U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture, Part One - Encore

today's kbr presents was a richly broadcast on january twelfth two thousand and forty it's the first in a two part series join us next week for more details mccain auditorium at kansas state university not one not two but six former secretary of agriculture i'm kenny macintyre and today on k pr percent we'll hear from six people who have held the top agriculture post in the us government hits the one hundred sixty third landon lecture recorded october twenty first two thousand thirteen we'll hear from dan glickman who served as secretary of agriculture from nineteen nineties five two thousand one in the clinton administration following eighteen years in congress representing kansas's fourth district will also hear from mike johanns john block and it's safer as well as the first female secretary of agriculture and then and then and the first african american agriculture secretary mike ft and now kansas state university president kirk solves good evening and

welcome to the modern sixty third landon lecture on public appearance when the watchers began in nineteen sixty six by the way never alf landon and awake a state president james mccain the goal to win and lectures is to bring the most prominent thought we're city of the state university to discuss the pressing issues of the day is especially fitting as we celebrate our hundred fiftieth anniversary as a wainwright university that we welcome former secretaries of agriculture ed schafer mike johns and then a man dan glickman mike espy in sunblock the land podium to join a hundred sixty two predecessors and bring their thoughts and opinions on important public issues it's now a pleasure to provide a brief introduction for each of the secretary's not assets you hold your applause please after i go through each one began with secretary ed schafer served two terms as governor in north dakota and served as the nation's twenty ninth secretary by reporter than the final year of the bush administration to thousand eight to two thousand nine senator mike

johanns who represents nebraska the senate served as secretary for two thousand five two thousand eight days after it took office to be a workable us trading partners to re open their markets to us beef nearly hundred nineteen countries a closer marcus after a single finding account fact it would be as he calmly called mad cow disease within his first year center johns convince a half that number to re open their markets and then i'm in service secretary for two thousand wanted two thousand five she's actively involved in the you're going round a general agreement of tariffs and trade negotiations the north american free trade agreement and the us canada free trade agreement dan glickman was a second kansan to serve in the role as secretary of agriculture the service secretary from nineteen ninety five to two thousand won for eighteen years he served in the us house of representatives as kansas fourth congressional district a contributor the farm bill's a nineteen seventy seven nineteen eighty one nineteen eighty five nineteen ninety might be as the service secretary from

nineteen ninety three to nineteen ninety four he was first elected to congress in nineteen eighty six uncertain agriculture and budget committees within these committees he's served on several task forces including the natural resources community in economic development lower mississippi delta caucus and select committee and hungers domestic task force john lott served a secretary from nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty six previously was secretary of agriculture no annoying after leaving the usda secretary block became the president of the national american wholesaler grocers association based in washington dc books please join me a welcoming the secretary's a case made and this time unlike called dr barry flies fall professor and a part of agricultural economics of the podium to serve as moderator for this evening's lecture folks it's so very talked about wanting to do this sometime ago in and i had seen a similar sort of advance in nebraska and we told us they were going to get all these folks to manhattan

kansas others a little skepticism an officer the time so i want to give a lot of love shout out here to bury for the work he did and talking with each these individuals and really making what i think will be a special way in a lecture van so please join me and thanking very fungible for all he's done barry collier thank you present films at age seventy one analyst a setting that i'm not in each of these gentlemen many of them for years man then and specially i have non madam secretary from california she won't let me tell you how many years we go back so it's just wonderful for me to have all these great people

here when they're finished tonight your faith in government will work will be renewed hope though god knows we need that this is secretary michael in his home state and so i've asked him to go first we go way back to when he was president of that which adele's billboard city boy first that we explain to them the neighbors here and is he likes that and it's all your wealth you know i'm it is harder is this vary when you look up in the dictionary the word tenacious his pictures and i think we did just because we didn't want him re veiling us in calling us that it is a great pleasure to

