Vilsack announces new trade talks at Commodity Classic

HOUSTON — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will soon meet with farm officials from key trading partners Canada and Mexico.

Vilsack said the trilateral meeting with Lawrence MacAulay, minister of agriculture and agri-food in Canada, and Víctor Villalobos, secretary of agriculture and rural development in Mexico, will be held later this month, likely in Colorado.

Announcing the trade summit at the Commodity Classic in Houston, Vilsack said he plans to raise concerns about Mexico’s approach to biotechnology, particularly in corn, and the need for Canada to open its dairy markets more to the United States.

Here is what Vilsack said about other hot topics at the annual meeting of the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers, National Sorghum Producers and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.

On Infrastructure

The good news is that, in fact, this administration has doubled down on the investment in infrastructure with the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and we are seeing and will see improved roads and bridges, improved ports, improved lock-and-dam systems, all of which will allow us over time to regain that competitive advantage.

On China

I know there’s a lot of conversation in coffee shops around the country about the ownership of our land by foreign owners. And often this is in the context of China. The ownership of foreign land by China is relatively small. It’s less than one-tenth of 1% of the entire landmass of the U.S. There are concerns about the location of where that land might be owned, especially if it is connected to or near a military installation.

But the ownership of land has become a focal point of conversation in this country. And as a result, the Chinese are obviously paying attention. And just a reminder, they are our No. 1 export market.

And so it’s a difficult and nuanced conversation we need to have in this country about China’s role and the importance of the export markets in China at the same time making sure that we’re protecting our capacity to know who and when land is being purchased by foreign ownership.

On Ethanol

I want to acknowledge the work of EPA recently in announcing the intent to make available E15 on a year-round basis in a number of states.

We’re investing hundreds of millions of dollars in expanding capacity in a number of states so that higher blends can be more readily available to consumers. We’ve already done, since I came back to this job, 154 grants to expand the distribution systems for higher blends. That’s just the beginning.

We’ve now seen E15 being available in 30 states across the country. That’s an increase. We’ve seen a record level of the volume of renewable fuels being used by American consumers.

On SAF

We’re not in a position today to announce the guidance that will be coming forth from the Treasury Department as it relates to the sustainable aviation fuel and the tax credits that will be available in 2023 and 2024 and the tax credits that will go in place in 2025 and beyond.

Now, the reason we’re not is because we’re measuring twice and cutting once. We want to make sure that the latest and best information is utilized in the modeling that will inform the Treasury guidance.

I had two goals in my conversations with my colleagues in the interagency working group. One was to was to ensure that the GREET model was, in fact, incorporated in this process.

And then in connection with that GREET model, I wanted to make sure that biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel and the feedstocks that provide those fuels had the ability to qualify for the tax credits.

And that is particularly true of those feedstocks that are generated through climate-smart practices — no-till, cover crops, energy-efficient fertilizers, the things that you are already using in the field to produce a wide array of the commodities that you raise.

I’m confident that at the end of the day folks will understand and appreciate that what President Biden has understood when he said that in his view 95% of sustainable aviation fuel will be connected and produced by farmers over the next 20 years.

On Fertilizer

The president directed us to put together a program to begin the process of more domestic production of fertilizer to help increase supply, reduce our reliance on foreign sources.

To date, we funded 40 projects in 25 states to expand access to the fertilizer supply, to also create more other alternatives, to provide the technology that will allow farmers to better understand what needs to be fertilized and how much, creating more capacity and greater infrastructure.

On The Farm Bill

Well, we don’t have a farm bill yet. We don’t have a budget, either. Here’s my pledge, though. We’ll eventually get a farm bill. But in order to get a farm bill, it’s going to be necessary for our policymakers to be creative. The needs are great. The resources are limited. So, it’s important to utilize every possible creative solution and opportunity.

One of those creative solutions and opportunities is to look at ways in which the Commodity Credit Corporation can, as it has in the past, been creatively used to provide the kind of support and help for commodities across the board, without the necessity of reducing the conservation resources available under the Inflation Reduction Act, without necessarily going back on the agreement that was reached in terms of the SNAP program when the debt ceiling was raised, that we can and should be utilizing this resource as it was intended when it was created during the Great Depression.

It is a creative tool that will give the flexibility and opportunity for our policymakers to try to meet the significant needs that you all have identified as being important to modernizing our farm bill.

On The Future

I dream of the day when every single farm family and every ranch family in this great country can do what they love to do. And then to be able to sit around the coffee table, the dining room table, with their sons and daughters and their grandchildren and be able to say to them that yes, you, too, will have that opportunity and your children and their children will have that opportunity to continue to be among the most productive and best farmers, ranchers and producers in the world.

You, the farmers, ranchers and producers of the United States are at the foundation and at the center of what has become the greatest nation on Earth. And we need to make sure that you continue to be able to make that contribution.