Report from Santa Fe; Jeff Witte

The National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico. Hello, I'm Lorraine Mills and welcome to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Jeff Whitty, the Secretary for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. Thank you for joining us. Oh, my pleasure. What an honor to be here, Wayne. Well, we've been meaning to do this for a while, but right now you're really at the pivotal point. We've all talked about economic stimulation for the state and nobody seems to be doing very much.

You have two conferences coming up that are absolutely such an invitation for agricultural companies and businesses and individuals to expand. You've got the exporting seminar and then you've got the organic farming. You bet. The exports. And New Mexico is in a unique situation because we have such a great, identifiable specialty crops all across the state. And this export seminar that we've got coming up really provides a good opportunity for our producers and processors to learn about what it takes to enter the export market. You don't have to be big, you don't have to be small. In today's world, even the smallest producers and processors can ship across the world and they want our products. And the seminar is called Explore, Exporting, the world is waiting. And you are going to help companies that want to do this. The conference is January 23rd and you are going to help them by providing insights into international negotiations, into financing, into shipping.

I mean, if someone has a bonus crop or extra, they can come to you and you will help them do everything they need. We will help show how to get into the export market. Sometimes people feel like it's an intimidating process, getting your product from New Mexico maybe to a shipping point, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, wherever. And then watching it leave the country and go to another country. It can be intimidating, especially if you haven't been paid or if you don't understand the whole process. We're going to walk you through that entire process, make you feel comfortable with export. Show you the opportunities that are out there. We can grow in this state. Well, really, everyone talks about economic stimulus and nobody is doing anything about it. This is really profound. Farm exports are nationally 50 percent since 2009 and in 2011, the U.S. food exports were worth 136 billion, this is a goal. And it's growing, you know, this past year we had an opportunity, I had an opportunity

to travel with the secretaries of Ag from the Western States to Singapore and to Seoul, South Korea. The message was, and this is part of the kickoff for the Korea Free Treaty agreements. The message that we received from people who import products, from retailers who sell the products, from the consumers who use the products and eat the products is we believe in products from the United States. You show us and you put us in contact with the people who grow it and process it and we'll buy all you have. It was an amazing eye-opening experience and our products are selling over there for a premium and they sell it. We're in a grocery store, medium sized grocery store, middle income area of town and they restocked their shells with American products every three hours and the other products are restocked on a daily basis. And so it was not the shell space that was interesting.

It was just the pure volume and desire for American products. And you had something called inbound trade missions where people from Europe and Japan, we have. The European Bakers needed our flowers. One of the unique opportunities that we've taken in New Mexico is that you don't always have to go travel to a foreign country to show off your products. It really works well when we bring them here. And when they see the products growing in the fields or being processed at the processing establishments and they actually feel like then, and it doesn't matter whether from Asia, Europe, wherever, they actually feel like it's a local product when they've seen where it's been grown, tremendous opportunities. And my marketing team just returned last week from a planning session and we're going to have, we have signed up for it and we're going to have three inbound trade missions this next year. Wow. And we've found that those work almost as well if not better than going to a foreign

country. Well, the other conference you're doing, the organic farming conference, which is the largest agricultural conference in New Mexico. That'll be in February, the 15th, 16th, in Albuquerque. Talk to me about the role organic farming plays in New Mexico agriculture. You know, the organic farming program is really growing in the state. There's a tremendous amount of opportunities for small, medium, and even large producers to get into the organic farming production process. Isn't it the fastest growing in the state? It is by far the fastest growing segment in the state and for a number of reasons, but the market demand is there. There are a large number of consumers out there that really desire to have locally grown organic produce and other crops. And you're including beef, dairy, and cheese products. Do you carry Mountain, we have a cheese processing plant here in the state that actually processes organic cheese.

They do very well and they ship it all across the United States. Well, I think I read that the organic farm impact in the state in one year, 2011, was $53 million. Wow. 53 million dollars. Wow. And that's a good number. The unique thing, we can take small parcels of land, you know, the traditional, smaller parcels of land and people are actually growing a viable crop and marketing it through the organic program. So this conference is jointly being helped with it by a farm to table? Farm to table, the extension service, the New Exeter State University Extension Service and our department as well. And you have some headliners coming. You've got Temple Grandins. Temple Grandins coming in. And the behaviors. And you also have one of the world's experts on bees and the horrible, they call it bee calling the collapse center on the sounds awful, but we're in trouble. We're in trouble. Bees are an essential part of our agriculture, whether you're organic or traditional. Bees are an essential part and we've got to really pay attention to what's going on

