Thought leaders from D.C. discuss important considerations for the upcoming farm bill legislation
The Farm Bill is an important piece of legislation that affects everything that is governed by the USDA. With Congress working to pass a new version for 2023, NCGA believed it was a topic worth discussing at this summer's Corn Congress in Washington, D.C.
Led by NCGA's VP of Public Policy, Brooke Appleton, this discussion panel, straight from the floor of Corn Congress, includes several experienced legislators and thought leaders in the field of agriculture:
- Daniel Glickman, former Secretary, USDA
- Heidi Heitkamp, former Senator and member of the Senate Agriculture Committee
- Richard Fordyce, former Administrator of the Farm Service Agency
Together, these four discuss important topics to consider, and the work and relationships necessary to achieve our goals in creating a farm bill that is beneficial to everyone affected by agriculture.
Heidi Heitkamp:
What advice I would give the corn growers is, you've got to build the relationships with people who care about food stamps. You've got to build the relationships with people who care about conservation. You can't expect to basically get a farm bill by just being who you are in production agriculture.
Dusty Weis:
Hello, and welcome to Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast. This is where leaders, growers, and stakeholders in the corn industry can turn for big-picture conversations about the state of the industry and its future. From the fields of the corn belt, to the DC Beltway, we're making sure that the growers who feed America have a say in the issues that are important to them with key leaders who are shaping the future of agriculture. I'm Dusty Weis, and on this month's episode, we're headed right into the heart of the DC Beltway with an in-depth look at one of the most consequential topics on Capitol Hill for growers, the farm bill.
Dusty Weis:
This piece of legislation comes up for renewal every five years. It governs everything at USDA, from commodity support to trade, nutrition to crop insurance, conservation to clean energy, and it's a hot topic in DC right now, as Congress works to pass a new version next year. But if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast in your favorite app. Also, make sure you follow the NCGA on Twitter @nationalcorn and sign up for the National Corn Growers Association newsletter at ncga.com. In order to bring you the best, most recent information about what to expect from the 2023 farm bill, the National Corn Growers Association convened a special panel discussion at this summer's Corn Congress. It involved some of America's top agricultural thought leaders, and it was moderated by NCGA's Vice President of Public Policy, Brooke Appleton. Here is that discussion as it played out in DC.
Brooke Appleton:
All right, well, thanks so much for everyone being here today. I know you've heard from me a lot this week, but just a reminder I'm Brooke Appleton, I'm the Vice President of Public Policy for the National Corn Growers Association. And I am honored to have our esteemed panelists up here today to have the discussion of shaping the next farm bill. We've got a lot of experience on the stage, and I'm hoping to pull from that and kind of give us some good advice as we look ahead. As we debate policy resolutions, we thought it would be great to bring this panel of experts to offer insights on the next farm bill.
Brooke Appleton:
As you all know, the farm bill's debated about every five years, hopefully about every five years. And it touches about every single program at the Department of Agriculture. So it is important to have this discussion today. And we'll start with just a little bit more of an introduction. To my immediate left we have secretary Glickman, who served as the Secretary of Agriculture from March of 1995, until January of 2001. Under his leadership, USDA forged international trade agreements to expand US markets, and improved its commitment to fairness and equity, and civil rights. Glickman also represented the fourth congressional district of Kansas for 18 years. And we got a lot of Kansans in the room today.
Daniel Glickman:
Are there Kansans in the room? All right. Okay. All right.
Brooke Appleton:
Including as a member of the House Agriculture Committee during the 1990 farm bill. He now serves as a senior counselor at APCO Worldwide as a senior advisor to the Russell Group, and a senior advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a senior advisor to the US Global Leadership Coalition. I'm kind of tired just talking about all of that.
Daniel Glickman:
I can't keep a job, but it's okay.
Brooke Appleton:
To his left, we have Senator Heidi Heitkamp who served as the first female Senator, elected from the state of North Dakota, from 2013 to 2019. During her time in the Senate, Senator Heitkamp was a key ally on the Senate Agriculture Committee, where she helped write, negotiate and pass the 2014 and the 2018 farm bills. Senator Heitkamp is the founder of One Country, Rural Progress Summit, which provides a forum for highlighting key issues across rural America. She also does some work for the Bipartisan Policy Center, which NCGA is involved with and engaged with her as well.
Brooke Appleton:
Lastly, we have Richard Fordyce, who served as the administrator of the Farm Service Agency from May 2018 to January 2021. As a fourth generation soybean, corn and beef cattle farmer from Missouri, he brought the producer voice to the department's political leadership and led FSA's implementation of the 2018 farm bill. Prior to his role at USDA, Administrator Fordyce was the director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture. And he now serves as the Director of New Business Development for Agriculture at Osborn Barr Paramore, which is a full service marketing and communications agency.
