break no more than five minutes. recess. allow our first panel of witnesses. our second panel of witnesses to take their seats and we will reconvene basically as soon as our witnesses get comfortably seated here and ready to go. so today we are back for lecture

number 11. this is the cold war and atomic apocalypse. today we really complete a pivot that we began last week from thinking in terms of religiously framed stories of apocalypse to secular visions of the end of human history. politics has followed us throughout this entire course, and it will continue to follow us through the rest of this last week. of course, content. but now we turn squarely also to the realm of science and technology. which we can imagine as a world apart from organized religion, although really you'll see they overlap substantially and fundamentally in ways that are crucial for understanding the takeaways from this course apocalyptic thought. in our sessions, a couple weeks ago on apocalypse in the european of the enlightenment era's, science took on the guise of natural philosophy, part and parcel of the judeo-christian worldview, which we've seen really shaping western culture in the fundamental way. and we saw in the 1800s,

especially, but not exclusively through the writings of charles darwin and karl marx, natural philosophy transformed the metamorphosed into a secular set of notions of science that empowered human beings to put themselves, increasingly in the role of engineering machines, to do their bidding. the trajectory we've covered this term involves moving from just trying to describe the world around, us, the things of this world into a project of figuring out the optimum rules, for ordering the world and then remaking the world according rules in order to master the world around us. in other words, following the assumption which we've seen again and again and again, first in a religious caste, and now in a secular caste that a progressive view of history understood as human history means that human beings can perfect their own future. other words, it's no longer up to god alone to define perfection as an end state in the afterlife, in divine time or

kairos. but that human beings can create heaven on earth can set the and define the trajectory for the path to that most rational, perfect secular eschaton. and in that case, an apocalypse doesn't require belief, in a separate realm of divine time. it doesn't require belief in cairo, as we have only chronos, the secular linear time of our own world, rather divine intervention or the kind of heavenly jerusalem imagined in the text that started it all for us in this course. john's book of revelation. last book of the christian bible. instead, we human beings can engineer our own optimum end state. so goes the principle of secular, apocalyptic. since the 18th century, the so-called era in european history, spanning from the, quote unquote, enlightened industrial ages onward into, our

present digital age and historians like, to use the word modernity, to talk about these centuries. some historians will focus on the fact that the 21st century has moved this beyond modernity in so many ways. i'm not sure about that. i think that the thought processes were really still show us very similar lines to what we've been covering throughout the last weeks of the course. so we're very much still dwelling for the rest of the course. content this week in a time period that i think we can call modern based on how human beings believe that they can engineer their own perfect world without needing to leave it behind and move on to a god given place called capital h. heaven. now, if you look at the title slide of today's lecture, you see us still from the film dr. strangelove, which i asked you all to watch for today.

this film, made in 1964, came out the height of the cold war. we'll talk about it at some length today. i hope you all watched it and got a good deal out of it because it's really extraordinary film. one of the most famous films by the late, great director stanley kubrick. what you see here, this title image is one of the major characters in the film named major kong, actually riding a nuclear warhead being launched to start world war three, which more or less was understood to equate with nuclear annihilation. and thinking in terms of nuclear catastrophe, what cold war political scientists on the u.s. side refer as mutually assured destruction, where there's one side in a comfort two has the power to completely annihilate the other side. but then again, the other side can respond by annihilating the first side. so the idea fundamentally, when we talk about mutually assured destruction and the history of nuclear technology in the cold

war, is that rationally neither side should launch those weapons first. what's called the first strike, because both know that would be game over for everybody. this movie, dr. strangelove posits instead that rationality dropped out and the consequences were predictable and completely catastrophic. now, this is an assumption that really has been guiding a lot of talk about the apocalypse, the coming of end of the world stories. in 2022 and now 2023. some of it has to do with current world politics. certainly, u.s. politics play a role too. right now, the top issue seems to be the us place in the world as understood through the lens, especially of president biden's stance on russia's full invasion of ukraine. we saw the ukrainian president just before christmas visiting washington, d.c. volodymyr zelensky.

so ukraine remains as russia for its steamrolling of sovereign ukrainian soil and the really ukrainian response to that full scale invasion. it's not just about russia and ukraine, though. persistence of. fears of nuclear epochal collapse in our world. we could talk north korea and indeed north korea has been a serious part of the conversation about nuclear threats continually for years, since it debuted its nuclear technology or iran, especially with the u.s. withdrawal a few years ago under then president trump from the iran nuclear deal or the people's republic of china certainly on the ascent and certainly in the headlines, always regardless of your ideological convictions within u.s. politics. all of these have made for plenty of conversation among pundits in the past few years about just how realistic it is

that we human beings will imminently meet our demise collectively. beneath the mushroom cloud. but without even getting into contemporary politics, we can stop for a moment and think in terms of where from the vantage point of right now, in january 2023, we see ourselves in a trajectory that started with the development of nuclear technology in the 1940s in the context of the allied effort in world war two. now, let's turn to our next slide. on the left, we have an image from the cover of time magazine. in 1990 of the great soviet physicist and dissident andrei sakharov. for those who haven't heard this word before, the word dissident means a civil objector, someone who is practicing civil disobedience without taking up arms or launching an armed rebellion. it's a word whose historical roots are often found in disobedience against the governments of the soviet union and its cold war era puppet governments across central and eastern europe. though now the word taken on a much wider resonance and we talk