be here and this is a cannes and i'm delighted to be here and down i had i would just tell you i'm with all my colleagues here being sector agriculture was the greatest job i ever had a month i don't know the others feel the same way but to nowhere else on earth can you impact the lives of so many people farmers consumers business people not only here but around the world and to be around the batter hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the case today the part of agriculture was actually the art came together as a by abraham lincoln in the eighteen sixty to be treated as a commission on agriculture and i then became actual cabinet level department and a team at east nine i think it was and does so it's the timing is fortuitous great land grant school great public university and at the celebrating the department of agriculture has been a partner with k state and be a partner to farmers and ranchers consumers it's just a tremendous experience to be here so i'm delighted and i

just thought i would try to maybe open this with mentioning just have a few things to date and that is a lot of challenges in this country as effects food and agriculture the big challenges demographics were going to have about nine and a half billion people in thirty to forty years or have to double food production double food production and also increased production because incomes and economic conditions are growing in places like china and india in indonesia and in africa as well and so we gotta do all of this at the same time we got to do without ripping up the soils in the forests of the world we gotta do it sustainably we got a deal with no more utilization of water and better utilization of water we got a deal with the climate and weather variability we get a deal with the vagaries of the budget crisis that we're in and with a government that doesnt performance functions in agriculture with the same degree of stability and trust that we've seen in the

past particularly area agriculture so those are really big challenges and it's gonna be incumbent on land grant schools to dip help be a great part of finding answers to those challenges and help in that part of agriculture and the congress and the private sector to try to deal with possible charges are really real the real for all of us but there are some opportunities as well great things are happening number one vote in agriculture actually hot topics now they're high up on the agenda they're no longer viewed as a kind of second class issues therein and winner national agenda people are concerned about m as they relate to the global food security issues they're concerned about m as they relate to stability of the world are concerning about that pricing inflation and people care about him and that is good news for agriculture the second thing is by a large the farm economy overall realizing that natural disasters hit us but the farm economy has never been better and after years and

years in years of low prices and bad economic conditions and my judgment is we're in a different era where an emir of a much much stronger farm economy overall and i'm not pollyannish about it there will be ups and downs but the but the year of agriculture being the weak sister an american economics is over and that's great news for students and kids who want to be involved in agriculture and it's great news for our consumers as well who by the way won an old more about what's in their food and be more and more engaged about what's going on as well as we deal with issues like diet and obesity and other things that really probably were not at the top of the consideration of people in that in this world before and so the department of agriculture is still a big player in all this or so the land grant college community and let's hope that with the challenges that i talked about particular the budget challenge is to make it so difficult to have the resources to do what we need to do that we can

turn this farm economy into a jewel of america out where it had a business that young people wanted going in one state an animal america will continue to be up a leader in the world so buried with that i thought maybe i'd set the stage for perhaps the discussion of water afterwards like thank you dan pritchett that how we're gonna go in order of service and my longtime friend jack bauer goes back to raul right so like thank you i think the way i want open to the us so first of all a very thank you good to be with you and oh my fellow former secretaries of agriculture of a klan work and together we've been on a few programs and it's great fun and exchange ideas and actually we agree quite a bit a whole lot more than the congress does right now but i i am optimistic about the future of agriculture under talk to us briefly about

i'm optimistic because i have seen a dramatic change in this industry just saw last fifty years is just been astounding my father when he first got busy on the farm he was beckoned under bush we're corn in a day by hand we picked in shale a hundred bushel or shelled corn and seven marriage we used to have to like horses burton bill applaud but touro point where now we have a thirty to rope or platter of reform in illinois we used to milk or cows by an eight or ten cows morning and night by hand we took them out into the basement and we bubbled wish so that in my grandfather's store in knoxville illinois was a pasteurized know that's really organic milk

mr crocker us i'm just exploded over predict time ago which are only office at the farm and i always look at when i go back there and it starts recording our heels starting back in nineteen sixty four every year every year fifty years all the way up and the charge goes like fish that's where gulch and that's what's happening to agriculture and the progress that we're making will raise pigs we used to have maybe be lucky to get six pigs for well we now it's close to tehran and the wades and no corn and beans we were a whole on the low and high school kids would come out and help i needed that i hated almost as bad is back to those cows by hand and today there are no weeds the corner beings will

