Tape #502 - Bioregionalism

 

Good morning and welcome to our presentation on Bioregionalism.  We have two presenters this morning.  The first is Doctor Daniell Worth, she is  a Professor of environmental science and field  natural history at Des Moines area Community College the 2nd presenter is Gloria Pelesa and she’s with the Department of Energy.  Good morning thanks for coming, I know its been a long and exciting and draining conference I think some of us the hardest work we do is sitting and listening and thinking.  Thinking is exhausting, uhm, what I’d like to invite you to do today and Gloria has agreed to go with us and just spending the last 5 minutes talking with her, I know she’s got that sensibility as well we’d like to change the structure and in physically changing the structure, we want to change the nature of our interaction so if you would join me in making a circle with the chairs we would really like to you be part of these interactions so that we don’t have hierarchy.  I don’t like hierarchy and this isn’t going to be a lecture its going to be participatory.  A circle would be really nice.  I am going to run out of cord here, here move it back around this way.  I am from the tall grass prairie bioregion right in the middle of the country and Id like to find out how many of you are farmers.  Raise your hand if you are farmers one, two, sort of a farmer, yeah I am sort of a farmer myself.  Oh come on up.  Got the cord caught on my velcro.  You are looking really alive for the last day, my compliments to you.  Thank you for doing that, this feels a lot better.  This is the way I teach classrooms where I couldn’t move the desk around and it was really inconvenient then they put me in classrooms where the desks were nailed down so I just went outside I fixed them.  Raise your hand again if you’re a farmer great I have learned so much from you I keep hearing and I read in the program so women can hear from experts I am an academic I am an environmental educator I am a farmer, federal park ranger and the experts I came to hear were you so I ve got a room full of experts and I am really excited about that, thank you for being here I’ve learned a lot uh, I ‘ve learned a lot about apple growing from Jane from Michigan and I ve learned a lot about wheat growing from a college from Saskatchewan I learned about vegetable gardening from Barbados and uh that has shaped and reflected how I am thinking about Bioregionalism right now.  I am from the tall grass prairie bioregion and we have a lot of magnificent bioregions on this beautiful planet of ours I am here at the black dot DesMoins, Iowa if any of you have ever heard of DesMoins Iowa.  And what I am going to ask you to do, were going to pass around the moniker go ahead and put your spot on the map so we can see where you are all from.  So we will fill out our understanding of who we are and where we’ve come from.  Go ahead and put your spot on the map so we can see where you are all from.  And don’t be restricted to a black dot if you want to put a circle or a blazing wheat sheaf that’s fine whatever would best represent your bioregion is what I encourage you to do.  My bioregion is temperate grassland and we have an agriculture in that temperate grassland that rests on the health and well-being of the soil we started out with over 21 inches of rich fertile prairie soil and plants that grow in that bioregion that grow best are grasses and along the water courses we have magnificent 150 200 year old oak trees, the regime the temperature and the rainfall regime in that bioregion is such that in the mid part of the year in about June we have an influx of intensive rains that also matches up with when we have our warmest temperatures that’s how prairie grasses grow.  Prairie grasses are dormant usually until late May and then they start growing its amazing the sequestering of products of photosynthesis, they grow very rapidly we have an agricultural crop that matches that growth cycle of the prairie grasses and that’s corn.  In examining agriculture in terms of Bioregionalism would suggest that the agriculture products, agricultural crops ought to match the weather I used to live in this bioregion the epiedmont plateau northern Appalachians and the soil out here exactly where you are has a, since I am talking to farmers we don’t need to take a lot of time to talk about the averize and the organic layer in the forest. There is also another horizon called the ohorizon which includes the leaves which have just fallen off the trees, the animals, the animal parts, the scat, a polite term for fecal material on the prairie, we have a very, very deep ohorizon and that’s our money in the bank so in terms of maintaining the health and wealth and well-being of that particular soil that were vested with its essential to maintain the organize compounds maintain the organic nutrients.  A healthy soil has 3 different parts, I teach science I gotta get the science over before I get the philosophy.  Healthy soil has several different components the first is the titrates layer and in cases of farming that would be green manures it would be crop residue it would be compost it would be mulch all of the soil organisms that have passed on to greater glory and now are becoming part of the soil matrix itself we’ve got the titrates feeders those are those organisms living within the soil that help to breakdown organic material and release the nutrients and convert the organic nitrogen and other materials into inorganic compounds and eventually we release them into the atmosphere as nitrogen gas and then theories the base of the soil them mineral content the weathered material from the bedrock from the roles of deposition in Iowa we don’t have anasrock nor do we have metamorphic rock we have sedimentary rock our soils are deposited glacial action and ancient oceans that deposited different layers of soil so the mineral layer is the non living layer they all combine all 3 components make up a healthy soil so no layer is more important then the other but what modern conventional industrialized agriculture appears to be ignoring is the 2 layers, the titrates layer and the titrates fetus layer of course application of heavy industrialized fertilizers and pesticides will allow you to grow crops in this medium but over time the soils become bankrupt they become literally mineralized they become flat and lifeless lacking that live biodiversity those healthy soil organisms I went to a program yesterday that Jane Alexander and Doctor Mcgary did talking about just that, talking about the soil organisms and then I heard from Australian farmers who had a 6 year rotation and they talked about he earthworms that they could find in the handful of their soil plus all the other wonderful critters that run around and here they are here are those organisms that make up the biodynamic life of the soil that release nutrients whose bodies then become a part of the soil fertility I would suggest to you that in contemporary industrialized agriculture those organisms are routinely ignored and they are part of the health of the soil.  How is my map doing? For those of you who have just joined us we are letting you add your spot to the map and you don’t have be restricted to a dot or a tick please - I just wanted to let you know that I have to leave right away and I didn’t want to be rude to just walk out in front of you I am sorry I have a meeting - ok, ok what I need to do to establish this is to convince you that agriculture done in terms of the notions of bioregionalism is appropriate agriculture its agriculture that’s appropriate to the scale of your landscape and its respectful of people and organisms that live in the soil its respectful of the people who are going to be eating your food and the farmers I’ve talked to at this conference are people who are interested in feeding people, feeding people that live in the local communities uh, the farmers I buy food from are not selling for necessarily not entirely the export but of providing food for people.  Let me tell you a little bit about Bioregionalism.  Bioregionalism according to those who are doing it and living it its a philosophy its an environmental ethic and an environmental ethic is a defined way a set of listening to the wisdom of the landscape and trying to mediate interactions between people and the natural landscape between people and their environment. So, getting to the foundational scholars Bioregionalism in an intelligent and imaginative political philosophy found by truths evident to the end growing of the census that’s philosophical for I know you know when Spring comes to your bioregion it doesn’t matter whether it Scewshawan cain, dominion or what you know the sounds of Spring you know the smell of Spring, you know what your Spring sky looks like you know where your first spring rains come from you know the sound of the frogs in the springtime.  I know in Iowa were losing that compiling of our biodiversity our frogs are extremely threatened Bioregionalism is infused with poetry of nature observed.  Bioregionalism clings to value that free people freely associating and found by the biological and genealogical truths over places will bring the best within themselves along with the health of their low lands to fill flowering and that’s Stephanie Mills she’s a Michiganander by the way Jane she’s from Michigan.  