about, quote unquote, dissidents against dictatorships and authoritarian regimes everywhere of all ideological stripes. this man depicted andrei sakharov, worked in the 1940s and fifties when joseph stalin was in power in the ussr to get the soviet union atomic and thermonuclear weapons technology only then to do a complete about face, turning away from everything had done as a younger man and becoming an international campaigner, denouncing soviet union's misuse of atomic technology and suppression of human rights and oppression of categories of its citizens. in other words, sakharov went from being one of the engineers of the soviet atomic arsenal toward being one of its greatest critics. and i need to be clear here, not just of the technology itself, but more generally of the soviet union's place, the world. and something sakharov underscored repeatedly, the lack of moral authority that the soviet union experienced

broadcast in spite of the fact that it claimed to be the ultimate moral state in the world, in the communist pursuit of total equality and justice. according to the theory originally taken from karl marx, now in 1975, andrei sakharov won the nobel peace prize. he wasn't allowed to receive it in person. so his wife came and delivered the nobel peace prize lecture on his behalf. i'm going to quote that lecture at several points in this lecture today. and in front of you are to on this slide would speak, i think already to some of the most important things to consider as we move through today's class. let's connect sakharov first to the bigger trend lines we've been discussing so far in our course. if we take god off the table so to speak for a second, if we take the judeo-christian faiths off the table for a minute, whether or not we still think in terms of a framework of progressive history, moving

better and better in fashion toward a perfect and state in our lives and in our world, whether or not like german philosopher whom we read in the first week of class, can it in his book meaning in history we attribute that kind of progressive approach to broader questions of secularization and the construction of narratives of history and thinking about, the broader shape of how history unfolds past to present the future that we get from john's book of revelation originally. what's gives us one way or another is a basis for both applauding and critiquing. we denounce it the way progress has been defined in the context of the rise of global mass technology, especially weapons of mass destruction in the 20th and 21st centuries. and that really is the key to this week's material in our course. what saddam had to say in 1975 was as follows is the first quotation, you see it in front

you. on this slide, mankiw signed at the threshold of the second half of the 20th century and to the particularly decisive and critical period of its history. and second quotation there is no doubt that industrial and technological progress is the most important factor in overcoming poverty, famine and disease. but this progress leads at the same time to ominous changes in the environment in which we live and, the exhaustion of our natural resources. in this way, mankind faces grave ecological dangers, end quote. so these are lines from suharto's 1975 nobel peace prize lecture. and this was not simply a critique of environmental dangers or the dangers of mass famine, but sakharov was launching what he was saying is that humankind in the course of the 20th century had reached a point where all of a sudden it was transforming and reshaping every dimension of life on earth. aspirationally would, in fact, be transforming the whole of the

secular realm. the universe in quotes, if we could get that far according to its own taste and its own plans. if we go back to the lecture a week ago about isaac newton and apocalyptic thinking during the enlightenment, you can jog your memories and maybe think about what voltaire was saying. so how off seems confirm voltaire as prophecy from 200 years earlier. about being able to build what carl becker described as the city of the 18th century. philosophers of the enlightenment. but if we read and if we think closely about suharto's words, we realize there's also a caution, a warning, unlike the unbridled belief in rational progress that we saw in voltaire. so hoddle says there's no doubt that we've achieved industrial and technological, and this is crucial to improving day to day lives of human beings. whether we're talking about

thinkers on the u.s. side of the cold war or the soviet side of the cold war, we can understand this idea of progress wanting to improve, or at least declaring a to improve the day to day lives of human beings, to aid in relieving material privation, whether for the industrial workers of europe and the americas or the resource imbalances in the regions of the world from european decolonization. so how do was looking at the global south the global north as a a world, an integrated world where disease and famine needed to be intellectual property theft. the chinese have gone after crop yield data and breeding

information and biotechnology research which will lead to a competitive advantage. i have seen this firsthand in the seat production. they were sending from production fields and shipping them back to china. these chinese nationals were caught and convicted, but how many were not caught? according to the trade association, it takes 5-15 to establish a seed variety. and the annual production is over $11 billion annually. data driven attacks rely heavily on this data like farms like us produce data that is exclusive to our farm and major driver to our sustainability and productivity. we are at extreme risk for attack that could alter or

disrupt and lead to incorrect farming decisions and likely harm yields. there have been attempts and caught and convicted again, how many were not caught. infrastructure attacks, critical infrastructure from electrical grid could be targeted in disrupting our food supply. when we consider ransomware, it could be halted demanding payments to restore payments and we all can remember the ran some attacks on j.b.s. which disrupted the supply chain to the consumers' dinner table. $11 million was paid but the cost and the agricultural supply chain was greater. espionage. the chinese are going to steal

from u.s. offices to our industries, to cranes and ports and any conduit. while the u.s. government is aware of these threats, we need to strengthen protection for america's food supply. this includes identifying vulnerabilities than prime minister proving measures of government against cyberthreats. next, portions of our supply chain have been offshored and building blocks for our food systems and crop production products. these are the basic elements that nourish crops, proangt from weeds, insects and diseases. a supply chain report indicates 70% of the crop protection that are plews produced globally most from china. another 40% of the world's toes ferous supply originates in china.