have the corn borer rip it off the years and the real warmth eating the roots where precision farming gps guiding us through the fields all kinds of new technology genetic engineering is the hottest thing going right now and yet is being attacked but some people that just don't understand the value i guess consumers live comfortable bargain their food there's been a less than ten percent of their family income on food and no other country in the world and come even close it is just a dramatic what we have done doubling production is what we're going to have to do because as you pointed out they own by two thousand and fifty i have no doubt but what we can do this we can satisfy the demand look what we did over the last fifty years and we were still hard at it we are creating when this country and we're inventing things yeah we just have to

continue to move ahead and use of new technology you cannot let the critics stop the us from using new technology workers ga or something else just kept users or not going to meet or objective i think these are very exciting times for depth discussing this issue with a citigroup tonight like uber baggett jack and next we'll turn to my guests clay who served in bill clinton like well thank you terry and i wanna thank all of my colleagues and cabinets for for robin here wanna live show my appreciation to cancer universe its administration its back to stop and students are want to do our to regulate you and your one hundred and fiftieth anniversary i think that's also now we've heard robert beall we've well we've we've

we've talked about optimism as far as ever closer to the concerns and i'm also optimistic but i want to inject maybe just a note of liberalism into the discussion tonight and i'm a creature of the house representatives like dan glickman upsurge thought there for seven years a proud to serve their state of mississippi but the house of representatives where i was so proud to serve for about seven years it's not the same place as it was when i was privileged to serve there and a big that it will have an impact on the farm bill and our discussions of relating to beales which have historically been bipartisan reg as one deal among the myriad of punches about the bills passed by the congress the house and senate that idea was the one where a possible interest would be set aside and everyone we would come together and go say they recognize that at least either you know everyone would eat and the bobby

hill had a tremendous impact on the balance of trade the last fifty years tremendous impact on the gross domestic product and it was the industry that really makes the united states what it is today but it does not look like the same place you know when i was a house member started therein in nineteen eighty six and has decided that i wanted to become a martial artist i wanted to take a taekwondo and i started out as a white belt and i work my way from four years up to a second degree black belt in the senate that his reason every morning i get up a bill the house gym where you know be the target nordstrom who would meet us and in that class to do about twenty five house members democrats and republican bob adler but i am every morning we do it cause we do administration's we bite each other and which our and then we go to work and then when went upstairs in committee rooms where

we had contentious discussions about this or that and some of them like a pretty gloomy want to be around me and i'd say you know i've seen you know i keep and all of a sudden you get more respect egypt at the head of the stars and turns a bit more simple and you get things done there so it would turn into a more harmonious conversation and i just got into it up they will have a farm bill and i think we will only we have to a big everyone there understands that that we have to have you know the right market signals our predictability and security i think that they you know wilson was the prevailing we were gonna do it was not the bees and i want to do it too to pretend to hit one and the thought is that that is the cost the attitude has changed in the house and senate now what do i mean just just decided it doesn't bear for his boss glass percolate economics an output a

graph a political attitudes in the congress related to beals which we used to be harmonious and bipartisan at birth local the midpoint at birth at the midpoint of that rap and it is a bit of political moderates we can look around to chat about political moderates in the house and the senate they're fear of them today than there used to be why because gerrymandering and they lost in the primary of they're still there they're fearful that they will lose the primary there drawn upon from the right like on the left like it's all that much more careful than they used to be but this is the group which which puts the champion of palmdale day day day they recognize the benefits of the fabio for seventy years and they're just they're just more timid i guess and so what that does is it a puts the political energy out of the flight's bb b the left of center and

then a rival center and basil energy has been declining now this paul mills question that the nutrition tyler has been stripped out the late ann considered separately we we we do know there was a farm bill vote in the house rivers as in july into play and that that's really never happened before so what's happened in my opinion on this political graphics you go from the midpoint for the murderous just be so vast it and now the images now gone out to elbow flex on the left like i'd say the democratic flag now they are they are they are characterize us a batch bourbon their work that's who you solid be able just to have images of the bomb bill because there was a nutrition class and rural development and research but mostly it was the snap program and the food stamps and that's been delayed on the program called exit and the loss of leverage that used to be there and most of the best adventures as of now they say the bar bill religious moron social class terms ok without a farm bill and we had an added

