together to prepare our nation for the next
emerging disease event. Indeed, the One Health concept must be
understood, adopted and become part of the fabric of the way in which
we approach biodefense.
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\[20]\ [A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership and Major
Reforms Needed To Optimize Efforts, Blue Ribbon Study Panel on
Biodefense, October 28, 2015.http://www.biodefensestudy.org/SiteAssets/
Pages/default/1425-2139_BRSP_Report_100815b%5b1%
5d%5b6%5d.pdf]
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Finally, Chairman Conaway, Vice Chairman Neugebauer, Ranking Member
Peterson, and Members of the House Committee on Agriculture, I want to
thank you for this opportunity to speak to you regarding the importance
of agriculture to national security. I look forward to your questions.
The Chairman. I thank our witnesses this morning.
The chair would remind Members they will be recognized for
questioning in order of seniority for Members who were here at
the start of the hearing. After that, Members will be
recognized in order of arrival. I appreciate the Members'
understanding.
In a break from the norm, I am going to recognize Mr. Kelly
to take my 5 minutes. He normally has to wait, he and Mr.
Newhouse have to wait, so my 5 minutes will be taken up by Mr.
Kelly.
Mr. Kelly, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
witnesses. Thank you, Doctor, for your service, and,
Ambassador, for yours also.
Very briefly, I never got to see you in Iraq, but I was
over there at the same time that you were. And most of this
focuses on the defense or making sure that we protect our
national interests in agriculture. But there is also a very
strategic interest in the way that we use agriculture as a
tool, as an offensive tool to help us in our strategic
interests overseas. I had a young captain, who was older than
me, but a captain in Iraq, Captain Jessie Cornelius, who was an
agriculture teacher at home, during my first tour in Iraq, and
I dealt mostly with the Al-Hillah Embassy there, but he was
very, very good in understanding how we could use agriculture
as an offensive tool to help plug into the culture there in
Iraq and help them learn how to irrigate better. So I would be
interested not just in the defensive aspects, but how we can
use agriculture either in combination with our military units,
or also as civilian organizations to strategically help the
United States in other regions.
Mr. Negroponte. Right. I think your point about using it as
a tool is right on the mark in the sense that these countries
have to also try to take a chapter out of our book.
If there wasn't so much corruption in a lot of these
countries, surely they would have used more of their resources.
I am thinking of states that are failing and are not meeting
the needs of their population, and where the subsistence
farmers are leaving the countryside, leaving the country of
Syria, for example. If they had had more stable institutions
and invested some of that money in developing their
agriculture, having an extension service, if you spend all your
money, like Saddam did, on building palaces, there isn't much
left for improving the irrigation system. Governance, after
all, is a really critical issue in all of this. So absolutely,
there is a lot to do in encouraging supply chain development,
various kinds of techniques, and here we are very much a good
example for the rest of the world, a strong agricultural
education system. You can't just say that farming is for
uneducated people, and carry around that sort of social
prejudice in your mind. You have to help farmers become smart
like everybody else, because that is the new world we are
operating in.
Dr. Beckham. I would just say that, yes, absolutely, it is
incredibly important when working internationally that we
utilize agriculture to develop relationships. It helps us work
to develop those relationships, understanding what is going on,
on the ground, and developing those relationships helps us
gather intelligence of the diseases that are out there,
obviously, that could come to the U.S.
I know the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service and APHIS do
work a lot internationally, as well as universities are
spending a lot of time internationally training folks on
protecting their animals from diseases, and many of the
zoonotic diseases as well. But education and extension and
helping folks set up and understand how those diseases are
affecting their populations are critically important for us to
maintain our national security, but also for us to help folks
on an international level. So I would agree.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you. And then, Ambassador, just very
briefly, U.S. agriculture is critical to our infrastructure
here in the United States. A nation that can feed itself is a
nation that can survive anything--logistics. What do you see as
our major vulnerabilities to outside threats, in a minute
please?
Mr. Negroponte. Vulnerability in--I didn't catch the last
part. Major vulnerability?
Mr. Kelly. From outside threats.
Mr. Negroponte. With respect to our agriculture here in the
United States? Well, I suppose you could probably think of
several. One, of course, would be if the lanes of communication
breakdown somehow, the trade routes around the world. So that
is an important national security aspect. If some of our allied
countries experience serious agricultural failures, that could
be prejudicial if it were one of the NATO countries or Japan or
South Korea or Australia. So indirectly, we would be affected
by that. And then, of course, we have been talking about the
threat of disease if, particularly animal disease, were to come
into the country.
We had some very successful programs in Mexico that go back
half a century, like defeating the Screwworm disease in Texas
and pushing it into Mexico, and ultimately, during the time I
was there about 25 years ago, ultimately pushing the Screwworm
entirely out of Mexico itself and down into the Central
American Isthmus. That was an example of very successful
international cooperation between us and other countries on
defeating a very serious animal disease.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time----
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Peterson, 5 minutes.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ambassador, in your testimony you spoke about a global
trend being skepticism of science. And it is interesting to me
that consumers seem to embrace technology in every other part
of their lives, with the exception of the food they eat. Is
there anything we can do to reverse this trend?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, it has been a major challenge for our
scientific community and for some of our advanced agro-
scientific industrial companies, like Monsanto and others. We
seem to run into that issue more in Europe than anywhere else,
although the countries that are also under the influence of
Europe and the influence of their assistance programs as well.
You have to keep pressing these issues in trade
discussions. I think that there has to be more and more
dialogue. Clearly, modern science and biotechnology has an
important role to play in increasing agricultural production,
and helping protect agricultural products and crops and plants
from disease. I think it is a question of continued education
and dialogue between the scientific communities of the
countries concerned. And over time, I suspect, especially if,
as we predict, the world population is going to go to nine
billion people, and agricultural production globally by 2050
has to increase by 50 or 70 percent, people are going to
finally have to accept that science is our friend in this
enterprise.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you.
Dr. Beckham, you have talked about the lack of adequate
funding for research, and I also wonder if we are doing an
adequate job in terms of understanding the vulnerability that
we are creating by the increase in trade. It seems to me that
we have exposed ourselves by opening up the economy to allow
trade with countries that don't have the same standards that we
do, and I am not sure we have the resources in place to make
sure that they are doing what they should do before that stuff
comes in. I was wondering what you think about the whole issue
of funding being adequate to address these concerns. Obviously,
the high-path avian influenza, you can't do much about the
ducks coming in from Canada, I don't think there is any way to
intercept them. They can shoot them in Arkansas, but other than
that I am concerned that we are not keeping up with the
research and other aspects to combat the threat that is out
there.
Dr. Beckham. So I would agree with you. If you take a look
at the funding that goes to agriculture, and one of the things
that I pointed out, that there was a large discrepancy between
the ag biodefense funding; between the biodefense funding that
goes to HHS and that the monies go to ag, we really struggle to
have the means available to us to develop countermeasures to
combat things, like Foot and Mouth Disease, African Swine
Fever, which is an emerging disease, we saw what PEDv did to
the swine industry. Just having the ability to be flexible
enough and to rapidly move with resources to address those
issues, to implement robust biosurveillance capabilities, the
IT infrastructure to support that, to incentivize our
producers. We need resources to address all of those types of
things and all of those countermeasures.
I believe that having a budget, as small as it is, to
address developing vaccines, to incentivize our public
partners, our private partners to address those, to take on
that vaccine production that clearly has no market here in the
U.S., those are the types of things that we are going to have
to address. And that is going to require more resources to go
toward agricultural research.
The same thing with Ebola virus. When the virus came into
the country back in 2014, we had a companion animal that was
potentially exposed, and we had no idea what the result of that
was going to be and how we were going to handle that, and we
had no medical countermeasures to address that for animals as
well. So we need to increase our research. I pointed out the
One Health component. That is critically important because most
of these diseases are zoonotic and we need to be able to
address that, and we need to be able to develop countermeasures
that are effective to stamp it out in the animal population
before it gets to the human population.
And so we are in desperate need of additional resources on
the agricultural side. Thanks.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you.
I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. King, for 5 minutes.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the
witnesses.
And I turn now to Ambassador Negroponte. I want to
especially thank you for your service to this country; a long
and varied service in extraordinary places. And we did first
meet in Iraq, and I listened to the exchange here, Mr. Kelly,
and it occurred to me not only did Saddam not spend any money
on irrigation, but he shut the water off to the swamp Arabs to
dry them out.
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. King. And so I will restrain my following comment on
that and broaden this discussion out a little bit.
And that is, as difficult as it is for us here in the
United States to get this right, and I have concerns about
people who are trained inadvertently spreading high-path. AI,
for example, I am not alleging that--concerns about it, even if
we get it right in the United States, what is the degree of
difficulty to get the educational system up for disease
containment in other countries and around the world? We are
talking about a global reach to this. That is a big question.
But maybe in the center of that question could be, is there a
country anywhere in the world that comes close to getting this
right that we can model some things off of?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, I am going to defer to Dr. Beckham on
this, but I would say that the countries we can work with,
generally speaking I would say, would be our allied countries,
like in Europe and in Japan and Korea, Israel, where they have
levels of education and training and experience that are
similar in most ways to ours. There may be differences, but
they are going to be of just degree only. So it is the advanced
technological and scientific world with the powerful education
systems that have to work together in support of trying to help
build these capabilities elsewhere in the world. But I wouldn't
be very optimistic in a country like Syria or Somalia that is
confronting civil war that, let alone just get a family doctor
or just a rudimentarily trained veterinarian is probably a huge
challenge for them, but to get these sophisticated capabilities
I would have thought might be quite difficult.