imagine if they shut off our supply. crop nutrients, yields will decrease and requiring more land. the economic impact of farmers, consumers and our nation would have devastating consequences and lead to higher consumer prices and food insecurity. this is a national security threat to the united states and our alwries. the absence of crop protection have an impact. we need to allow for reasonable and durable regulations to prevail to allow the united states to bring this capacity back home while supporting those that are manufacturing these critical products here at home and u.s. to feed americans and the world. in summary, whether it is from cybersecurity threats or from

minimized from crop nutrients, the chinese are attempting to build their dominance. these moves are coming at the expense of american innovation but amplified by our burdensome regulatory environment. the people on this hill need to bring our supply chains home increase our funding for research and development. now is the time for national strategy. if not, america could face food insecurity like we did 100 years ago and time to stop agriculture and food systems for granted. again the world is watching. i yield the floor back to you, chairman thompson. mr. thompson: thank you for your input today on this important topic. and members will be recognized for questions in order of

seniority and those who joined after the hearing convened and defer my questions to the very end. each member will be recognized for five minutes each to get starting with the majority side. i recognize mr. lucas from oklahoma. mr. lucas: thank you to the witnesses. during my time in congress, i have been engaged and partied discussions around foreign investments of the united states due to my position on the house financial services committee due to the committee's jurisdiction over foreign investment or cfius that is located within treasury. one of the most challenging aspects is the tension of two widely shared goals of protecting our national security while fostering an economic environment. congress has struck reforms.

most notably, 2007 and in 2017. today i invite you to join me to our panel friends in that discussion. from your view point, what is the correct balance between national security while allowing the national investment in our economy, let's cut straight to the chase. >> well, we have to keep our open investment policy that has been sustained since president carter on through now. one of the greatest strengths we have is the investment we get from abroad. trade is very important. that said, as you know, sir, oversight capacity there are serious national security issues that are drawn and chinese actors have been interesting in the way that they have found

vulnerability not only in our laws and the gaps and their capabilities to use nephariously third party actors and gain access to places where we have the needs in terms of our national security. the great balance to continue with our open investment policy, but incredibly smart how we go through the cfius process. mr. lucas: do any of the gentlemen wish to touch on this? oh, be brave. >> from a grower, two different areas, as a grower and land owner and farming land in north dakota, the concern around foreign investment is concerned as well. and it's not just china. it's other out of state and foreign owners that could drive

up the price of land. there is a concern there and i would say on the input side, there are foreign ownership of research and development facilities when it comes to seed, chemical and other inputs, research and development that benefit me on the farm. so in those two areas there is work to be done and you are right. it's a tough balance, i don't envy the job that congress has but from a growers' perspective, two places to look at. mr. lucas: any thoughts, ambassador? >> my time serving as ambassador in the middle east and africa and latin america, the chinese are aggressive in their approach

in investing in these developing nations. i look in particular at africa, nearly 1.1 billion hectors. the united states is around 150 million. we think they are the most essential part that china is gaining for, is the minerals, it's not. i see the belts and roads initiative. and we see the growth in soybeans moving into china. the nations are forming up together and through the investment of the chinese party. when i come back to the united states we have to be extremely careful where they do invest. we need to havize on this. i gauge you to please be careful. mr. lucas: i can't think about a more important subject to address today and i want to

thank you, chairman thompson for your support of my legislation agricultural risker review act that was signed into law earlier this month. it adds the secretary of agriculture to the cfius committee. this was the first formal addition of a cabinet secretary to cfius and reflects what we all know to be true, a country cannot feed itself cannot defend itself. i thank you. and i yield back. mr. thompson: i am pleased to recognize ranking member scott. mr. scott: chairman, i want to thank you for letting democratic witness go first. we are proud to hear from a farmer on this issue. and thank you letting my democratic colleague go first.

and i want to rm -- you said the world is watching us today on this very strategic national security issue. and i thank you for that statement. and indeed they are. i have learned so much from so many of my colleagues but none more than congressman mcgovern on this whole food issue. he's a national world leader on food security and hunger. and i'm telling you, this is a national issue. and i hope if there's one thing that goes from this hearing, it's that we are putting this issue at the front of the list. there are people all over the world are watching us with the

most powerful nation in the world, yet as mr. mcgovern has said over and over, we have beds of hunger. our children, our veterans, people going hungry needing food. and then we have these threats. i am not putting any sugar coating on it. i believe there are foreign interests out there who are looking at our nation and trying to find weaknesses wherever they're going. and the one area we must not and cannot get weak in is providing the american people with food and keeping this as our number one trade issue for agriculture and our farmers. and i so appreciate each of you coming forward with this.

