He spoke at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Hello, everybody i hope you can hear me. My name is dan glickman. Michael moderator and former secretary my coat moderator and former secretary. We welcome you to this Bipartisan Policy Center food summit. We want to thank you all for being here. We want to thank our guests and secretary perdue who we will introduce in a minute. This has become one of the most talked about issues of the whole covid19 issues. Have to relate to the food supply from production to the processing to the distributing to the conception and how it affects farmers, how it affects processors and how it affects the average persons and the hungry. We are delighted to be here. We cannot delve into every issue because of the time but it is a way to start the discussion. We think you will have an interesting time listening to this very important issue about feeding this country. I would like to welcome everybody and thank you policy center for hosting this event and turned it over to my colleague. Thank you as always, dan glickman. It is my honor to introduce our first speaker, the 31st secretary of agriculture, sonny perdue. As secretaries, all three of us have faced trying times. 9 11,case, it included we are facing unprecedented challenges to the food system, as covid19 as the covid19 pandemic has spread around the globe. We want to say thank you very much, mr. Secretary, for joining us today to discuss these challenges and how the usda is responding during this extraordinary time. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you to my former colleague, secretary brenneman and secretary glickman. Bpc, to be with our host, which i had the honor of serving on our governors council. I appreciate the convening of this topic. Almost like every crisis has its own language. Who in america had thought about Food Supply Chain prior to now . I guess more americans are aware , we have often talked about the ,act that in modernday america most people think about food coming from the Grocery Store. Weh the Food Supply Chain, have had to grow that expectation of understanding what has happened here in america. I am even guilty of not productionng very and processing and logistics and Delivery System that we have in the united states. When we think about context of what we face over 50 of the food we consume, we had a production scheme, a very efficient, sacred eyes, integrated, sophisticated Delivery System, both for the production and processing and logistics and the delivery to the different sectors, one being the institutional setting. Consumer,ing for the mostly in grocery chains. When you thing about that, the process in the middle is processing for different consumers, different packaging and other things. What caused all the realignment, one of those 50 chains stopped very suddenly. I liken it to the fact they were an interstate. Really major crash occurs ahead, and two of those lanes are totally blocked. We all know what happens then. Thanks back up quickly. Things back up quickly. Why didnt you anticipate this . Questiont is the everyone is asking. Why didnt we anticipate this . No one could have anticipated this in the Food Supply Chain and the degree to which we were segregated in our production and process. No,ou former secretaries the usdas role to be flexible and to move quickly and realigning these dislocations and misalignments that we have in the supply chain in order to do that. Im very proud to see here, you have probably heard me say before, our motto is to feel like we feed everyone. This produced a real challenge. Regular supply chain of Grocery Stores. It is like a National Hurricane warning initially. People fled to the Grocery Store and shelves became bear, and that created more panic as we saw the people wondering if we were going to have enough food. That was the first question. Secondly, we had stores closing. Schools closing. Where do these kids get their nutrition from . We had to make very immediate flexibility there. We all had to do things by rules and regulation. We have certain criteria to try and preserve the integrity of the process, because this is public money and we have to preserve the integrity of that and maintain an integrity of the way things are handled and delivered. That also created an flex ability. We had many waivers initially to get these kids fed. It was amazing how communities reached out to get the kids fed. A lot of programs that way. One interesting one, this partnership with baylor university. Maclean global, a logistic company. Texaco joined together to deliver over one million meals a week for school kids in rural areas that could not get into the congo get a cup site. Into the congregate pickup site. Those are the good news stories. We had many other waivers. Certainly our pandemic ebt where we loaded the amount of School Lunches and breakfasts on the lunch kids, reduced so they could get food that way. Professionals, local School Systems and many in the private sector did wonderful things. We had our snap pub relation. Snap population. We had to continue to have flexibility there on Online Shopping. All those that applied. We had to do the program that helped to move food into our food banks and other things that are normally used for local disaster. We had household Distribution Program that is usually used for localized disaster when there is not access to Grocery Stores. We had to be able to use that. It required a lot of creativity and a lot of ingenuity. The one program that we are rolling out now we announced on friday that we are proud of. That is the Food Box Program. It is disheartening to all of us in agriculture when a farmer or producer puts their blood, sweat and tears into growing animals or vegetables or produce or milk and having to destroy that milk or dairy, produce or meet. It is the misalignment of not being able to get that protein where it needs to be. This Food Box Program is 3 billion of the 19 billion program. 