Mr. King. I would accept that recommendation, as I do
almost all of yours, and turn to Dr. Beckham for her response.
Mr. Negroponte. I am sorry.
Dr. Beckham. Thank you. So it is a complex question, and I
would say that we do a lot to educate our veterinarians on the
role that they play in responding to these outbreaks. I don't
think that we are doing enough to continue that education out
in the field. We have limited resources. We have right now,
obviously, the foreign animal disease diagnostic course that is
taught at Plum Island. We can send folks up to that to get
trained on what these diseases look like, we can send them up
and get them trained on how to collect samples and how to get
testing done, but we don't do a really good job of providing
continuing education out in the long-run for our veterinarians
in the field so that they know what to do and how to handle
these diseases when they get out there. We need to do that more
broadly. And that is with our first responders as well, we need
to be educating them either on the foreign animal disease or on
the zoonotic disease side.
Obviously, in the educational system and in veterinarian
schools, we do educate them on what these diseases look like,
that is part of the curriculum, but again, we can do more on
that end, and we can do more, more broadly for the first
responders.
Mr. King. Well----
Dr. Beckham. We do work with--go ahead, sorry.
Mr. King. Thank you. I would just point out that with the
high-path AI, we were looking at a taxpayer expense of a number
that approaches or perhaps exceeds $1 billion----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Mr. King.--and that is not the impact on the industry
expense, just taxpayer expense. Your projected potential
liability for a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, which I
understood to be for the United States, $188 billion in your
testimony?
Dr. Beckham. For the Midwest.
Mr. King. Okay. Just for the Midwest?
Dr. Beckham. Right.
Mr. King. And so looking at the magnitude of that, what is
your recommendation on livestock identification traceability,
and an ability to be able to reduce the amount of quarantine we
have if we are effective in our identification and
traceability?
Dr. Beckham. So obviously, that impact comes from the
number of animals that you have to stamp out or put down or
depopulate. It also comes from the inability of sectors to move
their products and their animals. And we know that with, for
instance, the swine industry, they are very integrated, they
need to be able to move animals and animal products. So that is
where you see those types of numbers start to build up, and
that is the impact to the industries, and you well know this.
As far as being able to do traceability, obviously, during
any kind of disease outbreak, you have to be able to quickly do
trace forwards and trace backs, understand where those animals
have come from and where they are going to. And the only way
that you are going to be able to do that is have robust records
that don't take you days in a state animal health official's
office to flip through boxes to get to that. So we need some
sort of system, much like what the swine industry has
implemented, the premise ID system, that can reduce that number
of days to get back to movements of animals and animal
products.
Mr. King. Just in conclusion, digital real-time and
industry-driven.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. McGovern, 5 minutes.
Mr. McGovern. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
both for being here. I appreciate it.
Ambassador, I am a big fan of your wife, Diana, by the way.
Mr. Negroponte. Okay.
Mr. McGovern. I just want to say that for the record.
This whole topic of how agriculture relates to our national
security is important because usually when we talk about
national security, we usually only talk about the military
relationship to it. Because a good robust agriculture leads to
food security, leads to more stability in other countries,
leads to enhancing our own security. We have some great
programs out there to help people in other parts of the world
create sustainable agriculture to help feed their communities.
That is a good thing. Programs like Feed the Future come to
mind.
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. McGovern. And we have programs like Food for Peace, the
McGovern-Dole School Feeding Program. I visited a pilot program
in Colombia several years ago when Ambassador Patterson was the
ambassador----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. McGovern.--and this is a program where we provide food
to entice kids to go to school. And a young mother told me
about her son who is 11 years old, who every day they tried to
recruit him for the FARC guerillas or the paramilitaries to
join one of the armed actors, and they promised the mother they
would feed the kid.
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. McGovern. And now, she said because of this program
that the U.S. had created, I don't have to make that choice, my
son is in school, being fed nutritious food, learning how to
read and write, and hopefully he will get out of the slum that
they were living in. And so it seems to me the more we can kind
of focus on this, the more people around the world like us, and
the more people like us, the less they want to do harm to us.
It is not a radical idea.
But I just wanted to bring up one point here. I think we
also have to be looking at food security at the domestic level
as a national security issue. Mission Readiness, a nonpartisan
national security organization made up of retired admirals,
generals, and other military leaders, has taken an active role
in promoting healthy nutrition among out nation's kids and
military families. They found that \1/3\ of American children
and teens are now obese or overweight, and nearly \1/4\ of
Americans aged 17 to 24 are too overweight to serve in our
military. The hard reality is that obesity and hunger are often
two sides of the same coin, with unhealthy high calorie foods
cheaper, and fresh fruits and vegetables more expensive. And
they talked about the importance of our school feeding
programs.
Interestingly enough, our school lunch programs started in
large part because young people were undernourished, and the
military leaders were concerned about their fitness for service
during World War II. So I would just be curious to hear any
comments you have about the fact that in response to what
Mission Readiness has said and how it relates to our security,
that we are not even providing our own people the quality food
that makes them ready for the military.
Mr. Negroponte. Right. Well, of course, I am not
particularly expert on that subject. I guess what I would say
is just as a citizen, I am aware of the debate that goes on on
these subjects and the tremendous amount of discussion that is
happening around the subject of people's diets, and also the
diets of people at different income levels. There seems to be a
correlation between poor diet and obesity, and high incidents
of diabetes and these kinds of things amongst lower-income
groups, and that is something where there needs to be greater
public awareness about so that it can be dealt with in our own
society. We can also play a leadership role, our academic
community, our research community can play a leadership role in
influencing thinking on these subjects, both here and abroad.
But to your point about the international agriculture, I do
think that having a strong agriculture in any given country is
going to be a real factor of stability. It is what is going to
root people in the countryside, it is going to keep them from
depleting it and pouring into the cities, with all the problems
that that brings in terms of creation of slums and so forth.
And it is going to increase their sense of self-sufficiency and
self-worth. I think that having a healthy agriculture can be a
really vital part of the political and security strength of an
individual country, and we can point to various examples around
the world of that being true.
Mr. McGovern. Thank you.
The Chairman. Does the gentleman yield back?
Mr. McGovern. Yes.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Gibbs, 5 minutes.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
witnesses. It is interesting.
Ambassador, you recollect a little bit about what has
happened in the past. Obviously, national security and economic
security in agriculture all fit together, everybody is in
agreement with that, but I want to take a little bit of a
different take. When you talk about this mechanism of
technology, science, and I don't think enough people realize
this so I am going to say it, but I can give you many examples,
but the best example I have is corn production. In 1950, the
U.S. national average of corn was 50 bushels an acre. When I
started farming in 1975, to have a 100 bushel corn crop was
considered good. That was to become my goal. Now we are doing
almost twice that. And I don't know what the acres are that
have declined, but we know the tillable acres in this country
have been taken out of production--some acres have been taken
out of production, obviously, urban sprawl and all that. And I
can remember not too many years ago a 10 billion bushel corn
crop was a big crop. Last 2 years, we had 14 billion bushel
corn crops. So if we weren't doing--if American agriculture
wasn't doing what we are doing we would have a food crisis
already----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. Gibbs.--because we have less land to get that food
from, and so our production has increased. And that is why
people need to realize that it is science that is a big part of
that, and if we are going to go forward, we have to adopt the
science, we have to have sound science, and we have to make
sure it is safe science, no disagreement about that. I think
that our conversation and our trade talks and everything we do,
we really need to emphasize that the reason we have food
security is because American agriculture production has been
able to increase based on technology and best managed practices
and all that. So I just wanted to reemphasize that point. And I
don't know if you want to expand on that or not.
Mr. Negroponte. Well, just to say it is absolutely true,
and also if you look at countries that are less well-off, very
often the cost of the food basket is 20, 30, 40----
Mr. Gibbs. Yes.
Mr. Negroponte.--and in extreme cases, even up to 60 or 70
percent of the family budget. Well, then at that point, you
can't benefit from all the other elements of global prosperity
in any way, shape or form. People themselves are going to get
the message, especially in these enlarged countries that are
looking to feed huge numbers of people, whether it is India or
China or others, and it is going to be demanded by the
populations of the world and the farmers.
Mr. Gibbs. Well, when you are hungry, you only have one
problem.
Mr. Negroponte. Right.
Mr. Gibbs. You know.
Mr. Negroponte. That is correct.
Mr. Gibbs. We have many problems in this country because we
are not hungry, I guess.
Dr. Beckham, we talk about funding for the zoonotic
diseases, diseases passed from animals to humans, and in your
testimony that is on the increase or potential increase, 75
percent. You talk about the need for funding for USDA and that.
How is the relationship between the USDA agency, APHIS, and all
that work to prevent swine flu, avian flu, and all that, work
with CDC? Does that relationship need to be better, how do you
see that relationship on the human side versus the animal side
with our scientists and the CDC?
Dr. Beckham. Sure. So USDA, APHIS does have detailees that
are at the CDC and that work in the zoonotic disease branch
there, and during the Ebola virus outbreak it worked very well.
There was a lot of communication between the USDA and the CDC,
and they really quickly assembled a team to help us handle and
put together procedures for handling animals that could be
exposed. So we worked very well because we had to work across
the human-animal interface.