agriculture nile so concentrated that we get nine percent of our producers get about fifty three percent of the program and they see that has been a bear but there's nothing to lead them to look to the to look the sense of stability more and that is a broad and in the lot on the right like what now that it is your day we say what's happened recently with a shutdown of the government and you know almost a debt default of the united states and now we see another group don't wanna colonize but honestly it just seems like they want to burn down the place but in that i will be our culture people who just don't really believe in the merits of goma ideologically need to know that this is a government program is beneficial and i think is really second sight so we got a real problem gas and try it out and about time is up but i just think that this is one deal would democrats or republicans have historically worked together

a benefit this nation and i'd like it to go back to weight loss but i give my there are three cable on this dataset starts with george w bush and the game with madam senator from california man thank you it's such a pleasure and then and really an honor to be here with all my fellow former secretary said and very let me just say thank you very much and we've known each other over twenty years just for the record it's great debate beer a case dating love and have to really celebrate this hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the of the university and is a great university i spent five years after i was secretary of agriculture as the executive director of the united nations children's fund which is a un organization and so i had the opportunity to look at some of these issues a bit more for a month a global perspective and i wanted just talk for a moment

about food security is as dan glickman raised arm and and really some of the challenges and the opportunities in that regard and that is as he said the population of the world as we know is going to increase to nine billion people by the year twenty fifty which is about two million dollars to a billion percent increase with the requirements of food being estimated by simon at the need for both for about sixty to seventy percent more food now we have to date of the food and agriculture organization estimates that we have about eight hundred and forty two million people around the world who are suffer from chronic food insecurity and when we look at this of particular concern are young children i am one of the issues that's gotten increasing focus in the last few years is is something that people are talking about called the first thousand days and that's the time in the life

from conception to age two and inadequate nutrition during this time period can impair brain development permanently which men are impairs the ability to learn in school and earned his yeah as an adult and so it it simply continues the cycle of poverty but there's something else that's being talked about more and more and that is what's called the double burden of malnutrition in addition to the eight hundred and forty two million people that are chronically hungry than what's on the the world health organization estimates the bear went over one point four billion people in the world who are overweight and of those five hundred million two hundred million more population the women the us five hundred million people in the world are obese what's this causes all kinds of additional issues all chronic diseases such as diabetes heart disease cancer

and this increases the cost of health care and it decreases the productivity of individuals this double burden is not just a global issue but it's one that we have to face here at home as well as you know the us government very culture administers the food that food nutrition programs including what is commonly referred to them as the food stamp program is now called the supplemental nutrition assistance program that program has has gone in from about twenty eight million people on it and two thousand and eight to forty seven million people today ah there's a there's a documentary film i came outside earlier the sheer cold place at the table that really talks about it's a chilling account of hunger in america to date fifty three percent of the children born in this country are born into families that are eligible for the women infants and children program and

on the double burden side obesity in this in this country has skyrocketed with the one third of the population is now suffering from obesity and again raising the cost of health care in this country by trillions of dollars and for too long we've addressed these issues of hunger armed as of hunger and malnutrition as about how we get calories to people and now we know that we have to change that today and start talking about how to we get nutrition to people on the issues of hunger and health have to be looked at i am together and we have to look at the issues of nutrition we also have in addressing these issues about forty percent of the world's food is wasted goes to waste in the developing world it's often because of inadequate storage insect infestation lack of

transportation in this country and other developed countries it's primarily the food that's thrown out from restaurants grocery stores and you're in refrigerators we have an increasing focus on the sustainability of agriculture the importance of conservation of environmental protection of water is dan glickman points out over seventy percent of the worlds water is used for agriculture tom there are increasing consumer demand for certifications for organic for sustainably produced for fair trade farmers markets in this country have dramatically increased as people want to be more connected with their food they've increased from seventeen hundred and seventy five in nineteen ninety four to over a thousand in two thousand and thirteen it's also very important that we continue to

