they are replacing two locks to a single lock with two 1200 chambers. they will solve the problem there if we can get it completed, but my bias is to think we have been misguided for a long time in spending money to expand when we should have been spending money to preserve what we've got. >> i won't go into it. you also make comments about the advantages that the wing dams have made along the river. many farmers would disagree, they think they have caused harm to the levee, but that's a little assentary for this group. i realize that the core has many masters. congress, fish and wildlife service, the president, chief of staff of the army, but in missouri the corps is involved in land purchases for habitat development. they are involved in developing low water habitat digging

digging actually channels along the river and widens the flow of the river. can you give me an idea of just over the past 25 to 30 years of the budget dollars you have what has been the trend in maintenance spending and in environmental spending? just in general figures or percentages? >> well,ly answer by saying i don't know that i can give you that general percentage right off the bat. there's always -- come back and get it, but certainly our civil emissions include our navigation, our hydropower from the energy perspective. we have aquatic ecosystem restoration. we have a natural resource management mission within our civil works that includes environmental stewardship recreation component as well. our flood risk management and flood control definitely is a big component of our civil works

mission. and then of course, we have our regulatory program as far as our service to the nation and the waters of the u.s. so our efforts are to balance those mission sites mission areas, as far as the best we can do that. certainly, i will tell you that from a navigation perspective, our navigation budget has been in that 1.5 to 1.8 billion dollars over the last two years in that regard. you can look and see what our budgets are overall in civil works that have been in the past in the 4.2 to 4.5 billion dollar range. not counting supplementals and stimulus and those types of things. so certainly we have had more focus on the environment and conservation. i think that's important. we don't lose sight of that. we certainly have built in to

the way we do business, you know that thinking environmentally. that's become part of our routine. and we have to have that balance in order to take care and be good stewards of the resources that we have in the nation but yet still be able to provide the service to the nation, provide the service to those who use the waterways that should be there. >> my question to rick would be we finance the highways with user taxes, with fuel taxes, that as we transition to -- as we transition to more fuel-efficient cars, we transition to hybrid and electric cars as we just get better what we're doing we're finding that's not totally adequate, that the user fees are not working. and i know it's been mentioned in several states using sales tax finance highways, that's certainly a topic of discussion in missouri as well.

the same thing happens on the rivers. there's a fuel tax and i'll ask mike to talk about this as well fuel tax the barge operators pay, but it's far short of paying the cost of maintaining and improving our rivers. in the world of bill, there's changes right to that user fee. just talk a little bit about how much of what we do is paid with the fuel tax, and i'm arguing against interest here i guess because i'm -- ultimately we have to pay this, and the price of my products i raise my own farm, but is it high enough? should it be high her? it is so important to get this done that we should be open to increasing user fees? >> the answer is, yes, it does need to be higher. and the industry, starting back with the capital development plan that i was a part of in the waterway user board a number of years ago, and jim and the corps worked closely with us on that

we have been suggesting for some time that we do need to raise the user fee. and we have been proposing taking it from 20 cents a gallon which it is today to 26 to 29 cents a gallon. so the industry and supported by the farm groups and the people that actually pay the tax have held up their hand and said, please tax me more. and that doesn't happen that often in this town by the way, that's not a normal thing. and unfortunately it's not in the word of bill. there is no component for a tax increase in the word of bill. it was left out of the word of bill for a number of reasons, comprehensive tax reform, it had to come out of the house the house didn't want to put it in the bill, so we'll have to get at that after the word of bill is completed through another mechanism, but yes we need to raise the amount of money that goes into the pot to trau doubt. i think as most of you know infrastructure, the new locks and dams, major rehab, that's

paid out of the trust fund. operation maintenance which you referred to earlier comes out of the general fund of the treasury. for the first 200 years of the history of this country, it was all paid out of the general treasury and only changed in our recent past. and the industry came to the conclusion that we are willing to pay our fair share and everybody's definition of what the fair share is is always a little bit different, but we are willing to pay more, we want to pay more we are working to try to get congress to allow us to pay more to get money in there to accelerate these projects and get them done quickly. because like a lot of you sit here today when you start talking about some of these projects, you don't build them overnight. and we're one catastrophic failure away from shutting down entire segments of this country for prolonged periods of time. and mike was very polite with his comment about what would happen to rail rates and other transportation rates if the

river was to go away or if a mode would go away well, they go up pretty dramatically. we have seen evidence of that with katrina when we shut down a port for a series of time. these are a lot more trackle than people think they are. and if you take away one of the legs of the stool rail rates, where the roads aren't operating for whatever reason the river shut down for whatever reason highway problems for whatever reason, the cost of transportation will go up dramatically. and in the case of agricultural the american farm ler get less for his grain, or there will be a higher charge for our grains in the world markets making us less competitive with people like brazil and other parts of the country. so it's very important we get more money into the trust fund and the industry has been lobbying for some time to get more money into that trust fund. >> mike i know your organization has done some work on prioritizing the money we do have. so if you would care to comment on the trust fund and what you

think the priorities are to be and my against question will expand to highways and some of the other transportation modes, but on the inland grip river system. >> yeah and i think it's quite commendable that you have an industry like rick said that said we are willing to be taxed more, that is quite a rare phenomenon. and so it really highlights the importance of the issue in needing to have more investment into the system. yet my concern when i look at the math, at least i wasn't a math major, i was political science major which is kind dangerous when i start devilling into math, but the math, the problem is what the math tells me when i look at the cost of the system and the revenue that we are applying toward it the illinois waterway system. and i think it's kind analogous to trying to purchase a $2 million home on a $20,000 salary. and the way i look at it is you cannot just solve this issue from the revenue side of the

equation. you also have to look at the cost side of the equation. and so we did some research that we released last year executed by the texas transportation institute, and one of the -- one of the statements that we make as a result of that research is that a predictably good illinois waterway system is better than a hypothetically great one. and i think that really dovetails to what craig said about -- if money is going to be scarce or on the decline, in my crystal ball it's not perfect, but that's what my crystal ball is telling me. would it be better would it be optimal to first take care of what you have and then try to acquire what you don't have in there are consequences to that. if you are an executive at a shipper, say an agricultural shipper, and you have scarce resources to apply to a, a railroading facility to send product to the west coast or b, a barge-loading facility on the

river, and if you are observing that the fact that we have an increase in unexpected closures an increase in mechanical breakdowns, the probability of a catastrophic failure on the increase, why would that executive scarce resources to invest in the waterway system? so it means a lot to us. and i think i had the opportunity to share this at a congressional hearing about this very subject and said we are sending a horrible message to the grain shippers because of how we are maintaining the system. and we want rural america to be an attractive place for investment. and it may be unintentional consequence, but it is an unavoidable consequence that we are providing a country we are providing a disincentive to investing in our inland waterway system due to the fact we are not taking care of the system the way it should be. >> all right thank you very

much. real quick, an answer to my final question then we turn to open it up as we are getting short on time. the secretary deputy in the last session said something about in the post earmark age, and i have kind of a minority opinion, but i'm convinced that our transportation system worked better and was better funded we made better decisions in the pre-earmark age. i'll open it up to you. do you miss earmarks? >> you speaking to me? >> any of you. >> well, i think that there's a lot of people in congress that miss earmarks. i would say that. i would some things were easier to get done. and, in fact historically, and i'm not a politician, and i don't live in this town. and i am from minnesota and i

try to run a barge line but i think historically a lot of these bills are really a collage of a lot of earmarks because of the nature of the project. so i think it does make it harder to advance some of the things they want to get done in this area without earmarks. >> well, i think it's a mixed bag, definitely, but one of my concerns is just because you're shifting spending authority from the legislative branch of government to the executive branch of government doesn't mean you're practicing good stewardship all of a sudden. >> exactly. >> and so i guess there's examples of wasteful earmark spending, but if you are a constituent group and want to express an opinion on how your tax dollars are being spent in this country, it's much more of a straightforward conceptual process to say, okay i'm going to my elected representative and make my case to the elected representative. when you take more of the spending authority from the legislative branch, what's a