Having said that, we were assembling those teams pretty
much with the help of AVMA on the fly, and so although it
worked well, all too often we are very reactive, and putting
something in place that is more of a structure around creating
a joint team that is working on the preparedness side and not
necessarily reactive would be good. That is going to require
that the human health component see the animal health component
as just as important, and that is going to require that there
is some oversight that incentivizes folks to start developing
policies and procedures, and doing research, interdisciplinary
research. There are really critical challenges that we in the
animal world need to be working with our human counterparts to
address before they happen, not after they happen. So since the
Ebola virus outbreak, there is research going on more----
Mr. Gibbs. We might have a----
Dr. Beckham.--probably more research will come from that.
Mr. Gibbs.--coordination issue to make sure that our human
and animal diseases scientists know the importance of what can
happen on the animal side----
Dr. Beckham. Right.
Mr. Gibbs.--and that interaction. So that might take some
leadership from Congress.
Dr. Beckham. Right. Some incentivization.
Mr. Gibbs. Okay.
All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Plaskett, 5 minutes.
Ms. Plaskett. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.
I was very interested in this topic, and I am very grateful
to the Chairman and Ranking Member for having this discussion.
One of the things that one of my colleagues talked about were
the countries that do this well. What are the countries that we
feel present the most instability and are the biggest threats
and concerns to the United States in terms of importing food
into this country?
Mr. Negroponte. You want to----
Dr. Beckham. Well, I can address it from the animal disease
perspective, because that is a serious threat to our food
supply.
So looking at areas of the world that have a lot of
instability, and where the diseases that we are most concerned
about are occurring, I mean you would have to take a look at
the Middle East, you would have to take a look at Southeast
Asia. Those are all areas, especially the Middle East, where
you are seeing a lot of Foot and Mouth Disease moving across
borders. You see a lot of African Swine Fever that is an
emerging disease that is threatening Europe right now. If you
take a look at how animals move in those regions, obviously,
again, no borders----
Ms. Plaskett. Yes.
Dr. Beckham.--disease knows no borders. Those are real
threats to our industry here because once something like that
comes into the U.S., we are going to have a mess on our hands.
PEDv actually got into the United States as well, and we are
not exactly sure at this point how it came in. There are some
theories about how PEDv came in. I think the best thing that we
can do right now is start to scan the horizon, develop disease
matrixes, look at what is happening overseas in areas that we
are particularly concerned with, and get a good grasp on things
that we should be looking forward to. Again, being proactive
instead of reactive in those regions.
Ms. Plaskett. Okay, thank you.
Ambassador, did you have anything to add on that?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, as far as the--identifying specific--
--
Ms. Plaskett. Yes.
Mr. Negroponte.--countries, I really don't, but I would say
that in areas where we have actually engaged in discussions or
trade talks, for example, I know that in the case of Mexico we
had a lot of issues with Mexico about animal and plant health,
and we were able to work our way through those issues, through
dialogue, through ultimately having a trade agreement. And I
can think of fruits and vegetables that were hard to get your
hands on----
Ms. Plaskett. Right.
Mr. Negroponte.--before the North American Free Trade
Agreement that we can now buy in the grocery stores here in
this country. These issues are susceptible to solution, but the
more dramatic cases of severe disease, I just wouldn't know
what specific additional countries to mention.
Ms. Plaskett. So when we talk about that and look at the
other countries that pose those threats, is the fear, or the
concern, more domestic, or is it in the food supplies or food
coming from other countries? What is a bigger threat, do we
believe, our own domestic possibility of disease and----
Mr. Negroponte. Well, we----
Ms. Plaskett.--and food contamination----
Mr. Negroponte. Right.
Ms. Plaskett.--or overseas and food that is imported here?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, they are obviously interrelated, but
it seems to me that as government--I am no longer a government
official, but as somebody working on behalf of the United
States, I would put priority on defending our own very precious
agricultural system against these threats. So it emphasizes the
importance of having constant surveillance and monitoring and
tracking, and maintaining those capabilities. We were talking
about earlier, there is a whole generation of people who are
retiring now and it is important that those professionals and
those experts be replenished in the supply of people working in
our government who can help us defend against these threats.
Ms. Plaskett. Right. Well, one of the things I am
interested in when I ask this question is, in the Virgin
Islands, most of our food is imported. We have a lot of our
processed foods and our meats that are imported. And my concern
is as to what the specific areas should be doing about food
that is imported, but also we then have the real issue of those
foods that we try to export having to deal with Customs and
Border Protection and dealing with inspections that then cause
foods to go bad.
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. But the last thing that you talked about that
I wanted to see if you would touch on is water security,
because I as well, living on an island where it is water, water
everywhere and not a drop to drink----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett.--having a water supply that not only
irrigates but also is drinkable water, and water that can
sustain people over a protracted period of time----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett.--is something that we think about quite
often.
Mr. Negroponte. Right, and it is a serious problem,
especially acute in the Middle East and in some parts of our
own country, but the Middle East is the area where you are
seeing its greatest manifestations. And hopefully, we will
learn the necessary lessons from that.
Dr. Beckham did you want to add something on the----
Dr. Beckham. No.
Mr. Negroponte. Okay. All right.
The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Crawford, 5 minutes.
Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador, Dr.
Beckham, thank you for being here.
Ambassador--actually, this is probably a question for both
of you. Well, I will start with you, Ambassador. In 2013, the
EPA released some personally identifiable information of
poultry and livestock producers, and specifically, they had
geospatial business, individual data, that was released
pursuant to a FOIA request by environmental groups. USDA and
DHHS have expressed some concern that release of this type of
information poses a biosecurity risk. I certainly would agree
with that.
Do you agree that the aggregation and dissemination of
detailed information on livestock facilities can pose a threat
to bioterrorism, and what would you say to the EPA, and would
you support proposals to caution them from that type of
behavior in the future?
Mr. Negroponte. Boy, well, we live in a society where
Google publishes pictures of my front yard and the people who
walk past it, so I don't know. You come up against this problem
of freedom of information in this country, including what is
being obtained through aerial reconnaissance of various sorts.
I would have to look at the specifics before I were to give you
a really strong opinion on that.
Mr. Crawford. Dr. Beckham?
Dr. Beckham. Obviously, data confidentiality is incredibly
important to our industries, and I would caution them against
that.
I think it has been one of the things that has hampered
biosurveillance in this country. There needs to be a way that
we can move forward with a robust biosurveillance program, but
at the same time, we need to be able to protect the data
confidentiality of our industries, and we need to assure them
that we can do that. And that is going to be a difficult road,
going forward, but it is one that can be done if we work with
the industries closely and build it from the ground up with the
industries themselves. They more than anybody want to protect
their animals against disease, and again, working from the
ground up with them to develop a system that perhaps is not
housed within the U.S. Government, but maybe housed somewhere
else, where you could ensure them the protection from FOIA and
the protection from those data leaks, are going to be
critically important.
There are some projects underway now that are looking at
different ways of doing that, and they should be continued to
be funded and supported, and they should continue to work
closely with the industries as they are doing right now.
Mr. Crawford. Dr. Beckham, there is a lot of attention, or
at least the idea of the notion of failures of imagination when
it comes to national security issues, I think that we can say
that probably there was failure of imagination in regards to 9/
11. Who would have ever thought that something like that would
ever happen? So my thought is that if I can conjure up ideas to
threaten our food supply, for example, to introduce Foot and
Mouth Disease in a feedlot, surely others who have ideas of
threatening our food supply, and thereby threatening our
national security, have thought of this. Are we failing in
failure of imagination, are we taking these things into
consideration, what protocols are in place to address that? I
am not a devious-type person, but I can come up with these
ideas, so I know that folks that are seeking ways to harm us
certainly have ideas like that. So I would like to hear from
you, and then, Ambassador, your thoughts on that as well.
Dr. Beckham. So I don't think we are failing. I think we
have made a lot of progress since 2001, and the USDA and
Department of Homeland Security in the ag area, especially for
livestock, have worked to make significant progress, that we
just weren't there in 2001. So I don't think that we are
failing. I think that we need to build on what we have done,
and we need to more closely integrate ourselves with the public
health sector, because I am bringing that back to the One
Health. Obviously, Foot and Mouth is a huge concern, and it
would not be hard to do. And we have made significant progress.
We have the first vaccine that has been licensed that you can
make within the United States, and so that is great, but we
have that vaccine for one serotype. And while there has been
additional research and there has been more vaccines for
additional serotypes in the queue, again, we are still lagging
behind on moving that innovation forward for just that disease.
But then you take a look at ASF, PEDv, AI, all the other
threats to the industry, so we are still lagging behind in
that. Not to mention the biosurveillance that I talked about
before. The integrated biosurveillance system is going to be
critically important to help us get a leg-up on that early
detection. Obviously, the faster you can detect something like
that if it is introduced into a feedlot, the faster you are
going to be able to control it. That is going to be really
important. That is going to require additional funding to the
National Animal Health Laboratory Network. It is going to
require additional funding into the biosurveillance programs
that I have talked about. And so in some of those areas we are
not failing so much as we just need a more coordinated
approach, and we need more resources to go in to getting us
there faster, because it inevitably will happen. I mean we have
been free from FMD since 1929. Not hard to introduce it. It is
in all the areas that we just previously talked about. We
prepare ourselves for both the natural and the intentional
introduction, and we have to look at it from both perspectives,
right, so we are preparing ourselves for both. We have built
bio-forensics capabilities in the country for attribution,
should we need that.
Again, we are not failing. I think we could do more, but we
certainly are not failing.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Ms. Adams, 5 minutes.
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to both of
you for your testimony today.