Brooke Appleton:
So welcome everyone. Thank you so much for being here. And I feel like just kind of started off a question for the panel. Let's just start with an easy one. And just please, each of you maybe share a favorite memory that involves your work on the farm bill. And secretary, we could start with?
Daniel Glickman:
First of all, thanks to you, Brooke, and my colleagues on the panel and the great folks. I'm really impressed by the number of people that you have here. So I'm a senior advisor, when you get to my age, you're senior on everything. And so some of you in the room may know that, but some may not. Any event, I served in Congress and in department during slightly different times. And Heidi came later and may have some of the same experiences. But I think one of my experiences, we had a lot of fun. I served with Bob Dole and Pat Roberts, two of the people with the greatest sense of humor in the history of American politics, other than maybe myself, but that's to say...
Brooke Appleton:
Up for debate?
Daniel Glickman:
Up to debate. And so we collaborated on just about everything. And at one point in time, Roberts was chairman of the Senate Ag Committee, Dole was the Senate majority leader, and I was the secretary of agriculture and we called ourselves the Kansas mafia. We ran farm policy. We thought we did, we didn't really run it. But anyway, so I guess my greatest memory is the collaborative working together on food and agriculture policy, not just farm policy, although that was a big part of it, but also on nutrition policy. I think it was part of an era where that was more of the rule of the thing than perhaps it is now. Although I would have to say that food and agriculture policy is still more bipartisan than most areas of our public policy in this country, but it suffered a bit in recent years. And so that's my greatest memory, is getting along with my colleagues, working well and working collaboratively for American agriculture.
Brooke Appleton:
Okay. That's a good one. Senator?
Heidi Heitkamp:
Well, I don't know if it's necessarily about the farm bill, but it is about solving problems. And so, we had a horrific fire in South Dakota and North Dakota. I worked with John Thune to change the standards so that they had to consult with local people before they did a prescribed burn on the grasslands. We passed that very rapidly. I worked with Joni Ernst on redefining some of this stuff, on how we calculate and determine what you're producing. I worked with John Bozeman, who I really like. We opened up capital markets so that we could actually finance egg products into Cuba. It was the first Cuban bill that passed, I think, in 25 years. And so when you go through and you look at, as a career in the Senate, and you think, "Where were the things that not only did you try and collaborate, but where were you successful?"
Heidi Heitkamp:
I would tell you the Ag Committee. And it usually was in response to some kind of event, whether it was a fire, whether it was, I worked with Deb Fisher on standards for trucks, especially for produce that would spoil. The standards would've basically resulted in food spoilage. We were able to get things done together. RFS always been bipartisan, big rallies that we did. And so what I would say is, it is a place where you can solve problems, not just collaborate, but actually get things done. And that's my greatest memory of being in the Ag Committee. Good.
Brooke Appleton:
Good. And Richard, your experience probably a little different, implementing the farm bill?
Richard Fordyce:
Yeah, I would say so. So prior to being the administrator, prior to being the director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, I was a full-time farmer and an advocate. So made a lot of trips to Washington, advocating on behalf of different issues related to the farm bill. What I found to be interesting when I became the administrator, and I was administrator when the president signed the farm bill, actually got to go over to the White House and see that, that was kind of cool. The work really started to begin for USDA at that point. Congress does a great job of writing a farm bill. Senator, I know I came over and saw you a few times because you didn't think we were going quite fast enough.
Heidi Heitkamp:
Or headed in the right direction.
Richard Fordyce:
Or headed in the right direction. And so what was interesting was... So to administer a farm bill, this is the law of the land for five years or six, or however long, sometimes they run. If it's in a book, it's almost 900 pages. And so, when we would start to tackle that, to administer that legislation, we literally had staff that would go through that legislation page by page, word by word, to understand what is going to remain the same, what is going to change. And then if it's going to change, we would look to congressional intent, like what did Congress intend when they wrote that language? And then certainly have lots of conversations, and get to a point where we could roll out a program. So the interesting thing was, having been on the front end of it for so many years, then being on the administration side of it, because before, as a farmer, the President signs a farm bill, we think programs will start the next day.