Bioregionalism means to save the whole by saving the parts Peter Book California Bioregionalism is about being and acting and is more a set of ideas its a practice to come into terms with our ecological homes while it matters and this is from me it matters because we are at the end of the fossil fuel era because our children are getting cancers respiratory diseases violent mental disorders and suffering from food poisonings bioregionalisms matters because transnational corporations impoverish workers world wide while ignoring the debilitating the debilitation of natural landscapes all for the profit of a few my neighbors aren’t making money however the agribusiness and national concerns in Iowa are making enormous amounts of money probably be in trouble for that one but that’s ok Bioregionalism matters because people matter because the natural world matters Bioregionalism matters because human culture whether we admit it or not was a raw seething unmanageable nature Bioregionalism matters just because humans have made nature for our own good for the prudential values that nature provides and finally Bioregionalism matters because we live in a beautiful enchanting breathtaking plant where cold prairie mornings tropical gardens water falls blue ice mountains ancient forests and blooming deserts are part of our human heritage now for the philosophy thanks, those with a bioregional world view its hard to hold this microphone and move my paper ok uh one view is a set of beliefs and attitudes and assumptions that shape and reflect ones world and ones place in that world generally those with a bioregional perspective have a bioregional attitude a biocentric world view that have extended their sphere of concern and consideration beyond just the human domain so if you’re thinking in biocentric terms you are saying that the plants that you grow you are saying the soil organisms the other community members whatever the flora and flana of your bioregion happens to be they are morally considerable to you your acting in a way that doesn’t delimit their expansion or their daily lives you are acting respectively towards them it acknowledges that you the members of the greater ecological community Leopold had a landmark essay written in the 1930s said that humans were community members that was a radical notion for the 1930s it is a right today as it was in the 1930 although we have an Iowan by the way, even though Wisconsin tries to claim him had that notion some of the community members that I deal with on the American bison used to be there until it became extracted from the prairie region which is now being reestablished at Walnut Creek wildlife refuge by the fish and wildlife service and 8000 acre prairie restoration in eastern in east central __________- hawks, badgers big blue stand this is the premier plant of the tall grass period, big blue stem can obtain a height of 12 feet above the ground but big blue stem was 2/3 more below ground so when the prairie is growing because of the rigorous conditions where it lives the prairie only invests a third of its life above ground 2/3s of it is below ground that’s why we have such amazingly rich soil.  Bioregionalism has a regional focus that is loosely based on water sheds so when you’re thinking Bioregionalism the first defining feature is your water shed like from the Des Moines river watershed if I take it first back I am on the Norman  creek water shed and also a large part of the Mississippi water shed which in the US drains 2/3s of the country its phenomenal what other watersheds do we have here?  The Minnesota river water shed, the Chesapeake, hot river, a beautiful area, some people drive through Nebraska in the night time so they can’t see it. I drive in the day cause I love it Mabel Creek, Middle Creek, Cotwood River the Oshow, Caw River Mississippi, alright, there s  a woman who knows her watersheds someone asked me to define Bioregionalism how do you know where you are how do you know is a bioregion, it’  very slippery term and the theorists who are out there living and working their landscape will be the first to admit this is really slippery but watersheds seems to be a defining feature another feature is what ecologist call biotic shift, and that’ a 20 to 25% change in flora plants or phona, the animals, when that shift exists you are entering another bio region its a biotic shift.  Getting a little more less specific, land forms so if you’re considering caning or mesa country those land form can easily define a bioregion elevation whoops, I am losing it here, bear with me folds and this one is intriguing especially if you have any grounding in anthropology cultural nuances also help to define bioregions life is maintained based on the notion of living off the abundance which is created by careful conscious wise stewardship of those resources and the women I ve been hearing this week it is clear to me that they are wise careful stewards of their landscapes so it doesn’t amount to mining natures bounty it amounts to stewarding and living off the abundance of what nature is capable of providing political activities decentralized authority sounds like the 60s doesn’t it locally initiated consensus decision making social equity as the norm that is women count women count as much as men and that isn’t arguable and this really gets me stens, the feats of local eco systems is not viewed as an act of ecoterrorism or political unrest it is an act of citizenship so when family farmers when Iowa family farmers when Iowa family hog farmers protest the USDAs attempt to govern national swine research center at the headwaters of big creek state park which contains a lovely lake used by DesMoins residents for fishing but also supplies drinking water directly to the city of DesMoins that was a wonderful marriage between world concerns the neighbors were concerned about hog prices falling the residents were concerned about their water quality and you know what it didn’t get built and you know why because people banded together and formed coalitions and ultimately shamed Iowa State for considering for building that and yet I am into organized religion but I am spiritual the sight of that facility was going to be right across the street form 1 125 year old church where the islands the elderly islands helped comprise that community that for Sunday services and also to  rural  communities and rural communities in Iowa, that where community building happens is at the churches so I would suggest to you that the entities considering that hog operation will wholly ignorant of rural culture rural communities were not even considered so the major claims of bioregionalists are that the ecosystems are best managed by local inhabitants and it is true for central Iowa, for Nebraska, for the African plains, when consciously in place you know best you know better than the politicians you know better than the ordained experts who probably have not bothered to visit your location you know best period.  Truth lies in the biology and geology of the water shed those are immutable facets that we can view, we can feel we can touch we can taste we can smell human culture exists within the context of local natural environments although economists will try to convince us that in the sphere of economy imagine a sphere, in this sphere you have facets of production you have facets of distribution you have facets of consumption and  somewhere around the bottom of natural resources if you were honest and cost accounting you would recognize that all of this human culture all the areas of commerce and production and transportation and trade happen within a natural environment, so the Bioregionalism I use is that  its appropriate to be honest and cost accounting what are the cost to natural resources economic I am hoping to make a strong pitch for local agriculture this, Bioregionalism insists that the local inhabitants must be benefited and not damaged by activities by economic activities when must these activities damage other environments so if you are thinking Bioregionalism, thinking bioregionally their dumping US corn cheap US corn into Chapus Mexico where it is to put local family farmers out of business, its not acting with good Bioregionalism intent its not acting in a bioregional respectful manner.  