The recent outbreak of avian flu was highly detrimental for
egg prices in the U.S., which negatively impacts consumers and
our egg users in the baking and restaurant industry. Worse,
disruptions in food supply hurt our most vulnerable.
Ms. Beckham, while we can't stop every pathogen that
travels through our ports of entry, what investments can we
make to mitigate the damage from animal diseases that harm our
nation's food?
Dr. Beckham. Okay. So, yes, you are right, avian influenza
took an impact. It may take an impact on the turkeys we have at
Thanksgiving this year as well.
The things that we can do, biosurveillance, I am going to
go back to it, having a robust biosurveillance system, a robust
early detection system, investing in the National Animal Health
Laboratory Network, coordinating better with our public health
sector, investing in more vaccine and research on the upfront
end so that we are not reactive but we are proactive, training
our first responders, coordinating with our state and local
entities. Doing all of those types of things are going to help
us better prepare. The earlier we detect it, the better we are
going to be able to control it, and the faster we are going to
be able to get it under control. And so doing all of those
things will help us do that, and that is just absolutely where
we have to continue to go.
Ms. Adams. Thank you very much. And let me apologize for
not referring to you properly, Dr. Beckham.
The 12th District, which is the district that I represent
in North Carolina, is home to my alma mater, North Carolina A&T
State University, which includes the Plant Biotechnology
Research Lab at Carver Hall on the campus. What opportunities
are there for 1890 institutions to participate in research
against crop diseases?
Dr. Beckham. I can speak to opportunities with livestock
diseases. I know that there are opportunities in funding,
opportunities for those colleges to invest and work within the
system, to do research for vaccines, do youth educational
training opportunities, to train first responders, K through 12
programs as well. So there are plenty of those types of
opportunities out there. And when I was at Texas A&M, we did
partner quite a bit to do that type of research with partners
from 1890 universities.
Ms. Adams. Okay. And finally, Dr. Beckham, one of the major
diseases that concerns farmers and the agriculture industry is
an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in the United States, and
you have made reference to that. If an outbreak occurred in
North Carolina, how quickly and effectively could a vaccine be
developed for U.S. livestock?
Dr. Beckham. Okay, as you know, we have the North American
Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank, in which we host here
within the U.S., and we have antigen concentrates in that
vaccine bank. If we were to have to deploy that, obviously,
there is a process; you would have to detect Foot and Mouth,
you would have to identify what the serotype of the Foot and
Mouth Disease is because the vaccines are specific for each
serotype. Once that has been done at Plum Island, then the
Secretary of Agriculture has to activate the North American
Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank. That antigen is then
shipped over to Europe, prepared into a vaccine, and then
shipped back. So we are talking within 3 to 5 days of a
confirmation would we be ready to deploy vaccine. It could be
more along the lines of the 5 days.
Recently, I am also aware that USDA has moved to get access
to supplies that are already prepared, and they are doing the
safety testing on those vaccines as well so that they would be
readily available, there wouldn't be a need to ship the antigen
across the ocean to get it prepared into vaccine. And so there
has been some of that movement as well. So DHHS, in
coordination with USDA, are looking at different methods to
have vaccine more readily available in a quicker fashion.
Again, some of that is how quick you detect it and then how
fast you confirm what it is, and you can serotype it and then
get moving on the bank.
Ms. Adams. Great. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Abraham, 5 minutes.
Mr. Abraham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Beckham, you and
I have a little commonality, being a veterinarian, and an M.D.
Also, I am very interested and impressed with your knowledge on
the zoonotic diseases. And as you said in your testimony that
75 percent of the emerging pathogens are probably zoonotic in
nature. And my concern is on the legislative front, this large
discrepancy between DHHS and the USDA as far as biodefense
allocations. Why do you think they--there is that wide chasm
between both agencies, because they are fighting, hopefully,
the same type of entity, why the discrepancy between the USDA
and the DHHS as far as funding?
Dr. Beckham. I don't think I can answer why because,
obviously, I am not involved in the budget preparation and so
forth. I, obviously, think there needs to be a hard look at
that. And again, I take it back to that institutionalization of
One Health concept about how you can incentivize those two
agencies to work closer together, and to develop medical
countermeasures for the zoonotic diseases.
Mr. Abraham. Yes.
Dr. Beckham. And in order to do that, I believe that you
are going to have to have funding to incentivize more
interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams.
Mr. Abraham. Well, other than a major outbreak, which----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Mr. Abraham.--hope never happens----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Mr. Abraham.--what can we do as legislators to somewhat
open the eyes of Congress to send more money to the USDA and
their prevention program? Is there any program, anything we can
jump on board with?
Dr. Beckham. I think there could be a better centralized
coordination approach, perhaps an appointment of someone that
is over biodefense specifically that coordinates within an
interagency group to start putting objectives and putting
metrics in place. Then also funding increases or funding that
is generically out there that incentivizes research that is
done in a multidisciplinary fashion so that funding just
doesn't go to one agency, and then there is no crosstalk
between DHHS and USDA, but that there is funding out there that
is available for common grants, whether it is in academia, USDA
or DHHS, to address those in a more multidisciplinary fashion,
but the fashion has to go for the multidisciplinary approach.
Mr. Abraham. All right. And let me, I guess, pony on Mr.
Crawford's question. As far as the individual farming entities,
what they can do. Do we, as farmers and ranchers of the
country, do they form cooperatives for biodefense measures?
Where would you, if you could cherry-pick what you would do for
our individual large and smaller farmers, ranchers----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Mr. Abraham.--as far as prevention, what would you say?
Dr. Beckham. It is broad. What would I do for farmers for
prevention? I believe educational opportunities in biosecurity,
continuing to develop the business continuity planning efforts
and explaining to them why it is important for them to
participate in that, and the biosurveillance. I go back to all
of those things. The biosurveillance, education for our farmers
on the importance of biosecurity. While, obviously, the larger
companies understand that, there are still large gaps in
biosecurity, and even though we have business continuity
planning efforts underway for the industries, and some of them
have already been developed, they have not been implemented.
And so that is a bigger problem is how you implement those
business continuity planning efforts. Those types of activities
within the industry itself will help get them better prepared.
And then the other thing is involving them in decision-making,
and making sure they are at the table. Talking about
biosurveillance, working with the industries themselves. They
want to participate, they want to be protected, but how can we
do that and protect their data, how can we do that and protect
their confidentiality, what does that look like. And so this is
a role that academia has played recently, is kind of being the
go-between between the industries themselves and the Federal
Government. And in some ways that has worked really well
because the industries are more likely to trust the land-grant
universities. And when I was at Texas A&M, we actually worked
on a biosurveillance project where we worked closely with the
industries themselves and we were starting to get very good
reporting from veterinarians and the industries, and they
wanted to participate because they see the value in being able
to use that data along with the business continuity planning
data to allow them to move during a disease outbreak. And so if
we can continue to educate and if we can continue to work with
the industries one-on-one, and assure them that we want to work
with them and protect their data and educate them, those are
the things that will really help them in the middle of a
disease outbreak.
Mr. Abraham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am out of time.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Ms. Lujan Grisham, 5 minutes.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know many
of my colleagues, including Congressman King, really talked
about whether we are doing enough as we are importing, Dr.
Beckham, beef from other countries, and whether or not we are
doing everything that we can to ensure that we are not
reintroducing Foot and Mouth, and other zoonotic diseases, with
the viral capacity to really not just threaten our food supply
and the herds, but in my state, when I look at the agricultural
footprint and the value and importance of our cattle and beef
industry, we could lose whole herds and farms and ranchers.
That is something that certainly my constituents, and I know
not just in my state, but all of us hear a lot about and are
very, very concerned about. And while your efforts here to
educate and to do surveillance, and that public health
environment, I have to say I really applaud that we have a
robust surveillance, education, and monitoring system here.
But, as you were describing our abilities to do that outside of
the U.S., it is not as robust, and it seems to me that we have
a long way to go to create that kind of environment.
Is there anything else that you haven't had the time to hit
on that gives us more confidence, because I am beginning to
feel or be a little concerned that maybe that importation is a
bit premature, given that we don't have those mechanisms in
place in some of these other countries?
Dr. Beckham. So we have to rely on strong scientific
evidence that is either gathered from folks working on the
international level. I know specifically what you are referring
to. Obviously, risk analysis before importing any type of beef
into the United States should be done. It should be a robust
risk analysis based on scientific evidence. Industries need to
play a role in that. And so all of those types of things need
to occur.
We do work within the OIE, the World Organisation for
Animal Health. And in that structure there is reporting
requirements for notifiable diseases such as Foot and Mouth
Disease. But you are absolutely correct, I mean one missed step
in that and one introduction and we are going to lose an
industry or a significant part of an industry.
So going back, it would be good for us to be able to expand
to work with our international partners and develop
relationships, to expand our biosurveillance outside of the
U.S., which we talked about. The risk analyses, coming back to
that, have to be very robust. Even though we do have a system
here in the U.S., I wouldn't exactly yet call it robust.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. All right.
Mr. Beckham. I would say there is work still to do in the
biosurveillance part. And so we do have a lot of work to do.
And yes, it is a risk, and yes, we have to hold accountable the
strong scientific evidence behind the risk analysis.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. And I have no problem with the
scientific evidence----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Ms. Lujan Grisham.--and I appreciate your caution about my
statement that we have a robust system. In comparison to what I
think our reliance----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Ms. Lujan Grisham.--and security levels are around the
world, I would maybe say that my comments aren't so off-base. I
am----
Dr. Beckham. Right.