constituent group to do? i'll go lobby the army corps of engineers or lobby the department of xyz? i don't know where they are located, i don't know what they do, and i don't know if i can get a meeting with them. so i think it is a mixed bag. i think overall you know, it would be good to actually recover some of that and allow more spending authority for the legislative branch. >> write it down. we started the campaign to bring back earmarks here today. forward. i'm ready for questions from the audience. yes. >> i'll shout it out. my question is -- particularly the house version section 132 encourages the army corps to use innovative materials where they can. on some of these new projects. i come from an industry that

makes innovative material that is are used in water infrastructure reinforcement, so i'm just wondering where the corps is on some of the terms that are lighter stronger don't rust, and maybe what industry can do to try to highlight their importance in infrastructure both water and around the country in land transportation? thanks. >> i appreciate that question. one of the -- one of the parts of our organization that many people may not be that familiar with is our engineer research and development laboratories. a lot of people are very familiar with the similar part of the army corps of engineers that think of waterway experiment stations. many people heard of the waterway experiment station, but our engineer research and development centers, our labs is where we do our resource and development aspects of what we do in the army corps of engineers. that's not just for civil works but it supports the missions and war fodder, et cetera, but we do

have a group of folks working very diligently and looking at new innovative types of materials. we've moved in many cases and over the years from wooden bumpers on lighter gates and on our locks and dams to more composite-type of materials that last longer. and we're looking at how do we improve the materials that we have behind the lighter blocks on our gates and locks and dams so that it takes those loads better, it reduces the wear and tear on the modern gates, and improves the liability of our systems. we are looking at the stresses that take place on our gates on the locks, on our gates on the dams, and that's all through the research and development aspect of the corps of engineers, the engineer research and development center. so a lot of that stuff is done in the background. and shame on us for not really

talking about how well that's working and the improvements it's making to build it more reliable, but especially a more resilient system that we have. >> one more question, quickly. i didn't mean to scare you away. we have one in the back. okay. yeah? >> yeah eric coolish, american shipper magazine. i was curious with the fuels tax, the inland waterway fuels tax, and also applies to the highway or diesel fuel tax for highways, but as we move to some of these alternative energies let's say liquefied natural gas, i know the barge industry as well as the maritime industry is looking at adopted or testing l&g-type fuels. how do you tax that? it's not on a miles per gallon basis. it's a gas or liquefied gas so how do you tax that type of fuel

if there's some movement towards that to help pay for the infrastructure? >> i don't think there would be a problem setting up a gallon per gallon tax on l&g we might use. you can convert it to a btu tax so you can calculate the btu per gallon of diesel and apply that to l&g. so i don't think that would be maybe a problematic legislative but i don't think operationally c-span, we put you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and tkpwafpl-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house at the public service of private industry. we are c-span created by the

cable tv industry 35 years ago. watch us in h.d., like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> a couple of live events to tell you about today on c-span. beginning with the brookings institution form on the syrian refugees crisis. a panel is scheduled to include the ambassadors from lebanon and iraq at 10:00. at 3:00 the heritage foundation focuses on political protests in venezuela and arrest of the leader of the opposition and our relations between the u.s. and venezuela may be affected by the expulsion of three u.s. diplomats. the agriculture department's out look forum including discussion of young people involved in farming there is a little more than an hour.

>> this has been terrific. we thank you for all the great information and interest. you will be excited about the next panel. just spending a few minutes with them backstage i see their energy and excitement and makes me so thrilled for what we have ahead of us in agriculture. we are changing the face of agriculture. i think they all four said they had never attended an outlook session. so we are changing the dynamic of who you are hearing from and not only who is attending. i will introduce each of them and they will come to the stage and they will be joined by the secretary. we have the leading organic farmer and executive director of the farmer veterans coalition at the fore frantic of efforts to connect military veterans with careers in agriculture.

joanna caraway is from kentucky and recipient of the top producer horizon award. we have the president of the farm bureau in san joaquin valley valley. emily oakley owner and operator of free springs farm in eastern oklahoma and interim director of the national young farmers coalition. and secretaryivilleyivilleyivilleyiville secretary vilsack. >> to echo the comments of the deputy this is a terrific opportunity to visit with a number of advocates who are working very hard to making a culture opportunities available to new beginning and young

producers. a very diverse group with a number of different interests from different parts of the country and different operations, different sized operations. so what i would hraoeubglike to do is invite the panel to say just a few words based on whatever message they would like to deliver, especially to the young people. then we will go down the line. michael, we will start with you. after that brief period of time we will have an opportunity for me to ask questions and we will open up to the audience. >> thank you, secretary. it is an honor to be here. my career was in production agriculture in vegetable production. i was one of the pioneering farmers interested in organic farming back to 1970. in 1990 i got hired to run the first organic farm in the valley

and then ran some of the large eggs organic vegetable operations operations-largest organic vegetable farms. about six years ago i left my career in farm management and wanted to do something in my retirement to help beginning farmers. i got involved with several young men who had just come out serving in iraq and were interested in vegetable production and worked with them and helped them on their farms. since then i'm founder and director of the farming veterans coalition. we have staff in five states and we are opening a new office in des moines this spring and we have a network of over 2,000 men and women who have recently or served or are still serving in the armed services and are

looking for help intersection the field of agriculture. >> you have established a good facility in des moines. that is a good place to have an operation for sure. >> thank you very much for having me here. i'm honored. i'm originally from a small family farm in southeast missouri. i didn't think that i ever really wanted to be involved in agriculture because i thought it meant solely riding a tractor for 12 to 14 hours a day. i didn't realize there was another life. when i went to college i wanted to do something else. once i got to college i realized there is a whole other world that involves agriculture and what i was doing on the farm was a small part of it and i could do more. so i got an ag degree from

murray state and that is where i met my husband while i was in an internship. we both had the desire to farm but we never knew we would have the opportunity. the opportunity came through his grandparents. they were wanting to get out of the farm and we bought them out and became partners in 2006. through that we have had some struggles. we have had to utilize crop insurance a lot unfortunately. i became very well rounded in that program and how it works and realizing how important it is itto beginning farmers when you have so much on the line you have to have a plan b. i think so moving forward it is going to become even more important as prices fall, margins get tighter we have to be better managers and teach

people people, especially young people, the dos and don'ts because we have done the don'ts. we have climb out of it and became summer because of it -- became successful because of it. >> i'm from a small town it california california. we are a fifth generation family farm. my great, great grandfather came over with three brothers from germany. it is something i always wanted to continue that legacy and hearing about it at the dinner table when i was young. i went to cal poly and got my crop science degree. came back in around 2000 and dove it feet first and couldn't

get enough to understand and learn and we have about 5,000 acres, all row crops. we had cotton mainly. we were receiving subsidies in the bad years. alfalfa growers, sugar beets. a lot of row crops. we had a lot of friends going into the dot-com era and as we went forward around mid 2000's we realized we had to make a crop change and involved pistachio and citrus industry was doing well but we focused on almonds, pistachios and cherries. we had to sell half the ranch to three dairies that were coming

to upgrade from the l.a. area and we were able to buy down. we manage with them on about half of the acreage. the other half we developed into trees of almonds and pistachios. that has turned out to be a very good decision. it took a lot of risk out. we no longer needs subsidies because the almonds and pistachio pistachios are predominantly grown in campbell. if the crops do well the price is good. if it doesn't do well the price goes up and seems to keep us profitable. that is a good model versus back in the row crop days. we did that because all of our crops were escalating. water, land values. we are seeing that today. a lot of land values seven years ago were $5,000 an acre and now

$15,000 to $20,000 an acre. water is on the rise. you have heard about the drought. we are in the valley struggling for that. i was talking to the secretary of agriculture about it has always been environmentalists and fighting over that. we hope there is an end to that. that is a great philosophy. there has to be a way to balance the two. we are having to work on it continuously. we also have integration, major issues that we need to reform. it has been in the closet the last several years but we have an illegal immigration issue in california. we need this workforce to help us with our crops. we don't want them to be illegal. we want them to be legal.