Mexicans dump in a Florida market that will put local family farmers out of business  that isn’t appropriate behavior either Bioregionalism is not against the trends of surpluses but again the surpluses may not be at the expense of the local culture or the local ecological communities where those crops were grown making those surpluses and that activity damage another biological human community where they are going it seems to me farmers need to be trading with people who want the food farmers need to be in control of the food system farmers need to talk to the eaters if you do that well wait a minute this layer of vertigo integration I am a farmer I teach a bunch students and show the farmers their is a lot of grass roots on the west mistrust outright antagonism towards the commercial food system there are many people who want to support the farmers they are afraid of the food they are feeding their children the market isn’t out there for you and these urban people are interested in forming connections with you in terms of economic scale these activities must fit within the natural landscape and it goes back to bioregional wisdom if you planting a dryland crop of if you are planting a water dependent crop in a desert and you think you can do it because of extreme irrigation and technologies that you might employ, and green revolution with chemicals and fertilizers that will work for a while but it will not work for long and the end it will bankrupt the soils where it is happening so economies of scale farmers with grazing operations with an integrated crop and livestock operation I had a woman in my lecture class she was a 5th generation Italian farmer farming 1500 acres she said the best thing you can do for family farmers is to get rid of all the subsidies and I mean all the subsidies so we are not supporting national corporations and she assured me that farming is the hardest work, the hardest work in the world but she loves it and she’s willing to pass the farm along finally, I need 3 hands we get back to agriculture, where possible locally produced plants and animals are just food items transported on distances with non renewable energy rely on the information gained through the census to make sense of local environments I forgot to ask, do I have academics here, any academics ok, 2 of us and for  academics we are going to test the proof like reliability and validity there’ no greater proof of validity and reliability than the information we gain from our census by simply looking even the water qualities not getting better in Iowa, all I need to do is take out my ___ disk and I see that the water is becoming murkier because the way we are coping the way we are subsidizing agriculture in Iowas has yet to relieve pollution of the water shed and finally from Stephanie Mills participate local ecosystems don’t ruin them.  You bet this is we ‘ve got 10 more minutes for comments and questions its yours.  Its all yours I really agree with what you are saying here I feel so strongly in this concept but what I don’t understand it seems to me its come clear to me at this conference is price the farmer has got to get a fair price and that what forces farmers to mine the soil and I just well you take out the safety net you take out the subsidies and I agree there’s a agreement  benefits the big producers and stuff but it also helps keep a lot of families on the farm and you take that away which we’ve done and you will lose all the land to the big corporations that’s what I see happening in my area and so I am not sure if pulling the safety net out from under the farmers can help the land that just might do the reverse and I really we have got to get a fair price and the idea of lynch marketing with the local communities that may be fine unless you live just a million miles from an urban community like we do. I am trying to lynch market but I have learned that it is, well it can’t be the answer for everybody cause it is just too problematic unless farmers get a lot of help with it.  I come from Minnesota and we are strong on ethanol now half the ethanol subsidy goes to ADM and so someone has to and I’ll tell you without the ethanol subsidy the farmers around that are getting the ethanol plants couldn’t do it but their has to be something in Congress where one person can’t get 65 million dollars or whatever they get but I know that ½ of the ethanol subsidy goes to ADM and pardon, ADM is in Iowa, oh, you love them don’t you, that’s what I had to say, in other words we need subsidies I think taking away or subsidies isn’t going to work but we there’s, there should be some limit some cap on who can get the subsidy.  Who else, I know Lindsey has a couple of things to add, but this is your time thank you.  This is a little bit off the subject I guess but in our neighborhood I live 2 miles from the blue river the big blue river, the big blue and last winter we had over two hundred head of deer and their causing a lot of problems and right now they have a disease that’s being passed to the cattle in the area and it eventually will hit the humans so that’s another side to it and I was just reading that most of the contamination of our water comes from domestic pets cats and dogs and this kind of shocked me then I got to thinking its probably true because we have so many out there. And the badger population has grown pronominally in our area I had to make a trip for parts the other day and I counted 14 dead badgers on the road, where do you live, I can talk to you later about the pet issue cause I’ve tracked the sources of contamination.  I agree with the price piece and what I am concerned with I mean it is about commodity price and if you take away the subsidies though if you think about it there’s only a couple of people who are controlling  it and will farmers ever really be free even if we take away that will there be freedom to farm, but still we won’t have that ultimate control, there is no freedom in the system so I am very concerned and I think that is the critical piece I just wanted to spend 2 seconds to talk about a group of women who have been caucusing for the last couple evenings to start looking at ways that we can show that we have actual issues in common and we’ve come together and we have actually got this on paper and if you’d like to see a copy of it I’d love to have it distributed because actually the more we can get this out the more it will have an impact and we are trying to network and work together and its happened naturally at the grass roots level with out any government participation and that is critical and healthy I ‘de love to share it, I was thinking about reading it but I don’t think we have time to do it but it needs to get out so there are two resolutions that are both very positive and we have an issues and concerns paper thanks.  How do we get it.  My name is Lindsey Ketchum and I work at the Vermont Department of Agriculture, you can see me after I have copies in my briefcase or you can give me a call my phone number and E-mail I can give it to you afterwards if you have an interest thanks.  Thanks Lindsey anybody else.  We got about five minutes left.  I just wanted to comment from the workshops that I ‘ve been to I went to one on concentration on marketing and I think that the subsidies is not the point its the concentration on marketing that you are missing out on the price there its not the subsidy that make the difference to you if it was taken away its whether or not you can get a fair price at market and when you have got that concentration by only a few you are losing in Australia we all the subsidies have disappeared so, a lot of the price world market comes from the US and when your markets are controlled the price flow continues and we don’t get it either.  We’ll try to get this back to you.  I am Moran Andrews I am from south Australia, just following up on the point that was made by the previous speaker we don’t have any subsidies even though at times they might be rather nice to have the point I am getting to is a general point and that is there are situation where the productivity of our land has been seriously affected by dry land salinity and by adopting an approach which emphasis the value of biodiversity and introducing natural methods of reducing that salinity by replanting by revegitating people have actually been able to improve the productivity of their land by destroying that natural balance and reducing the water tables in terms of looking at natural solutions and improving biodiversity you can actually improve the productivity of your land so the two need not necessarily need not be opposing.  I am from Western Victoria which is just next door to South Australia and the land movement in Australia really has been to give conservation and ecological practice with production practice, the mooring the two its not a grain organization in fact its driven by farmers who say that by diversity; clean water the clean soil has the integral to the community that’s really happening in Australia and its happening at a government mill, the land care merger is further supported by the Australian government so we have biodiversity binding issues and production issues all interline into the land care movement if anyone wants to take to me afterwards I will be more than happy to do so.  You know that’s really nice. Its a battle between conservation and farmer it doesn’t have to be like that  the farmers pick up the conservation issue, that’s not working here the farmers can pick up the conservation issue that means that one of the biggest environmental issues that America seems to have is the environmentalist they don’t know how to handle and its not that difficult to actually help the farmers so we are the conservationilists here that’s what Australia is doing anyway.  I am also from Australia, I am Soy I know that here in America you have ranching for profit and those concepts are very holistic and they incorporate the financial aspect and marry it with the land care, were not in land care ourselves but we do grazing for profit in Australia and I think that subsidies actually weaken your market not strengthen it they also weaken ours like the other lady over there said you take a different price because you get it in a different way or you are getting some assistance well we are not getting that assistance we also have to accept the same price so if we actually made this network work and we got together and got rid of subsidy we would actually have a more powerful marketplace rather than the other way and we are making money in Australia, we are not making as much as we should be for our investment but we are getting there. I am happy to stay after and talk, but thanks for coming I have appreciated learning from you farm women and I will turn it over to my college girl from the Department of Energy, to talk about bioregional energy production thank you.