Ms. Lujan Grisham.--happy to congratulate any of our----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Ms. Lujan Grisham.--government partners, but I appreciate
your statement that we should be doing more, but I can't
imagine you don't have our support to do as much as you need to
be doing. I have no trouble with the way in which we use public
health measures and epidemiology and scientific evidence to
identify, treat, and prevent the occurrences, and certainly the
spread, but what are we doing that creates accountability? I am
not suggesting that we don't know what those other countries
should do, but how do we hold them accountable? What can
Congress do to make sure that that accountability is occurring
more than identifying these are the strategies that we expect
all these other countries--and if it is just a check, we did
all these things, what are we doing, and what can we do to
assure that there is real accountability in a global
marketplace?
Dr. Beckham. Again, we have to continue to work through our
delegate, the USDA, with OIE and the World Trade Organization.
Again, going back to the risk analysis, holding them
accountable, and if they are not adhering to the standards,
that we are able to verify those standards. It would be
incredibly----
Ms. Lujan Grisham. And----
Dr. Beckham.--important for us to be able to do that.
Ms. Lujan Grisham. All right. And with the limited time I
have left, Mr. Chairman, I would encourage the Committee to ask
USDA to write to us and identify exactly what we can do when we
suspect that these are not being followed, and to enhance those
efforts to the highest degree that we can, because it doesn't
seem to me like we are feeling very secure about our
accountability efforts.
The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady. She yields back.
Mr. Benishek, 5 minutes.
Mr. Benishek. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, thank you both
for being here. Amazing resumes.
Ambassador, you mentioned something to me that I didn't
quite understand, and that is that the plight of subsistence
farmers, you mentioned, in some of these foreign countries has
gotten worse because of global trade. Can you explain that to
me?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, in many, probably most cases, as
imported food supplies become available in various countries,
they come in at lower prices than the local subsistence farmers
can produce at. I gave the example of Mexico. The maize corn
farmers there simply couldn't compete with imported American
corn, so that ultimately had the effect of dislocating a lot of
those farmers. Now, they could go into other products but that
was what I meant.
Mr. Benishek. I guess I have a different idea of what
subsistence farming is then. I mean, to me, it was that they
are growing their own food.
Mr. Negroponte. Right.
Mr. Benishek. Does that mean they still couldn't grow their
food cheaper than they could buy it? I don't understand.
Mr. Negroponte. No. No, I see your point. I meant
subsistence in the sense of very small, low-level production
that was lots of, literally thousands of these kinds of farmers
who are growing their own food, but they are also supplying
some people in their environments, but a lot of them have gone
out of business as a result----
Mr. Benishek. All right.
Mr. Negroponte.--of these imports.
Mr. Benishek. Let me just go on then. Dr. Beckham, tell me
about this One Health thing that you mentioned a couple of
times, a little bit more. I am not sure I understand that
either.
Dr. Beckham. One Health is the idea that human health,
animal health, and environmental health are inextricably
linked. And this is true. Obviously, you see the food supply
directly impacting human health, disease impacting human
health. A lot of the diseases, again, come from animals. So the
concept of One Health is that working together across the
disciplines, across the boundaries, that we are able to address
the critical challenges that face us today globally. And so
that is the idea behind One Health.
One Health has been around for a very long time, but the
term most recently has started to gather more and more
momentum. I think as we saw, like I said, during the Ebola
virus outbreak, we knew we had a One Health issue, but all too
often sometimes, again, the human health side, obviously, as it
should, takes precedence. But there will be one day when we are
going to have an outbreak, and it is going to be very severe in
livestock or wildlife, and humans, and we are going to have to
look at how we address these things more from a holistic point
of view, because in today's world I don't believe that we can
just silo ourselves off and not address our issues and our
challenges from a more holistic point of view.
Mr. Benishek. I think many have said the United States
lacks a coordinated biodefense strategy. And what do you think
in the development of a coordinated biodefense strategy is one
or two of the most important things to do? You did mention
better coordination----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Mr. Benishek.--besides that, what else do you have to say?
Dr. Beckham. I think having a council or a core panel that
could coordinate biodefense activities across agencies, but
that would also reach out to our industry partners and our
stakeholders and bring people together to start looking at
multidisciplinary ways of addressing the challenges----
Mr. Benishek. We don't have anything like that now?
Dr. Beckham. No.
Mr. Benishek. Ambassador, do you have any comments on that
question?
Mr. Negroponte. I have been out of the government long
enough to not know what mechanisms actually exist at the
moment, but it is certainly a subject that people think about,
but I am not sure there is an actual mechanism that exists to
do that.
Mr. Benishek. Well, in your initial comments you talked
about the stability of the world in general, and the ability of
local governments to feed their people as a major factor in
that, and basically, you said in all your travels, agriculture
is always brought up. What can we do better to stabilize this?
What programs we have now and what can we improve----
Mr. Negroponte. Well----
Mr. Benishek.--to make that better?
Mr. Negroponte.--we do, of course, have problems. The
Agriculture Department has some, Feed the Future, and they
contribute to giving scholarships to people to come from other
countries. I think that is very important to the extent that
knowledge and expertise can be spread.
I think maintaining a presence, keeping eyes and ears of
the Agriculture Department around the world is important. I
think agricultural attaches are a great resource at the various
embassies we have around the world. The Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service, they have people abroad. I think that is
one of the issues that Dr. Beckham was alluding to, and also
the Congresswoman who was asking about how you hold people
accountable. We need to get those kinds of people out in the
field and serving at critical countries and embassies around
the world. For example, I know in the country of Nigeria, the
most populous country in Africa, the agricultural attaches'
office has been closed, and it is being covered as a regional
responsibility in one of the other embassies on the continent.
I think that is the kind of thing that maybe ought to be
reconsidered. We need a robust presence of both out general
agricultural experts and agricultural economists and our
scientific people as well.
Mr. Benishek. Thank you. I am----
The Chairman. The----
Mr. Benishek. I am out of time.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize Mr. Newhouse for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
being here this morning. I appreciate your testimony and I
appreciate both of your service.
I am hopeful that Americans think about their food supply,
but my guess is that they probably don't worry about it as much
as many of us do. We rely on importations of a lot of food to
make our food supply complete. With the potential of all kinds
of things that can happen in this world; wars or some kind of
an outbreak of some kind, do you think, Ambassador, should we
be making plans for more secure domestic food supplies as well
as farm inputs, and understanding that there is a balance of
other countries' agricultural industries depend on customers
abroad, but is there something more we should be doing to
secure our domestic food supply in case of an adverse event?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, I can't think of anything other than
working as we do as a matter of national policy to try to keep
the world a secure place. I mean that is going to be the best
way we do it. We are blessed by having a rich agriculture and
we are also blessed by having strong agricultural producers
nearby, such as Canada. Compared to countries that import a
substantial portion of their food needs, we are in quite a
privileged position.
Mr. Newhouse. Good shape, yes.
Any thoughts, Dr. Beckham?
Dr. Beckham. No, I would agree with that. I think we are in
a privileged position, and we are doing a good job of securing
the food system. I think we have, like I said, there is
probably more we can do, but----
Mr. Newhouse. Keep up what we are doing, basically.
Dr. Beckham. Keep up----
Mr. Newhouse. Yes.
Dr. Beckham.--and continue to move forward with the
innovation and the research, et cetera.
Mr. Newhouse. So I come from the State of Washington where
we have the notorious reputation, I guess, of being the place
of the cow that stole Christmas back in 2003 in the Mad Cow
Disease, which that was only a couple of miles from my home, by
the way. You talked about our biosurveillance and detection
systems, and made the clear point that they are not as robust
as they should be or could be.
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
Mr. Newhouse. So could you give us some thoughts about some
of the obstacles perhaps that are there, and some of the things
that maybe we could help impact to improve that?
Dr. Beckham. Sure. And let me say, I want to come back to
we have made a significant amount of progress.
Mr. Newhouse. Yes, all right. Right.
Dr. Beckham. We have the National Animal Health Laboratory
Network, we have the USDA supporting that network, DHHS
supporting, that we have developed new diagnostic technologies.
But what can we do? So early detection is always the key. So
continuing to support the known and supporting the known to a
higher level. In my testimony I pointed out what the LRN
funding is as opposed to the National Animal Health Laboratory
Network funding. And if you take a look at how those labs
operate, I mean we are key to seeing any zoonotic diseases
coming through those labs at any one point in time. So
definitely enhancing the funding to the National Animal Health
Laboratory Network. Biosurveillance, I come back to it,
biosurveillance, robust biosurveillance depends on obviously
the ability to get first responders involved, veterinarians out
in the field collecting information, but it also depends on the
ability to protect the data of the industry. And until we can
do that, we are not going to have the robust biosurveillance
system that we need.
That biosurveillance system consists of veterinarians out
in the field collecting information. We have it in more near
real-time. We are beginning to develop mobile applications that
can come back to a centralized location so you can take a look
at anomalies in animal health. Continuing to work with USDA and
DHHS. That is actually a DHHS-funded project, but it is in very
strong partnership with USDA. I think that particular area,
again, enhancing the known, having the countermeasures on the
front side, all of those are things that we can do to ensure
that we are----
Mr. Newhouse. Okay.
Dr. Beckham.--more prepared, that we catch it upfront, and
that we can get it under control when it does happen.
Mr. Newhouse. So you talked about the importance, and we
learned this very well in Washington State about traceability
and knowing your animals, where they came in contact, and where
they have been and where they have gone. How are we doing
nationally there?