Richard Fordyce:
That's not the case, right? It takes a lot of work to get that done. So is it compliant from a budget standpoint? Is it legal? The way that we want to administer this, is it legal? And that conversation also... and this is I think certainly where you all come in and play a very important role, where we have opportunities to be discretionary, it was very helpful. Like I know a lot of NCGA folks were in my office talking about what their perception was of a certain portion of the farm bill. And that conversation needs to continue to happen after the farm Bill's passed, right?
Richard Fordyce:
So you guys are advocating, and ladies, are advocating for certain components to be in that farm bill. There's things that you want to be in there, and you have fostered that all along the journey. That conversation has to continue during the administration of it. And so again, my memory was being a part of different aspects over a course of 25 years to get to the finish line of a farm bill, and then seeing actually how the sausage is made when it comes to getting it administered. It is a big job.
Brooke Appleton:
Oh, absolutely. All right. Switching gears just a little bit. Secretary Glickman, throughout your career you have seen firsthand the cyclical nature of agriculture and energy prices. So while commodity prices right now remain higher than average, we all know we've talked about this a lot this week, that input costs are so high. And this of course, as you can imagine, has our members quite on edge and we've talked about it a lot. Do you have any advice for corn growers and policy makers who weren't farming during the 1980s farm crisis, or during previous energy crisis?
Daniel Glickman:
Yeah well, the inflation rate hit 9.1% last month. Much of that was in fuel. Some of that was in food, some of that was in housing and supply chains. So we are in a very volatile period of time. Now we've always been in somewhat volatile, but I think we're going to see volatility over the next several years that is going to exceed what we've seen in the past. Volatility and prices and volatility and costs. So that means crop insurance and risk management programs are even going to be more important than ever before. And they've got to be flexible to deal with the new kind of agriculture. I noticed the administration is talking about double cropping, and the use of crop insurance for double cropping. That all is very important because in a period of volatility, you've got to be able to permit diversification in agriculture, and a nimble crop insurance program will certainly do that.
Daniel Glickman:
I don't know what's going to happen to Ukraine, this horrendous invasion where we found ourselves dependent on two countries that... I mean, I knew they were big exporters, but I didn't realize the impact that Ukraine would have on the wheat, sunflower, soybean and corn markets in the world. Who knows what Putin is going to do if this gets into a long term deadlock situation. So all you can do for the next farm bill is to hopefully ensure that a crop insurance program is as nimble and flexible as possible, to encourage predictability and diversification in agriculture.
Daniel Glickman:
And I got to mention one more thing as long as I have the floor. And that is the research budget. Our public research funding and agriculture is going down in real terms, over the last 20 years. China's not, Brazil is not, we are. So how are we going to deal with a lot of these challenges like climate, weather, pests, water resources, all these kinds of things. So the corn growers have been very, very good at this and ensuring that long term future of agriculture is as much dependent on whether we have an adequately funded and staffed research arm, as we do about what next year's farm bill is going to be, looking down long term.
Brooke Appleton:
Great. That's good insight. Senator Heitkamp, while you were in the Senate, and now with your work with the Bipartisan Policy Center, your approach to policy has always been in a bipartisan manner. And just those examples that you made earlier, the corn growers have benefited from that, and for having those bipartisan relationships. So when you kind of look at the Ag Committee today and you think about, who are those people who we can kind of lean on and go to and still have that kind of bipartisanship across the aisle to support farmers and ranchers?
Heidi Heitkamp:
I think you have two leaders, both with Debbie Savino and Bozeman. They're going to set the tone. And the tone really is one of collaboration. It doesn't mean that they're always going to agree, but they can in fact provide the leadership. And the dirty little secret is, on the margins, individual members can kind of direct what their priorities are. But those two leaders are going to decide the schedule, they're going to decide what changes they're going to make to title one, if any, what they're going to do with crop insurance. The one thing that I would say is that as we look at the farm bill becoming... Well, I would say becoming after the vetos of George W. Bush, becoming basically a bipartisan accepted, we have to do this. It's almost behind the National Defense Authorization Act, the farm bill probably has some of the most staunch bipartisan support.
Heidi Heitkamp:
What advice I would give the corn growers is, look across the constituency groups. What will hang it up based on my judgment in that committee, and there's more and more people whose goal in that committee is to talk about food security, not necessarily production agriculture. You've got to build the relationships with people who care about food stamps. You've got to build the relationships with people who care about conservation. You've got to actually have that conversation. You can't expect to basically get a farm bill through, by just being who you are in production agriculture. And I'm going to say this, if I said it once I've said it a thousand times. Everybody who tells you that you should take the food security provisions out of the farm bill doesn't understand the farm bill, because that's what creates the collaboration, that's what creates the need. And so don't be afraid to have those conversations to build the support.