and chairman, once again, i just thank you for putting this hearing together, because it's time -- now, let me just ask a couple of questions here, in your testimony, you discuss that the 2018 trade war led to brazil and i mentioned it in my remarks capturing additional market share in china and other parts of the world. now there has been some discussion of imposing a 60% tariff, trump, presidential candidate has mentioned that, on chinese products. so i want to ask you professor, what impact do you think that would have on u.s. soybean production? >> i thank you, ranking member

scott. a.s.a. believers any type of additional tariffs in the u.s. would be bad enough in agriculture and a lot of other businesses as well. it is -- know there is a balance and practices in china that need to be addressed but that type of tariff in 2018, that was 25%. if that number is right. and i mean we saw an immediate drop, close to a $2 drop short time after those tariffs were announced and retaliation from china. if we are learning from history and experience we had in 2018, you could experience when it comes to is farmers and soybean producers. mr. scott: you note that intellectual property theft is

one of the primary threats posed by china giving that china seems unwilling to adhere to w.t.o. rules. what in your opinion are some concrete steps that we in congress can take to protect u.s. agriculture technology? >> thank you for that question. there have been major steps. we heard of the example of potential theft on data systems. they use more data whether con sphelings satellites to data ag rhythms to the seeding, they have been compromised and stolen. and intellectual property.

biggest advantages they have ever had. the chinese tay didn't have that intellectual property in the past have it now. we will see increased competition because of u.s. innovation and increases in china of 10% on corn displacing more u.s. commodity sales and probably the same in soybeans. the concrete steps we need are far reaching much deeper. we need to be asking today. we need to bring in the best professionals that understand these data and cybersecurity threats. if we don't, they will outcame us. we need to invest in research and development and protect those resources. they spend $10.4 billion a year in research. we are a tenth of that in the

public sector and make sure we shore up that research and development. if not, we will suffer the economic consequences and potential food security around the world. my time with the world food program working with them we were feeding 150 million people around the world. that can't continue. but we know one thing, when people are food secure, they migrate and they get caught up in terrorist activities. as i said, food security is our national security. we need to focus on that. mr. scott: thank you for that. mr. thompson: now i am pleased to recognize mr. kelly for five minutes of questions. mr. kelly: i have two young and

aspiring farmers and i offer a special f.f.a. we need to recognize our farmers and being interested enough to sit in this hearing. i echo what you say. food security is national security. and the last few years have demonstrated the need of strong domestic supply chains to ensure american farmers have access to critical products such as fertilizer and pesticide. i'm a member of the house armed services and intelligence committee. i promise you i value the security on this. food security is national security as much as i do on the armed services and intelligence committee. i am concerned about the

national security on our increasing depends on china ole commonly used pesticides. one of the driving factors is policy that encouragees the offshoring of agricultural production. you share my concern about american agriculture reliance upon china. are there steps we can take to encourage to produce these tools here and reduce our dependency on china and other add veer ceryl countries? >> i would be glad to address that. 70% of our critical crop care products come from global resources. most of that most of that from china. these are products that protect our plants from weeds, insects and diseases. we have to ask our question

first, why are they offshored? i would say it's pwaugz of the successive regulatory burdens we have here in the united states. we need reasonable and double regulatory systems to function to make sure that we can have these plants functioning either here or with one of our friends and allies around the world. mr. tom: it takes time to bring this back. these critical components that we use to produce crops and feed our livestock and take care of our livestock, you're not going to do it overnight. it will probably take you 10 years to bring the capital back here and build the facilities and hire the people to get this done. it's going to take time. but wave got to start now. this is why i say we need a national agriculture strategy to support food security in the united states and our economy. if we can't bring these resources back, we'll be vulnerable in the future. >> thank you and i want to ask another question but i agree. when we're one of the most giving nations in the world, and

i think sometimes people don't understand, we don't just feed our nation, we feed the world, and we're indiscriminant about not just feeding ourselves but feeding others and some of our competitors are only worried about their populations and no other populations. for any of the witnesses, do you know if there exists a centralized strategy by the chinese communist party to increase u.s. reliance on chinese-produced fruits and srepblg tabls and -- vegetables and if you do, do you know the ex don't which china is subsidizing these ongoing threats to our food supply? >> i have nothing to add on the fruits and vegetables. what i will say is this. i should have went further on the discussion on the pesticides and the crop care products. right now it's estimated that because of the declining economy in china, that they're accelerating their production of crop care products and potentially could be dumping those on the market. obviously subsidizing them. so that's one of the risks that i see. in terms of fruits and vegetables, i have no knowledge

of that. >> thank you, congressman. those are excellent questions. the fruits and vegetable side, i do know that china will subsidize it. i will say, i'll add in terms of inputs to our agricultural dependencies, if you look at some of the vitamins that are necessary for our livestock, whether that be a or d or e, i mean, we have dependency on china 70% to 90%. and that sourcing just happened over time. mr. daly: gradually u.s. companies and businesses have seen an advantage of cross-wise to move there. but we've seen what that costs in terms of our supply chains and dependencies and vulnerabilities. as the ambassador relayed, we need to find ways to take a thorough examination of our supply chain vulnerabilities, determine where we need to address matters and prioritize