3 billion will be that. Up and running with the contracts in place over local, regional distributors who have been used to using and serving the distribution market and restaurants. It is a great nationwide program. We look forward to that rolling out. The other thing we try to do is Program Early on on the helping to get those and other people who work locally to get food to those citizens who showed up at the food bank having lost their jobs. It has been quite a scramble. Farmers and producers are in a real bind. We have also had situation with our food processing, part of that shane part of that shane , we have to process and package it for consumer consumptions. We have had somewhat of a crisis in that area with many of our workers coming down with positive covid19s and we have had to work around having Meat Processing closed. The president s executive order helped us get some uniformity. We are still underneath what our capacity is pure it i think we can still say we are going to have meat proteins for the future. All of those plants are open now. Working very well. Usda has had its hands full. Our services crowd has been amazing. In a 24 hour session, our ams with its purchasing program and Delivery Logistics program to our Food Bank Network has been amazing. Im really proud. Having done all that with remote situations we cannot come together but we have been scraping all the time. I feel more tired when i go home now having been on skype all day long. Anyway, the team has been amazing. Im really proud of the group. I am proud of all of these workers from the farmers to the processors to the logistics and truckers who deliver this food, the Grocery Store, stockers, check out to make sure weve got a consistent supply. The most efficient, specific eight it sophisticated food chain in the world has been noble enough to continue to supply our people with a confidence that we can have food , and that helps to fulfill that motto of feeding everyone. Did we do every thing perfectly . I am not saying that. We worked as hard as we could to mix sure people who needed our food mostly were able to get that. Thank you all. I look forward to hearing the rest of you all. Ok. I think we are going to introduce our panel. They have been a couple of changes in the panel, so i want to make sure that people know we are going to go through for people first. The president of the American Farm bureau. Delighted to have you. President and the ceo of north American Meat institute. She is going to be talking a lot about processing industry. What is happening in terms of preparing this meet for the t for the mean consumer. Talk about the distribution of food and the retailing side. Finally, katie fitzgerald, ebt and ceo of feeding america who will talk about the impact on the nations food bank, the nations poor, maybe talk about the snap program, as well as this enormous increase in the numbers of people because of rapidly increasing unemployment who are in these food bank lines , that we have not seen since the great depression. Iven that, i am gone to start that i will go to juliana, and then leslie and then katie. If you would each talk for about five minutes on the challenges you see in the Food Supply Chain , and how it affects your business, your members and what you do. Start. Everybody is on mute when they talk. Thank you so much. What i was saying is i feel privileged to be among you all today. Thank you for having me on to be voice for American Farmers and ranchers. We will talk about the production and how the pandemic has affected us. Of course, in five minutes, there no way you can talk about american agricultural agriculture. I will talk on the hotspots we have been talking about. Of course, i describe the situation we are in in agriculture like the perfect storm that we have experienced. It didnt start with the pandemic. Agriculture during the last seven or eight years has been a declining economy when everybody elses economy has been booming. Ours has been dwindling behind. Having a difficult time with this last ingredient of perfect storm after all of the natural disasters and everything that we have experienced in the trade war. We are appreciative of the that the president has brought to the agriculture and the last two years. We look forward to working with him. The perfect storm has caused an increase in the last 12 months ending march 2020 of increase in bankruptcies. 627 bankruptcies, 27 of the year before that. We are concerned about the ability of our farmers being able to repay debt, and the flex ability that the Financial Markets are going to allow for our farmers going to the future to be able to get operating loans to plant future crops. Of course, a main player and how we survive the financial position we are in is going to be the program that the secretary is going to deliver to act. Om the cares very appreciative of the president signing it. We thank congress for putting it out there we know the secretary and all of his employees have worked very hard. We look forward to that happening and what comes in that package is going to really determine how much how soon our farmers, how they can hold onto their future. One of the things we have been talking about is severely critical, the Processing Plants and problems we have had in getting our animals protein harvested. It is also dairy, poultry and pork. Vegetables. The processing part of it is really has just hit us in the face. See what important link that is in the food chain. Thatumber one concern is the employees on the farms, the employees and Processing Plants, employees at the