Heidi Heitkamp:
We know that there is a lot of interest, especially the environmental community right now about collaborating with you all on carbon issues. The corn growers have been stepped up to the plate, they were on our bipartisan policy task force, they were engaged. And our rule is, do no harm, right? So if you're looking at crop insurance, do no harm, but don't be afraid to collaborate. What I would say is the committee's bipartisan, the issues aren't always. And corn growers could take the lead in broadening the kind of discussions and collaborations with all the interest groups who are concerned about corn growers.
Daniel Glickman:
Can I just add something to what you said? Because I think it's...
Heidi Heitkamp:
No.
Daniel Glickman:
Can't? Okay.
Heidi Heitkamp:
Of course.
Daniel Glickman:
She's back in the legislative branch again. I'm on your side. Okay. All right. When you look at the 10 year cost estimates, over the next farm bill, 80 to 85% of it are in non-production agriculture programs in the food program. So it's about 800 billion versus about 200 billion. The numbers are... Jerry Hackstren would know what the actual numbers are, but I'm in general ballpark. And so the practical matter is that to some extent, you're not sure who the tail that is wagging which dog in this situation, but they're part of the same animal. And if you were to pull this other part out, production agriculture out, it would have much less political support.
Heidi Heitkamp:
And we always say, if you look at Congress and over in the House of Representatives, it's not true for the Senate, because every Senator represents a farmer, right? Somewhere along the line, even those from Massachusetts. But not every congressional district has a farmer, but they do have people who need food security and food assistance.
Daniel Glickman:
Yeah.
Brooke Appleton:
That's very good insight. And I think just switching gears just a little bit. Administrator Fordyce, the FSA county office, as you know is often the single largest touchpoint with the federal government for corn growers, but also for a lot of growers across the country. So as you think back to your role as FSA administrator, how are you able to balance the input and needs from multiple sources regarding FSA programs and policies, including the thousands of FSA staff that you had to oversee? And then also from outside groups like ours?
Richard Fordyce:
So I've said this a hundred times, the local county office is that touchpoint with USDA and certainly FSA. And one of the things I liked to do when I was administrator was get out in the country and go see our folks that were working in those county offices. They're certainly passionate about what they do. They are ingrained in that local community, they know the programs. A lot of times they know the programs better than the folks that were administering it in Washington. And no matter where I would go, whether I was talking to farmers or I was talking to our staff, I think that respect that folks had for the staff that were there, that were doing that good work. One of the things that we tried to do when we were there was to try to get additional appropriation for additional staffing. So you hear it, we're still hearing it, the Farm Service Agency still needs additional staff to administer programs. Without getting into the weeds on the process of hiring, hiring federal workers is a little bit...
Brooke Appleton:
It just takes forever. Just say that.
Richard Fordyce:
It takes forever.
Brooke Appleton:
It takes forever.
Richard Fordyce:
And so I know we were trying to ramp up hiring. Congress actually did give us additional funding to hire. I think they've done it again this past year. And so, it's critical that those county offices are funded appropriately, that they're staffed appropriately. And I know that those kind of efforts still continue. So anytime I was out in that local office, those folks that are working there referred to the farmers in their county as their farmers, like it's possessive. They are literally how the rubber meets the road, they're how these programs get administered. And so I had, and continue to have, the utmost respect for the folks that are working out there in the field. Brooke, I would say, and I also want to give them a lot of credit, when the pandemic began there were a lot of options and a lot of places within USDA where remote work could be done, right?
Richard Fordyce:
But think about that local county office, where we have farmers coming in, working over a counter or sitting at a desk with one of our folks. When the pandemic happened, we had to pull all those folks, have them stay home for a period of time. And we didn't have the technology, and we didn't have really the ability for those folks to do that. In Washington, we pivoted very quickly to get them equipment, to get them technology and ways for farmers to participate remotely as well. And while I think there's about 16,000 employees, both in state offices, headquarters, and out in the country, we saw a transformation in a thought process and a willingness to make sure let's get this done.
Richard Fordyce:
I don't know that it has been recognized. So some of the credit goes to farmers because they had to adopt new technologies to be able to participate. But certainly that staff that had to literally pivot and do things a completely different way than they ever had in the past. So I don't know if I answered the question, Brooke, but I'll tell you, I've got the utmost respect for those folks that are carrying out that program.
Brooke Appleton:
No, that's good. And I think we're always kind of looking for ways too, that we can be more effective in working with FSA and kind of communicating what works and what doesn't work.
Richard Fordyce:
Yeah. And I think that happens.
