U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture, Part One

for mccain auditorium at kansas state university not one not two but six former secretaries 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 its 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 of 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 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 johansson there's only 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 your boy 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 the role 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 they contribute to the farm bill's a nineteen seventy seven nineteen eighty one nineteen eighty five ninety ninety mike as the service secretary from nineteen ninety three to nineteen ninety four he was first elected to congress in nineteen eighty six and served on 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 folks please join me a welcoming the secretary's a case made fb and this time unlike called dr barry flies fall professor and a part of agricultural economics at 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 toss a really get all these folks to manhattan kansas other is a will skepticism an officer the time so i want to give a lot of the

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 very 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 god knows we need

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 say boy first that we explain to them the neighbors here any of the points that i mean you know 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 male units and 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 i'm 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 about three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of a state 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 that'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 decide i would try to maybe open this with mentioning just have a few things to date and there is a lot of challenges in this country as effects food and

agriculture the big challenge is demographics we're 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 in india and 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 got a deal with the vagaries of the budget crisis that we're in and with a government that doesn't perform its 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 in 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 him 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 and 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 to 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 of this for 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's 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 accept the stage for perhaps the discussion will correct words like thank you dan pritchett that now we're going to 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 so 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 a two row corn planter now we have a thirty two row corn planter a farm in illinois we used to milk or cows by a major tim tells 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 the dutch 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 new corn and beans we were a whole on the low the 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 ribbon 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 coverage of a bargain their food there's been a lesson ten percent of their family income on food and no other country in the world and come even close to 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 ge or something else just tap use or not going to meet or objective

i think these are very exciting times for both discussing this issue with the citigroup and i like uber thank you jacki and next we'll turn to my guess they who served in bill clinton mike well thank you terry and i wanna thank all of my colleagues and cabinet for four robin here wanna live show my appreciation to cancer universe its administration its back to stop and students or want to do or regulate you in 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 at all 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 parts signatures 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 a started their own 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 at get up above the house gym where you know be the target nordstrom who would meet us and in that class to be about twenty five house members democrats and republican bob adler but i am every morning we do it cause we do administration's we fight 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 that makes me 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 special 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 insecurity out there thought 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 that attitude has changed in the house and senate now what do i mean just just decided it doesn't bear for his boss class percolate economics an output a graph a political attitudes in the congress related to deals which we used to be harmonious and bipartisan at birth local the midpoint

at birth at the midpoint that grab and it'll be the 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 of 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 hate which is the champion of bombay all 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 on the flanks bb the the left of center and an arrival center and dazzling images particularly now this farm bills caution that the nutrition tyler has been stripped out the late ed considered separately we we

we do know there was a farm bill vote in the house rivers as in july in a 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 of all flights on the left like at say the democratic flag now they are they are they are characterize us a batch bourbon democrats who you saw would 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 the late on the program called exit and a loss of leverage that used to be there and less of a vested interest as of now they say the bar bill religious moron social class starts ok without a farm bill and we had an added agriculture nile so concentrated that we get nine percent of car producers get about

fifty three percent of the program and they see that has been unfair but there's nothing to lead them to look to the two about the subsidy lee moore 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 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 i believe that this nation and i'd like it to go back the way it was

ninety nine there are three people 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 from 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'm 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 been talked about more 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 that they're when older 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 which this causes all kinds of additional issues are running 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 are as you know the us to form a 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 this year called a 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 the issues of good hunger and health have to be looked at arms 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 your old 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 sending them 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 something that's near and dear 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 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 secretary is on today's k pr presents its the one hundred sixty third landon lecture on public affairs kansas state university

moderated by professor barry flinch by 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 those six games that the pope 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 of them 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 their three sons and that his notion of building character in history science was to hand the site pitchfork 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 in school boys pitch away 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 earp

respect a great deal and so it's always it's always a lot of fun when we're together one of the things that i did as you know whenever secretary of agriculture the bush administration wanted to us amid a complete farm bill now while i was there so how we went across the united states listening to former sen that we did one of those events are a kansas jury was there with me and and pat roberts and there it was built just like we said it would be there was no set format is now lie 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 power 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 you know if 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 we're seeing 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 raised 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 bill that was maligned at the end of the year all the talking heads and radio is set for a talk about how awful that was you could go to our media sites or social media sites and see people just