Dr. Beckham. Well, there are some projects out there.
Obviously, the swine industry has the premises ID and that is
really helpful for being able to take a look at where animals
are moving and so forth. And so we worked very closely,
actually, when I was at Texas A&M, with the swine industry to
develop a biosurveillance system that is based on the prem ID
and the movement of swine.
The other industries, it is going to be a little bit more
challenging, but looking at DHHS, again, has funded a project
in biosurveillance where you can look at unique identifier, and
as long as that data can be maintained confidentially and it is
not subject to FOIA, those are things that we can work with the
industries to move forward.
If you ask right now how several states are doing it, a lot
of it is paper-only, but I will say USDA recently invested, and
with the State Animal Health Officials Offices in several
different states, on a system that they deployed to hold a lot
of their animal health----
Mr. Newhouse. Right. Right.
Dr. Beckham.--information. And so they are making progress
in that, but we still don't have the real-time capability that
we need, and sometimes during those trace-outs and trace-backs
can be difficult.
Mr. Newhouse. Yes, but essential. Yes.
Dr. Beckham. Absolutely.
Mr. Newhouse. We have to have them, yes.
Dr. Beckham. Right. I have heard some state vets, and this
was a while back, this is not recently. Again, I want to point
out USDA has invested in a system, and they are in the process
that has been deployed out into the states where they can
actually have animal health information in those states
collected into that system, and it is called USA Herds, and
then there is another one out there----
Mr. Newhouse. Yes.
Dr. Beckham.--as well. But I will tell you, I have heard
animal health officials say that they literally have to go into
boxes and dig through where animals have moved to and from, and
that is just not going to be a doable thing----
Mr. Newhouse. Yes.
Dr. Beckham.--and if it amounts to these outbreaks.
Mr. Newhouse. Yes.
Dr. Beckham. So we have to get more real-time, and we have
to take advantage of the technologies, but most of all, we have
to be able to incentivize the industry to utilize those
systems. And the way that we are going to incentivize the
industry is to give them something back. We can't just take,
take, take, we have to give back. We have to give them back
something that helps them in their production, and we have to
ensure them that we are going to protect that data.
Mr. Newhouse. Yes, absolutely.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Newhouse. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The wonderful opportunity we have to ask questions
sometimes at the end of the hearing means that all the
questions I had written have already been taken. But that is
okay. My colleagues, they know I am never at a shortage of
being able to use my time to ask any other questions.
This is an issue that is very important to me, since I
represent central Illinois, and what I would consider the
breadbasket of America and the world. And agro-terrorism is a
concern that I don't think many of my constituents think about.
So the discussion we have had here today, going along with your
written testimony, Ambassador, you mentioned the problem that
gets talked about in this Committee a lot, is we have to feed
millions more people in the future with the technology, the
land, and the products that we have today. So how do we
continue to make America even more productive, even though we
are the safest and most productive food suppliers in the world?
And, Dr. Beckham, in your written testimony, you actually
stated the very elements that make the U.S. agricultural system
robust and productive, also make it vulnerable to an incident.
I am the father of three kids. I mean that is very scary to me,
and something that I don't normally think about on a daily
basis, and we hear some things that make you really scared as a
parent. We have to feed nine billion people by 2050, and as you
know, we have to continue to lead. And with that in mind, how
do we increase our ag production both in your industry and in
the grain industry too? What can we do, and how does
biotechnology play a role in this?
Mr. Negroponte. So I will defer to Dr. Beckham on most of
this, but one is science, technology, biotechnology, for sure
if you are going to have to produce 70 percent more food in the
world, but----
Mr. Davis. How do we get some of our allies to be able to
take the biotechnological products that we produce, that can
produce more, that we are going to need, how do we stop them
from implementing policies that don't allow us to do that?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, ultimately, the truth is going to win
out and so will their farmers and their own intellectual
capabilities, they are going to see the benefits that this
activity brings. The other issue we need to mention is waste. I
mean how much, because of bad infrastructure----
Mr. Davis. Yes.
Mr. Negroponte.--food is lost in many parts of the world
because of wastage during the time that it is getting from the
point of origin to the market. They estimate something like 30
percent. So the development of efficient supply chains around
the world is another area where American knowledge and
expertise can be brought to bear and help these countries out.
Dr. Beckham. So I would agree, and I would say, going back
to the science and technology, that eventually, based on the
science, that the truth will win out. And we have to have that
scientific evidence, obviously, that it is safe.
I think the other way is through international training and
helping people become more efficient, and looking at more of
the global perspective. I think we have to take a look at that.
I mean if you take a look also about Foot and Mouth Disease
really drops production in animals, but yet abroad they don't
allow recombinant vaccines to be utilized. And so how do we
turn that table to allow the use of new technologies and new
innovations abroad to help us control some of these more
devastating diseases that drop milk production and that drop
production in animals. So those are things that over time, when
we have to feed nine billion people, are going to come to the
forefront, and the world as a whole, working with OIE, again, I
come back to working with our international partners and the
World Organisation for Animal Health, to get the truth out
about genetically modified recombinant vaccines and production,
and so that we can begin to educate and train and use these
innovations to increase our food supply.
Mr. Davis. This is fascinating to me. And your discussion
about biosurveillance programs and what we need to do to do
that in addition to producing more here in America is something
that I hope this Committee continues to look at and highlight.
And I want to commend the Chairman for having both of you here
today. So thank you for your time today.
And I will yield back the balance of my time.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Rouzer, 5 minutes.
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you both for
being here today. I appreciate it very, very much. And I found
both of your testimonies very intriguing.
I have always felt like if we got our agriculture policy
right, our energy policy right, and our infrastructure policy
right, we are in the catbird seat for centuries to come.
Now, one issue that is very, very intriguing to me, and I
am trying to wrap my mind around it, Mr. Ambassador, you talked
about it a little earlier during the course of this hearing,
and that is water. I never would have thought when I was
growing up as a kid that one day I would be drinking a bottle
of water that you buy. When I was growing up, if you wanted
water, you just went to your garden hose. And much less never
would have thought anybody would pay $5 for a cup of coffee. So
the world changes. And certainly, water is becoming more and
more of a scarce resource. In agriculture you can't grow
anything without the sun and without water. Mr. Newhouse and I,
and several other Members, were in Israel earlier this year
during the course of the August recess, and they do a
magnificent job over there of water conservation and recycling
of their water. And I believe, if I recall, they recycle close
to 80 percent of their water there. So I am just curious, based
on your experience and your thoughts, if you could talk more
about water and the issue, and what we need to be doing here in
this country. Obviously, it has been a very acute problem in
California and other parts of the country based on the climate,
et cetera, and it is something we really need to start thinking
about now. And so I am just curious your thoughts and analysis
of that.
Mr. Negroponte. Well, first of all, what you mentioned
about your experience in Israel I think has to do a little bit
with this whole culture of waste not, want not. I mean they
value every scrap of material resources they have, and they do
their best to conserve them. So part of it has to do with an
attitude. There are some other areas of the world where
governments and societies are not well enough organized to cope
with the water problems they have. Like we were talking about,
the situation of drought in Syria that happened to coincide--I
am not saying it caused the civil war, but it happens to
coincide with a period of real civil strife. So they have
really got a very difficult situation.
I worry also about water contamination. I used to look at
the Tigris and Euphrates River when I was serving in Iraq, and
I was wondering what the heck was going into that river from
the source countries all further to the north, and then all the
way down along the way. So there is the problem of water
contamination which is also a serious issue.
Ultimately, the market is going to help us resolve these
issues because there is going to be a time when water is just
going to be more costly for us and for our society to protect
and preserve, and as that happens, we are going to take a more
careful and judicious attitude towards the management of water.
But we are going to probably do it--on the way, we will
probably pay a few expensive lessons to get to that point.
Mr. Rouzer. Dr. Beckham, do you have any thoughts on that?
Dr. Beckham. No, I am sorry.
Mr. Rouzer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Thompson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Beckham,
Ambassador, thank you so much for being here. This is a gravely
important topic. There is a lot at risk if we don't properly
prepare, obviously.
Dr. Beckham, the numbers that you shared in America how we
are blessed with affordable food, 6.4 percent versus a range of
11 to 47 percent; 9.2 percent of our jobs, $1 trillion
business, a huge part of our gross domestic product. There is a
lot at risk from many perspectives there, on all fronts.
Dr. Beckham, the most recent ag listening session I did, I
was with a group of producers. We spent a morning talking about
their issues, concerns, hearing what was on their mind, and
they identified basically what they saw as some threats,
obviously, to food security or food insecurity. Workforce was
on there, regulations was on there. They talked about what it
is like to be a producer and to have a regulation you have to
follow, and the guidance you are given is 1,000 pages from
USDA. And then, of course, bioterrorism came up as well.
Now, you have shared some recommendations to deal with the
agro-terrorism. What I see is the food integrity perspective
for food safety, and really some good things. Incentivize
interdisciplinary work, better centralized coordination, better
surveillance and education. I wanted to run by you one of the
solutions that these producers shared with me, to get your
thoughts on. It was more frontline, actually, but it was to see
more of a presence through our extension program, which I am a
huge fan of extension. There aren't many places where we have
an agent that is really focused with an expertise on food
safety or integrity, and to have that--now, that is really a
boots on the ground level, but somebody to be there to counsel,
to advise, to guide producers around these food safety and what
I would call food integrity issues. I wanted to get your
thoughts on what these folks had suggested.