Grocery Stores, everybody along the chain be safe in the things that we can do to protect them and their families after they get through working. This is the new normal. Who knows . This is the food chain we operate in today. It didnt happen overnight and it didnt happen in a vacuum. It is going to end up shaping agriculture in the future. As farmers is we have to get the processing part of this right. We have to find solutions to the problem. We have to get back to 100 capacity, because we all know that pipeline leading animals to harvest, that pipeline is full. And itpeline backs up costs millions and millions of dollars to our farmers. I went to say thank you to the secretary i want to say thank you to the secretary. We are really excited. We reached out and asked to sign on to the letter with us to have a conversation about creating a program such as that. We think they have done a tremendous job. We were delighted to see them deliver that out. I understand it is very possible with more than 600 people putting in plans to be able to utilize that. 600 Companies Going to put people back to work. Theres going to be food and farms. We are excited about being a part of that. We congratulate the secretary and his people on developing that program. One of the areas, i dont think we have talked about enough that im really concerned about is our heart land. That is what is going to happen with corn. Wethis pandemic, of course have had a war among oil people. Ahanol is a big part of america. Did tohat Rural America help our country become energy sufficient, being able to not depend on the rest the world for our energy. Corn in Rural America made a major role played a major role. Now those plants are shut down. It is going to affect oil prices. With the Processing Plants having problems, we have less animals going to be fed in the near future. That is going to be less corn consumed. Corn is really facing a difficult time and im really concerned about what is going with that. Ethanol is so important to Rural America. We need to focus on what is going to happen and how we make that industry survive, because it is an important link in what our farmers depend on. Of course, we also are real concerned about the new phase i trade treaty. Are some Difficult Conversations going on about many areas in our society. Those conversations could make the reality and the goals and phase i trade agreement with china difficult. Need phase i 40 billion worth of purchases that china promised to exercise this year. We need that to happen. It would help think the now Commodity Prices and help our farmers. We have had tremendous challenges. I could go on and on and talk, but cant stop talking about agriculture. My concern about bringing young people into agriculture. A young man ak young woman to consider agriculture when we are going through such difficult times . We have to make agriculture a bright future. We have to get it back on a profitable ground. We can draw people back to the industry and prepare this industry for the future. Much. You so thank you very much. You have ended right when i tell you to and. End. Next we have juliana potts. She has a huge background in agriculture. She will talk about the processing side of the picture which is the area that has received the most attention lately, and the one that has been in gridlock for the supply chain. Juliana . Thank you so much, secretary glickman. I am honored to be with you all today. Represent my role is to represent a lot of the processing, but meat and poultry processing has been very highprofile in the recent weeks. Secretary perdue also touched on some of the things that the viewers here have been reading about. It is my pleasure to go back and talk about some of these challenges. What we have done to address them, and how we are looking at toing forward, as we begin see turning the corner on these packing plants, and other processes getting back up to full capacity. Way back in february, when it became clear that we were going to be facing this pandemic, members of our organization across the entire spectrum so from the very Large Companies to the very small, began meeting weekly by telephone through the trade association to share best practices. They were very proactive in the kinds of things at their Processing Plant to deal with what was going to come our way, because it was rolling across the coal country. The whole country. Things like additional sanitation, extra communication about how to work within the pp ifand stay within it was available ppe if it was available. Things communicated about being with people who were sick outside of the plant, so screening questions. Every opportunity, sending people away who were exhibiting any symptoms or answering yes to any of the screening questions. This all started towards the beginning of this whole thing, and yet we knew it was coming, and we have seen a tremendous amount of covid that has happened within the workforce of our Processing Plants. We were in constant communication with usda, with osha, and with ecdc on getting and with the cdc on getting as local Health Authorities and state Health Authorities took different approaches, as things began to come up in their community. In addition to some of the challenges with covid in the workforce and plant, there was a lot of absenteeism due to fear. Harvesting ofe animals and the processing of meat is a very laborintensive activity. , andquires physical labor the labor situation even before covid for our plants was very tight. Any challenge you ask about pretty much in the first top one ,r two would be the workforce and the ability while the top priority our companies was always the safety of the workforce, and continues to be the slowing of the lines in the slowing of processing and the closure