hammering us over there do not that bill did in terms of the estate it's all of a sudden you could work a lifetime and put something together and pass it to your children without 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 and we need good young people you know i was with the hat the other ag secretary said this afternoon god bless she raised great kids here just like i see you 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 and 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 he 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 in my opinion thanks for having me here to stay thank you mike i appreciate your comments with the exception of one in your fallen by a gentleman from north dakota and you have to bring up football update that means and you donated out about them the next down one was former president bush's third segment area and has served as governor in north dakota and well thank you thank you all for the opportunity to be with you tonight it's a great pleasure together with my colleagues here and talk about agriculture near called her policy and the global effects we have a surprise she had the opportunity to hear many in the year a chance to interact with

all of the dod that are here tonight presidential thank you for the hospitality to be on 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 without 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 efforts are making a difference in our state 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 and it's been 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 account we have of things that reminded recently my wife and i were hiking in the grand canyon and we ran into a couple from north dakota and after 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 when i was governor i realize north dakota wasn't just an energy state it was an agar quarter 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 are opportunities a neighbor culture across the globe and today

north dakota exports fifty percent of a quarter product 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 anymore water we're going to have to figure out how to do this out in greece or production and deliver nutrition to the world and that is going to fall on the backs of americans farmers is gonna fall on the backs of aid or 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 us representative to be a failed a food medical tort ization at the united nations in rome and i go there and we visit about beating the world food crisis that the place in may in 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 i'm a 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 the students that are coming up in a recall today a bomb present they are and the values that labor culture delivers you know and when you touch the land you know about responsibility in 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 make 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 of america and transfer that to the

global marketplace are still a quick three stories here and then we can get on to the questions is what i think we export i had the opportunity helped negotiate a 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 but but you know we talked about how eager culture got him on the land alligator cultural out and 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 at our 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 well fourth graders asked me is it true that if you find two strawberries that are grown together and you give it to a girl who's a fall in love with you pythagoras but you know they did that a peer culture does bring people together as we know 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 and around the world it

really is that love of the land and love of the people that we bring together with a three quarter 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 we do have the proper opportunities to present the piece that we can bring among families and communities in neighborhoods by sharing meals a table that we really have an opportunity all of us in a records are enough to affect 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 eight to 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 joe 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 at mccain auditorium will hear that q and a 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 and in fact yeah they gorged and others in the room we 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 odd 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 the sudden in the front row the entire for truth the front rows of people split totally naked and written on their bodies of course it did look a 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 i don't 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 got a call from a get a call from my parents in 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 it was a guy who saw the bright line every situation his first question as tommy what it look like then not too long a letter on us about four months on international nutrition summit in the shoreham hotel in washington and would talk 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 and she's for states to get up

close and she throws it it made it deftly dyke and a hit show whale 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 in yellowstone park where in gardiner montana where 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 a boarding and it was a terrible problem and so we were set up to and basically to call loved 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 of those 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've got a problem i saw 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 done so all i could think about was is that i'm going to get a disease like malaria cullen dylan fever and i was going i have to get the rest of my life and my mother was right after all so i highly touted 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 ok 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 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 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 kbr 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 present is a production of kansas public

radio at the university of kansas did you miss last month's k pr presents on the kansas notable books with author interviews and book giveaway is or a recent programs featuring sportswriter frank to ford npr's nancy pearl or kofi annan of the united nations many cape er presents programs are archived at our website k pr that kate you that edu so you can listen to them anytime there you can find previous landed lectures from kansas state university programs from the university of kansas told institute of politics and the health center for the humanities as well as local programs produced right here at the kitty our studios it's all at npr that can you dye ed view while you're there you can find out about upcoming programs weather updates and get a complete program schedule you can

even listen on why bk p r and r is the thick milk apr two which features news and information twenty four hours a day it's all like a pr that kay you that edu thanks for listening and thanks for your support ms beth he's been seeking to

pass blank