them. and then find the resources to do it. obviously funding is always difficult. but there are ways to do things without having the funding to make sure you prioritize, you know, in the cyber realm and agriculture, what f.b.i. is doing in terms of focusing on ag and -- versus other portions. so i think just creating that real thorough analysis and i know the u.s. department of ag and you all are doing that oversight the. to get them focused on those vulnerabilities, especially where it concerns our food supply. mr. kelly: i thank our witnesses. my time is expired and i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. now pleased to recognize my friend from massachusetts, mr. mcgovern. mr. mcgovern: thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to thank our witnesses, thank you for your excellent testimony. and i think it's always important to talk about how important food security is to national security. you know, there's a lot of attention in this congress given

to china and legitimately so. the security threats, the issue on our food security, a whole range of things. but sometimes i wonder how serious we are about really addressing those challenges. i mean, last week we did a bill to ban tiktok, we're concerned about the privacy of our data. but we did nothing to address the security of our data on all these other social media platforms, which china could use a data broker to purchase and get that same information. and when we talk about -- even on today's topic, i want to make sure we're really actually doing something that's meaningful. that will protect our land and protect our food supply. i was a co-chair of the tom lantos human rights commission for many years and for four years i was the chair of the congressional executive commission on china and i've authored the uyghur forced labor prevention act, the tibetan policy and support act.

i know what it means to act when we have serious disagreements with the chinese government. both those bills became law. and i also recognize at the same time that we have a trade relationship with china. and that is important. and we want to make clear that we're not -- we don't want to seek a wider conflict. so i feel like i have a little bit of a leg to stand on when i question kind of the seriousness of much of what we do here. i wanted to say, i appreciated the thoughtfulness of your testimony and the expertise you bring to this topic. but in your written testimony, mentioned the 2013 acquisition of smithfield foods by what is now called the w.h. group, a chinese company that as chairman gallagher noted in his testimony, has ties to the p.r.c. government. and smithfield now controls about 1/4, 1/4 of all u.s. hog

production and it exports a significant quantity of pork to china. tightening our domestic supply. and i think it's appropriate for this committee to carefully consider what impact that has on u.s. food security. which is why it astounds me that we have some of my friends on the other side, you know, led by some on this committee who talk tough on china, are carrying the water for smithfield. many people listening may be familiar with california's proposition 12 which is a farm, animal welfare law that outlaws the most inhumane confinement of pigs in california. 2022 polling showed that 80% of u.s. voters favor a law like proposition 12 in their state. i'm from massachusetts. in massachusetts, we have a similar law known as question three. now, pork producers led by smithfield were unhappy with the new standards and went to the supreme court last year. and they lost and they lost.

so now they've come to congress to overturn the will of california and massachusetts and dozens of other states that have followed suit. we have this bill called the he's act which is the latest -- eats act which is the latest act to overturn states' rights to set their own animal cruelty standards and now just last week i heard our chairman tell a news outlet that he wants to -- he wants a fix to proposition 12 on the farm bill. we just heard the governor of south dakota talk about states' rights and how in south dakota she wants a state plan. nobody objected to that. so if nobody's objecting to a state's process, why would you object to a state putting controls on animal cruelty? and again, really at the insistence of this chinese-owned company. and i just -- to my colleagues,

i think it is kind of hypocritical to talk tough about -- when it comes to the influence of the chinese government, and our food system, while actively helping some of the entities that they're supposedly concerned about. so you can't just care about food security when it's politically useful or suits the business interests that you may be behoeden to -- beholden to. it has to be all the time. i just want to add one other thing. based on what congresswoman slotkin said. i want to make another point about foreign farmland ownership. which is getting a lot of attention today. i'm open and certainly willing to work with my colleagues on limiting investment of foreign governments in u.s. farmland. but we have to be very careful that those prohibitions do not target people in this country based on their national origin or perceived national origin. without objection, i'd like to submit into the record a may, 2023, article in just security titled, with new alien land

laws, asian immigrants are once again targeted by real estate bans. so i'll just close by saying, there was a time in our history where we excluded people from landownership based on prejudice and unfounded suspicions of disloyalty. i hope we don't go back to that. again, i thank you all very much for your very informative testimony and thank you, mr. chairman, for your indell generals. >> without objection, we'll enter into that into the record. the gentleman's time has expired. i will remind you, though, that this is about ties to the chinese communist party. we're not -- as i said in my opening statements, this is not targeting individuals of any ethnic origin. i'm now pleased to recognize the gentleman for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman thompson and ranking member scott, for holding this important hearing today. and thank you to our witnesses for joining us. i want to say thank you. i'm a fourth generation corn and soybean farmer from southern minnesota, raising the fifth.

and it makes me very happy to know we have someone like you at the helm of the american soy bone association -- soybean association, leading the efforts, fight fogger our commodities and fighting for our families and the future of our families. nothing's going to make my life more complete than watching my fifth generation take over our farm and that's not for me, that's for grandma and grandpa and great-grandma and grandpa, you're making that happen. thank you. mr. finstad: and this issue is so important to that. i want to talk a little bit about my perspective and hopefully hear from you. so i understand the importance of the threats that we are faced with here with the chinese communist party. and what it really does to farm country and it is time for us to take this serious. we must work swiftly to move differently and more effectively, getting most of our eggs out of the basket of china. and the best way to describe