Brooke Appleton:
Yeah.
Richard Fordyce:
A lot of times when we would first hear of an issue with the program, it came from the county office, and it came probably from a comment that a farmer or farmers in a certain part of the country would bring up as an issue within the local office. And I'm also very proud to say that our staff are not shy. If they see something that's not really being done in a way that they feel might be better, they're going to let us know as well. If I could just go one step further?
Brooke Appleton:
You have 30 seconds.
Richard Fordyce:
All right. So in administering a program within FSA, Congress says you're going to do it this way and you're going to do it this way in Maine, the same way in Minnesota, the same way in Texas, the same way in California. That can be a challenge. So we really relied on that local staff to tell us where the pain points were. Could we adjust, could we pivot, could we move something a little bit to make the number of folks that either were applying, or the benefit that the program was meant to give, was getting to the people that needed to get to in a way that made sense. And so again, that network of local county offices was critically important.
Brooke Appleton:
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I think we definitely feel that, and we hear a lot about that important relationship. So switching gears again, just a little bit. Secretary Glickman in your career, it's spanned over a lot of different roles in public service, agriculture and food, and even the association in charge of rating movies. If you kind of think back to those challenges. A topic that's been very top of mind all over the country, industries who face and continue to wrestle with the challenges, particularly around diversity, equity and inclusion. What are some of the lessons from your time with USDA and Hollywood, if you will, that corn growers should take to heart in how we approach these conversations and issues? And just kind of a second part of that question, should the farm bill play a role in improving that access to the department's programs and resources?
Daniel Glickman:
Yeah. Well first of all, I have had an interesting life, and I haven't been able to keep a job for more than five or six years at a time, but that's okay.
Brooke Appleton:
I think it works for you.
Daniel Glickman:
And just going back Richard, to what you said, the smartest, most capable people I ever met in my political world were in two areas. One was the people who administered our farm programs, because they were honest and they were wanting to be accommodating and follow the law, but be as flexible as they could. And the other were people in the intelligence community, because I was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and the people who worked for the CIA and other agencies, they took a lot of flak, but they were also the same kind of people, professionals to the end. So my experience in government has actually been overall, pretty positive. And that doesn't mean that the people in our conservation world of the forestry service world or everybody else, weren't doing a great job. But that contact between the FSA person and the farmer was often the main contact that person had with the United States government on everything.
Daniel Glickman:
And that person could often be an ombudsman to help people with all sorts of other things. And so, one of the things I learned during my entire career, first of all, the best job in the world was being a Congressman, because you don't have a lot of authority, but you're free. You can do whatever you want. You can say whatever you want, but you still have to collaborate with 435 others in the house, and a hundred in the Senate, and everybody has their own ideas, and you got smart people like Heidi Heitkamp that are telling you all the time, "That's a stupid idea, you need to do it another way," and you have to do the best you can.
Daniel Glickman:
And then when I got to the Department of Agriculture, you have a lot of power, but no freedom. Because Congress has invested us with all these abilities to deal with farm programs, and conservation programs, and water and sewer programs, and rural development, and forestry and food stamps, and school lunch, and just this broad area of authority. But as the President of the United States calls you up and says, "Nah, can't do it this way." Or in my case, it was usually somebody calling up and says, "I don't think the Arkansas corn growers would like what you're talking about." You may recall that President was from Arkansas. And so, are there any Arkansas corn growers here by any chance?
Brooke Appleton:
I don't think so.
Daniel Glickman:
Okay. Well, I used that as an example, it could have been cotton or rice growers or anything else. So I had a 100,000 people who worked for me, a 100,000 people who worked for me. But again, I had a lot of power over them, but I had to listen to Congress. And so it just is a whole different kind of a world. But what I learned in all my careers... and I had this strange change I went into, I was chief lobbyist for Hollywood. When I got the job, the guy who had the job before me was a guy named Jack Valente. And he had held that job for 35 years, he worked for President Johnson. And so, when he retired, I got the job. And I'm not exactly sure why I got the job. I said, "What do I tell people about my qualifications?" And he said, "Well, tell them that when you were in the agriculture world, you used to grow popcorn, and now you sell popcorn in the movie world." That's why I wore these socks today.
Brooke Appleton:
We do have some popcorn farmers in the room though.
Daniel Glickman:
Is that right?
Brooke Appleton:
Yes.
Daniel Glickman:
Okay. All right. I'm a big popcorn advocate. But anyway, what I've learned from all the things I've done is you have to be flexible, you have to be fleet of foot, and you have to be honest. And people can see you through you in a New York minute, particularly farmers were very good at telling whether you were on the level or not. And so all those experiences together I think, made me a better public servant in whatever I did, whether it was in Congress or in the administration. That's about the best answer I can give you.
