Remarks by Deputy Secretary Rich Rominger National Association of County Agricultural Agents San Antonio, Texas -- July 30, 1998 Don Drost, thank you very much. Before he passes the gavel to Gary Hall tonight, I'd like to say a few things about Don. He started out a year ago with some big ideas for this organization. He aimed to work more closely with all of us in USDA -- particularly with Miley Gonzalez and the Research-Education-Extension folks, and he's done that. Don wanted to strengthen the ties between the Association and national farmers' organizations. He thought America's producers and rural citizens would come out the winners from that kind of a relationship. He's done that, too. For this week's program, he went outside the Association to include the national leadership of the Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union, and the National Farmers Organization. I believe this is the first time ever there's been such tremendous farmer representation on the program, and that's something we all appreciate. This kind of give-and-take falls in with the letter and spirit of the Agricultural Research, Extension and Education Reform Act that the President signed last month. I was there for that signing. I want to tell you that the Act includes 13 references to the need for the agriculture research community to get a better sense of regional and even multi-state priorities from local stakeholders. Thirteen. Actually, I didn't count. But those who did tell me that's about right. The Association and Extension have long been out-front in getting stakeholder input. This kind of leadership among county ag agents is one very good reason why Extension -- in many ways -- is a model for the rest of the land-grant system. I also want to welcome Gary Hall, of Nebraska, as incoming president, and recognize the work of Vice President Curtis Grissom, from Athens, Alabama. All of these gentlemen have a done a fine job representing the interests of county agents in Washington this year. It's good to be here with all of you and, when the mercury is reasonable, it's always good to be in the great state of Texas. Texas was the birthplace of our 34th and 36th Presidents -- Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson -- and it's home to some of the nation's best folklore. In fact, there's a story in Presidential folklore about LBJ not being too keen on getting up early in the morning. It's said that early mornings were such a concern of his that he had a special shower installed in the White House. The folks who put it in called it a mini car wash.' It was big, cold and powerful. Your typical shower has eight to ten pounds of pressure. This one had 120. When a workman turned it on, he got pinned to the wall. Maybe coffee would have been better. These days, even LBJ couldn't get a shower like that in Texas. They say there's a dude ranch in west Texas, with a sign in every bathroom: "No more than three inches of water in the tub. Out here we can't afford to spend water like money." That's just as true right now as the very old farm story about the traveler who stopped to view a dry-blasted crop of corn. "Looks kind of short, don't it?" he asked the grower. "Yep," he said, "she's shorter than when she was little." From central Texas, across southern states, crops are shorter than when they were little...if they came up at all. Here in Texas, especially for cotton, it's a classic agricultural drought in the worst sense, when timing is everything. It's a three-strikes-and-you're out summer. As you know, it was too dry to plant. Even if farmers managed to get crops in the ground, the crops wouldn't germinate. And even if they did, they'd only wither in the sun once they came up. It's a lose-lose-lose situation for the southwest -- the worst in 18 years for Texas and Oklahoma, and one of the worst since the 30's Dust Bowl. Probably the only good thing that can be said for Mother Nature is that she doesn't play favorites. Trouble spots are all over. As the front-line connection with farmers and communities, you know the situation better than anyone from Florida's fires to the Northern Plains battling disaster after disaster -- bad weather, wheat disease, tough foreign competition, falling prices linked to troubled Asian economies, crashing farm incomes. Secretary Glickman has toured many of the stricken states in the past few weeks -- this week Texas and Oklahoma. We've declared all Florida and Texas counties, and most of Oklahoma, eligible for disaster assistance. Forty-nine Texas counties have the go-ahead to hay on Conservation Reserve Program land. This will remove a source of fuel in wildfire areas, and give livestock a feed source while hay supplies are running dangerously low. For the Northern Plains, the President has directed us to buy more than 80 million bushels of wheat. In the best humanitarian tradition, the wheat is going where it's needed most -- to the hungry in places like Sudan and Indonesia. The purchase cuts two ways -- it helps the U.S. push forward against famine and starvation around the globe. At the same time, it will reduce crop surpluses and could boost wheat prices by as much as 13 cents a bushel. Congress has also taken quick bipartisan action to exempt agricultural trade from U.S. sanctions against India and Pakistan following their nuclear tests. Pakistan is the third largest market for U.S. wheat, and the top market for white wheat. On a policy level, President Clinton this month signed the National Drought Policy Act of 98. This puts USDA squarely in the lead of federal drought efforts. This policy will guide our handling of drought disasters. It will build on the regional work of the past two years of the Western Drought Coordination Council, which I've co-chaired, and guide drought legislation in the next century -- we hope. THREE ASPECTS OF THE SAFETY NET Let's talk safety net first, in an unconventional way, by thanking all of you for being the first level of support to rural America this summer, without question. Mother Nature has taken over the headlines with drought, fires, grain gluts. But the real story is counties, counties, counties --people who are hurting