PAG-VII: FULFILLING THE PROMISE OF AG BIOTECHNOLOGY

Plant & Animal Genome VII Conference

Town & Country Hotel, San Diego, CA, January 17-21, 1999.

FULFILLING THE PROMISE OF AG BIOTECHNOLOGY

Legislative Assistant to Senator Tom Harkin, Iowa

It is appropriate at this time of the year, as producers prepare for another growing season, that we take stock of the where we have been and where we are going with our efforts to increase food and fiber production around the world. We all know the statistics. Global population pressures will continue to strain land and water resources to provide food and clothing. In Iowa, farmers are told to maximize production for the world market — to feed to world. In the face of diseases, droughts, floods and other calamities, Iowa farmers continue to produce bumper crops of corn, soybeans, pork and beef year after year. This year, due to international market forces and increased yields, the market price for these crops and livestock is below a sustainable cost of production. How tragically ironic. While billions of people are crying out for food around the world, global financial turmoil may force U.S. farmers out of business and result in grain sitting in storage and hogs waiting for slaughter. If we are going to meet global demand without destroying the natural resource base upon which agriculture depends, we must find new solutions to increase yields and improve nutrition. That is why the work that you are doing is so important and why Senator Harkin was pleased and honored to be invited to address this group of scientists who are changing the face of agriculture. The discoveries that you will reveal at this meeting and make in the coming years will profoundly shape the crops and livestock that farmers and ranchers produce in this country, and the food products that consumers enjoy– in fact your work may change the very way that people look at food. For may years we have heard about how ag biotechnology will revolutionize our world. Now through your work to discover the inner workings of plant and animal cells we are on the cusp of fulfilling those promises. With the right approach the information and biotechnology revolutions will allow us to make great strides forward in the effort to drastically reduce hunger and malnutrition worldwide while at the same time, protecting the agricultural resource base. But to fulfill that promise, we must continue to invest in agricultural research, protect and develop new markets for our agricultural products and be sensitive to the needs of farmers and consumers.

Improving Agricultural Productivity

The introduction of biotechnology to agriculture is one of the most exciting changes occurring in the food production system. We cannot afford to increase production by farming in the ways we have in the past— ways which have lead to soil erosion, surface and groundwater contamination, and deforestation. We need a new vision. The advances being made in genetic engineering and biotechnology leading to productivity gains based, not on energy-intensive inputs, but on biological breakthroughs will provide some of that new vision. In the next few years, consumers may find foods in the stores that are engineered to contain important disease-fighting vitamins, healthier oils and proteins. Canola which has been engineered to contain elevated levels of vitamin A, will help to alleviate night blindness in undernourished people. At Iowa State researchers are discovering genes which allow pigs to produce larger litters and corn that results in less nutrient waste in our surface waters. And I hope to learn about even more exciting applications during the course of this meeting. It is an exciting time for agriculture. These opportunities are a direct result of the unique agricultural research partnerships which have brought us these new technologies, but as often said in the scientific literature -- More research is necessary. The land grant university system, of which I and Senator Harkin are graduates, has long been a model partnership between federal, state and local governments. Private industry has also begun to partner with universities and federal researchers to develop and commercialize new food production technologies, and to educate and train future scientists. This collaborative system which ties together scientists from around the country and around the world, has been a powerful engine for changing the face of agriculture and greatly increases the return from the annual federal investment of $1.8 billion in agricultural research, education and extension programs. These cooperative relationships have helped us to meet the needs of a growing population, but we must continue to cultivate new partners and new investment if we are to continue to advance. Last year, Senator Harkin led the effort to pass the 1998 Research bill which contained, among other items, the framework for a multi-agency plant and animal genome initiative and an investment of $600 million in agricultural research over the next 5 years. We in Congress need your help to preserve that investment in cutting-edge research. As you heard yesterday, new partnerships have been forged between USDA and the National Science Foundation in the race to uncover the genetic secrets of agricultural plant and animal species. I hope that as crops and livestock become factories for vitamins and possibly even medicines, we can foster even more cooperation between agricultural research and health research at the NIH. Finally and very importantly, we need additional investment in US and international activities to preserve genetic diversity, the raw material for future crop and livestock improvement efforts. We have a treasure of information in our seed banks, but without the ability to preserve or characterize that resource, it may be lost forever. Clearly, if we are to confront the challenges poised by new diseases, insects, droughts, and other calamities and still increase production, it will take a concerted effort by all in this room to share information, and genetic, and financial resources. Only by working together in the future, as has worked so well in the past, can we hope to increase food production on a global scale and realize the promises brought about by this technology.

