'Feed the Future' not competition, Vilsack and Clinton say
February 24, 2011 | 05:40 PM | Filed in: Agricultural development USDA
CRYSTAL CITY, Va. — American farmers do not need to be worried that the Obama administration’s efforts to improve agriculture in poor countries will lead to more competition, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and former President Bill Clinton said today.
The issue came up at the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum when Marshall Matz, a lawyer-lobbyist who works on domestic and international issues, told Vilsack that commodity group leaders were worried that the administration’s Feed the Future program will help farmers in other countries become competitors.
Vilsack said those fears were unwarranted because the world population is growing and the middle class in developing countries is also growing, allowing people to upgrade their diets.
But he also told of a visit to Kenya where he watched a farmer mix seeds for two different crops in the same field. “Commodity groups have to understand how far these folks have to go,” Vilsack said. “They have a long, long way to go. They’re dealing in the 18th and 19th centuries, not the 20th or 21st.”
Noting that USDA is trying to help Afghan farmers grow saffron and almonds because they could make more money from those crops than from poppies used to produce drugs, Vilsack said efforts to create an agriculture ministry in Afghanistan is hard because the country doesn't have regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary standards or an agricultural research programs. “The combination of all those things puts us in a better position to be competitive,” he said.
When Clinton arrived to address the forum, he said Vilsack had mentioned backstage what he had been asked. “There's going to be plenty for American farmers to do,” Clinton said.
Clinton urged the farmers, agribusiness executives, investors and USDA employees attending the conference to take a broad approach in their thinking about world agricultural developments. Most of the world’s problems can be solved, he said, but not if decision-makers listen only to “happy talk at meetings like this” and ignore issues of inequality, sustainability and the use of energy. (See related article on ethanol.)
There has been growing inequality in recent years both between countries and within countries, Clinton said, because “we created a global financial system” before creating a global economic system.
Clinton said the United States and other developed countries had to accept responsibility for ending agricultural development to poor countries. The idea that the United States could feed all the world’s people and other countries could become manufacturing countries without going through agricultural development “has not worked in a single solitary place,” he said.
Although his administration helped get rid of a dictator in Haiti, Clinton said gets “pummeled” every time he goes there because he signed a bill that required Haiti to end import restrictions. That led to large-scale imports of U.S. rice, the decline of the Haitian rice industry and movement to the cities, he added. If Haiti produced more of its own rice, he said, there would still be “plenty of market for U.S. food.”
Vilsack and Clinton agreed that the U.S. agricultural extension service is a model for the world.
In his speech, Vilsack noted that when traveling in developing countries, “I am struck by how jealous the rest of the world is about extension.”
“The world needs a global agricultural extension service,” Clinton added.
The issue came up at the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum when Marshall Matz, a lawyer-lobbyist who works on domestic and international issues, told Vilsack that commodity group leaders were worried that the administration’s Feed the Future program will help farmers in other countries become competitors.
Vilsack said those fears were unwarranted because the world population is growing and the middle class in developing countries is also growing, allowing people to upgrade their diets.
But he also told of a visit to Kenya where he watched a farmer mix seeds for two different crops in the same field. “Commodity groups have to understand how far these folks have to go,” Vilsack said. “They have a long, long way to go. They’re dealing in the 18th and 19th centuries, not the 20th or 21st.”
Noting that USDA is trying to help Afghan farmers grow saffron and almonds because they could make more money from those crops than from poppies used to produce drugs, Vilsack said efforts to create an agriculture ministry in Afghanistan is hard because the country doesn't have regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary standards or an agricultural research programs. “The combination of all those things puts us in a better position to be competitive,” he said.
When Clinton arrived to address the forum, he said Vilsack had mentioned backstage what he had been asked. “There's going to be plenty for American farmers to do,” Clinton said.
Clinton urged the farmers, agribusiness executives, investors and USDA employees attending the conference to take a broad approach in their thinking about world agricultural developments. Most of the world’s problems can be solved, he said, but not if decision-makers listen only to “happy talk at meetings like this” and ignore issues of inequality, sustainability and the use of energy. (See related article on ethanol.)
There has been growing inequality in recent years both between countries and within countries, Clinton said, because “we created a global financial system” before creating a global economic system.
Clinton said the United States and other developed countries had to accept responsibility for ending agricultural development to poor countries. The idea that the United States could feed all the world’s people and other countries could become manufacturing countries without going through agricultural development “has not worked in a single solitary place,” he said.
Although his administration helped get rid of a dictator in Haiti, Clinton said gets “pummeled” every time he goes there because he signed a bill that required Haiti to end import restrictions. That led to large-scale imports of U.S. rice, the decline of the Haitian rice industry and movement to the cities, he added. If Haiti produced more of its own rice, he said, there would still be “plenty of market for U.S. food.”
Vilsack and Clinton agreed that the U.S. agricultural extension service is a model for the world.
In his speech, Vilsack noted that when traveling in developing countries, “I am struck by how jealous the rest of the world is about extension.”
“The world needs a global agricultural extension service,” Clinton added.