Brooke Appleton:
All right, good. Moving on. Senator Heitkamp, so crop insurance, as you know and you heard from many of us your time in the Senate, is the cornerstone of the farm safety net. And protecting that program will continue to be our number one priority as we make our way into the next farm bill. To your points that you've made as the nation kind of has become, and Congress has become more urban and maybe less focused on rural America. How important do you think the grassroots work that we do here will be... and educating efforts for new members and staff be, in passing the next farm bill? And do you have any good advice of impactful things that we could do to be more successful?
Heidi Heitkamp:
Yeah. I think if I were you all, the concern that I would have is that the conditioning of the crop insurance program. It's conditioned on you doing no till or minimum till, or it's conditional on you doing this. We need to start from a base of, do no harm. What we have right now is working. It is providing food security, not just for us, but for the rest of the world. And it absolutely is an essential safety net at a time of high input prices. And so, when I tell people the average farmer in North Dakota has almost a million dollars of input costs before they ever put a seed in the ground, people are shocked. And I say, don't tell us we're not risk takers. Tell me what other business would do that. And then pray that the weather didn't take you out, and that dollar values and commodity prices didn't take you out. And that your equipment would work, and you can find someone to fix your equipment when it doesn't work. Which is a whole different workforce issue and a huge challenge.
Heidi Heitkamp:
And so we've got to educate about the challenges of production agriculture and the risks you're already taking. And we have to start from that point of do no harm, in the crop insurance program. And it is absolutely essential that you spend time visiting with other people. And I know Dan didn't get a chance to answer the question about minority farmers, but I will tell you this, don't poke people in the eye. I mean, so there is a provision in the last go around in the stimulus package, or I guess the COVID package, that basically allowed for minority farmers to get some equity. The response was to sue the USDA. Is that the smartest response when you're trying to build collaborations, when you're trying to convince people in urban areas, when you're trying to convince people that we're all in this together?
Heidi Heitkamp:
And so I'm not... I mean, you make your judgment. And a lot of you are members of those organizations that actually initiated lawsuits. Is that the smartest use of your time? And you can say, "Well, it doesn't seem fair to forgive their debt, we're not forgiving ours." There is tons of inequity I will tell you, in government spending. And if you want to build the relationships that you need to build to maintain the crop insurance program, to maintain title one, to maintain the forestry program, you're going to have to do the outreach and you're going to have to not take more water in your boat than you need to. If you want to fight waters of the United States, you have to build those relationships. You have to educate. And most of you know, I took the lead with Senator Inhofe to try and actually legislate what waters of the United States is.
Heidi Heitkamp:
You're going to be in this litigation forever. And so it's time to kind of step back and say, "I may not agree with that as a matter of policy, but these are constituency groups that can be enormously valuable to build a broader coalition, as we look into the future." Think about this, if it's bad right now with consolidation and corporate ownership of farmland, it's going to be worse in five years. And what does the political ramifications of all that mean? It means that you're going to have to build broader relationships. It's just not enough to be somebody that Heidi Heitkamp's going to protect and defend in North Dakota. You've got to figure out how you're going to build that relationship with other, maybe more urban states. And so I would just say, crop insurance educate on how critical it is to food security, and national and international security, for American and like thinking democracies. And then, if they want to do modifications in other areas, have that discussion. Fight the fights you need to fight, don't take water on your boat you don't need to take on.
Daniel Glickman:
I have to add because she's a 100% right. And I'd make two things. I got to the Department of Agriculture on March 30th, 1995, and there were 400 minority farmers picketing in front of the Department of Agriculture. And I thought to myself, "What is going on here?" And it turned out that I became the defendant in a case called Pigford versus Glickman.
Heidi Heitkamp:
Yep.
Daniel Glickman:
Which was the largest civil rights case ever filed against the government up until that time. I didn't know anything about that case, because I also was one of those guys. I tended to talk to people on the Agriculture Committee most of the time, although I knew that various programs in the department affected urban America as well. Napoleon once said, "War is too important to be left to the generals." And in the case of agriculture, agriculture is too important to our country just to be left to people in agriculture, because people eat, they come from all over the world, their global interest's involved as well.
Daniel Glickman:
And I learned from that battle with respect to civil rights, that a lot of people didn't understand what I was doing, what the programs were I was doing. And so my six years at USDA, that issue probably dominated my time more than any other issue that was there. But I learned... agriculture is so important, you just think about it. The environment is largely a rural and agriculture issue, we do it outside. 70% of the water in the world is used to irrigate crops and feed animals. The ability to deal with pest disease, plant disease, and drought, affects every human being on the face of the earth.