we need to fix legal immigration. we need a temporary worker program. we can't afford to lose them for three months. citizen citizenship, permanent citizenship not necessary but a legal temporary worker is essential. we want to keep working on that issue as well. >> thanks for having me. i'm excited to be here both as a farmer and interim director of the national young farmers coalition. i grew up in an urban setting. farming was not in my family history for a lot of generations. i'm a first generation farmer and came to it out of seeing opportunity with the intersection of a lot of issues that were important to me. there are new emerging ways of connecting with consumers so i'm a usda certified organic farmer. i have six acres in production which you might find humorous. half of that is annual

vegetables and other is perennial fruits. i go directly to my customers through a farmer market. i'm on the tail end of beginning because i just finished my 10th year. the national young farmers coalition started four years ago by farmers like myself across the country who reams that aware coming into this -- realize that we are coming into this and want representation and want to connect with one another. we are a coalition of 23,000 members and we have 21 chapters and more forming and we work on issues of policies, networking so young farmers. connected and technical support. a lot of our farmers are people selling to the local and regional food seems connecting directly with the consumers letting people ask questions about what we grow. we grow fruits and vegetables so there is an emerging network of

young farmers doing small scale dairy, livestock and greens of diverse green crops and we all finds opportunities on the edge of consumers who want to know who grew their food and talk to us, get recipes. when their kids are not sure what to eat they can taste it there and it is fresh and has a compel coming coming -- comepelling issue. one started at age of three and would eat little orange clears and now comes to the market and begs for mom to get more vegetables and fruits than the mom wants to buy. that is the direction we are hoping to head as a young farmers coalition and let people know we are here, a lot of us are first generation and we find

opportunities in agriculture. >> so, here is what i would like you to do. i will give you an individual description of someone that i want you essentially to pretend you are speaking directly to. i know there are hundreds of people here. for the time being forget those folks. michael, i want you to see yourself talking to a young lady who has just left the military, has had two tours of duty, one in afghanistan and one in iraq and doesn't know what to do is still trying to deal with what she experienced in a war zone. i want you in a minute to convince her to get into farming. and i want you to envision a young fella who is at one of the land grant universities who is

majoring in business but he's from a farm family but he wants to do something different than that. i want you to convince that young man that farm something where he should be. greg, i want you to envision someone who has started farming who didn't make it, had a did you go, has had a career, is doing ok but you just happen to run across him and you sense he wants a change in life. i want you to convince him to be a farmer. >> and i wants you to envision an inner city child, it could be african-american, could be hispanic, could be native american minority. you are talking to that child and that child doesn't know what a tomato is much less whether you are talking about.

i want you to convince that kid that he ought to think about farming. who wants to go first? [laughter] >> i will go first. young lady coming out of the service and having served in both iraq and afghanistan two of the three longest wars in american history and first that women served in combat and that is pretty historical, never in our history have so few people served in a military service and never have they served so repeatedly. you are coming out of a unique situation but there is a lot of support. in the post-911 g. eufplti. bill liberally supports education and there sis great both two and four four-year educational opportunities in agriculture and been a liberalizing of that act to cover a lot of certified

educational opportunities that can give hands on training in agriculture. we think agriculture is great because, number one, it cannot be outsourced. the demand will only go up. people my age are going it age out of it. our population will increase in the lifetime of your career 40% according to the first lady and everybody that understands nutrition our needs to eat tpreb foods and srpblgs needs to increase 50%. cost of importing food will go up and supply of water and labor is going down so in is a tremendous opportunity to enter this field and look be assured of a life-long career, successful career. what you need to do throw is note just in terms of you don't have land and you don't have experience in agriculture. you need to see our agriculture

industry bigger than one couple, one farm, a vertically integrated farm that you grow, pack and sell everything yourself on this land that you bought with your parents' inheritance or disability money you got from the military because of your injury that you got in afghanistan. we want to sit down with you. we have a great group of other women across the country that served in the military that get together on a yearly basis and speak to each other regularly. we want to get together with you and introduce you to these opportunities. but to get you first of all to see the breadth of what our industry is. it is not just production and not just self-employed production. there is a lot fof opportunity at phroeufplt employment and that can often lead you to the ability to farm

on your own some day. >> great. >> i would tell uyou, young gentleman, that even though you grew up on a farm and went we thinking that you didn't want to farm because you want to be involved in business and the financial industry farming isn't what it frswas even 20 or 30 years ago. it has become so dynamic financially financially. every day is a business decision, every single day. you can take the knowledge that you are learning with business administration and apply that to the ag industry and go back to the family farm and make it bigger and better and more productive than what it was even for your father or grandfather.

there are so many opportunities with the average age of a farmer right now being in the upper 50's and growing every day the outlook for the ag industry is enormous. there are so many opportunities that you could take with business degrees and apply to ag. >> great. >> i would tell the gentleman or female that the first go round didn't make it that if you have the passion, if you want to get back in farming the opportunity is there. farms are getting larger. the average age of a farmer is around 60 years old so we have a need for managers that want to farm at a young age, middle age we will take anything at this point. give me your resume. let's have an interview next week. because we just hired a young

man that was in insurance five years and spoke spanish and he loved agriculture. his dad did it when he was younger. he is doing excellent. he has a passion. usually somebody that farms loves it. they can farm or get their p.c.a. license. i have seen so many get a p.c.a. license and work for a chemical company. that is pest control advisor. work for a chemical company, develop a relationship with a farmer. they see a guy has a knack and hire him as a manager. he manages and builds up a nest egg and buys his own piece of ground. i have seen that happen. it is not impossible to start from scratch. if you have a passion for agriculture and somehow agriculture breeds passion. i think because what we tkwo is so unique and humbling and feeding people.

there is no industry that you can be more proud of than agriculture. to me it sis, in this day and age, it is easy for individuals to own farms in campbelllifornia. i think most kids even older teenagers like to get their hands in the dirt. i would tell this child or teenager to solicit their school to start a school garden. they are emerging in the country and they are can compelling ways for people to see things grow and they taste them and they are awesome and they are excited because they grew it. i would also tell them to see if the school with form a program to get local stores to put fruits and vegetables persistence diet. that is another amaze ging way they learn sort of an old mcdonald's

had a farm book. the real issue is how to get a keudid to know what a tomato is and getting them in touch with a garden is a strongest way of making that happen. the other issue is kids sometimes think why would i want to be a farmer? they don't make that much money and it is hard work. when i have done these presentations to schools i think showing the kids your passion that you can do something that gives you the opportunity to be self-employed and make your own decisions, uses all aspects of your capacity, not just getting your hands in the dirt. there are decisions made on complex levels on an everyday basis and bringing in multiple skills that kids might have from math science english and that connection to farming. i write newsletters for customers so they care about what i do. i have to think about the science behind the pests that

come to my farm. i have to do the back end accounting side of t. there are a lot of ways to find respect in this year which i think might draw people away from it. but definitely getting someone who has not seen food an opportunity to grow it and eat it themselves is one of the best ways of getting them interested in food and farm go aheadpbdnd farming. s >> you have done a great job convincing your folks. they have all embraced this passion. they are growing something. we reconvene a year from now and after they have had a year or two experience what are they going to say to you in terms of a barrier they confronted that you didn't tell them about when you were painting such a rosy picture of farming? what is your farmer going to tell you that why didn't you

tell me about getting any money to pay for my bills. >> we are really happy to see the usda's micro loanloan program through the f.s.a. get written into the law giving up to $50,000 to someone without a traditional three-year experience that was required for the operating loan. that is a tremendous amount of money. it is not an insurmountable amount or a debt burden that all debt is at risk and i always tell the young farmers no -- accessing money is not the hard part. paying it back is. remember that the next time you say that. that is a tremendous source. and just to -- we are still hear. it is a year later but we are still here. we have a multi-year commitment

to helping you. if uyou came out of the military we have a multi-year commitment. we have a young veterinarian who served post-911 and served in the army veterinary corps. we have a young man injured in iraq in fallujah with all of his financial planning credentials in nebraska and he can help you. if you have a legal issue we have several young men who served who have food law degrees and can help you with that. we have a network we have partnerships with the farm bureau national farmers union and farm credit. the land grant universities all want to help you. if you are a veteran going into agriculture you are in a sweet place because it would be hard-pressed to feel like this industry was not going to give

you the help you need right now. >> what didn't you tell me? >> i'm sorry i didn't tell you how tight the margins really are and how much you would really need that financial background. because it is. every day, like i said, every day is a financial decision and you have to make the best decisions that you can. even on the down side and down day, if you have a good background in business and good financial background you can make it profitable even when it looks like it can't be. i would tell uyou that in the end it is not about money. i would ask did you make your house payment and car payment and put food on the table for your kids and do you have clothes to wear then you were successful. it is not about how much money you have in the bank or how big