expand agriculture trade which has been so important to the overall health of us agriculture for so many years but we also have to help build agriculture in the developing world there's a there's a program called feed the future now that's being done in government wide and it really is about investing in agriculture around the world not just providing food aid protecting the agriculture systems whether it's our food safety systems protecting our agricultural pests and disease critical and of course it's something that's near and dear at the heart of any land grant university researched science and technology just absolutely essential to the future of the food and agriculture system and in solving the problems and creating new opportunities that's and then a man former secretary of agriculture from two thousand one to two thousand five who served in the george w bush administration if you're just joining us we're hearing from

six former ag secretaries on today's k pr presents its the one hundred sixty third landon lecture on public affairs a kansas state university moderated by professor perry flint spa i'm kate mcintyre you're listening to k pr presents on kansas public radio so far we've heard from secretary venom and mike espy who served as secretary of agriculture from nineteen ninety three to ninety four under president clinton john block from nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty six under president reagan and at the beginning of our dan glickman who was secretary of agriculture from nineteen ninety five to two thousand one under president clinton following eighteen years in congress representing cancers fourth district we've got two secretaries of agriculture to go including mike johnson who held the post from two thousand five to two thousand eight prior to being the head of the usda john served as governor of

nebraska from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand five he now represents nebraska in the us senate thank you very much or reserve curious about our record with the wildcats i was governor you be interested to know that in the six years i was governor we lost four out of the six games that the poop i that i then left the state to go to washington we won the next six games and love for the big ten saga that's that's my history i i want to give a shout out to have two colleagues of mine in the united states senate who i work with everyday who are two of the most honorable people you'd ever meet and that's a year two united states senators pat robertson jerry moran

they're exactly the kind of people that i would expect a great state of kansas to elect to the senate they're tough thoughtful conservatives and they do a great job for year and i'm not running for re election so i don't i have no no dog in this fight but i just that i so enjoy serving with both mom i often tell people i i grew up on a dairy farm in northern i were a small family farm in there nineteen fifties and sixties my father had that three science and that his notion of building character in history science was to candace a pitch fork or a scoop shovel to send us to the dairy barn at the hothouse and we would stand in or ankle deep in you know i mean scoop away get away a little bit my dad know that what he was really doing is preparing his youngest son might for his life in politics it is great to be here it's great to be on this stage

these are some people that i've worked with through the years erb respect a great deal and so it's always it's always a lot of fun when we're together ah one of the things that i did as you know when i was secretary of agriculture the bush administration wanted to a semitic complaints eight farm bill how while i was there so how we went across the united states listening to farmers and i we did one of those events are a kansas jury was there with me and in pat roberts and that year was bill just like we said it would be there was no set format it's not like we invited the president to farm bureau to be there and although they were walking to be there but later laid for three three and a half four hours i just sat there on the store at the front of the stage and i took notes as farmers just came up to the microphone or people who were involved in some way with the farm bill and they would tell me what they

liked they would tell me what they disliked they would show me out over something they would applaud us for things i did over twenty of those myself we went off fifty states in this effort to build information for the farm bill somewhere along the line i don't even remember what state it was i had a farmer come to the microphone and that day we had spent a lot of time talking about farm bill farm policy any offered in an arrest an observation that has stuck with me through all these years you said oh my we have to get beyond this notion where our total focus is on a farm bill he said good farm policy is not just about a farm bill and i thought about what he said so much about over these years in him he even went on to talk about this yes we need a farm bill

i want to give you a five year farm bill as much as anything i was asked recently what things do one checked off your list before you leave the senate i want a five year farm bill that's at the top of the list i know how important it is to agriculture to get that done but it's not the only thing that's going to make agriculture successful we need good trade policy enough you think about a ladies and gentleman ninety five percent of the world's population doesn't live here and live in another part of the world i just got back from a trip to africa ah and in various parts of africa where see in great success the aids drugs are working some governments are stabilizing admittedly in other parts not so good but the one thing we see is that