 

Good morning to everybody I am Gloria Clesa I am from the Department of Energy I ‘ll give you a little background of what the Department of Energy is actually doing in agriculture but I want to say welcome to everybody to the Washington DC metro area.  I have spent the last couple of weeks touring basically the Midwest I ‘ve been in Missouri, Tennessee, Iowa I have just been there, and not too far from Daniell’ home town itself and I work pretty closely with trade associates industry academics and the like. For those of you who might be familiar with the US federal government and for those who are not you will recognize a bunch of offices or departments that we have, we have things like the state department, commerce, agriculture, energy there are others and people commonly ask what is energy doing with agriculture and a lot of you might know cause I’ve heard from the other side of the &L one that’s an area that were involved in too its the energy aspects of agriculture.  I intend to briefly walk you through a little bit of what our department does it scattered, agriculture is scattered through different sectors of and we have many sectors of energy.  On issues of energy and defense, environmental waste management energy research particularly my home office is energy efficient and renewable energy.  There is still a big picture because energy efficiency and renewable itself is broken down into sectors and its like industrial which is my home office transportation utilities and buildings and each of those components has an energy and agriculture focus.  We have something that my office has gone through during the past its something called industries of the future where we work collaboratively in partnerships with many individuals I am sorry if I am kind of shading some of you out from the view graph, I am more comfortable on the side.  So if you need I can jump to get out anybody’ way, but physically we are working with the private sector and this means anybody and everybody out there, its the farm gate its working through trade associations that represent the farmers its working through academic institutions that itself gets though he educational aspects its working with other federal agencies, state agencies and the like.  But what my office does is principal fund research opportunities what you see here is something that we have gotten into  mode its called an industry of the future process this model looks at 25 years into the future its none of these short term quick turn around on research and commercialization of products what we are looking at is  process we have several components that make up the process itself the first one being division area its something like an executive document of sorts its the goals that one wants to obtain, you look at it and say 25 years this is what the industry is going to look like we have  little crystal ball, its  portion of the technology roadmaps what this  all the steps that is takes to reach these goals and it has to work collaboratively in order to be able to achieve these goals and the last portion of it is the implementation side where the partnerships actually getting into doing forming the partnerships funding research and making it happen.  This is one of those carry all slides for everything we do it for industry as well as for anybody else.  We have, the folks that make the slides are kind of leaving us out, I ‘ll tell them next time.  But, as I tried to tell you we have  huge group of participants who are involved in the process its by no means  small group there’s no controllers in the process, matter of fact its basically an even keel.  But we look at things as suppliers and manufacturers on an industrial side so when you agree talking about the trade associations this could be very distinct talk about the agriculture vision process I’ll give you  clue to how many of these folks are actually involved.