and people who are helping. People like the Extension folks involved in setting up the new Drought Relief Information Center at Texas A&M in Laredo .... and those in Marion County, Florida, who helped convert a 4-H camp into a shelter for firefighters, providing emergency relief from the danger and pressure of their jobs. USDA appreciates your work. If we left some county agents out of the loop -- we're not doing our job right. Not only do we recognize the traditional partnership with the land-grant system and cooperative extension we need your partnership and the educational connection to get the job done. First, at this time especially, as USDA continues to downsize at the local level, the work of local extension grows in importance. In addition, the Farm Bill stresses local involvement in conservation, for example, which has got to draw on the knowledge and skill of county agents if these programs are going to work. And second, 21st century sustainable agriculture will depend on farmers who are up-to-date with technology. It will depend on producers who are sophisticated about issues from global warming to the relationship between our urban and rural areas. These farmers, in turn, will demand knowledge, education and information from their county agents in ways perhaps unprecedented in the 84-year history of extension professionals. Let me explain these two points. CURRENT DEMANDS ON COUNTY AGENTS In terms of current workload, USDA's been streamlining aggressively to cut the size of our workforce by about 22,000 staff years by 1999. We've been co-locating county-based agencies into one-stop service centers, some of which include the local extension office, to make the most of declining resources while improving customer service. We're cutting the number of field office locations by more than 1,000. And we've contracted for a thorough, independent study of the farm and rural program delivery system of our county-based agencies -- FSA, NRCS, and RD -- to see what the workload is as a result of the 96 Farm Bill and what else might need changing. This is a consummate team effort. For USDA agencies, it means sharing resources for administrative efficiency and serving the needs of farmers and rural America. For our partners in county extension, it means there are fewer of us and more pressure on you to meet farmers' needs at the local level. One need that's been really tough to meet, especially here in Texas and in the Northern Plains, is helping farmers manage risk. The simple fact is that the Farm Bill yanked the safety net out from under farmers. When President Clinton signed the legislation, prices were very strong. But he warned us all that the bill wouldn't offer what farmers need when prices plummet, and that day has come. There's no question the government has a role in helping farmers through hard times. So we've worked to bolster the safety net in ways ranging from export credits to helping rural America. But crop insurance is the first line of defense for most producers. Although we've improved on the program and expanded it to new crops, it's still not enough. It's got to be fairer and more affordable. We want to extend marketing loans when crop prices are low or transportation problems make marketing difficult. And farmers should be given more flexibility to plant other crops when their primary crops fail. Overriding all these efforts is basic education. We've just allocated about $3-1/2 million to fund risk management research and education programs across the country. Working with you, with state universities, and public and private sector partners, we're trying to cover the range and complexity of risk with limited funding. Workshops tailored to lenders factors that influence choosing the right risk management strategies measuring risk tolerance workshops on the special situations of dairy and grain farmers helping young, small-scale and limited resource farmers limit their risk exposure. This education is comprehensive. It's needed more than ever.You've heard of MediGap. This is a kind of AgriGap. Farmers are facing a double whammy. We don't have funding for a comprehensive national risk management education program. At the same time, producers' exposure to risk has dramatically increased under Freedom to Farm. We need agents to step in, and get the word to farmers about all their choices -- from crop insurance to alternative marketing tools to futures and options. And while I'm standing here urging you to fill this education need, I'm aware of your concern that the Farm Bill, in some ways, took the education mandate away from you. That's not the case. The Environmental Quality Incentive Program under the Farm Bill is a response to the land. For years, the land has been telling us that things must be done differently if we're to address our natural resource problems. EQIP is a model of locally-led conservation. But it's also a very inclusive partnership. The Farm Bill instructed our Natural Resource Conservation Service to get the most environmental benefits per dollar spent under EQIP. And it gave us a three-part mandate. Like a three-legged stool that can't function with one leg missing, NRCS' job is to provide a package -- the best possible financial, technical, and educational resources available to get solutions to farmers and communities. Driven from the bottom up, from field and State offices, the process of identifying state priority areas begins as a local partnership. Your involvement from the start, on local work groups and state technical committees, is a key element in developing competitive funding opportunities. Around the country, Cooperative Extension is helping communities improve the nation's watersheds, and educate the public about its role in environmental sustainability...... a natural resource education plan in the Sand Springs Project area in Dickinson County, Kansas a local work group in Chautauqua County, New York to tackle nitrate problems in water supplies ... educational displays in Missouri focused on "Healthy Watersheds, Healthy People" ... EQIP proposals and a Clean River Day in the Massachusetts Franklin Conservation District ... and I could go on. To