as incomes improve and people have more disposable income they want to improve the diet for their family and oftentimes that means protein i mean does nebraska beef kansas believe it means the products that we raise here so well good foreign policy means good research at your land grant universities and then not only having good research having an outstanding extension service back and take that development and bring it to the far which i believe is one of the reasons why we're does better than anybody in the world when it comes to agriculture really good tax policy you know that all that was maligned at the end of the year all the talking heads on radio as sephora talked about how awful that was you could go to our media sites or social media sites and see people just

hammering us over that do not that bill did in terms of the estate tax all of a sudden you could work a lifetime and put something together and pass it to your children about the government interfering with that because we got the exemption raised permanently now i appreciate what's going on in the world and you know there's all kinds of people that are going to malign would what we do back in washington but that was a gigantic step in the right direction when it came to tax policy about ninety nine percent of americans ninety nine percent of americans did not see a tax increase that was going to happen because of the action we took now are there other things that we should have gotten done yes but i've done this long enough to know that sometimes you take the important

steps when you can and believe me those were important steps we need good regulatory policy you know i have a farm bill sessions around the state in nebraska a bit of jerry and i went across the state here one of the first things we would hear is the regulatory overreach you can imagine how much time we spend in our senate offices dealing with average citizens and regulatory overreach maybe it's the department of labor telling you were your kids can work at i grow up working for twenty five cents an hour driving a hay bailer that was never so proud and my life i was barely old enough to reach the clutch on the tractor that drove that he built in you know what i thought i had arrived that's what we need and then the final

thing and i'll wrap up here we need good young people now i was with the hat the other ag secretary said this afternoon god bless she raised great kids here just like i say back home in nebraska and you know what people like me are going to be move ona we've done our service fifteen months from now i go off and do something else i wanna see young people behind me generation after generation who care deeply about this country that we send to washington who cared deeply about making this government work in you know what someday sets a heck of an assignment but we desperately need it we desperately need it and we need them on our farms in honor ranchers in our universities we need them across this great country because those she heads are truly going to make a

difference so maybe our greatest asset as those young folks we talked to this afternoon who are really going to change the world and my opinion thanks for having me here to stay thank you mike i appreciate your comments with the exception of want that you're followed by a gentleman from north dakota and you have to bring up football right that means and you donated out about them the next town one was former president bush's third secretary and and served as gambler in north dakota and well thank you thank you offer the opportunity to be with you tonight it's a great pleasure to gather with my colleagues here and talk about agriculture near called her policy and the global effects we have a surprise c the opportunity here in the end the chance to interact with

all of the only that are here tonight president scholtes thank you for the hospitality to be around campus again i've been here a couple times before and i do appreciate you back out and says i've been banned from talking about football an end and all the other secretaries i have mentioned about everything that we need to talk about politics and policy in global need whatsapp about them the food security and nutrition about education of things i buy i do have to however talk about north dakota little bit i'll skip the football effort but in a really funny vertigo these days i have to say we do have the best economy in the us it's exciting to see the lowest unemployment rate in the nation and how those jobs and careers in every start making a difference in our state and in fact this country we produce now twelve percent of the oil in the united states of america

and it's a good quality product in its being sold well are pursell income and that the goat is increased hundred percent the last ten years the gdp is increase a hundred and fifty percent in the last ten years and imagine this i'm reminded of the great khan we have the things i'm reminded recently my wife and i were hiking in the grand canyon and we ran into a couple from north dakota in the day was over we get back in the parking lot it was chatting with these folks andy the young female part of the couple was talking about my time in office i really appreciated when you're governor because after eleven things really start to get better but my point is i was governor i realized north dakota wasn't just an energy state it was an eight record for state and agriculture continues to be the number one piece of the economy that you don't hear about today as you hear