Partnerships for Developing Markets:

But merely producing the food and fiber is not enough. There must be a market for the crops and livestock farmers produce. Farmers have learned this year what it means when markets dry up. It means plunging commodity prices. It means the lowest prices for pork since the Depression. Farmers in Iowa and across the country have realized how the development of new markets affects their bottom line. We only need to look to the Asian nations to see how this story has played out in the past several years. U.S. pork, beef and processed food exports to China, Japan and other Asian nations have climbed steadily over the past decade, at least until the current economic difficulties. As a result of the Asian economic crisis, however, American exports have fallen precipitously, currencies have been devalued around the world, Russians, Indonesians and others have to stand in long lines for vastly more expensive food supplies, and American commodity prices have fallen to their lowest level in recent memory. Suddenly the world is less secure and less profitable for American farmers. The technologies your research will develop has the potential to greatly benefit people around the world who are under-nourished but they will never realize these benefits if we cannot market our crops to them. That is why we need to continue to invest in agricultural development programs worldwide. That is why Senator Harkin fought for full funding of the US contribution to the International Monetary Fund, and why he has been a staunch supporter of US food aid and programs like PL-480 and export credit guarantees. While we continue to develop new markets, we must also protect the markets we now have. The United States is poised to be a world leader in the development of biotech applications, but our innovators and farmers will be stopped dead in their tracks if other nations cannot or will not integrate these technologies into their food production systems and instead erect barriers to our products. Senator Harkin will join that fight anew later this year as a new round of WTO talks begin. He intends to take an active role to ensure that American agricultural products are not barred from foreign markets by arbitrary and unscientific trade barriers. In addition to that effort, we must also work with other nations to assist them in developing the capacity to use not only the new biotechnology advances but also to more completely adopt older technologies like hybrid corn. Unless we continue to make focused technical assistance investments in developing nations, we may find these nations increasingly likely to erect trade barriers to new technologies, hindering efforts to promote food security globally. It will be easier to prevent barriers from being formed in the first place, than to fight them after they have been established.

Partnerships with Farmers and Consumers:

Finally we must consider the ultimate partners in the food production system, farmers and consumers. Without their acceptance we will never see the full benefits of the science you pursue. As a partner in the soil to table food production system, the farmer must have an incentive to continue to produce food and adopt new technology. Frankly there is not much incentive this year — and fewer and fewer young people are choosing farming as an occupation in the United States. We must change that trend or our rural communities and the agricultural way of life, which Americans hold dear, will be a thing of the past. The development of new technologies and markets, if approached correctly, holds a tremendous advantage for the American farmer. By all accounts, American farmers agree. Farmers are increasingly conversant in the vernacular of international trade and the number of acres planted to genetically engineered seeds has increased rapidly over the past few years — in many cases demand has outstripped supply. The ability of farmers around the world to access the improved varieties of the first green revolution was a key component of its success. The same must be true of this next wave, if biotechnology is to have a similar impact. Farmers should not need a law degree in order to plant their crops, and we must ensure that farmers can access the technology and still profit from their labor. Just as seed companies and tractor dealers cannot afford to give their products away, farmers cannot be expected to produce crops on a razor-thin margin and stay in business year after year. We must harness the changes occurring in agriculture to empower farmers in the world market, not merely harness the farmer to the market. As genetically-engineered niche varieties come on to the market we must find ways to process these crops in local communities, providing income and opportunities for our rural citizens. We can and should make farm families and rural communities full partners in the goal to ensure global food security. Last but not least, we must be careful how we approach consumers in the US and other nations when introducing biotechnology. Consumers will be the ultimate judges of whether biotech foods succeed or fail in the marketplace. We must be sensitive to strongly held cultural beliefs and food safety concerns. Forcing new technology on people who are unsure about its benefits will only build resentment and fear. American producers and industry must be willing to do the hard work of educating people about the benefits of new agricultural technology, but also be up front about the possible risks. Much of that work is already beginning. Our nation and our world face tremendous opportunities and challenges in the race to feed the growing world population. Clearly we have remarkable successes and experiences to build upon. We must resist the temptation to think we have silver bullet solutions to food-supply and market development problems and continue to look for new visions of farming and food production. American farmers have shown that they can produce a bounty of grains, meats and fibers to feed and clothe a growing world. We must however, continue the hard work of economic and market development so that people around the world can share in this abundance and so that American farmers can reflect with pride on a successful harvest, not with worry over the coming season -- truly fulfilling the promise of ag biotechnology.

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