Daniel Glickman:
So we're interested in a lot of things, but in agriculture we're interested in more than what the reference price is. That's important to us, but to get the kind of reference price we want, we have to build those bridges with people. So, one suggestion I have is that as you folks lobby, just don't lobby the aggies. Just don't lobby the people in the Ag Appropriations Committee, expand your vistas.
Brooke Appleton:
Thank you for that.
Daniel Glickman:
It's easier to do in the Senate than it is in the House. I understand that.
Brooke Appleton:
And I will say part of our advocacy yesterday, we put together groups that do unaffiliated corn states, so we had 20 groups of four go around. So we hit over 150 offices that were kind of outside our traditional corn belt. And that's something we always try to do at this meeting here in the summer. So that's great advice, and we'll definitely continue to do that. Did you have something you want to add?
Richard Fordyce:
I do. Just for my seat in the ballpark, I think that that advocacy and that coalition building from an agricultural perspective, we've never had a better time than now, because we have an opportunity to tell really good stories about the things we're doing on our farms that are promoting climate smart agriculture. And I said, since climate smart agriculture kind of has become a thing, certainly a priority with the current administration, agriculture can truly be the folks on the white horse, right? I mean, the things that we've been doing, in some cases for decades, literally fall under that description of climate smart ag. And so, I think about this coalition building and advocacy as having a conversation on an airplane. So if I'm flying from here back to Kansas City, I can tell great stories that make agriculture look like a superstar, that whole flight. I think we're in a great time right now, where we can get that advocacy and that coalition building from a lot of different audiences because of the really good stories we have to tell.
Brooke Appleton:
Administrator Fordyce, while you were at USDA or we were at USDA I guess, we oversaw putting together the three most forward facing agencies within the department under FPAC. And could you talk just quickly about how that impacted the farm bill implementation, and some of the things that you saw from that perspective?
Richard Fordyce:
Yeah, I would. And I would love to hear Secretary Glickman's opinion on moving that [inaudible 00:34:05].
Brooke Appleton:
It was very popular at first.
Richard Fordyce:
So anyway, Secretary Perdue had this vision of literally consolidating the three agencies that have historically the most direct touch with farmers. So RMA and FSA were in the same mission area. The secretary moved NRCS into our mission area and created a new one called FPAC, Farm Production and Conservation. So back to administering the farm bill. When we got the legislation, we met as three agencies twice a week, and we would go through and see where FSA and RMA maybe had a connection, or FSA and NRCS had a connection. And it worked exceptionally well to have those three agencies, that in a lot of cases are either housed in the same building in a county, but certainly have the same clientele, usually, almost exactly the same clientele. To be able to work together from an implementation standpoint. It worked very, very well.
Richard Fordyce:
So let's use CRP for an example, CRP is an FSA conservation program, but the technical assistance comes from NRCS. There had always been. And I think prior to the previous administration, those of you that had CRP contracts and were either trying to figure out how to get the contract finished through FSA, or get the technical assistance from NRCS, there was always a bit of a disconnect, because they were not reporting to the same folks. That changed almost overnight and it worked splendidly. And I think some of the changes that Secretary Perdue instituted, that probably was the most effective in my mind.
Brooke Appleton:
Well, we've got about five minutes left, so something I definitely wanted to hit on for the whole panel before we go today, but kind of looking ahead. And you mentioned carbon sequestration, that's something that we've heard so much about, but what topics do you think will play a larger role in the next farm bill? And Senator, we can start with you.
Heidi Heitkamp:
I think two things you should pay attention to. And one is, what initial incentives, not messing with what works already, but what initial incentives can be available to promote climate smart agriculture. And you think about it, 91% of the entire land mass of North Dakota is engaged in production agriculture. That means a huge opportunity to use that resource, continue to use the resource in production agriculture, but also another income stream. I always say, commoditizing carbon, how does that work? How can we create certainty? And we're not going to do it without educating people at the county office or our land grant colleges, to build workforce, because there's got to be certainty in this sequestration. And so, I recommend the work that Saxby and I did on the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Daniel Glickman:
It's great.
Heidi Heitkamp:
And Dan was on the committee with us, corn growers were represented. And so, the other thing that we haven't talked enough about is international trade.
