Vilsack: Ag biotech industry had White House meeting
March 01, 2013 | 03:34 PM
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — The biotechnology industry had a meeting with high-level White House officials on Thursday to talk about the benefits of that industry, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said here today in a speech at the Commodity Classic.
Vilsack said that Valerie Jarrett, the senior adviser to the president and assistant to the president for public engagement, but who is also known as a Chicagoan who is the Obama family’s best friend, was present at the meeting with representatives of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, BSF, Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union, Vilsack said.
“The purpose of the meeting was to make sure that people in the White House appreciated that innovation is occurring,” Vilsack told reporters after his speech.
One of the “most startling statistics” that the group shared with the White House officials, Vilsack said, was that despite the drought in 2012, the United States had the fifth largest corn crop in its history. The success of that crop using mostly biotech seed “speaks to the capacity of American agriculture to be more productive,” he said.
The industry carried the message that “that technology has to continue to be embraced if we are to meet the challenge” of feeding a growing world population, he added. The message, Vilsack added, “could respond to the president’s desire to feed more hungry people around the world.”
The biotech companies that are European-based noted that they have moved their research facilities to the United States, which is more welcoming to biotechnology, Vilsack said.
The meeting occurred soon after the announcement that the United States and the European Union announced that they will conduct trade negotiations.
“Agriculture has to be on the table,” Vilsack said, adding that he believes “this is a great opportunity” and that Europeans “should take a slightly more informed view about biotechnology, about meat.”
Alluding to European objections to biotechnology because it could interfere with organic agriculture, Vilsack said the United States would continue to “respect organic” agriculture and that he is committed to finding ways for biotechnology and organic agriculture to co-exist through the AC 21 commission USDA assembled last year.
“We have to be very vigilant on that,” Vilsack said.
But Vilsack also expressed enthusiasm for the potential for biotech research, noting that it can increase productivity and help the adjustment to climate change.
Through genetic research and mapping, he said, biotechnology can create types of corn, soybean, sorghum or canola suitable for a particular purpose, which could change each of those crops from “a commodity to an ingredient” that can be “a higher value proposition” in the same way that organic crops are.
To do that, Vilsack said, “We’ve got to do it smart, make sure we understand fully the impact the science has on the plant and the surrounding plants” and “make sure” that it does not compromise the ability of other crops (presumably organic crops) to have “a higher value definition.”
He also said he wants the crop insurance program to “do for organics” what it has already done for conventional production.
Although the biotech and organic industries have often been opposed to each other, agriculture is “in a different place” than a couple years ago, Vilsack said.
“I think people are talking to each other” and that there are ways for the conventional and organic production systems to operate “without interfering with each other.”
Vilsack noted that the biotech industry would like Obama to visit a biotech production facility and give a speech if he can fit it “into his really busy schedule.”
Vilsack said that Valerie Jarrett, the senior adviser to the president and assistant to the president for public engagement, but who is also known as a Chicagoan who is the Obama family’s best friend, was present at the meeting with representatives of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, BSF, Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union, Vilsack said.
“The purpose of the meeting was to make sure that people in the White House appreciated that innovation is occurring,” Vilsack told reporters after his speech.
One of the “most startling statistics” that the group shared with the White House officials, Vilsack said, was that despite the drought in 2012, the United States had the fifth largest corn crop in its history. The success of that crop using mostly biotech seed “speaks to the capacity of American agriculture to be more productive,” he said.
The industry carried the message that “that technology has to continue to be embraced if we are to meet the challenge” of feeding a growing world population, he added. The message, Vilsack added, “could respond to the president’s desire to feed more hungry people around the world.”
The biotech companies that are European-based noted that they have moved their research facilities to the United States, which is more welcoming to biotechnology, Vilsack said.
The meeting occurred soon after the announcement that the United States and the European Union announced that they will conduct trade negotiations.
“Agriculture has to be on the table,” Vilsack said, adding that he believes “this is a great opportunity” and that Europeans “should take a slightly more informed view about biotechnology, about meat.”
Alluding to European objections to biotechnology because it could interfere with organic agriculture, Vilsack said the United States would continue to “respect organic” agriculture and that he is committed to finding ways for biotechnology and organic agriculture to co-exist through the AC 21 commission USDA assembled last year.
“We have to be very vigilant on that,” Vilsack said.
But Vilsack also expressed enthusiasm for the potential for biotech research, noting that it can increase productivity and help the adjustment to climate change.
Through genetic research and mapping, he said, biotechnology can create types of corn, soybean, sorghum or canola suitable for a particular purpose, which could change each of those crops from “a commodity to an ingredient” that can be “a higher value proposition” in the same way that organic crops are.
To do that, Vilsack said, “We’ve got to do it smart, make sure we understand fully the impact the science has on the plant and the surrounding plants” and “make sure” that it does not compromise the ability of other crops (presumably organic crops) to have “a higher value definition.”
He also said he wants the crop insurance program to “do for organics” what it has already done for conventional production.
Although the biotech and organic industries have often been opposed to each other, agriculture is “in a different place” than a couple years ago, Vilsack said.
“I think people are talking to each other” and that there are ways for the conventional and organic production systems to operate “without interfering with each other.”
Vilsack noted that the biotech industry would like Obama to visit a biotech production facility and give a speech if he can fit it “into his really busy schedule.”