the equity grows but did you make it from year to year and will you continue to grow and make the basic provisions for you and your family. >> what didn't you tell me, greg? >> we didn't tell you about we don't have any water this morning. sorry. that is a huge issue. we are drilling wells and we don't want to drill our way out of this problem. the young gentleman that is working for me now is realizing that. we are trying to rehab nine wells and drilling three and we have to have them running by may 1 or we will short our trees and water and stress the crop and cause damage for future production. the struggles of pump companies they can't drill for you for eight months because everybody is calling on them and the stress involved in finding a water supply. we have gotten 50% of our water

the last four or five years and paid for 100% and it has been dwindling with this environmental drought, just a battle over the sustainability of the delta. you probably asked where are our workers. i need to pick this crop but i don't have the works to pick t. we have seen that over the last couple of years getting tighter as border security has been in place. the workforce has somewhat left california and going elsewhere where there is less pressure on them. that is why we need reform to have the workforce to provide this young man it help him do his job. >> if this person were to come to me and say after this experience they wanted to become a farmer i would admit there were three things all young farmers, especially first generation farmers experience,

which is access to land, capital and training. we all experience the capital side but if you are coming to farming and you don't have the benefit of tapping into existing family land, land is the single biggest challenge to beginning farmers getting into farming. there are some urban farmering opportunities but capacity is limited there. so ways we can get young people transitioning into land that is going into retirement or ways we can get young people taking on conservation easement land. the farm and ranch land protection program offers opportunities for making farmland more affordableaffordable. it is daunting especially around an urban area which is where you are going to sell your food borrows competing with srerls and those that -- developers and those that have nine it five jobs and can pay more for the

land than you can. so, ways we can make that land more affordable and conserved for ag land is a path i would tell this person to think about. credit is a big one. thankfully the micro loan program has made it significantly more affordable and accessible for young farmers but just learning to savover and think about farming in creative ways. in terms of training if you don't grow up on a tprpl and don't have the benefit of getting up and working a 12 or 14 14-hour day in a tractor you need to learn how to farm. so access to opportunities for training is the single most important thing. you can go to college and study agriculture but unless you go do it on someone else's farm you will not be successful. so the beginning farmer and

rancher development program is an excellent example of funding that does provide for training. doing an internship or apprentice apprenticeship is the most effective way to learn. so i would encourage someone who might be thinking they might just actually be willing to jump into agriculture to give in a try and learn from somebody who has been doing it and knows how it is done and you can make some of the mistakes on somebody else's farm before you make them on your own farm. [laughter] >> let me continue the dialogue with you. what would you encourage a young person who is interested in farming do in terms of exploring ways in which they might be able to find land? how would they go about finding a mentor or somebody who might be interested in giving them a slot to learn.

>> i will tell unwhat i -- i will tell you what i did. i moved back to oklahoma. mainly because there were not a lot of young farmers like myself there so there was a market opportunity opportunity. i was fortunate to be from that city so i could use that network. it had not been too long after i lived there that i learned r -- returned. but i just put the word out there and asked is there anybody who out of the goodness of their heart wants to leave land to somebody wanting to get into this business and that is extremely common for beginning farmers to access very informal leasing or renting arrangements of people who own lands. sometimes equipment is thrown in as i was lucky to get. that gives you a chance to kind of try what you are doing on someone else's land without a mortgage. so, then you get a little bit of

experience and it makes you more eligible for the loans that are out there through. f.s.a. because you have years of experience understood your -- under your belt. it gives you the time to look floor piece of property and know how much you can afford. maybe you want to farm 20, 40, 100 acres. but it gives that you slow transition into the process of looking for land. so if you can find a land trust organization in your area and beg them to help work with you to find a farmer who might be retiring who will sell it to you at the value or provide a lease and give you the opportunity to make that equity investment in the land even though you may not own it that could be an affordable and accessible way to get into the business. and there is nothing wrong with leasing or renting for a while beyond the initial start-up phase. there are a lot of opportunities there. the better the lease term you

can get the better. i definitely think it is a challenge our country needs to realize is imminent. because many young farmers that the national young farmers coalition represent are selling to urban areas and you need to farm close to them to access the market in a comfortable way. we need land around the periphery of the city to not just be something that is beyond the bound of farms. you don't want to have to travel hours to have something you can afford so. working in municipal areas to see conservation of farmland is as important as conservation of water headshed resources is important. >> greg, where would you look for solutions to technology or information that might help that young farmer better manage water resources? what are the resources you would

encourage him to take advantage of to find the answer to the problem he is confront being -- confront being -- confronting you with. >> the gentleman we hired is working on that. i can access every field on my farmer and see the moisture from zero to 60 inches and tell me how much water we put on. the tools we have are new and it takes management, it takes time, computer skills, and -- >> where would i find that application? do i just go online and type in farm water? >> there is water irrigation technology conferences all the time in california. you can go to the u.c. extension office. we have a great extension office in bakersfield that has an

irrigation specialist. you can talk with him and he can tell you how many different tools that there are to use to our benefit. we work with him constantly and always are doing experiments with him. it is a tremendous amount of technology, learning how to use pressure bomb ing toing to detect water. trying to irrigate without hurting the crop and use every drop of water without hurting the yield. >> so, extensions are a resource resource. is that where you would -- would you tell this person who is complaining about how slim the margins are, whether if he says how do i protect the slim margin that i have? what kind of advice would you give? what tools are available to reduce that rick -- risk that

the margin is cut by weather or dropping prices? >> i would tell him first off you have to have a good basis that you use it on a daily basis like quick books or a spreadsheet or some sort. i went to a conference about a month ago of young farmers and my advice to them was a lot of times programs seem so cumbersome that they don't know where to start so they don't do anything. you don't have to do anything complicated. it can be very simple as an excel spreadsheet that just is a basic cash flow, income in, income out. as you do that you will learn whether you want to tphoeknow. you don't have to start with something elaborate to begin with. it can be something simple. a lot of where i have learned, i learned a lot in college of course but more so than anything

in college i didn't learn how to apply it directly to what we were doing. and it has tan going to seminar -- taken going to seminars and concernses and listening to industry experts and taking the recommendations and applying it to our own individual situation. >> so, how would he learn about -- he would say something along the lines if i drive an automobile and i get in an accident my car insurance covers it. if i have an ills on or whatever my health insurance covers it. is there something akin to that in farming and where would he go to learn how to manage risks through an insurance process? >> that was a learning process for us. when we became farmers on the farm in 2006 we had a record crop and everything was lovely. my in-laws had purchased crop insurance and we did because

that is what they had done and it had never been utilized. in 2007 we were one year under you're bets andbelts and we had a devastating crop. every crop was a failure due to lack of rain. i went on line and researched it that i could find from crop insurance from every ag extension agent from iowa to north carolina. and i put together my own spreadsheet based on all the information that i came up with and i developed a spreadsheet that could tell me to the dollar what we would get if our yield was this, this is what we will get if our price goes to this, this is what we will get. and within a few clicks of the mouse i would know how much dollars we would be short. that is what i was looking for. i wanted to know where that mark was going to be and what i could count on and what i couldn't.

and it takes some diligent research. there is no specific way at this point. i think that is something that would be good for the usda and f.s.a. office to work toward having a tool that people could use and is easy to use to find out those numbers. >> as i listen to you talk i'm beginning to wonder what the other partner in your operation actually does. [laughter] >> michael, let me ask you a question about a veteran. i think the image that many people in this audience may have had when you described your work with these returning veterans is of a person who has no outward physical disability. but we do know that war has seriously impacted and affected young people both mentally and physically.