about the energy sector we've kind of passed over north dakota every quarter but really it is that energy and anger culture that points to the strength of our natural resources in this country and i like to use north dakota as an example because it has been such a good one five good years of agriculture really has set the economy of north dakota on fire and it was a lot of public policy all things that we've been used to dealing with and used to generating that made a difference was public policy that said we need to create value in north dakota so let's do value added agriculture is the state of growing the commodities that we're so well capable of it is important to note that put policy in place both federal and state to enhance exports so that we could export our opportunities in labor culture across the globe and today

north dakota exports fifty percent of the agriculture products in north dakota and as was mentioned united states of america are really is in the export a record for business the only sector and our economy that as a positive trade balance but he notes that export mean of product that really is going to make the difference in the world i believe and off we look at the opportunity that we have it's kind of a way it was mentioned that we had a double food production by twenty fifty our look at a growing population without any more land any more water we're going to have to figure out how to do this out in greece or production and deliberately trish into the world and that is going to fall on the backs of americans farmers is gonna fall on the backs of agar culture and as we learned to export our food or food products we also exports are

lead to the world i was surprised when i was the us representative to the faa all the food medical tort ization at the united nations in rome and i go there and we visit about the day in the world food crisis at the place and nine and two thousand seventy thousand eight and people talk about how america had to do better how we could improve to send food aid to hungry people and i was shocked to learn that the united states america year after year after year it delivers fifty percent over half of the food aid in the world all the time every time and were not appreciated for we supposed to do more and we can do more and as we look at those opportunities i think on the global marketplace we get to see not only do we export our crops not only do we export our equipment our technology our knowledge not only do we

export the economic opportunities that we have for united states of america but how we export their values and mike joins was saying earlier they are students that are coming up in a record today a bomb present they are and the values that made records who delivers you know and when you touch the land you know about responsibility and honesty and character and values and those are the things that we're exporting across the globe i believe that is one of the most important efforts that we can make hungry people made unstable governments i'm hungry people don't learn hungry people don't work we need to be able to take that strength of the natural resources in the united states america and transfer that to the global marketplace us tell you quickly stories here and then we can get on to the questions

is what i think we export i had the opportunity helped negotiate the colombian free trade agreement we're down visiting with farmers are being kicked off their land by the drug lords in colombia they were just thrown out in the jungle to fend for themselves and president uribe a was able to command to restructure the military to provide safety security in their rural areas and anger current quarter start to flourish dr farmer and eighteen kids three wives or word often one poor soul that that happened to get beyond that but you know we talked about how eager culture got him on the land alligator culture allowed him to make a living a labor culture allowed him to buy into a pot processing facility for the crops that he grew and i later culture provided three of his kids the opportunity to get educated nice if american a reporter

annie said that's what it's all about a great culture does for me it's the education that we can provide across the world this can make a difference i was in the fourth grade class in california in northern california midst of fruit country and that were low fourth graders asked me is it true that if you find two strawberries that are grown together and you give it to a girl has a fall in love with you i said of course you know that to me agriculture does bring people together as we grow in our communities the rural america as we work the land and grow the crops and provide for the food and fiber and the feed another fuel in this country around the world it really is that love of the land and love of the people that we bring together with aig or culture as well and i have no doubt in my mind that as

we focus on agriculture and we bring education we bring nutrition and food and we then we move out of unstable governments really have the proper opportunities to present the piece that we can bring among families and communities and neighborhoods by sharing meals a table that we really have an opportunity all of us in a records are reunified to a fact the education and the love in the peace around the globe which is going to make our world a better place that was ed schafer who's served as the secretary of agriculture under george w bush from two thousand at two thousand nine following two terms as the governor of north dakota he was one of six former secretaries of agriculture that spoke at the one hundred sixty third landon lecture on public affairs a kansas state university on october twenty first two thousand thirteen the panel included dan glickman might yell hands and then a man mike espy ends on black and was

moderated by dr barry flint's by professor of agricultural economics at kansas state university following their opening remarks the six secretaries took questions for more than an hour and mccain auditorium will hear that you and i on next week's k pr presents when the secretary's will address everything from food safety to food stamps to their most memorable moments as the head of the usda here's a sneak peek at next week's program as we hear from former kansas congressman dan glickman recalling his tenure as secretary of agriculture i was the most assaults a member of the cabinet in fact data gorged and others in the room would have heard me tell the story before but oddly so the secret service change their entire protective detail for cabinet members because of my album a proclivity to get things from me so the first time it happened about six