with our bee populations in New Mexico and across the country. Now let's go back to the Department of Agriculture. Okay. Because you said you're not political and yet you are, you're a member of the Governor's cabinet. Yes. And so you were written in the Department of Agriculture, was written into the Constitution. Tell me a little about how your structure is. All right. In New Mexico, the Department of Agriculture is unique among any other state agency and across the nation for that matter. The original Constitution, the State of New Mexico 101 years ago this year, they actually wrote in the Constitution that there should be a Department of Agriculture, or shall be a Department of Agriculture located at the Land Grant University in New Mexico, which is at New Mexico State University now. So our Department of Agriculture is headquartered in Las Cruces as part of New Mexico State University. The Board of Regents actually make the selection of the Director of the Department of Ag. And the statute says that the Director shall serve as the Governor's Cabinet Secretary

for Agriculture and the Executive Cabinet. So I've got a unique title for folks across the country. My title is actually Director slash Secretary because I'm Director of the Department first by Constitution, Secretary of Agriculture by statute for the Governor's Cabinet. So essentially our Board of Regents are the Board of Agriculture for the State of New Mexico. All the laws and regulations and of the Department of Ag have to be approved by the Board of Regents. This gives the citizens and the constituents a layer of assurance that somebody is overseeing the activities of the Department. And you've had actually few directors because they stay a long time. These are committed ag people. I know there was Frank Duan, myelicans, all like that. Frank was there, 17 years, mind he was there about eight years. Bill Stevens before that, like another 15, 17 years. So yes, it's long history.

And you did serve as Deputy Secretary for a while. Then you went off into this fascinating world of biosecurity. Biosecurity. Agriculture biosecurity. Talk to me. What is bioterrorism and biosecurity? You know, in today's environment, there's a lot of questions about the safety of our food supply. And about 10 years ago, we started looking after 9, 11. Everybody started looking at the food supply. One of the items in my opinion that was missing was the discussion with the actual producers and processors. They weren't included in that discussion. And so we saw an opportunity to get involved and bring the producers and producers and processors' voice to the table. Those are the folks we're trying to protect as well as the consumers. You're trying to make sure that the food supply is safe. One source of contamination can wipe out an entire industry. One source of contamination can make a large number of people sick or in a worst-case scenario can actually be deadly.

And we needed to make sure all of those factors were at the table. And so we started a program in New Mexico and we joined with other universities and departments across the nation really to get a comprehensive look at the security of our food supply. It's been a fascinating experience, even today people are starting to understand that agriculture is not one of those entities that you can just put a lock-in-a-key on, especially when you've got wrenches and farms, because we have acres and acres. So you have to put the best kinds of practices in place that make sense to make sure that food supply is safe. And when I say food, it starts at the farm in Ranch, the cow or the lettuce crop or the corn crop or the peanut crop. It all starts at a farm in Ranch someplace. The milk at the dairy that ends up in ice cream or cheese started at a farm. We have to figure out a way to, and we're working with the producers and others to secure that to make sure you have programs in place to keep them safe.

But so there's the bioterrorism aspect that someone could be doing something that would interfere with our safety of our food supply. But there's also their international animal disease episodes like Mad Cod disease, bovine spondyforin and sepulopathy, and what do you have with horses, vascular stomachs? A vesicular stomatitis. Yeah. And this is wherever there are. You know that's the unique thing, and diseases know no boundaries. They don't check your passports at the US-Mexico or US-Canadian border at the border of L.A. or wherever. So one of the unique opportunities that we had over the past few years was to work with our states in Mexico, because we're a border state with Mexico. Mexico, and as I tell everybody, Mexico is not another country to us. Mexico is our neighboring state to the south. Chihuahua is our neighboring state to the south. It's no different than Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Utah, or Oklahoma.

And so we worked with the, actually we put on a program with the 10 states on the US-Mexico border so that we would all understand the same kind of response and protocols so that the faster we recognize something, the faster we can get our arms around it, the less economic damage, the less potential for sickness of the humans there is. And I tell you, our partners in Mexico are great to work with. Is there anything we should know about biosecurity? I'm curious. The one thing you need to know is that our producers in New Mexico and our processors take it very serious. And they have now come to a lot of trainings. We just had a session last week with the entire dairy spectrum from the transportation to the farms, to the processors, to the retail, the whole spectrum looking at where are their points of vulnerability.