talk to us for a second about whether there is any opportunity for someone who has a disability disability, say they lost a leg or an arm a second about whether or not there is actually any opportunity for someone with a disability say one leg or two legs, and they still get into farming. >> we have helped a double amputee. he lost a right leg and right arm. he and his wife are both -- they both served in the marines during operation iraqi freedom. she had a tough job because her job was notifying next of kin and she do that for a number of years, so that was a traumatic experience, they have 20 acres of land as they were medically discharged in upstate new york. they're going into three years selling maple syrup. we have a small grants program

we bought $350,000 worth of equipment for mostly injured farmers to help get them started with the support of several foundations -- >> let me stop you there for a second. when you say quitman, is especially designed for people with disabilities or you just bought equipment -- >> in this sense, other than john deere was nice enough to come out at no cost and reup his tractors all the controls were moved to the right side from the left side. this is a maple syrup evaporator we bought him, so it is something he can do to stop it is the type of farming he can do despite his physical injury. in a march 21, we are launching a national label we have been working with the -- that was developed last year in the kentucky department of agriculture called homegrown by

heroes. they're going to be one of the inaugural people that will be selling their maple syrup with this as a secondary label. so there are a lot of things. the more challenging often that we deal with is the large number, because of the ied's the explosives and the large number of concussions that come out, about 300 something thousand cases of those diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries that vary in severity and that vary in that some get better and some get worse with time. so there is a lot of equipment and applications and technology that can help farmers with that. we also work very closely with a usda-funded program that has been around for i think since the early 1980's, funded to help

farmers and farm workers with disabilities, usually that have injuries that happen once they begun forming to continue farming, and there has been a real emphasis in that organization to work with us and reach out to veterans with disabilities and help them come into the -- our industry. >> with got a couple of minutes left in the segment. i have time this in such a way that you cannot be overly critical of usda because you will not have enough time. [laughter] but i'm assuming that all of you are somewhat versed with the fact that we have recently got a farm bill after a number of years at work, and i suspected you probably have some familiarity with some of the provisions of that farmville. i want you to help me -- that farmville. i want you to help me and others prioritize and what we should be focused on instituting and doing more rapidly in order to help

these farmers that you have been talking about this morning. so emily let me just are with you and we will go right down the line. >> all right. i will talk about three things will stop farming, ranching production is a big one. there is a language about farm viability in the new farm bill. so a lot of those out there do not even necessarily mean that little beach rental -- that land will be transferred to a farmer, so we would like to see that become part of the criteria, not making it onerous on land trusts but recognizing that if we want to use these federal dollars of a productive way to keep land in agriculture, that we would like to see that become part of the ranking criteria. we are really excited about the micro-loan program becoming permanent. it was just a trial program the first year, so i think encouraging that program and more understanding throughout the fsa offices of beginning

former issues, how you can be an experienced former a bit more part of that being the experience requirement, i definitely had some first thoughts parents with that while looking for fsa loans to become a farmer myself. but what we are really excited about is the ida program. it is in the bill but it is not quite funded yet. that is a program that basically matches beginning farmers' savings. it has been really successful. it was very successful in oklahoma with a nonprofit organization not working with farmers, but it has been shown to be a really effective way of getting people to save, which is really helpful with transitioning from renting land to having money for a down payment. or if you want to expand into perennial crops from an annual vegetable system having that

savings helps you diversify. we would like to see that become a nationwide effort and it has been very effective. >> we wish there was more in the bill to help california and our water issue. that is kind of a specific deal, it is not really a national issue. it is in a white because we provide a lot of fruits and vegetables for the nation. other than water, air quality is huge in california, and we have been asking to clean up our air by upgrading engines. we started at tier zero 14 years ago and we have been working our way up to tear for -- tier four. a lot of mom-and-pop truckers at all their own truck and no longer afford it. they're going to go by the wayside, and these new trucks are more expensive 20%, 30% more.

part of the bill has money in their to assist with that, and that is definitely needed because we cannot just pay straight out of our pockets and upgrade. i think it is going to be branches and tractors very soon. we did a couple of 2-for-1 spots, still had to have money out of our pockets for us, but that ethanol he helped, and we want to continue funding those programs. keep the existing -- keep assisting specialty crops in california is a huge deal. we appreciate that funding. we currently have not had an almond extension, a specialist bromance, spencer -- a specialist for almonds pistachios, the makers in kern county, a gentle and retired in the recited of money to replace them. so continue supporting our extension, a viable service that

doesn't cost a smaller grower a lot of money that needs that help. >> well couple obviously, as i talk about crop insurance, i've always been an advocate for that. we've had more droughts the not unfortunately in our short time as partners, and whenever everybody was arguing the "farmville" between a direct payment and other programs that were offered -- the "farmvil farm bill between a direct payment other programs are offered, and left there is a disaster, there is not a need for the next three payouts, so when times are good, we do not necessarily need it but when times are not good, it sustains agriculture today. and there were so many people in 20 12 without crop insurance who would not have been able to go on. it is my understanding the farm

bill offers a program to where we can enter at higher levels because i was always a -- that was also a problem with beginning farmers because we carry a higher debt load because we are starting out and that is part of it. and carrying a higher debt load will a fall at 80%, there is a big jump there. i think those kind of programs can help so many people get started and stay in business even in down times. also, the guaranteed loan program has been essential for us and we could not have gotten started without the usda and ffa office using our financial institutions we went through that program and that is how we got our line of credit. if it had not been for that, we could not have put out such a large crop, so i think going forward, that is essential.

>> one thing that might -- the farm bill does contain some provisions to make initial crop insurance a little bit less expensive for beginning farmers which i think is important. obviously there is a continued commitment to the guarantee program, and there may be some chances to provide that -- changes to provide that for longer period of time. michael, we will finish with you and it we will take questions from the audience. >> the usta -- the breath of the programs that were there to help all beginning farmers for the first time in history addressing veteran farmers and defining veteran farmers and creating a liaison to the veteran farming community is historical and exciting. i think the thing that we would like to see help with is the ability to introduce these programs to the veterans themselves and help interpret them and explain them. i think for that, we would like

to be able to organize meetings of veterans and some of the key states, particularly areas where a lot of them are resettling in looking into agriculture, but there are many states and get help in explaining them a walking them through each of these opportunities as well as other information about going into agriculture and updating our resource guide so a can include some of these programs and get it into the hands of that transitional assistance program, which is the package of information that the military gives to a young man woman as they transition out of military service and civilian life. >> great conversation. barriers challenges, opportunities, passion, great discussion. now it is your turn -- questions. i don't know if we have got the roving microphones again or --

>> hi, my name is maggie holmes, i am a second graduate student at send marcus at texas. because the average middle school student is not going to be informed of where their local farm is or fruit and vegetables are grown let alone a difference between agm oh and non-gm oh crop, how can you ensure local resources mentioned previously are made accessible to students in the school system. >> in a panel member want to take a credit that? -- a crack at that? >> could you reiterate the question? >> sure. a lot of young people may not understand the opportunities in agriculture because as they're growing up part of their education used to include a discussion of agricultural

opportunities and today it is not or does not do it in very great detail, and how is it that young people are going to learn about these opportunities that you all are talking about here unless they have been raised on a farm. >> i worked in the farm system and [inaudible] >> if anybody wants to weigh in on this, feel free, but as a way of responding, we have actually talked to secretary duncan and the secretary of education, and we have ffa students here who are working with secretary duncan organizations working with secretary duncan and the department of education, and they do a better job of explaining the need for aggregate dictation -- ag education in schools across the united states for the very reasons that we talked about today, so that is happening. we also have this form to school program which was mentioned earlier, and that is an opportunity not just to learn

what is grown in and around the area so that they local school district and purchase that item for consumption in the school breakfast or lunch program, it is also an opportunity for extended curriculum where these things are discussed in the gardening program. it is also a part of that. >> in kern county, we have formed a in the city. we are trying to start with the fourth-graders come up its graders. there will be 4200 children that come through the fairgrounds that we put up a display, a lot of industry comes a talk about what they do. we are going to actually for the first time show a music video done by the peterson family come i don't of the of seen them, but they take a katy perry pardody and it is fun. we have another one called "it

is sexy and i grow it." they have chosen what they can do and what farming is about in a music video and they learn that way. this thing has grown, it was 2000 students three years ago, and we are talking about 4200 and month from now. so kern county farm bureau can continue to do that. in order to start young and kind of plant that seed. >> there are some really direct ways that students can get in touch with agriculture so my state's farm to school program has a directory, a farm that can host students on a farm, which can because prohibitive for some districts, but some forms seek students. in my slow season, kids love to see slides of the pictures of fruits and vegetables, can you

imagine what is wearing under it -- they never imagine it is a potato. having them come in a classroom is a really effective way. when young kids in cs coming in, they are not likely to raise their hand, yeah, i really want to be a farmer when i grow up. when you see somebody doing it and they get to touch it, and feel it, and see it, it is a profession that is viable. >> good questions. yes. >> mr. secretary, thank you, and we represent a group, we had a meeting last night, we are your research and promotion board and we represent about 2 million producers and about in our segment $870 million.