months after i took the job and i went to the world food song summit in rome and i was their president clinton and the pope fidel castro they'll spoken an american delegation went into this room to have a news conference he was very hot we were sweating and all of a sudden in the front row the entire flu front rows of people split totally naked and written on their bodies of course it didn't look the written on their bodies were were no gina dreams and the naked truth and they threw genetically modified soybeans and other things at us and so i just was so you know and i have a lot of areas you know until my i was like sweating and these scenes are sticking to my forehead and and so on that nighttime and the police came and in an end so they arrested the protesters in that night on cnn did the whole

thing except in the us they do a big black stripes over the key portions of people's bodies and but not in europe so i get a call from i get a call from my parents and wichita and mime mother says this is terrible this job is dangerous i told you shouldn't take this job and then you're and then just having your father was to talk to in those you know my father died he was a guy who saw the bright line every situation his first question as tommy what it look life and then not too long a letter on us about four months on international nutrition summit in the shoreham hotel in washington and we're talking about nutrition i'm on the panel i'm on the diarists with bob dole and secretary shall a lot and a woman starts chris grayling glickman you're nothing but up camp for the meat industry and so she's running up and she has a tofu cream pie in her hand cheap for states to get up close and she throws it it made it deftly dyke and it had shalala on the

back while i didn't know what to make of it and so i just quickly said to dole i said bob i don't think were in kansas any longer and then and then the final thing it happened about three months later and we're at yellowstone park where in gardiner montana where a there is an effort to try to root out bruce solow says which is a disease that were like at the cattle got infected and they were spontaneously aborting and it was a terrible problem and so we were set up to and basically to call love the number of bison that were there that had this disease and so we're talking about what were doing and all of a sudden a woman comes down and she's screaming and she's got a big pot of something and she says you're killing my brothers you're killing my sisters and so one of the people on the panel withers was senator conrad burns of the montana he was at all auctioneer in pretty funny guy and i said what's going on and she says he says well we got a problem i had this all happening like yesterday's it what's the

problem she thinks that those animals are her brothers and sisters so she proceeded to throw infected buffalo guts at the whole table and i'm so all i could think about was is that i'm going to get a disease like malaria cullen dylan fever and i was gonna have to get the rest of my life and my mother was right after all so i only tell you the story there others that happened to military these stories because one thing i learned about this experience is is that people feel very very strongly about food okay and these are matters they care about very much and they're well i'm giving you some of the perhaps the more extreme evidences of what's going on here what we do doesn't impact people's lives every day every place all over the country farmers ranchers consumers businesspeople national government national security america's image in the world and everything

else and it does make a difference again that's dan glickman who served as us secretary of agriculture from nineteen ninety five to two thousand one he was one of six former ag secretaries who spoke at the one hundred sixty third landon lecture on public affairs october twenty first two thousand and thirteen we heard from glickman like johanson and then a man ed schafer mike espy and john block on today's kbr presents following their opening remarks the six of them answered questions for more than an hour at kansas statesman came out of torreon we'll hear the q and a portion of their landon lecture on next week's k pr presents this event was moderated by dr barry flinch by professor of agricultural economics at kansas state university thanks to kansas state for providing audio of this event i'm kate mcintyre kbr presents is a production of kansas public

radio at the university of kansas did you missed last week's keep your prisons on the two thousand fourteen elections or the program on the us supreme court featuring constitutional law scholar laurence tribe for the program on the one hundred anniversary of the panama canal and the exhibit at the linda hall library on its creation many previous kbr prisons programs are archived on our website to a pr that tape you that edu there you can listen to programs you've missed and programs you'd like to hear again you can also listen online to k pr and our sister station k pr two featuring vincent taught from npr and the bbc you can find a complete program schedule sign up for our newsletter and antarctica and see the giveaways and of course you can pledge your support for katie are either as a

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