 

Question: Besides the BTUs that you look at in terms of funding or supporting research, what other kind of concrete policy things that your department wants to see before supporting new technology? 

Answer:  We have to look at energy factors, naturally from our mission, but we're also very highly concerned about environmental waste reduction.

And How do you measure that?  It's on certain areas that we're looking at, so again you have to look at it, as the current technology as opposed to the new technologies that are coming in, the nitrogen issues, the nox the sox, any of the aspects that might cause environmental concerns. Whether this would be land filling issues, I have a project that actually takes from a pulp plant saw dust and instead of dumping it in a traditional New York waste land fill site it takes it back into the process and makes an organic acid and we hoping, from all indications, it looks like we'll be able to make a fuel oxygen out of the process.  So we're taking it away from the land fill system, it has a very high energy content to value to it, and we're making it energy wise, economically because their zero cost to it right now to this and we're putting it back into the system.

 

Question:  I want to talk about the deregulation of the electric industry right now.  Right now, Nebraska is in the process of voting on deregulation of electricity and right now we have the cheapest electricity in the nation.  And it was set up by Senator Norris, back in the 1930s.  He was also responsible for the Tennessee Valley Authority, so that you had cheap electricity and his idea was to get it out to rural United States as cheaply as possible and it's in danger of being lost.  And so, watch whats going on in your states, people are here from the United States, but watch it all over the world, cause I was listening to the people from Australia, and they kinda had the same thing, and their really watching it close.  But what's going on in Nebraska now the main source of energy comes from the southerland power plant and than it goes into different areas, and the companies than turn around donate the profit back to the communties, and it will be a terrible loss per community if they loose that because than it will go back to tax dollars and your taxes will go up.  I've really been watching this issue allot and listening to allot of people talking about it.  But watch.  What's coming out because we can not afford to have deregulation. What they going to turn around and do and charge you per pole in bringing electricity to your place.

 

Question:  In rural communities allot of the rural utilities are consumer cooperatives, their owned by the residents and the big push of deregulation is to break consumer ownership.  So pay attention to who you buy your electricity from and try to keep it with consumer owned power organizations, your cooperative.  Why trust the corporation if you still retain control over that power?  And even if you would pay a little more a first, because their going to come in at first and offer real cheap power and than when you sign on, they can raise that up.  So stick with you cooperatives.