Heidi Heitkamp:
We know we can produce, not just for this country, but for the world. What's going to be the restrictions on exports? What are we going to see in terms of implementation globally on climate smart technologies, that's going to limit your market? How can we build our technologies? And so what I would say is, as we're looking at, not just the climate side, but also the international trade side, what technological work needs to be done? What additional research needs to be done in this farm bill that can work?
Heidi Heitkamp:
And I want to raise another issue, because we had a great conversation offline. If I were in the Senate today, and I were looking at maybe not a farm bill issue, but long term challenges of American production agriculture, land ownership would be a huge concern. I raised this when I was already there, I think with Sonny Perdue, about what we were seeing in terms of family farmers, basically land going into trust. Farmers having to deal, not with grandpa and grandma whose kids didn't want to farm, and they understood it, but how were we going to deal with these fractionalized interests?
Heidi Heitkamp:
I did this when I was a tax commissioner in North Dakota, we were able to do some things with divided mineral interests. I think we need to look to those divided mineral interests to see how do we keep this land in production? How do we keep farmers making decisions about this land, without restricting private property rights? And I think that's a tough balance, but it's something we need to focus on and pay attention to. If we're going to maintain the tradition in America of family farming.
Brooke Appleton:
Secretary?
Daniel Glickman:
I would say a couple things. Number one is whatever we do on climate, climate smart agriculture, the private sector's getting much more involved in this, the entrepreneurial things that are happening in agriculture. We have to make it so the rules are clear for farmers, so they know what they're doing. The one thing that I hear about is, I hear all this stuff that's going on and I don't understand it, or what does it mean to me? Or how much does it cost? So the clarity in the conservation world is really going to be important. But I want to go back to this research question. Do we really want to let the Chinese and the Brazilians and everybody else get ahead of us? And I would have to say this, I think what you did in managing those farmer programs was actually pretty good.
Richard Fordyce:
Well, good.
Daniel Glickman:
Okay?
Richard Fordyce:
Good.
Daniel Glickman:
What I don't think was good is what Sonny did on the research side. When he basically moved part of the research functions to Kansas City, even though I'm from Kansas and you're from the Kansas City area. And I think it just had a terrible impact on morale for the people who work in that department. The idea was let's get these people out of Washington where the real people live, and they'll do better work there. Unfortunately, didn't work out. A lot of people left, the morale was not good. And so I don't think it helped the research establishment.
Daniel Glickman:
But going back to the main issue, what are our problems in the future? They're increasing productivity during a time when we have stress because of drought, half the west is burning up now. And water is going to be a continuing problem, particularly the competition for water. We've got to find ways to have more water resistant crops. And then of course we have to find ways to ensure that we continue to have talent in agriculture, which is always something that's really important. So I go back to this thing, 20 or 30 years from now, I don't want to see a zero research budget, because that's going to make your work almost impossible.
Brooke Appleton:
Yeah. Any last minute thoughts?
Richard Fordyce:
Yeah. So I think, and I don't know if it was the Senator or the Secretary that said, allowing crop insurance to be nimble. I think that in the past crop insurance regs were so rigid. Like we tried super hard to change plant dates with new seed technologies, we're planting earlier, we're planting later sometimes when we have to, and can expect to get a full crop. So the ability to be nimble from a double cropping perspective. And I would also say again, back to the climate smart agriculture piece, there are some provisions to allow for an offset in premium if you do cover crops. I think there may be an opportunity to have an offset in premium if you use a soil, biological, or something that is replacing some synthetic fertilizer, but expecting this similar yields. I think if we can have that nimbleness in crop insurance.
Richard Fordyce:
And then also to the secretary's point, I hope we don't get bogged down and super complicated. And this again, from an administrative perspective, super complicated climate smart programs. They need to be understandable, they need to be simple, they need to be adaptable and they need to be flexible. Again, the United States is a big country, there's a lot of diversity from a climate perspective, the growing seasons vary, but allowing for there to be flexibility. But I think it's crop insurance. And I think it's those provisions around climate smart agriculture that, I think, will kind of take the lead at least in the early discussions.
Brooke Appleton:
Great. Well, thank you all so much for being here today. It's been so productive and informative for our folks here for this week's farm Congress. So thanks so much again, and please give them a round of applause.
Daniel Glickman:
All right. Thank you.
Dusty Weis:
That is going to wrap up this edition of Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast. New episodes arrive monthly, so make sure to subscribe in your favorite app and join us again soon. Visit ncga.com to learn more, or sign up for the Association's email newsletter. Wherever Jon May Roam is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, with editing and production oversight by Larry Kilgore III. And it's produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses, podcampmedia.com. For the National Corn Growers Association, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.