one of our big discussions well , i guess the overview was on diversity, and one of those things was how to get the young people involved, and i believe your panel was very good and in different groups of how to do that. we are finding that in our boards getting people to run on our boards, that is huge. but i would like to kind of direct a question to joanna when she talked about the crop insurance. we talk about getting young farmers involved, and i am with the unite him sorghum checkoff program and i am a producer in texas. we have got young kids wanting to farm and you talk crop insurance. well, we have been in a drought. we are a lot like california and we are feeling it. what has happened is it has come

in and lowered our yield so what is happening with our young farmers is they are not getting the safety net that would help them move on. we had these older farmers who in the non-drought years brought up their yearields and have a good safety nets, but the young farmers are at a very disadvantage. what can we do to help them a get them started in this great operation? >> anyone want to take a stab at that? >> that is a good question because we ran into that ourselves with having -- we do not have total failures, but we had dropped in 2007, total failure 8, 10, 11, 12, so what was an established yield for us for my in-laws for years and years and all of a sudden started taking down, down, down, and there was not something

that we were doing other than we were not set up to irrigate and there was no rain. there is a point within a couple of years, so plug in an overall average year, but there is a point that you tip that they stopped doing that. i think it is three years, and then your yield starts ticking down and that is a problem. >> and this has been an issue that we have had in a number of parts of the country, the fine balance between situations where people cannot even plant a crop because the converse -- it is too wet -- and that happens year after year after year, and you actually have to have land that actually produces from time to time to have crop insurance otherwise it would break the bank will stop so it is a balance -- bank. so it is a balance and the folks

at the risk management agency try to maintain that balance and do the best that they can. i think one of the keys to your question and one of the things i would encourage young producers to do is to continue to inform us of the unique challenges that younger producers and beginning producers based because it is a significant difference between starting and operation and having a drought or a flood or a natural disaster in your first or second year versus you have been farming for 20 years and a bad year comes around. you have equity built up over 20 years, you can withstand a year or two that is tough. if you are a beginning farmer, that might be just enough -- that was one of the biggest frustrations for me for the last couple of years as we had livestock producers who were suffering terribly because of the drought and because of snow storms that hit, and we had no disaster assistance program and there was not crop insurance model at that point for them, so

they were really stuck, and i think we lost a lot of folks in the farming business because we did not have that vehicle to get them to a better day. we now -- because of the farm bill, we now have it. because of the california drought and because of what has happened in the livestock industry we are going to try to accelerate significantly be rulemaking for restoring those disaster programs so we can get relief to those producers as quickly as we possibly can. normally take six months to eight months to do that, but we are going to get it done in 60 days. we are sensitive to this issue. we have time for one more, is there a question over here. or way over there. we will get one of those folks were waving their hands. -- who are waving their hands. >> hi, my name is mark

rosenstein. it is an honor for my group from the national defense university to be here. we look at strategic issues and it has already been touched on a little bit and i am just one of looking for the panel to kind of get some ideas, but when we look at immigration, we know immigration is changing, and we understand that the cost inputs in terms of labor and why it is important for immigrant labor to come into the country, but are there any programs, or has the department looked at opportunities that could mitigate losses in employment as a result of changing immigration laws that would somehow bring together the youth of our country in a way that my mother used to go out in a cold -- in the corn fields many years ago but it seems that we could accomplish quite a few things that would help our country in terms of taking some of our

youth who do not really know what to do, especially during the summer months, bring them out to areas that labor could maybe be a little bit less maybe a little bit more than what you pay immigrant labor and it would also introduce young people to agriculture so that maybe when they graduated high school, they would feel more comfortable and may be better prepared to go into that line of work. so i am just wondering if there is anything being done to kind of mitigate the issues with immigration by concentrating on the youth of our country to help them with employment and opportunities, and learn the business of agriculture. >> anything going on in your locale that would be responsive to that? >> i can take that. nothing that i know of. there is an h2a program that

has never really works in california all that well. when you know to local high schools, there are some ffa programs, a day with a former young kids come in juniors, sophomores, seniors come with us, go around. i have been doing it for 10 years, and there was one kid that i hired that seems to get it, and he got the hard work, he was from a single family, a mother raised him, and he was hungry. he works likeed like an immigrant somebody working in dollars a day now making $100 was a bigot that on a massive scale, i think that is very difficult. -- $100. you get on a mass scale, i think that is very difficult. in order to get us around the world, we're going to have to be

that minimum wage, a little bit higher range. we cannot afford to pay the $50 $20 an hour for harvesting our crops. -- $15 $20 an hour for harvesting our crops. that would just take us out of the competition. it would be very difficult. with the immigrant, it is bettering their lives, going from $10 a day to $100 a day and having the drive to want to better themselves. i feel that is always going to be our baseline workforce, so to figure out a way to do it legally, that is my opinion, and what i've seen out on the farm. >> we have a program within our forest service in the department of interior the 21st century conservation corps and the goal is to try to get in gauge -- to engage 100,000 young people not so much on the farm but in the forest in areas of this country and on public lands to encourage

them, and particularly from inner-city areas, to come outdoors, to work outdoors, to learn a skill associated with forrester he. -- with forestry. we are affiliating with now over 100,000 organizations to have them certify young people so that they are appropriately trained because a lot of this work involves equipment, and to some extent some risk, said you want to make sure kids are well prepared to do the work. so we are working with now 100 organizations that have agreed to essentially work with us to try to create this cadre of young people who will be the next generation of folks to work in the outdoors and to work with our natural resources. and i think, you know, that may be a forerunner. we are also working with a number of groups to try to identify in schools young people

who actually do want to work on the farm. the deputy has an working with an organization that is looking at the future of agriculture and they are looking at ways in which they might be able to attract non-farm kids to be engaged and be involved, something i can do to a vista or peace corps experience at a domestic level on the farm was also the rrr -- so -- on the farm. so there is some in the space. we need about 700,000 or so workers on a fairly regular basis, stable basis. we probably have 300,000 folks who have been in this country for an extended period of time. there has to be a process where we can get them out of the shadows and get up to be comfortable being a part of this country. there are so many benefits from

an immigration point. and then we have to have a guestworker system so we can calibrate and adjust because sometimes great needs a lot of workers and sometimes he may not need that many. we need to calibrate us we do not have too many or too few workers so the wage levels and working conditions are what they need to be. i see that the clock tells me that i have got to wrap it up. i really want to thank the panel for a very informative discussion about the challenges. great opportunities, and the diverse opportunities that are in agriculture today and hopefully this panel discussion will inspire young people across the country to take a look at agriculture because it is an exciting field and it will be the place to be in the future. so thank the panel. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> our next "washington journal" is live at the national

institute of health. we will talk to story landis, dr. alan guttmacher, dr. gary gibbons of the national heart lung, and blood institute, and dr. stephen katz, director of the national attitude of arthritis, muscular, and skeletal and skin diseases. "washington journal" live from the national institutes of health at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> a couple of live events to tell you about today. beginning with the brookings institution forum on the syrian refugee crisis which is affecting millions of people. panelists are scheduled to include the ambassadors. that is at 10:00 a.m. eastern. at 3:00 p.m., the heritage foundation focuses on political protests in venezuela following the arrest of the leader of the opposition and the relations between the u.s. and venezuela maybe affected by the expulsion

of three u.s. diplomats. >> the beauty of america is that in this country, we have the ability to write the script of our own life. we are in a sense in the driving seat of our own future. our biggest decisions in life are made by us. america creates the sense of possibility, and out of that you can become an activist, a community organizer. what are you doing you go you are living off the great explosion of wealth that you did not even create. >> so many straw men said it is hard to know where to begin. nobody said america is a most terrible place. but there are a couple of assertions that you have to take on faith that are astonishing. one is the idea that america's great invention was wealth creation. what about the death of the

entire continent? [applause] that was a theft. that is not mean 90% of the residents who lived here were murdered, and that is a part of a here. >> and bill ayers and dinesh d'souza debate what is so great about america tonight at 8:00 p.m. on the c-span. now i do culture secretary tom bill suck -- now agriculture secretary tom vilsack finds the cost increasing even as the number are declining. he spoke yesterday on the yours outlook.