Answer:  Our office has sponsored a number of deregulation seminars and unfortunately I'm always on the road whenever they occur.  My home state is Maryland right now, and Maryland is very close to going to a deregulation policy.  Now I've talked about a couple of industries that really I'm not going to say they don't have direct relevance to you, but I'm here to talk about agriculture, and I had to go through what my office has done up until now.  But what happened just recently was a phenonmenal event in Agriculture.  Unfortunately, I could say one negative part of the whole process though is that we don't have a budget in this area, we're actually borrowing from the chemicals industry right now and working on their side.  So we're kinda crossing our fingers, Congress this year gets a little kinder to us and gives us some funds so we can work directly with the Agiculture sector.  But what's happening right now, is we signed on two new industries, Agriculture being one, the second on being mining, and this is mining of any mineral or ores in the like.  My office has not just recently just jumped into Agriculture by any means, the program I manage is called Alternative Feedstocks.  Alternative Feedstocks is not in the growth, cause that would USDA's function, my function specifically is doing something with the crop once it's done.  And I'm not saying I'm going to take your crops from your food sources, I could take your waste from your crops.  Matter a fact, a document that I have in back, it called plant crop base removeable resources 20/20. That's my vision document and in here I actually have a statement that tells you how much dry matter is left in the field, that does not have to be left in the field for environmental considerations.  We're talking about 2,600 pounds per acre was the quote that I was given and this was assured by USDA and others that were involved in the process of being a proper quote, of being left behind there is esssentially about 520,000,000 pounds of dry matter that are left behind. 

 

Danielle how do you speak to this.  What do you think?  I mean we're talking humous, and in the soils capacity to hold nutrients. What do you think about that?  I have to claim that I have to stand on the side of the matter, but I don't want to do things that are going to set Gloria and I against each other,  because I think we're working for the same thing but my take is leave the residue. And earlier Gloria was talking about using composte, using maneur when your accumulating alot. And we are in Iowa, and we are in deep stuff.  And it looks like the Department of Energy is looking at that dynamic.  And I'd like to hear about that.  Cause that's our big concern, factory farms, and if you've got a solution for the waste, I'd like to hear about it. 

 

No we don't have any solutions for anything. You are truly the experts out there.  That Danielle really heightened that earlier on, and I have to support that fully.

 

Question:  What is the problem with waste? 

Answer:  On the factory farms in Iowa, where they concentrate 100s of 1000s of hogs in one location, is it not agriculture scale.  There isn't the land mass to support reintergrating those nutrients on the landscape in an appropriate manner and just future reference the USDA and other entities are basing the nutrient requirements on nitrogen but phosphorus accumulates 10 times faster so if your ignoring the phosphorus your poisening the land in that equation. 

 

Question/comment:  I just wanted to share a couple ideas that I'm so excited about that relate to this that has to do with Perrenial Agriculture and one is what my group is involved in were a co-op of nine families that are producing grass fed beef instead of taking our cattle to a feed lot where they are fed harvested grains, harvested and grown with fossil fuels, cultivated with fossil fuels, that whole deal. Our cattle are grown to finishing weights on a perrenial crop native prairie grass, and I think that has allot of potential with in livestock production.  And the other idea is from an outfit called The Land Institute in Kansas, which some of you may have heard of and their developing perrenial feed grains in these would be plants, their geneticists and it's a thirty year project, eastern gama grass, illinois bundle flower, and these are plants that eventually that could be harvested without being planted over and over again.  And just think of the fossil fuel that would be saved in that.  Coolest idea.

 

Methane was one of the questions brought up, myself and my own office, no we are not.  So I understand where your going to go with with Methane as the annoropic digestures, and the life to use for power generation on the family farm or like.  No we don't do that.  USDA has allot of applications in that area, I've collaborated with them on many a issues, and one of them was a quarterly newsletter that used to come out, I believe it still does.  But they had wonderful extensive articles on pitfalls or pluses on what not on that particular matter.

 

Biodeisel is our transportation group, anything that is not fuel oriented or utility causing in other words, for burning for co-generation or the like.  If you kinda cut those pieces out, you'll see what remains.

 

Biodeisel uses soy beans it's been introduced to six elevators in the State and it was phenomental how fast it sold out, but it's so much better for your engines.  You don't have to have near the upkeep

and you know, you aren't running to a gargage to have things done, and I have a lady in my group I belong to the wife organization and she burned ethynol in her car and this is back in the 1960s she has over 200,000 miles on that car and has never been in a garage to be worked on.

 

Right at the beginning when you convert to the ethynol fuel or the biodeisel and you've been burning the other fuels first, your going to have a chug a chug a chug, but it's cleaning itself out, really, truly, and it kinda has smoke with it but once you get things cleaned out and ready to go, it's amazing you'll have better fuel efficiency, it'll clean, and you won't have to go to the mechanic near as often. 

 