It's really unique when people come together and make that happen for the benefit of all. And it was really a great opportunity to see that work. How exciting. I'm glad you're here telling us about it. Our guest today is Jeff Whitty, who is the director's secretary of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. And you're doing these grand things like the entire dairy industry. But I want to thank you for one thing in particular that you did, because you revived something called the Rounders Award. The Rounders Award. That had gone dormant for eight years. The Rounders Award is really Max Evans, the wonderful book in movie called The Rounders 51 Years A Gun. And he was the first recipient of the Rounders Award. And you've revived it. And so this year, I met with you at the Governor's Mansion, Max Evans was there. He was there. And the recipients this year were Forest Finn and the writer Slim Randall. So, thank you for bringing this back, because tell us what the Rounders Award does. Well, the Rounders really honors those who live and articulate and promote the Western

way of life. And boy, two great examples in Forest and Slim. And of course, Max, you know. And it really brought together, you know, what, as I said at that event that night, when you put agra and culture together, you get a great mix of people. And what a great opportunity. And I just can't say enough about how pleased I was with the turnout and the reception that we received. And Max, you know, as an old family friend of ours, he grew up on a ranch that was next to my grandfather's. So we go, you know, back. And it was just a great up. It was great. That's all I can say. Well, he is my favorite New Mexican writer. He is a wonderful, wonderful writer of stories about the West. Now, there's another aspect. This is the year of the agricultural census. Yes. The 2013 agricultural census that happens every five years. Every five years.

Talk to me about that. Well, it's really important. Just like the traditional census that happens every ten years, agriculture comes together. Every five years. And USDA now is in charge of the census and they send out a detailed questionnaire. Really, it's really important that the producers fill that out accurately because it gives the state and the nation a sense of where we're at in agriculture, snapshot in time. Things have changed in this state over the last five years. We have drought, tremendous impacts on the drought. We just released the 2011 figures for agriculture and the impacts of the drought are significant. The sales of beef cattle went up because people were selling off their herds. What that means is in the future, we're going to have less cattle in New Mexico and when it rains and it's going to rain, I guarantee it's going to rain someday. We have to restock and get back into the business, but it's really important to fill out that census and there's a lot of good detailed information that can help both on the policy side,

on the research side and help, you know, basically your producers, you know, continue to advance and grow. Well, it is an interesting snapshot because in the last one in 2007, it said that there were about 2,100 farms and ranches of different sizes that they- 21,000. Oh, 21,000. Oh my goodness. You're absolutely right. Yes. Well, try me on this. 43 million acres. Got that one right? Yes. And if you talk about interesting facts, it said that the average age of the operators was 59.6. You know, one of the- If they're getting older because it was 56 in the last 10 years. Exactly. And if you look across the nation, your average age of your farmers is about 57. New Mexico actually has the oldest farmers and ranches in the nation. And that's a concern of mine because I am about the future. And so this coming up this summer, I've talked to the New Mexico Caligars Association, New Mexico Farm Bureau. They started having a joint conference last year. And actually, I've asked them to this year dedicate this next summer conference to the

next generation. Good. And we really want to have some open and honest discussion about the transition process. So there's, you know, what's happening to farms? All nationally is a great concern for everyone. And then you combine that with climate change. I mean, it's like we don't want it to be a perfect storm or lack of storm. From this crucial industry to New Mexico. There's a lot of, with the drought, with changing temperature patterns and, you know, the climate, the movement from rural to the urban, you know, people moving out. We've got to really come up with some good discussions about how to make sure we keep people in the rural areas. We keep farming and wrenching a viable opportunity. The export seminar, the organic conference, the summer meeting with the categories in the farm bureau, really those are opportunities that I'm going to take to really show folks that farming and wrenching is a good occupation.

Well, how do you help bridge the gap between urban and rural in the state? Because we used to be very rural. And then that has a lot to do with the distribution of water. It does. Talk to me about urban rural interface. There's, you know, there's a lot of pressure, especially when you're in drought, the competition for the limited water resources. And at the same time, we're getting into an environment, in my opinion, where people are wanting to know where their food comes from. And the folks that live in the cities are really starting to pay more attention about that part of it. They're really trying to reconnect with the farms. And so I think we need to take advantage of that for the rural areas and help them understand that where the food comes from. That food that ends up at the grocery store or the restaurant started some place. And you're starting to see that face of agriculture, where it's not such a threat. And the cities are not such a threat to the farmers.

But we can get them together. Yeah. You know, our department is one department that we touch every single citizen in the state of Mexico every day. Yeah. I think we're going to see some bills come out. We're going to be pushing some bills to modernize some of our outdated laws in our department. The feed law has, it was passed in the 20s. It was updated in early 70s, and we're going to update it to make it more modern. Basically, that's a bill to keep our local feed producers competitive with the rest of the nation. You're going to see some, I think you're going to see some other bills come out to really help the rural areas of the state grow.