Dr. Beckham. Absolutely critical. Absolutely. So I would
say that having a robust extension system out that could help
talk about things and help with workforce development, that
could help do training in biosecurity, that can help talk about
the business continuity plans that have been developed, that
can help talk about the new veterinary feed directives, and all
of those types of items with our producers, being on the
frontline. Ag extension is so incredibly important, and we
should support that more across the U.S. Obviously, in Texas
there is a very robust ag extension program, and I would like
to see that ag extension program come back nationally, and that
there be more boots on the ground interfacing with our
producers. That is where the land-grant universities play a
role. That is what a land-grant mission is. We should be taking
the knowledge that is in the research side of the land-grant
and getting that out to our producers, and that will help us
have a more safe, secure food supply if we do that.
Mr. Thompson. Very good. Thank you. I was a proud graduate
of another land-grant university, Penn State University. I
couldn't agree more.
Ambassador, the sixth trend you mentioned was energy
prices, the impacts on production costs and diverting more
crops for fuel. In your view, what ways might this issue be
addressed by Congress?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, just generally speaking, I think for
Congrees to do whatever it can to ensure that energy prices in
this country and in the world are governed by market
conditions. I think wherever there are restrictions to trade
and energy, I think that that can have an inhibiting effect on
the market. I am thinking particularly of allowing energy
exports from the United States, which would be a good thing
rather than a bad one, and it could have a salutary effect on
the global market.
Mr. Thompson. In your testimony, you had referenced the
importance of research, and research, obviously, in agriculture
and agricultural issues through our land-grant universities. So
I want to sort of revisit with you what I talked with Dr.
Beckham about. What do you see the role of research or land-
grant universities when it comes to food security? How
important is that, what role should it play?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, I said right at the beginning of my
statement that the establishment of the Homestead Act in 1861
was revolutionary legislation, to which we can attribute a
significant measure of the success of our agricultural system.
So I think that needs to be continued. And it is also a good
role model for other countries in the world seeking to
establish robust agricultures of their own. In both senses it
is very important.
And then last, we need to keep up these capabilities.
Whether it is for biosurveillance or for all the other things
that are necessary in the field of agriculture, we need to
maintain a strong agricultural agro-scientific capability here
in the United States.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Allen, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Allen. Thank you. And I had to run out for a moment. I
have two hearings going on here simultaneously, but I want to
thank you for your testimony earlier. And I want to express to
you that I do believe that if we can help other countries
develop their agriculture, then I believe that that country
will be a friend for life. I grew up on a farm, it is very
important not only to feeding people, but it is also very good
as far as dignity and the ability to produce something,
particularly as valuable as food is, particularly in certain
areas of the world.
I guess my question is, there are some nations, obviously,
that are difficult to deal with, but are we doing all we need
to do in those nations, some kind to mind, I have been on
mission trips in several areas of the world; Moldova, Kenya,
South Africa, South America. Are we doing everything that we
need to do from the standpoint of this House, as far as making
this available to these countries?
Mr. Negroponte. As far as--I didn't catch the last--the
very last part?
Mr. Allen. Do you have anything that we need to be doing
here----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. Allen.--as a body----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. Allen.--to extend the friendship of agricultural----
Mr. Negroponte. Right.
Mr. Allen.--development and that sort of thing to----
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. Allen.--those countries that we do have a relationship
with?
Mr. Negroponte. Yes. Well, I mean first of all, I agree
with you that it is something that is very positive. I think
these scholarships and these grants that you give to people
that the Agriculture Department and USAID gives for people to
come here is a very positive thing. So you need to keep your
eye on the funding for those programs so that it doesn't
atrophy or disappear.
I think the other thing, I was mentioning this earlier, I
am not sure you were in the room at the time about maintaining
the presence of our own people, Agriculture Department and
others, abroad so that they can be ambassadors for U.S.
agriculture abroad, and they can make very good friends. They
can also help identify people, upcoming talent that may be good
candidates for scholarship activity of some kind or another
here in the United States. But I couldn't agree with you more
that, in terms of relationship-building, agriculture, given its
tremendous standing here in the United States and its high
quality, is an excellent diplomatic tool.
Mr. Allen. On the other side of that equation, nations that
we have assisted, or maybe they have done this on their own, we
tend to have conflict with through the WTO and Brazil as far as
the cotton market. Right now, in our production of cotton, the
world market price is 60 , and obviously, our farmers can't
make it on that. In your travels and your understanding of the
world needs, how can we come together on the fact that we don't
want to threaten our farmers, but at the same time, we want to
help these other folks?
Mr. Negroponte. Yes. Well, you have mentioned a
particularly sensitive example, right, the cotton, and it has
been an issue particularly with Brazil for, what, I guess,
several decades, if I am not mistaken. And so we have some of
these sensitive agriculture products of our own as well, I mean
other ones. But for the great majority of these products, we
have tried to develop free trade relationships with countries,
and ultimately that is probably the best way to go, and to the
benefit of agricultural competitiveness and the quality of
agricultural production.
Mr. Allen. Well, as far as trade agreements, I agree with
you.
Mr. Negroponte. Yes.
Mr. Allen. We need to have understandings with each nation,
particularly those that we want to do business with.
Well, I yield back the remainder of my time, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Allen. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Ambassador, Bob Goodlatte couldn't stay to get to his
question. Can you expand a little bit on what GT was talking
about with respect to energy costs and crops that we use. His
specific question was, could you elaborate on the policy of
potential impact that the diversion of crops to fuel could have
on our food security? In your testimony, you talked about the
amount of corn crop that goes into ethanol versus foods.
Mr. Negroponte. Right.
The Chairman. Could you expand on that a little bit?
Mr. Negroponte. Well, again, I think that perhaps the
marketplace is going to also deal with that issue over time.
Because it is kind of hard to sort of allocate and get into
some sort of a command economy type of situation where you say
you are going to allow product X to be used for one purpose but
not for another. But I suspect that is going to sort itself out
over time, especially with the development of all sorts of
other alternative energy possibilities, going forward.
The Chairman. Well, thank you.
Dr. Beckham, we have spent a lot of time talking about Foot
and Mouth Disease and the impact it would have. I am genuinely
concerned with the feral hog population that is exploding in
some places. If it were to get introduced by accident or on
purpose into that population, I understand if you can control
it in a particular herd, but what if it got into the feral hog
population, what happens to us then?
Dr. Beckham. It would be very difficult to control if it
gets into the feral hog population. With over four million
feral hogs probably in the State of Texas, it would be a
nightmare with the interface that we have between feral hogs
and several of our farms and production systems. So----
The Chairman. Can----
Dr. Beckham.--that is where biosecurity becomes really
important.
The Chairman. Yes. What do you think our trading partners,
what would their reaction be to an outbreak with respect to
cattle and beef----
Dr. Beckham. Yes.
The Chairman.--that weren't necessarily affected, but just
the threat of if we had the outbreak in the feral hog
population, what do you think our trading partners' reactions
would be?
Dr. Beckham. I think they would obviously look to the U.S.,
but close doors on trade for a period of time until you could
demonstrate the domestic animal population was free, and that
would be a very difficult road.
The Chairman. All right, guys. Both of you, the time that
is left, talk to us about how a safe food supply fits into
overall U.S. national security, just to kind of hammer that one
more time. Ambassador first.
Mr. Negroponte. Well, I mean it is absolutely critical. You
don't want to have eruption of crises with respect to the
safety of our food. And probably the best way to deal with it
is to continue to have the kind of surveillance and other
monitoring types of capabilities that we do have, and we have
to constantly be on our guard.
The Chairman. Dr. Beckham?
Dr. Beckham. And I would just reiterate that and say,
obviously, agriculture is just absolutely critical to our food
supply and our national security, and the things that we have
to do to continue to address that include everything from
investing in the One Health concept, biosurveillance, working
really closely with our industries. I think that one is
probably one of the most important ones, is that we really work
closely with them to figure out what their needs are, to help
them to help us understand how they do business, how they move
animals, where they move animals, and how we can help them
continue to do those things in the event that we do have a
disease incursion of some sort.
The Chairman. Dr. Beckham, you have mentioned the One
Health initiative, One Health concept several times. Would you
walk us through that?
Dr. Beckham. Okay. Well, as stated earlier, the One Health
concept has been around for quite some time, and it is just a
concept that animal health, human health, environmental health
are linked. So whether it is with diseases or with a toxin, or
with some other agent, or just in general, we all have to
inhabit this planet together, and so we have to understand that
whatever happens with animal health affects our food supply,
diseases that can jump from animals to humans, it is all a One
Health concept. We have to begin to approach critical
challenges that affect us today in a more comprehensive way. So
we can't just look at things in a silo. USDA can't be working
on a vaccine for Rift Valley Fever and so can somebody with
HHS, with no concept of what each other is doing and direction,
because then we are duplicating funding efforts and we are not
working in the same direction. Not saying that is happening,
but I am saying those types of things don't lead us to really
take a holistic approach as to the One Health. So what does a
disease look like in animals, is it able to hop over to humans,
can we develop animal models of human diseases like cancer. So
all of that is the One Health concept. And really starting the
institutionalize it, again, the concept has been around for a
very, very long time, but it is really hard to get momentum
behind that without some equalization of funding and some
larger body that is incentivizing that One Health approach to
our greater challenges.
The Chairman. Or some monster crisis.
Dr. Beckham. Right. Which we don't want to be reactive, we
want to be proactive.