You see allot of those issues here we have underneath it the USDA has a center called Alternative Agriculture Research and Commercialization Center and they fund lots of these opportunities and what we collaberatively work with them too because their so close to my own program area, their the commericalization sight.  I'm still in research.  Their there making the products right now, so there a difference between them and myself.  But I have biles of biodeisel from soy in my office and a couple of other interesting things to show you. Actually, what are commercial markets out there right now for some of these things opportunities.  We're talking about things happening now.  But the fact is that it's not happening on any ground scale.  What I was saying before about there was dry matter behind in the life, I'm talking about, let's say you get to the point, and I'm not saying we're going to make collections are peoples homes or anything like that at this point, I'm not getting that far with my thoughts right here.  But you do have from corn stalks, you have residue from the corns stalks that come off.  You have a seven foot a six foot plant.  I know there high.  Yes, there are allot of energy aspects in the growth and that's one of the items that we're looking at with the industry as a working this process itself.  But we're even talking about corn cobs itself, in other words, not just taking sugars and starches out of corn and soy.  Or we're working with wood, it's a hard wood or soft wood, prairie grasses, switch grass, kemf, kaneff.  There's allot of opportunities out there, we're not talking a regionally specific to a particular product we're looking at there is going to be a day when petroleum is not going to be there.  And petroleum makes everything practically today.  Your talking about the textiles that your wearing, the paint on the walls, plastic for your car bumpers, I mean you name it.  It's not only is it  a transportation need petroleum, not only heating need for your house, or a power generation, really.  We need things to help either foster to take out the supplies to the future, and or when supplies are gone, we have something in place.  And research takes a long time in order to make a market.  Especially when your brand new, and you don't have the infrastruture from the industry in place.  So these are things that we have to consider while we're doing the process.  So, I'm just trying to heighten the point, that we have to look at other applications itself. I'm getting a little high five in the back, I've got about another ten minutes to go so let me just kinda walk you through. As I was saying we're not new on this in 1991 in my office Alternative Feed Stocks Program began.  It was essentially a paper study for two years.  We needed to do it economically, there's no sense in making something that's going to be so cost prohibited nobody's going to pick it up. So that's one of these items that we had to do.  And at the same time, we're looking at doing this without subsidies, to enhance to cost, like the ethynol issue that was raised earlier.  We're looking at this as being research to point that it can compete.  What are you harvesting?   Harvesting is an item for farmers when they bring us through their trade associations, that their going to be talking about soon, rather than meeting August-September time frame, when their some companies that are talking about, we could use some more materials from the farm gate itself, but we don't have the equipment that could actually pick up this matter today.  And when I talk to John Deere as a company, they'll tell me no your the only one who wants to do this so no, we're not going to make a piece of equipment and till it to you alone. But when their finding out when they meet in these rooms arrangements that there's allot more people who have the needs or the equipment to be modified for them but also can make something for your process. You might not be doing the same harvesting group.  So those are the issues that are coming, or that people are trying to resolve. 

 

Question:  To your agencies and agencies like yours, how do you help some of the support for the smaller farmers instead of just going through the industry levels though because like you mentioned methane, well my uncle had a dairy farm years ago they had a methane generation system that they used for producing energy, but you know, there's no support for systems like that or little systems. It all goes to the John Deeres and ADMs and everybody.  So what are we going to do?

Answer:  When I talk about partners that we have.  I'm talking about the whole gammit.  And most of my partners so happen to be small businesses.  I don't deal with ADM that's for certain.  Boy, that won me a couple points right there.  Essentially, allot of the small businesses some of them are coming off of a farm gate in other words they had novel ideas, and they were trying to impliment them. This is high risk, the high risk takers so seem to be small businesses. Their the ones really want to champion something into the future.  And basically on their backs, this actually does occur.  When we put out solititations we try to get the word out to everybody, I'll have a web site that I'll share with you in a little bit, where we typically tried to post our announcements. We try to get it into journals that are in localities in the like.  Can't promise you that it gets everywhere, but we try to get the word out.  And if you belong to some kind of trade association or the like, we try to get the word through them. So that they could pass it back to their members itself.  But in a little bit of trying to save some time I'm going to scoot ahead and say.  We funded a bunch of research opportunties starting in 1993.  We're almost near the point of few of them being commercial right now so once they become commercial their out in the private sector in order to take this up, we don't push it in the market the market takes it upon itself to do it.  Principally, since we've had very limited funds we've only started since '93 this is '98, so.  Most of the focus so happens to be cornstarch, sugars, fiber itself, working hardwood, softwoods, wood residues, recycled newspapers, and matters like that.  We have not had any entree with soy bean but USDA has had allot of soy bean work in the past.  Participants again within my own program area, five of the national labs that I showed you the graphic on were involved from the very start, small, medium, large businesses, academic institutions, State offices, trade associations, and these are the same type of people who were involved on an industry of the future process.  It wasn't this real unique back in 1993 that this program was so visionary that something that they've adopted that other industries saw as a model and ran with.  We actually do the tools, I don't do the crop growth and neither do I do the chemical side.  But we have to be able to break down the mass thats given to us.  In order to be able to separate it, purify if, enhance it, whatever the process, mother nature is so slow that we have to speed her up otherwise the economics kick in on us.  The programs objectives was to look at products that would succeed without regulation, as I mentioned before and without subsidy.  And that's pretty unique.  There's not many people who are trying to do that all at one time.  We're trying to say that people, the consumers, the customers would be willing to purchase these materials because they can be produced at the same level that we're accustomed to today.  I mentioned a bunch of items that these markets might go to, I said plastics, fibers, solvants, upolstry, working films, coatings,  herbicides, pesticides and these are just projects within in my portfolio right now.  In '96 a champion came forward from industry and so happened to be the National Corn Growers Association, we need champions in order to lead the efforts.  Since the government does not push the industry of the future process.  Champion is just that--it's a leader, an organizer.  In December of that year we met at a meeting, and this would be a bunch of folks, just before Christmas, so it was kinda hectic with holidays.  But manufacturers, and users, trade associations, agro-processors sat down and started formalize thoughts for this vision process.  The vision document is located in the back. I have a copy of it just right up here. And this is the one I'm speaking on.  This group sat down and started to formalize some ideas.  By the spring we had a draft document in place.  Over a hundred and thirty participants were involved in creating this document.  And when I mean industry now, and I'm going to give you an idea when I say that that's so important, that we look beyond our box.  We're not just looking at Agriculture as the industry, biotechnology has to come in place, because you don't either have the genetics or what not, the catalists the like that come from the biotech side your kinda hampered.  We're looking at the chemicals industry and forest products also.  Trade association besides the corn folks, we had the wheat, we had the Corn Refineries Association, the American Forest and Paper Association, a bunch of chemical organizations that are formed under these industry and trade association of the like, many academic institutions but we didn't accomplish them all, there was no way we could do this.  We had State agencies involved but not everyone of them again, we had folks from USDA, EPA, Commerce also in the process.  By late that summer this vision document was completed agreed to by all these members.  And that's good ______ that I have to say, that over 130 participants, and cross all these boundaries lines.  By February of this year, we released this, it was out in the public's domain.  It was held at the Corn and Soy Beans Annual Commodity Classic, which happen to be done in Long Beach, California that year.  They had over 5,000 attendees there that particular day.  We're looking at the goals from this document itself, 10% of the market to be penetrated chemicals from biobase sources in the year 2020, 50% by the year 2015.  We're also saying that there are going to be these collaberations that occur and that the process and the infrastructure will be in place in order to meet these objectives.  We go very extensively into this document.  They have what they call a matrix.  And it's all the items within the box, it's on page two of the report itself.  Looks at the opportunities that you have to explore.  Whether it's process or the plant input itself.  As a matter of fact, just to give an idea, it's no more than quick mention, but they actually signed a compac, working with the multiple sectors out there.  And these are some of the signers.  As a matter of fact, we still have more signers of the compac each and every day.  Coming out to a meeting, you can never get each and every body into one place.  And we were out in El Ninao season so that was a little bit difficult.  It as a dayluge out there at the time.