this, i will just say, i mean, look at what we went through a few years back when we were struggling to find the competer chips -- the computer chips that were needed to start our new f-150's in farm country, our new john deere tractors. and i tell people quite often, i'm like, now think if that was eggs, bacon, turkey. if we were that reliant from a food security standpoint in regards to, quite frankly, folks that might not like us tomorrow. and how really that shows the importance of the american farmer and how we have to continue to protect and fight for our way of life. so with that said, there's a lot of ways i think that we can maybe unwind this. but mr. ambassador, as you know, the white house's 2023 national cybersecurity strategy and the director of national intelligence annual threat assessment both emphasized that the people's republic of china is the most advanced, active and persistent cyberthreat to the united states. specifically, an increase in cyberattacks targeting the american agriculture and food

sector highlights a serious threat to our ag economy. as critical infrastructure sector, do you believe that food and agriculture sectors adequately prepared for and possesses the ability to respond to a major cyberattack against our key suppliers in the ag industry? >> no, we are not. i know we've taken major steps to protect this from a private sector perspective, i appreciate any involvement that the government can be on this. i know there's an institute at purdue university called the crock institution that works on a lot of this. but we're not doing enough yet today. mr. tom: and i add this. if we really think that we're going to see less digital agriculture in the future, we're wrong. it's going to continue to accelerate at a very rapid rate. velocity will be central. mr. finstad: thank you for that. just in my short tenure running the farm, my father retired when the tractor started driving

itself. my 15-year-old son plants corn until 3:00 in the morning because of that technology. that technology is an amazing advancement in our farm, but it's also -- poses a potential new threat that we haven't dealt with before. along these lines, in january i introduced the farm and food cybersecurity act with congresswoman slotkin which would direct the secretary of agriculture to conduct a biannual study on cyberthreats and vulnerabilities within the ag and food sector and conduct an annual cross-sector crisis simulation exercise. due to the wide ranging national and economic security threat that china poses to the sector, coordination between federal agencies and sharing timely, actionable threat information with private industry is more critical now than ever. from your perspective, how well is the government sharing threats intelligence with the industry and do you believe the usda can play an elevated role in helping the ag industry prepare for future threats?

[indiscernible] mr. daly: apologize. thank you, congressman, for that question. it's an excellent question. i want to commend you on the legislation you proposed. it's critical. understanding the cybersecurity threats that are part of our agricultural community, our ability to produce is entirely needed. in my time in government, the intelligence sharing that i saw happened a lot with defense contractors and also within the banking community. so they were industries that sort of had the benefit of that intelligence sharing. but if you look in terms of that intelligence sharing, that cyberawareness in terms of thing consultal community and with the department of agriculture, it's been lacking. and your bill is extremely necessary to get it on the right track. i know the department of ag just stood up an information sharing division and they're taking

measures to improve that intelligence. but given china's capabilities and f.b.i. director ray relayed this in terms of their ability to shut off our critical infrastructure, water, power, that affect our farmers and ranchers and producers, we need a full assessment so your bill goes exceptionally toward that direction. mr. finstad: thank you. my time is up. i yield back. mr. thompson: the gentleman yields back. pleased to recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. langworthy, for five minutes. mr. langworthy: thank you. i represent western new york and the southern tier counties of new york state along the pennsylvania line and i'm deeply concerned about the unrealistic plan proposed by our governor to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions in new york by 40% by 2030, and no less than 85% by 2050. this timeline simply isn't feasible for many industries in rural upstate new york, but

what's particularly alarming in this plan is our governor's aggressive push toward electrification in our agriculture sector, an agenda that i believe could have very serious consequences. diesel fuel plays a crucial role. farm something a round the clock endeavor, as my colleagues have said, and requiring our farmers to rely on more heavily electric charging vehicles ignores the operational realities of farming and the inconvenience of having to park equipment for hours and hours on end to charge. and with all that said, i raise these concerns because it's important to recognize china's significant role in this sector. particularly the mineral and battery supply chains, as these are crucial components for all e.v. technology. if we start purke an all-electricfication agenda at the state and federal levels, we are not only hurting our farmers, we're also inadvertently contributing to

china's influence and control of our entire economy. i see this as a lose-lose sent air for our farmers, for all of -- scenario for our farmers and our national security. with that, mr. green bay packerle, could you -- mr. gackle, could you discuss implementing an aggressive electrification agenda like the one new york state is contemplating? how that would impact your members and additionally, could you also address whether pursuing such an agenda in the u.s. ag sector might lead to increased dependency on chinese supply chains, you know, what that would mean to our national security? >> thank you, congressman. very good questions and points. i'll speak from my farmer and producer and grower perspective in rural north dakota. there's a time and a place for electrification and electricking vehicles and that's going -- electric vehicles and that's going to be more widely adopted on the coast. but for me as a farmer and

producer in the middle of north dakota, from the trucking to the tractors, the combines, rail, what we rely on to move product from our farms to our elevators to our markets, those types of industries i think will probably be later adopters when it comes to electrification. and what we're -- so what we have to offer in that space is american -- as farmers, as a.s. afrpt, you know, the significant addition that we provide to the liquid fuels market. that's another testament of what the u.s. farmer can produce. it's an example of where we're trying to diversify markets and diversify domestic demand so not so reliant on foreign markets, even while we try to expand those. but again, just an example there of what the american farmer is doing to transition this time period in a transportation fleet.