The Chairman. Well, I want to thank both of our witnesses.
Today's hearing was entitled, American Agriculture and Our
National Security, but I want to thank both of you. This is the
inaugural event for this issue. We are going to continue to
explore this thing over time, and to continue to help broaden
the narrative that agriculture weaves its way through almost
every aspect of national security and world security, starting
with Kika de la Garza's famous quote, ``If we can't feed them
on submarines, then they are not going to be able to fight.''
Through everything, infrastructure, the impact that threats to
infrastructure has on agriculture, whether it is shipping lanes
or domestic infrastructure, the various biodefenses and
biosurveillances, everything that goes on, to people going into
a restaurant or at the grocery store buying something, they
automatically assume it is safe. You don't ever question that.
That confidence we have in the current system could be shaken
dramatically if we are not careful, and the impact that strong
ag economies have on every nation, the prosperity created by
strong agriculture is a good offensive weapon against every
aspect of peoples' lives, where they don't have jobs and they
can't provide for themselves, is impacted positively by strong
production agriculture in every nation. So, Ambassador, thank
you. Dr. Beckham, thank you very much and bless you, for being
here with us this morning.
And as I said, we will continue this narrative about how
production agriculture weaves into the broader security issues
across this world as we move forward, and helping to create
some sort of grand strategy approach to looking at all of these
issues.
Under the rules of the Committee, the record of today's
hearing will remain open for 10 calendar days to receive
additional material and supplemental written responses from the
witnesses to any questions posed by a Member.
This hearing of the Committee on Agriculture is adjourned.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Submitted Statement by Marshall L. Matz, J.D., Principal Attorney,
Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC (OFW Law)
Chairman Conaway, Mr. Peterson, Members of the Committee, thank you
for allowing me to submit a statement for the record on American
agriculture and national security.
First, to directly answer the question that is implied by the title
of the hearing: Yes, there is a direct link between American
agriculture and our national security. Food insecurity has a direct
impact on national security--both U.S. national security and political
stability around the globe. American farmers and ranchers make a direct
contribution to our national security, as does the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Agency for International Development and
American political leadership.
Our farmers and ranchers produce a safe and ubiquitous food
supply for the American consumer, at the lowest cost in
history, and then export much of it to help feed the rest of
the world.
U.S. agriculture research especially that conducted by our
land grant institutions, benefits the entire world. From the
Borlaug Institute at Texas A&M, to the corn research at Iowa
State, to the wheat research at South Dakota State University,
these are just a few of the many institutions contributing to
both food and national security.
Under the leadership of the United States, the G8 and G20
have adopted global food security as a high priority, with a
special effort aimed at Africa.
Finally, the United States and American agriculture is the
leading contributor to food assistance through the United
Nations (UN) World Food Programme.
In the last several months, there has been a lot of attention on a
number of separate issues and events which impact global food security
across a range of activities. From Pope Francis' visit to the United
States and the announcement of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable
Development Goals, (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics) to
the ongoing trade negotiations and the discussion of genetic
engineering and biotechnology, they all have an impact global food
security.
From my perspective, therefore, the question is not whether
American agriculture impacts national security, but how to achieve
global food security? What would it take to reach the UN goal of
eliminating hunger by 2030? There are a number of key pieces to that
puzzle.
As Pope Francis noted during his recent trip to the U.S., ``The
fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many
fronts . . .'' The number of hungry people in the world--795 million--
has dropped by 100 million over the past decade, thanks in no small
part to coordinated international efforts led by the U.S. According to
the USDA, Latin America and the Caribbean region saw the steepest
declines in the number of food-insecure people, followed closely by
Asia.
According to the State Department, to feed a growing world
population, we need to increase global food production by 70% before
2050. Women make up the majority of the agricultural workforce in many
areas of the world. Yet, today, for every investment we make in
producing food, we fail to get the best results because many women lack
the access they need to land, seeds, water, credit and markets.
That is particularly true in Africa, as pointed out recently by Dr.
Agnes Kalibata. Dr. Kalibata, who was the Minister of Agriculture in
Rwanda responsible for a dramatic turnaround in the country's food
security, is now the President of the Alliance for a Green Revolution
in Africa (AGRA). ``Africa is the last region of the world to go
through an agriculture transformation,'' she notes. ``Africa has lagged
behind for a number of reasons, including lack of access to improved
seeds, fertilizers, mechanization and irrigation. The good news is that
we are starting to see positive changes. A real African agriculture
transition is underway. We are very single-minded about closing the
yield gap for smallholder farmers and especially women farmers.''
Africa is a key to global food security because the continent
contains a majority of the world's underdeveloped agriculture land.
Further, yields are so low . . .only 10% of our yields . . . that they
can be increased dramatically by getting smallholder farmers access to
modern seeds, inputs and educational services.
Agriculture: U.S.-Africa Comparison
(Mr. Strive Masiyiwa, World Food Prize--October 16, 2014)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Africa
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percentage of people who farm 1% 65%
Cost of food as a percent of 9% 70%
disposable income
Agriculture trade Export $140B Import $35B
Corn yields bushel/acre 180 20
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reproduced from Matz (2014), Africa Rising.
The distribution system in Africa has to be a major focus of
attention. Whether through private sector agro-dealers, community
groups or government, smallholder farmers in very remote villages must
gain access to the tools of modern agriculture.
The newly released UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
places a high priority on agriculture and empowering women. Included in
the 17 Sustainable Development Goals is a commitment to double, by
2030, the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food
producers, particularly women.
At the other end of the technology divide, in the United States and
other developed countries, there must be enough political courage and
consumer confidence to follow sound science. Yes, that means accepting
genetic engineering (GE) for agriculture production just as we do for
health care. The bottom line is that GE crops raise crop yields, uses
less water and require fewer inputs, which improves the environment.
Last month, the United States and China released an important joint
cooperation statement to promote a strong global economy. As a part of
that process, according to the White House statement, ``The United
States and China conducted in-depth discussions on the administration
of agricultural biotechnology, and committed to further improve
approval processes. Both sides reaffirmed the importance of
implementing timely, transparent, predictable, and science-based
approval processes for products of agricultural biotechnology, which
are based on international standards.''
This position taken by the U.S. with regard to China on the
importance of regulatory synchronization should now be extended to the
fifty states here in America. The Federal Government cannot allow each
state to implement its own GMO labeling system and expect interstate
commerce to continue without interruption. It is simply not possible or
reasonable. Congress and the Administration must come together to
preempt the states (as the House has done), and develop one national
system that is uniform and science-based.
Agricultural biotechnology, by itself, is not the answer to global
food security, but it is a part of the solution and it is important
that consumers have confidence in the technology. In order to achieve
global food security, there must be a consistent policy across a range
of issues. If the United States is going to push China on
biotechnology, it should also preempt the states so there is one
national GMO labeling policy.
Let's also realize that, even if we could wave a magic wand and
implement all of these steps, there would still be hungry people in the
world. There will always be natural disasters, droughts and civil wars.
Today, some 60 million people are displaced by violence, conflict and/
or repression. The World Food Programme (WFP) is an extraordinary
organization, but is being stretched beyond its capacity. WFP doesn't
have the resources to help refugees, the victims of natural disasters
and farmers who are not producing enough to sustain their family. Half
of all the hungry people in the world are actually farmers. Boosting
the production of smallholder farmers would allow WFP to focus on
emergencies.
In short, global food security is in sight. If it is made a
priority, the new UN goal to eliminate hunger by 2030 can be achieved.
American agriculture has been at the center of the U.S. economy since
President Lincoln established the Department of Agriculture. While the
American farmer is now so efficient that only 1% of the population
feeds the entire country and much of the world, agriculture remains a
mainstay of our economy and a major part of national security. Thank
you.
Marshall Matz is an attorney with OFW Law in Washington, D.C.
He served as General Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on
Nutrition and Counsel to the Senate Committee on Agriculture.
He was the Founding Chairman of the World Food Programme--USA.
He continues to serve on the Board of the World Food Programme,
USA and the Congressional Hunger Center. This testimony
represents the opinion of Marshall Matz, not his law firm,
clients or any organization.
______
Submitted Question
Response from Hon. John D. Negroponte, former Ambassador; Vice
Chairman, McLarty Associates
Question Submitted by Hon. Mike Bost, a Representative in Congress from
Illinois
Question. In your testimony, you mention that trade policy is
changing the world of agriculture, and offers immense opportunities
especially for farmers in my district in Illinois. With the possibility
of nine billion people on the planet by 2050, we need to produce more
food on less land leading during that time. Given the proven safety of
our biotechnology, do you believe our trading partners, especially in
Asia, should be more expedient with their approval process and what
should out government be doing to encourage or compel them to accept
our proven biotech crops?
Answer. To feed the coming world of nine billion we need modern
technology, open borders, and to conserve vital resources such as land
and water. Technology will play a central role in achieving this goal.
To ensure that agricultural innovation continues, policy must be
supportive. Internationally, this means that our trading partners
should use sound science when evaluating new products, including those
derived from biotechnology.
To achieve this, we need to continue addressing market access
issues for the novel products both through bilateral and multilateral
channels. However, this is not enough. We must engage more effectively
with stakeholders outside government, including agricultural producers,
the media, and the general public. Without deeper and more proactive
outreach, we miss the opportunity to reduce widespread science
skepticism. Unless we can convince the ``anxious middle'' of the safety
of modern agricultural production technologies, we risk finding
ourselves in a situation where resistance has stifled innovation and
our ability to feed the world.
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