usda, and in my personal opinion, to lead this i do culture industry van tom vilsack . i think he has demonstrated his commitment, his vision, perseverance, determination. he is going to help lead us to a very bright future. he is going to come up now and talk a little bit about a sneak peak about the new census, so please welcome secretary vilsack . [applause] >> so here is the deal -- there is a big huge clock that is right in front of me, that is massive, and the deputy really should have used the shorter version of the introduction because i cannot actually talk about the census until one

second after 12:00. [laughter] so for the next couple of minutes -- [laughter] -- if i were a comedian, which i'm not, obviously, i would give you some jokes, but let me talk to you about the 2014 farm bill. because i think that is really important for people to understand the opportunities that that bill creates. we obviously waited a long time to get that bill, and a lot of us worked really hard to encourage its passage, and we finally got it through the process and a strong bipartisan vote with great leadership among our agriculture committee leadership, chairwoman stabbed

now, chairman of, ranking member peterson, and cochran did a terrific job of shepherding it through a very difficult process. it is indeed a reform bill. it started with the notion that we wanted to change the safety nets to a safety net that would explain to not just folks in i recall tour but also to folks outside about a realtor because as i said earlier, just such a small percentage of our country are farms, so that means the vast majority do not think, and a map -- and they may not understand why it is important to them to have a safety net not to the former, but to the consumer and the citizen. and it was hard to explain why that safety net was providing payments to farm families when prices were at record highs, and

i know that in a another presentation, and virtually every monday and every livestock in the last five years, we have reached at least at one point in time record prices. which may explain why this has been a five-year period of pretty good times generally speaking in agriculture. so this bill now create the circumstance and situation where the safety net kicks in when you need the safety net. you can explain to your urban and suburban friends that this is a safety net that provides assistance when mother nature does not cooperate and then you need to go further and ask why to your friends and neighbors that it is in their best interest to have this safety net. why? because the risk of farming is so great that if we don't as a society manage that risk and help producers manage that risk, it will be even more difficult for young people to get into this business, and they won't get in the business.

and we will see an acceleration of land being used for purposes other than agriculture which will mean we will be less food secure as a country the cost of our food will not continue to be one of the great bargains globally and we will become more dependent on others. and those folks who will be providing us food, as is and was the case and energy for far too long, may not be be people who generally agree on us with a lot of issues. so the safety nets, the reforms in this bill on the safety net are pretty significant. e-commerce -- the conservation opportunity that this bill presents and the partnerships that we created in eight regional areas and speak to a whole different approach to conservation, which we started in the last several years in which we now want to expand and continue. leveraging our resources, the ability to create new additional market opportunities, not just

the traditional commodity markets that play to the strength of those who can grow more with less that are able to grow year after year a certain level of quality and quantity. those commodity markets play to the strength of efficiency which suggests the need for larger and larger farming operations. and we need those in order to meet the challenges of feeding an ever-increasing global population. but we also need folks who are in the middle and smaller operations in order to continue to polish -- to populate rural communities. i will expand in a few minutes why that is important. it is necessary for us to look at ways in which we can not only expand export markets, which lay to the strength of our larger, commercial-sized operations, but also create the local and regional food systems that allow passionate people like we saw here today or veterans were coming back after a war the opportunity to start in this business and grow over time in

this business. it is the reason why we need to look for ways to use agricultural production in different ways, not just fuel and feed and food but now chemicals and plastics and fabrics and fibers and creating new manufacturing opportunities in rural areas. this farm bill contains those kinds of opportunities. so i would encourage those who are interested in agriculture to fully understand the breadth of this bill. the new market opportunities, the new safety net, the new opportunities and commerce -- and conservation and forest ry that this bill results. we are very excited at usda about implementing and instituting this bill in an efficient and effective way. that leads me to a discussion of where are we in terms of agriculture, and what does the senses tell us, and what can we learn from it? first of all, let me say that this census, and the information that is being disclosed right

now is preliminary. and normally we would've had the full sense us prepared by now but we had a little thing called sequester and a little thing called the government shutdown, and that really alter the timetable for the way in which this census was repaired, so now we have more specific it from -- we have information and more specific information will be released in spring when we finish the job. the second thing, for probably a multitude of reasons, the response of rate for the census was down a little bit from what it was in the previous census. and some of that i think it's probably the circumstances and conditions that we found in 2012 when the census was conducted. it was in the midst of this horrible droughts, it was at a time when we did not have disaster assistance for livestock producers, so it may have been harder for some to take the time to fill out this rather extensive survey.

and it may also be that people were genuinely concerned about the use of this information. that there is out there the feeling that if you provide information to the government that somehow it will be used for purposes other than that which you have explained to them, in other words, the survey would be used in some way to inform other federal agencies. we really have to get over that as it relates to the american agricultural survey. they can only be used for the purposes for which we describe which is to inform us as to the state of agriculture and to better inform policymaking in the future. we really have to take the time to provide this information because it is terribly value to us in terms of policies.

i have been told by our teams that we really provide much more rigorous standards to the development of information, and in some areas, the information was not as robust as it might have been, so the margin of error, the coefficient variations, which is a term i am now learning about it varies from area to area based on responses. it is a little hard to compare census to census, but there are turns over the period of 20 years to 30 years that are instructive. so here are several takeaways from how i have reviewed the information that i have seen so far. since 1982 70 2 million acres of farmland has been lost in this country to other uses.

72 million acres. the good news is that this rate of loss, which was quite accelerated at the first part of that period of time has slowed down, and this census revealed the slowing down of that good for my two other purposes, and that is a positive i take from this particular survey. i take it with a caveat obviously that it would be best if we did not have a loss of farmland but the fact that we are slowing down that we are not seeing the erosion of opportunity as we did in the 1980's and 19 -- in 1990's i think of a positive from this farm bill. it is clear, as was stated earlier, the age of principle operators in this country continues -- they continue to grow older. and what you will see from the census is that the average age is in the neighborhood, in

excess of 58 years. it has increased by over a year. and i continues a trend that has occurred over the last 20 years to 30 years. and that is why our discussion today is so relevant. and so important because the good news is that if you look at young farmers, folks who are under the age of 35, into categories, those under 25 and those under 35, we have actually seen slight increases, which is good news, but we need to accelerate that level of increase. we need more young people to get engaged in this business because if you look at the numbers, what you will see is a significant number of farmers today, even today, are over the age of 75 years of age, and there are a significant in number over the age of 65 and the reality is over time, those folks will not be able to continue farming, and the question posed for all of us is -- if they can't, who

will? from my perspective, the young people i saw here today i would like millions of those young people having that opportunity. it is incumbent upon us to use the tools that we have to encourage more young people to get into this business, to make that condition that michael o'gorman wants to make with veterans because we have so many young people who have served in iraq and afghanistan the last decade who are coming back to this country looking for opportunity and there is no reason why significant number of them cannot be in the farming business. so there is some positive when we look at the fact that there is a slight increase in those under the age of 35 getting back in this business. but given the magnitude of this problem and the fact it has existed for as long as it has we are likely to see continued aging of our farm population at least in the short term. so we really need to be aggressive.