relying on china, like anything we rely on from foreign markets, there's additional risk there if you're not able to produce it domestically. mr. langworthy: thank you. we often hear that food security is national security. and i'm deeply concerned that continuing to rely on china for these critical minerals puts us at a significant risk. could you also address whether pursuing an electrification agenda in the u.s. ag sector might lead to increased dependency on chinese supply chains, thus compromising national security? mr. daly: thank you, congressman. that's an excellent question. currently we're in a large deficit, in this particular technology. especially given battery technology that china effectively dominates right now. so if we don't get our policy right, it creates a serious dependency that creates a real vulnerability in our

agricultural production. that's why we need to focus on it and i know there's a concerted focus on building out america's capabilities in this respect. but we just have to put the resources to it. mr. langworthy: very good. i know you may have touched on this but could you reiterate some of the national security concerns regarding chinese acquisitions of agricultural and other land holdings near our military bases? mr. daly: sure, absolutely. again, thank you for that excellent question. as this committee's well aware, the fufang transaction that happened in north dakota was a serious indication of what china can do in terms of what it wants to do in terms of placement. in my experience, in transactions there's been a number of significant chinese acquisitions where they've gone to acquire land or farmland that's near a military facility, "top gun" facilities, a number of transactions happened in nevada that were under the label of gold mine that actually was

meant to observe or nuclear facilities and capabilities. as well as in oregon, a transaction involving a wind farm. wind farm towers can be used -- devices can be put there to see what we're doing and the facility they were looking at, that was a critical facility to the united states in terms of what we were doing in defense taiwan. so they're strategic, they're smart, they've studied us and they'll continue to do so. so we need to remain vigilant in terms of where our resources go. mr. langworthy: thank you very much. i yield back. mr. thompson: the gentleman's time has expired. i recognize the gentleman from california for five minutes. mr. costa: thank you. members of this committee have gotten used to me saying as a third generation farmer from

california that food is a national security issue. i get frustrated, i think along with many of my colleagues on this committee, that too often the majority of americans don't look at food being a national security issue because we do it so well. with less than 4% of our nation's population directly involved. bureau it is. and i think -- but it is. and i think it's important that this committee focus on the danger that china poses to america in terms of its impact on american agriculture and therefore food put on america's dinner table every night. let me just kind of give you my thoughts and then i have a couple of questions i want to ask. i really think that the best strategy for this, because china is an adversary, they are a competitor and they are a vast market. so regardless of what administration is in office, they have that challenge. this is an adversary. let's make no mistake about it. number two, we compete against one another. i would argue they don't compete

fairly. they don't play by the same rules under the w.t. ofrpt and their -- w.t. ofrpt and they're engaged -- w.t.o. and they're engaged in the theft of technology and other types of efforts. but yet they are a vast market. so how do you balance those three factors for any administration? the bush administration and then followed by the obama administration tried an effort that i thought had merit. that was the trans-pacific partnership where you engaged other nearby countries to electric raj china -- leverage china. i think that's far better than tariffs war that ultimately the last president got engaged in. and why? everybody has leverage on a tariff war, they just keep upk the ante. if you want to really have an opportunity to deal with this market, if you want to have an opportunity to deal with the factors of competition and realizing that this is an adversary, i think the t.t.p. was a far better strategy. yes, the market access program is helpful to our american

farmers and processors and it's oversubscribed and i have legislation that would double the funding for that. twhrao can come to pass with -- whether or not that can come to pass with our challenges with the farm bill remains to be seen. so let me just ask for starters, your testimony focused on china and their agricultural supply chain. the pandemic i think we really understood that our supply chain is in need of assistance at every level, especially in agriculture. with biotechnology and plant tools and other potential to help producers meet challenges by reducing greenhouse gases and emissions and foster resilience in climate change in the agriculture supply chain, what's your thoughts? i mean, because too often i think chinas a bad actor -- china's a bad actor. they're opaque, their politically driven and it limits innovative technologies and their theft of american technology. and i don't even want to start

with artificial intelligence and problems with algorithms. but besides purchasing united ag land, and we heard testimony in the earlier hearing, how do you create a fair, level playing field? in a minute or less. mr. daly: yes, sir. thank you, congressman. mr. costa: we have a time problem. mr. daly: it's difficult and it's multifaceted and you have to take it sector by sector, issue by issue. in tenser of making it a level playing -- in terms of making it a level playing field with china. in terms of -- we got to, a, be smart in terms of what we address in china. mr. costa: you have knowledge it's not a level playing field. mr. daly: it is not, absolutely. the chinese are state-driven economy, they subsidize where they want to subsidize and they will destroy markets and u.s. production capabilities where they want. mr. costa: do you think sph-t supply chain issues and for the

rest of you, you know, we passed the bipartisan $1.2 trillion investment in infrastructure in the last congress. and i think when we look at our ports and harbors and we look at our supply chains, california's dairy industry is very dependent upon those trains coming in every week to california, but there are whole estimates of the supply chain and food development production value added that we invest some of that infrastructure in that -- our infrastructure. mr. daly: yeah. i think a number of bills that were passed by congress in terms of bringing up and strengthening our infrastructure, absolutely critical. there's a lot we have to do in terms of our capabilities there. mr. costa: my time's expired but i don't know if any of these other witnesses care to comment about how we use to improve our food supply chain and dealing with the competition of china. mr. gackle: i think it's clear the united states is the reason