give you a sense of the demand ... to fund the 60,000 applications received in fiscal 97 alone, we'd need three times the money available. This program works, and much of the credit goes to you. COUNTY AGENTS' 21ST CENTURY ROLE Thank you for that, and thanks for all you're doing to help the nation's farmers and rural communities gear up for the next century and the new millennium. Probably the first challenge is getting across the time barrier with our technology intact. In just 519 days, at the stroke of midnight, when we usher in the New Year, we'll also usher in an amazing age of possibility, of advances in science and technology, a time when technology will widen the circle of opportunity. Ironically, as President Clinton has said, "this same stroke of midnight will pose a sharp and signal test of whether we have prepared ourselves for the challenges of the Information Age." A design flaw in millions of the world's computers will make them unable to recognize the year 2000, affecting billions of microchips that run everything from farm equipment and satellite technology to VCRs. C-S-R-E-E-S is launching a major public awareness campaign, more like a blitz -- called Y2K -- on August 1st. It will target the ag community, and we'll follow up with "tool kits" mailed to communication directors at the land-grant universities in September. You're the first line of contact with the ag community, so we're asking you to work with us and share these materials with the people you serve. There's a lot at stake. The fact is that as a nation we ask a lot of our farmers. In return, they ask us to help them develop and stay up with new technologies, with new science. Agriculture depends on this kind of advance, and the nation depends on a prosperous, progressive agriculture. You know our Research-Extension-Education system is the envy of the world. It works like a giant gear, each part thriving because it turns with the others. When President Clinton talked with farm broadcasters last week, he stressed not only the importance of investing in ag research, but the applications of that research. Without the educational reach of Extension, research doesn't move to the field. It does no good. The role of county agents will expand as farmers meet 21st century demands -- like sustainable agriculture. This implies knowledge and sophistication in areas ranging from biotechnology to precision agriculture. Both offer the opportunity to cut pesticide use and put less stress on fragile lands. You are helping to move us all toward our goal of getting Integrated Pest Management in place on 75 percent of the nation's farmland by the year 2000. With your help, we're carrying out a broad program of research to meet needs identified by state and regional IPM teams. Farmers will need to be kept abreast of changing pesticide issues, including the new Food Quality Protection Act. FQPA is still developing. Over time, we'll need Extension to compile data and help farmers with the continuing evolution of new chemicals and biocontrols. We'll also be looking to Extension to bring a reasoned, balanced approach to controversial issues -- to put out fires, and not just the kind burning in Florida. Global warming, for example, has taken lots of heat in the farm press. The agriculture community fears the implications. But there's another side to this coin. Agriculture can be part of the solution. But farmers need knowledge to understand the possibilities. They need to understand that agricultural technologies for managing soil in a sustainable way are one means to decrease atmospheric carbon. They need to understand agriculture's potential for sequestering substantial amounts of carbon through soil conservation. In fact, some companies are exploring the economics of buying up carbon sequestration credits from farmers. And farmers need to explore biomass issues -- replacing fossil fuels with agricultural energy sources to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. Anyone involved in 21st century agriculture will be called on to deal with our urban neighbors. This is an issue I've been deeply involved with in Yolo County, California. What they're doing there is what we need to do nationwide. We need folks to sit down and talk. We need to get builders, developers, homebuyers, planners to understand that they -- as well as farmers and ranchers -- will shoulder the cost of urban sprawl. And it won't be cheap. Farmland conversion doesn't happen in a vacuum. Farmland loss jeopardizes the next century in ways the urban population and some rural folks haven't come to grips with -- not just less food but air quality, water quality and supply, energy costs, congestion, wildlife habitat, and the nation's rural character. Whether we're talking about the Piedmont, Chicago, or my own turf -- California's Central Valley, the last great Mediterranean -climate, agricultural production area left on earth -- the ramifications of disappearing farmland are enormous. Understanding the full issue and turning around the tide of development demands education, and that's where you come in. It's my conviction -- having worked closely with the land-grant system and having spent time in Washington -- that the issues pressing on 21st century agriculture are proof that there's a critical role for publicly- funded research, extension and education into the next century. University research and Extension are an important check on recommendations coming from the private sector. Under a public system, everyone benefits. But I began my career on the farm and in county-level issues. And that's where I learned perhaps the most valuable lesson in government. If you want to make changes that really help people, you have to do it in your towns in your communities ... and in your counties. This is a partnership that works. It's a classic. And classics adapt. As agriculture's focus shifts increasingly to the local level, the importance of county agents to the system will grow as we get ready for the next century. Thank you. # NOTE: USDA news releases and media advisories are available on the Internet. Access the USDA Home Page on the World Wide Web at http://www.usda.gov