Question:  What would you say is the complimentarity between the growing organic agricultural movement and the kinds of vision that this sort of document has in place? The organic agriculture movement to work in harmony in nature to grow crops.

Answer:  That would not be my place to answer something like that.  That would be something that the associations in the like of the partnership would have to consider. I am more interested in the energy, economic, and environmental aspects of producing this.  That's a concern that would have to be driven through the process itself for a resolution.

 

Question/comment (same person): Virtually all of the long term cropping systems research I have seen that look at an organic agriculture component, basically show the organic component as having overwhelmingly the lowest energy input output ratios. 

 

Thank you. 

 

Just to let you know that these folks aren't stagnent by any means, that they formed, you don't want to hear words that just saying in the that their forming committees and the like, but these are real doers.  We have folks like Monsanto, Life Sciences, and the like, we A.D. Staly, we have Cargo, we have the people who are out there who can make this actually happen.  Their on an Executive Steering Committee because they want to see the good come out of the process itself.  These are a listing of folks, it could be your big corporations, it could be your small guys that are forming the Executive Commitee today.  What I want to just share with you, is just what are the opportunties out there?  Now since I'm in the research mode I tell you I really can't do much.  We're taking material like this, which happens to be dried up corn fiber, we're taking that and we're looking at applications like fuel oxygen or the like. This is something that we take from trees, we separate trees apart, the three components of a basic tree comes out to a plastic disk looking like that.  We can make opthemolic lens or films, and this is the kind of purity that they need. It's a little scratched up from allot of denting from travel and the like.  But in otherwords we have applications and their looking at environmental side that you can actually get the bleach content, what this looked bleached, done with environmental considerations on that.  Another thing this is coming off from corn, right now it's just a little white powder, it's an organic acid, this is looking at plastics, fibers and solvents.  Now from my friends over in USDA's Arc Center there commercialized things like soy cleaner for graffiti, they have a pure castille soap that is out, it's fragranced itself.  We're looking at cutlery that's biodegradabe so that the item that you brought up earlier about biodegradability, this is not only an energy but an agriculture, it has to be considered.

 

Question:  When you mentioned the Executive Committee that to me was kinda of frightening to hear the names on there, Monsanto, Cargo, and places like that because to me that goes against organics, it goes against bioregionalism, because so much of what their doing is trying to force down farmers throats, products, genetic engineered seeds or chemicals, you know, you have to use their chemicals, instead of trying to get away from the chemicals in all these imputs. Their encouraging, in fact, trying force everybody to use all those products or they make a profit.

Answer:  Well, I knew that would stir up a little criticism when I mentioned that.  But if I mentioned to you some of the smaller guys who are working here, you would say, who's that? So I had to give you some name recognition to people who are involved in the process, people would know such a person like a Monsanto because of it's seat. 

 

Question:  It appears that your aware of the potential vested interest or the conflict of interest that some of those large corporations might bring to what seems to be a pretty valuable project, and how are you going to manage that?

Answer:  Very carefully.  Cause since we have a balanced portfolio of partners and partnerships out there, there's no way that anyone could be a controlling.  And it doesn't matter if your a big company or a small one you have equal voice and it has to be a consensus from the group at the end of what we're going to do.  We've had this at our other industries of the future.

 

Question:  On that committee I can't believe imagine that the Department of Energy doesn't get pressure from people's political agendas that lobby congress and that whole thing.  You can't be void of that whole political process.

Answer:  And now how we get our research budgets are coming from appropriations through Congress, it's a Presidential request, it's Congressional Appropriation, so what we're looking at really is these people can come in, they can lobby, they can make their impacts on, but when it comes to the table there are neutrality,  if they fall from the way side, if their discouraged by what we're trying to encourage for a vision process for the future so they leave the table.  Yes, but we're also not leading the folks.  In otherwords, I'm not saying me as the Deparment of Energy. I'll be willing to talk to anybody afterwards.  Thank you.