we're a dominant power in food systems, because of our natural resources. we've got a large concentration of highly productive soils. we have 14,800 miles of navigable waterways. much more than any other nation, germany or china. and we need to leverage those resources to be competitive in a world space. on selling our commodities and crops. mr. tom: when i look at that infrastructure, though, i look at our dams, our locks, our ports, they're aging and i know the infrastructure bill was supposed to make an impact there. but if you look at the civil society engineers association, they come out with reports that we really get a d rating on our infrastructure. mr. costa: currently but we just provided funding. we're not ambitiously trying to do just what you say. we're doing it in california, we're rehabilitating a lot of aging infrastructure in water. i don't know if you care to comment. my time's expired. mr. gackle: just quickly to say,

the ag community, producers and specifically a. s-frpt a. are -- a.s. afrpt are actively -- a.s. afrpt are actively involved in investing in infrastructure. the water resources development act that congress re-authorizes, another important tool to help farmers and to make sure we have the necessary infrastructure to move our product and move it efficiently and sustainably. mr. costa: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. thompson: the gentleman's time has expired. we are in the middle of a vote series, three votes have been called about 10 minutes ago. so we're going to go to one more question and then we're going to recess and we will be returning immediately after the third vote. i'm pleased to recognize the gentleman from south dakota, mr. sen. johnson: thank you, mr. chairman -- mr. johnson: thank you, mr. chairman. i'll start with mr. gackle and note i'm on select committee on the chinese communist party, that it's led by mr.

krishnamoorthi and mr. gallagher who we heard from earlier. and i've gotten a little bit of a reputation, mr. chairman, on that committee for talking about soybean all the time because it is really hard to overstate the role of soybeans in this relationship between china and the united states. and that's why i was so pleased that you talked about soybeans, i think you said the prime casualty of the 2018 trade war. in that environment, we know how important diversifying our markets are. i want to be plight to ambassador -- polite to the ambassador because she's brilliant and hardworking. i think it's safe to say that the trade agenda has been pretty lukewarm for this administration. if you all were going to look at market access, are there specific markets that you think are ready to pop and that would reduce the amount of hrefbgers that china has over -- levers that china has over our nation and soybean growers?

>> thank you, congressman. very good questions and i'm glad you asked them because there's a lot of work that we are tkphog that area -- we are doing in that area. it's important to remember, we are involved in 112 different countries and markets. when i say we, it's u.s. soy, not just a.s.a. making those investments, trying to find new and emerging markets. mr. gackle: we have a program within the american soybean association, wish, the world initiative for soy and human health. it's a very important program. and it partners with farmer invested dollars. mr. johnson: but what markets are ready to take that next leap? mr. gackle: i think south asia, indonesia, japan, korea. there are places there. north africa and europe, there's some potential there. there's some regulatory issues with getting more into europe but they're a big buyer. mexico is a big buyer. so there are opportunities in different places. and that's long-term. it takes a long time to build a market. so in the short-term, to replace the scale of china, just

redifficult. but -- just very difficult. but we are working -- mr. johnson: 06% of -- 60% of south dakota soybeans go to asia. replacing the markets, we're all in on the joke, you're not going to replace that market. but if you reduce the concentration, it makes sure we're not at such a power asymmetry. mr. tom: in terms of new markets, i agree, the southeast asia market is a market we need to look to. we need to look at some of the places in the northern part of south america and colombia as a good trading partner. we have some real problems with mexico right now. i hope we get those resolved sooner than later. and i'll say this as well. there's quite a bit of work going on in africa. i agree, we have to diversify our keft measure base -- customer base. i think we're already on the road to losing more of our market share into china. we have to be aware of that.

we need to do what we can to retain that trade but we cannot sacrifice our own national security and our food security in our own country. so we have to make sure we stay on top of that. mr. johnson: i would note, you're exactly right. we should all be underlying the importance of american soft power. when we talk about the global south, when we talk about southeast asia and africa, we cannot allow unfettered chinese leadership in those areas. people, they understand the almost a deal with the devil they are making on chinese deals. they are looking for american leadership and unfortunately too often america is receding back into ourselves a little bit. i'm sure you've seen the same numbers i have. in public opinion surveys in africa, more respondents will say they view china as the leader of the world than america. that is a major problem. i interrupted, other thoughts on

that topic? mr. tom: in terms of africa. we mutt more money into africa than china does and we don't ask anything in return. china will always go in and do something, whether the world bank came in and gave a loan to a certain particular nation, they default on that loan, china comes in and creates a tkefbg spiral on it. then they end up getting mineral resources and other resources that the country has, taking on the loan at a very big discount. we have a threat of them continuing to ask for something every time they go to a nation. we ask for nothing. mr. johnson: thank you very much. i wish i had another five minutes but my time is running low, mr. chairman. and i would yield. mr. thompson: the gentleman yields back. the committee stands in recess to immediately -- until immediately after casting the third vote in this series. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]