the overall number of farms in this country, you will find that number is down, which did not surprise me, given the disaster assistance or lack of disaster assistance in livestock, given feed costs the strain that livestock producers have seen and given the drought that was experienced in 2012 when this census data was collected. but there is something very constructive about the census and that is very small operations and very large operations have held steady or have actually increased. what that tells me is that our efforts and continued efforts in export promotion need to continue because those larger operations benefit obviously from exports, and he saw in joe's presentation earlier today a good news story in terms of continued commitment to exports, but we need to continue to focus on free trade, we need to continue to look for ways to

expand trading opportunities, we need that transpacific partnership to open up hundreds of millions of new partners -- customers in southeast asia, we need to figure out a better relationship with our friends in the e.u. we need to continue to expand the equivalency agreements in organic that we've seen recently with korea, japan, and canada, two other entities -- not korea, the eu, we need to expand to korea an equivalency agreement. we need to expand on commercial trade for those large scale operations. operators are doing well for themselves and their families will survive a court -- and their families. i take solace in the fact that we see steadiness there because that is the entry point for people to get into this business. the local and regional food system becomes extraordinarily important because that is the

avenue that is the direct to consumer marketing opportunity that emily talked about that is so relevant and so important to go smaller operations. we need to continue to expand those target opportunities, which we will with this new farm bill. but the deep concern that all of us should have is what happens in the middle. like so much of this economy today and so much of what is taking place in this country today, it is the medium-sized operations that feel the greatest stress. it is the middle. the middle-class class, if you will, of farming that needs attention. that is why we have put so much emphasis in this farm bill in creating new market opportunities that are not necessarily market opportunities that larger, commercial operations will take total advantage of, but where it offers an opportunity in a more local and regional way for

agricultural production, and particularly waste tonics from that production, or not as productive land to be used by those medium-sized operations to fuel a new manufacturing opportunity for a bio-based economy. the notion they take the crop residue or livestock waste, you turn it into a local resident facility into something more valuable and that gets shipped out of the rural community. it creates manufacturing jobs that support the community, it creates new market opportunities for the midsize operator -- operations. we need to continue to be vigilant in trying to rebuild the middle whether it is the middle in terms of size or the middle in terms of income opportunities. you will see from this census that farming operations, where sales were less than $50,000 struggle. you will see farming operations where sales were greater than $250,000 as much as $1 million doing for a well -- fairly well.

another interesting finding in this survey is that we have seen an increase in minority operators. more hispanics, more native americans, more asians, and more african-american producers. i think that is reflected again, and the changing character of agriculture, and it is a great opportunity for us to address this issue of young farmers and to address this issue of who is going to be the farmer in the future. and you will see -- very interesting -- not only in terms of geographic and not only in terms of demographic groups but also geographically. not every state is the same in agriculture. you will see the states in the southwest, you will see florida, you will see the states in the new england area actually increasing the number of farms. and there is a message there. art of it has to do with minority operators, part of it has to do with local and regional food systems where we are beginning to see challenges is in the middle.

and the places where only one or two crops, one or two types of livestock are being produced. they are the middle, struggles. and it is very important to focus on this issue of the middle over the next five years with this new farm bill. why is it important? because that is also tied to another demographic issue we talked a little bit about recently and that is the loss of rural population. for the for some in the country's history, we have lost population enrolled communities and we as a -- in rurual communities, and we have a country need to be concerned about that. i think this farm bill is going to help. it will restore livestock disaster assistance, which is going to help those folks in the middle who get a snowstorm who have a drought or feed costs may be difficult -- it will provide help they did not have the last couple of years. there is continued in

significant increased investment in local and regional food systems, especially crop reductions in organic, which is an entry point for new farmers. the young former assistant programs are expanded. there are new credit opportunities with the micro loan program and there are new opportunities to reduce the crop of cost insurance for beginning farmers, and that is a positive. all of these and the expansion of research opportunities are exciting things about this farm bill that we need to embrace and we need to utilize to grow the middle. not just be focused on the larger operations or the smaller operations but also the midsize operations. two takeaways from the survey, from the information, from the challenges we face, and that is that agriculture in this country needs to embrace two concepts in a very serious way. it is to embrace the notion of diversity. and i don't just mean diversity in terms of operators.

i am talking about diversity of crops. those who multi-crop, those who figure out, creative ways to reshape their farming operation so that they are producing higher value opportunities or multiple opportunities in those areas -- or multiple opportunities. in those areas markets are enhanced. we do continue to expand our foreign markets with a strong export promotion effort, but we also need to grow that domestic market with new ways, local and regional food systems, the bio- based economy. we need to diversify land use. we talked very briefly today -- it was mentioned just briefly about the need for marketing land use for conservation purposes and how that might create income opportunities that are diversified and different from what we have seen in the past and obviously we need to diversify the workforce and the farming community.

that is why we need immigration reform. because you know it is not just getting workers to work on a farm filled because as was said earlier, those workers oftentimes in the second or third generation are not farm laborers, they are farm owners. and that is the american experience. someone comes in with a hope in a dream for the next generation that they will have a better life. they work hard they sacrifice, they do jobs that are top. their children watch the sacrifices that are made, they make a decision that when i grow up, i'm going to be the owner of a form, and that dream is realized. so agriculture embracing diversity in all forms is extremely important. at the same time, we need to be innovators. if we're going to make the case to these bright young people who are here today and bright young people across the country that agriculture is the place to be, then we have got to make it exciting. we have got to make sure we market it as the place where more new things are happening more quickly than any other

aspect of the economy. and i think we can make that case. i think we can innovate crop production and crop protection and livestock production and livestock reduction. there are enormous opportunities with the genome being sequence that will create new opportunities that are just totally amazing. every person involved in that scientific discovery is a detective of sorts. it is an amazing opportunity. there are challenges with our climate, but that creates opportunities for us to adapt and mitigate climate change so we can continue to be this extraordinary either altering in this country. -- agriculture engine in this country. nearly five percent of gdp enacted to agriculture. it is an important part of our economy. innovation in terms of market development. who thought 5, 10, 15 years ago that you could take a corncob

and turn it into a plastic bottle? who knew that you could take woody biomass and turn it into a vest somewhere in the military could potentially where that is lighter and stronger than current armor that would save lives? who knew that was possible? that is just the beginning of what is possible. and frankly innovation in our regulatory approaches. i mentioned here earlier today the tennessean government is to have one-size-fits-all -- the tendency in the government is to have one-size-fits-all. agriculture is vairried. our regulatory systems have to be better equipped to handle that diversity, and so that will require innovation. i will finish with this -- why is all of this important? those of you who have heard me speak before know where i am headed with this, but i think it is worth repeating -- this is important notjus just because

it is a driver of the economy not just because it makes as a food-secure nation and therefore a stronger nation from a national security perspective -- this is important because of the value system that is alive and well in rural areas that is fueled by those who work and live on farms and ranches. the notion that something that is important, something that is valuable, something that gives as the land does, if it is treated well, and will continue to give if it is treated well, something that is that important requires us to give something back to it. every farmer, every rancher worth their salt understands and appreciates that notion, and they conveyed that value system to their children and their grandchildren and their nieces and nephews that that land is valuable to us that that land gives to us and we must give back to it. and as young people grow up with that value system surrounding them, they learned that anything of value must be invested in.

it is one of the reasons why so many young people go into the military from rural areas because a know a country that gives us freedom and liberty to the extent that this country gives us, those extraordinary gifts, requires somebody to stand up for it, somebody to get back to it, someone to sacrifice for it. and we have been blessed with extraordinary blairravery and courage in very harsh circumstances that we have had young people willing to stand up and do that. if world populations declined comment it farming is not available, if young people cannot be attracted, if it continues to age, if we continue to see a shrinking middle, i question is not just who is going to format land, but who is going to defend the land. so this is important. that is why this outlook for um is so important and it is important for us to have a strong and healthy dialogue and why it is important for us to

commence our friends and neighbors not to central america -- not just in rural america but that every single american in this country has received an extraordinary benefit from american farmers and ranchers. the benefit of affordable of a safe available food, and the benefit of being able to choose with their lives something other than growing food that we are able to become whatever we want to be because we still continue to have great people willing to go out and assume the responsibility for feeding not just their family but our families. and thanking god for every single farmer and rancher in this country, regardless of what they grow, regardless of how big or small they are. we are blessed. thank you all. [applause]

>> in a few minutes, today's headlines plus called the tweets live on "washington journal." also this morning the brookings institution holds a forum on the syrian refugee crisis. panelists include ambassadors. that is at 10:00 eastern. at 3:00 p.m. eastern, the heritage foundation focuses on political protests in venezuela. and in a half-hour, a look at the mission and role of the national institutes of health. beginning with story landis of the national institute of neurological disorders and stroke, followed by dr. alan guttmacher who heads the national institute of child health and human development. at 8:30 a.m., dr. gary gibbons of the national heart, lung, and blood institute.

later, dr. stephen katz director of the national institute of arthritis muscular, skeletal, and skin diseases. "washington journal" is next. ♪ ♪ >> we will be live all morning from the national institute of health campus in bethesda, maryland. we will be talking with several of the directors, including the director of the national institute of nor logical disorders and stroke. finally this morning, dr. steven katz. 27 separate institute at nih.