And maybe some incentives come out of the session to help spread some of that around the state. Mexico's a state that's been heavily dependent on the federal government. And even in the agricultural area, we're not a big farm bill state as such. But when a third of your land is owned by the federal government, the policies that the federal government has has a tremendous impact on what happens in the rural areas. And so, you know, we've got to work through some of those issues as well. That may be outside the state legislature, that's more the national level. But in New Mexico, we've got to look at the whole picture. And I think you're going to see some movement out of the state legislature, at least I hope, to really recognize and help promote some of the rural areas. Good. I'm happy to hear that. Now, there's some issues. We only have a few minutes left. I'm going to ask you to just skitter through these. OK. Feral hogs. Feral hogs. New Mexico has become an area where we've got pockets of feral hogs, wild hog.

And nobody wants their turned them loose or they've come across from Texas or whatever. These things are tremendous natural resource destruction in ages. They also have the potential to carry zoonotic diseases that can go between humans and animals. We pull together a task force of the state land office, the BLM, the categories, and different groups to really try to get our arms around it and focus. Yesterday, I got word that we have received a USDA grant of a million dollars to address this issue in New Mexico. Great. And we see real, but I think we're going to be a model. We're going to actually some of the pigs that we capture. We're going to test them for diseases. We're going to be a model for the nation to see how you can address the feral hog problem. Good. Because we had the Lancome issue there on. And he explained to me that you can't eat them because of the diseases. That's right.

They're in 17 out of our 33 counties and they're huge and there's mowing down wild life. They destroy the wildlife in dangerous species. They tear up water lines and water drinking troughs. They're just destructive. They'll root up trees and grass. And they're not. I've got to make this clear. They're not our havelina. No, absolutely not. No, that's a small, different kind of an animal. These are just pigs that have been turned loose or have come across from Texas for whatever reason. Yeah. And we have a real opportunity to take care of that in New Mexico. Another thing, the green chili. What's happening with the green chili? Oh, green chili. You had a great Get Your Fixed campaign. It was, I think, one of your most successful campaigns. You know, the Get Your Fixed campaign is a unique campaign. We take New Mexico green chili and we've identified specialty markets across the United States. This year, actually, I was, personally, I was at the Annapolis, Maryland promotion over a weekend. There's a lot of displaced New Mexicans out there that they may see that New Mexico green chili sign.

They come in by cases of this. We ship it all over. We've, what we've done in this program worked with many different retailers. And they actually set up roasting weekends like we do here in New Mexico in the month of August and first part of September. And they work with the fresh green chili shippers from our state and take our product all across the nation. Oh, man. It's a smell of roasting green chili. Oh, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. Yes. Well, I wanted to mention the conferences again because it's a real opportunity. Can you sum them up for this? You bet. The export, the world is waiting conferences next week, the 23rd of January, come one and come all. It's an all day conference in Albuquerque. Go to our website, www.nmda.nmsu.edu for registration information, registration information. We're going to have experts there to walk you through the total export process and make you feel comfortable with it.

Great opportunities. Great opportunity. The organic conference coming up February 15th and 16th, biggest, largest number of people in the state come to that. Over 700 people will be there. A lot of booths, great educational seminars, we can really help you identify markets, how to grow organically, the challenges, the opportunities, that's what it's all about. Now if you could speak to all of New Mexico as the representative of agriculture in New Mexico, what do you most want the average New Mexico to understand? You know, in New Mexico, I'd like to say we produce the entire plate. Some states are known for cheese or whatever, we produce the entire plate. Beef, salad products between lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, green chili, potatoes, all the way to your pecans and some of your dessert products, we produce the entire plate. Our producers are getting, are good, they're getting better, they've had to get better with the drought and everything, all the negative thing. We've got the best producers, best processors, we've got some of the best soil, just add

water, stir it up and you get the best crops. And can you name, what are the top five agricultural products that New Mexico is famous for? You know, we're most famous for the number nine product, which is our chili, our chili product. You go all over the United States and even the world and ask you, chili, it's actually number nine in New Mexico, the top is beef, this last year was your beef products, number two was your dairy products, number three is kind of a surprise to people. It is your pecans, our growing pecans industry in New Mexico. And through exports is grown tremendously and it comes in number three. Number four, you've got alfalfa and then number five, it kind of rotates between cotton and wheat and different, some of the different commodity crops. And then we've got our famous peanut crop, which is on down the line, but you know, it's still one of our trademarks for New Mexico signature crops. Yeah, well I'm so grateful to you for taking the time to bring us up to speed and I'm grateful to you for what you're doing to actually stimulate the economy.

Our biggest problem is jobs and getting that economy going and here are two events that you're sponsoring that will do just that. I think, you know, and I thank you for the opportunity to come on board and, you know, Ernie and I, we went way back and you're carrying the flag and it's really an honor for me to be here with you today. Well, the honor is mine, I guess today is Jeff Whitty who is the director secretary of the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. We'll see you soon. Thank you. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank your audience for being with us today on report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at the website reportfromsatafay.com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at reportfromsatafay.com. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future.

And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico.