Please put your phones on silent. Back in the day we used to tell them to turn them off but we want them on silent because would like you if you would be so inclined to live tweet this event. Is pound and pc life. We can follow that online. We would also like to take a moment while you are silencing your phone in turning off other potentially distracting devices to introduce our head table. Would like you to hold your applause until after the full head table is introduced and then you can erupt in a rapturous applause. We have starting from my left and youre right, mark heller. Hes an agricultural reporter. Paul marion, senior white house correspondent. Tamara harlingen at the atlanta journalconstitution. Sean rich, deputy commuter for secretary pretty. Philip, senior editor. Steven, deputy secretary of agriculture. Thats the number two for sonny perdue. We have betsy martin, executive and American University cochair. Skipping over our speaker for a moment, we have abby livingston, Washington Bureau chief at the texas room. Founder of pr in the who organized todays lunch. Tim murdoch, communication director for the Us Department of agriculture. Ellen ferguson covers agriculture and trade. Finally, may put in. Thank you for being here today. [applause] we would also like to acknowledge additional members of the Headliners Team responsible for organizing todays event. Lisa matthews, jamie horwitz, laurie russo and joe as well as press comes lindsay. Percys been a public radio audiences please be aware that in the audience today are members of the general public so any applause you hear is not the working press or even the unemployed press as occasionally the case in todays median environment. Getting to our speaker. Sonny perdue who joins a state. Secretary pretty can be found on twitter has a lifetime involvement with agriculture for his family operated a farm in georgia and of the state that would later elect him, first republican governor since the reconstruction era. In between that he served in the us air force rising to the rank of captain, received a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the university of georgia where he iran a private practice and also served 11 years in the Georgia State senate before becoming governor. He has run Small Businesses and it was that background he brought to a nationwide listening tour he recently completed. Today he will discuss that to her as well as his priorities on trade, what he would like to see the next farm bill and how he and the foreman of agriculture are trying to inspire the next generation of farm and agricultural leaders. Please join me in welcoming to the National PressClub Secretary of agriculture sonny perdue. [applause] thank you very much. Ive never run for president this is my first time at the press club but its good to be with you all today and you have shown your hospitality in many ways. Many of you have talked about welcoming me and im happy to be here but i thought the best example of your hospitality was this cookie here. The georgi georgia bulldog and e hoping that they would be in the National Championship as a former bulldog there. Good afternoon and i will speak from some prepared remarks and i told mike communication guy that i would say this and he asked me not to put them in a do it anyway. I said i usually speak extemporaneously but since you people write things down im going to read from prepared remarks. Theyve been vetted from everyone from our janitor and general counsel so everybody we ought to be good today but i want to start with somewhat of a provocative premise but it might not be so provocative for the press club but Something Like no other federal cabinet can complain because i believe this is true. Every single day every single american in every single visitor to our country is directly and tangibly affected by the work of our department in the United States of agriculture. Why do i say that . Because last time i checked in order to enjoy a great meal and in order to live each in this country and those that come in and be with us as well i happen to attend the g7 ministerial in italy or weeks ago and theres an International Discussion about gmls and i made the comment that millions of your citizens come to our country and i dont think they bring their lunch to us. Nonetheless that was not necessarily places for the e you people. But we know that even as people who send their kids to school with lunch are affected by usda policies as well and shopping in the supermarket and are affected by the usda will even take it a step further. The last time i checked we have to live and eat and breathe and then comes the us service, the Forest Service that capture a lot of carbon and make sure that our air is clean and so the u. S. Forest service part of the usda is affected by this as well. I think hyperbole may be a bipartisan cornerstone of this time town sometimes but when it comes to personal, daily touch the usda has the lives of everyone beyond the borders and i want to submit to you today the usda matters and that is why and fascinate with the job and im honored be serving as the 30 for secretary and we look forward to telling you a little bit about what were trying to do in the department these days. Given all of that important to them. Tell you you may feel like i should come with some flashy, glitzy policy proposal today but i resolved my heart a long time ago before this job that what people want from their government is not so much talk, a revolving door case of showcase agendas but they want to see government that works for them and i tried to do that when i was governor and i think in georgia there was a governor who once iran on the slogan hes a workhorse and not a show horse and i didnt use that but i guess i probably ceded to that description as well. I think people want government that works and they dont want government necessarily that talks out of both sides of their mouth talks when they are campaigning and dont do those things that it says. What i have pledged the men and women of the United States that i would do is to make ust work for them by turning it into my aspiration the most efficient, effective and customer focused and the best managed department in the federal government. Thats what i want to talk to you today. And how do we plan to that. Its a great aspiration i spoke to one group and gave them that aspiration and i used a modern metaphor is that we want to be the amazon of federal government. They said that is pretty strong and i said yes it is and were going to go big or go home and you either aspire to be the postal service. [laughter] so we want that kind of delivery of tools and solutions for people out there today. I think to me everything we do starts with the people we serve and people ask me all the time how i like being in washington as secretary of agriculture and my answer always is i love the job. Some of you got that. They wont let me tell work from georgia but id love it even more. Nonetheless, our offices here in dc and mary and i get along very fine but the fact is our people and our customers in those constituencies of the usda are not in dc and theyre all over the country and that is why since taking office we have been traveling with travel to over 30 states, six countries promoting Us Agriculture and we have are two rv back to back to our roots to work one through wisconsin minnesota, iowa, illinois and indiana and the other one up to the northeast where we travel about 22 miles and weve got two more plans for 2018. Why do we do that . Because i believe that people are seriously interested in the leaders who will listen and america in the public out there and certainly our constituents is crying for people who will hear them and hear their voice and let me just give you some examples of my experiences from the road on these tours of being out in so many listening sessions sitting down with people whose livelihood and lives depend on the usda. 150 people and on a cold, snowy morning in rural upstate new york crowding into a dairy barn to hear my vision for the usda. 250 people busted out of the seams of an old machine said in rural minnesota on a late friday afternoon. 150 people on a sunday afternoon session in the Central Valley of california. 800 folks showed up and filled a gymnasium floor in rural montana. One hundred people filled the front lawn of the farm bureau in rural massachusetts on a gloomy thursday afternoon. 500 people filled a rodeo floor in kansas city with virtually no notice. One hundred people filed under a tent in a cornfield almost an hour outside of springfield, illinois. Just on friday 120 college kids interested in the future and agriculture came to visit and have a roundtable at florida and am in tallahassee, florida. It goes on and on of the kind of hunger we see out there and how we in the United States government particularly the United States department of agriculture relate to people on the farms and fields in the communities of america. I dont say the things just to indicate how busy i have been but i say those things to let you know that people want to hear and they want to see people out there working. They are merely emblematic of our hungry how American People are in this town to listen to them. They want us to quit talking to them and to listen and thats what i have enjoyed doing. To understand their issues and work toward Common Solutions and i think its fairly fair to say that their demand was pent up. Would be the best description. Folks believe that they have found an honest listener and an honest broker and the secretary of agriculture and one wants to hear from them and to listen to their issues and to listen to their problems and hopefully work to solve some of them. I think this gives me a unique perspective of preserving two different worlds. One is the world of washington and of politics and you know it well and its here and alive and wellin the other world is the world of real people out there outside of this area that dont know about what goes on here and honestly i dont want to hurt your feelings but they dont really care too much. When i travel across america i dont get questions about the things that everyone in washington seems to be talking about. I dont get asked about the latest scandal i dont get asked even about the president s twitter account and the latest plates. I dont want to burst your bubble but those are the things that seem to be important people in this town which are never mentioned when i go and listen to people outside. Those are not the things that are on the minds of the American People generally. Went 100 or 100 people get out on a freezing cold snowy morning in rural upstate new york to talk to me about agriculture or 60000 young people join me in indianapolis where the they are pretty serious about what they do and what their aspirations are for their lives and how they can participate in the american dream. What are those folks saying i guess if ive been out there doing the listing what are they saying . And you may know that one of their top issues is trade. Many of them are anxious about trade in our trade policy but because of this. Exports are responsible for more than 20 of the us foreign income almost 20 cents of every farm income dollar derives from foreign sold products. It also drives rural Economic Activity and sports more than a million american jobs both home and off the farm. The 2014 farmville calls for a new position of undersecretary for trade and Foreign Agricultural services in that position is not created until we got here in may. I thought hearing for members of congress upon my confirmation and hearing from the people out in the field that i believe in the trade important and i know from our experience in my experience that trade is important. We created the position and invited the president nominated trent mckinney from indiana to fill that position and he hit the ground running. We met this morning to hear about his latest trip to come will be out in panama and brazil in just a few weeks hes already lost 30000 Miles Airport wise. He is on the road hitting the ground or fine, i guess. Exports are important and last year the us exports totaled a little under hundred 40 billion and thats up 10. 9 billion from the Previous Year and the third highest level on record even in spite of lower commodity prices. When you look at exports in terms of dollar terms its responsible because you got different price points to deal with. Read our lowest point in one of our lowest points in quantity points but experts are third highest. Its projected over [inaudible] which is right on track for the fy 17 and would be the fourth best year on record. The overall agricultural surplus is expected to grow 8 from 21. 3 billion to more than 23 billion in 2018. Our president , as you know, is concerned about our trade deficit and im prone to remind them every time im in his presence that agriculture contributes to a trade surplus and he needs to recognize that. We also have had great victories and trade that you have read about. We succeeded in hitting us meat back to china in the first time 13 years. We opened chinas american rights for the First Time Ever and were still working out some of those smaller details but weve got us port back into argentina for the First Time Since 1992 in the european union, plus their heart, have dropped the requirements in the us citrus groves we surveyed individually for citrus canker which eases the entry of us citrus under the eu market and it saves thousands of dollars in practice cost. Japan expanded Market Access for us potatoes and resuming imports from idaho for the first time in 11 years. Vietnam is also on the notified the us they will resume imports of distiller drives and the south korea has lifted its ban on imports of the us poultry and poultry products including fresh eggs. All those are good news but we want more. Im a growing kind of guy and i think we should [inaudible] i think if American Farmers produce it the usda ought to be helping to sell it and that is what undersecretary mckinney is all about. I suspect that more than a few of you will ask me about nafta if i dont address it now. I intend to frankly ask santa claus for perfect trade deal wrapped up in icing and put under the tree for all American Farmers but then i remembered the north pole might be too close to canada for those things to turn out well for us but all joking aside let me say this that i remain optimistic about the future of our trilateral trade relationship and i like to say and this is not original with me but if you look at mexico and the United States and canada i think we live in the best neighborhood on the planet and to have a deal that would take advantage of those relationships logistically in the common north america makes all the sense in the world. We know that agriculture in all three countries has benefited from nafta and we believe we modernizing and readjusting in some tweaking it can continue on. That is very important for our department and we know that President Trump is a tough negotiator and we know he puts America First but at the end of the day we will wind up with a renewed nafta that is better for american producers. Our official motto is because of the economy of the us and the economy of agriculture and how it fits in the us economy i think this is the official motto of the usda is agriculture is the foundation of manufacture and commerce. Thats a pretty powerful statement when you think about it about the relationship between the agricultural economy and overall economy. We too are a lot of great facilities and that was one in illinois that created and manufactured sprayers and theres the progress of technology in agriculture blows you away and they were designing a sprayer now with optical sensors that detected the noxious weeds in which you spray the chemical on the noxious weeds and those are the kind of things that are happening out here in america. Many people dont understand but the bottom line is a healthy agricultural economy is imperative for the rest of our economy to thrive as well. Trust me, our producers will do their part in that progression. We need a fair conditioning nafta agreement that to continue that. As far as trade goes to make terrific progress but i feel comfortable that we will reach a deal and hope tough things on the table as we should but i think we will reach a deal that works for everyone. Secondly, we have a foreign bill coming up very soon, 2018 and i believe the chairman feel like they are on track. They have done a lot of work in that area and so senator grassley things were behind but senator grassley has a lot of opinions. Anyway i think were on track for a good farm bill. The good news about it is i dont think there will be a revolutionary deal, randy, i think the 14 farm bill will be revolutionary talking and there a couple of places that didnt make it quite as good as many people had hoped and thats the dairy industry in the con industry and i thank you see some things to address that but i believe it will work. At the usda will provide the background and the research and the resources and the feedback that we hear from the heartland and all these listening sessions so that our members of congress that are responsible for the farm bill can make good on a backspace data driven farmville based on what we heard in our travelings, we are working on what we think is the right approach from the usda in the relationship that congress will be providing them with what we believe are the basic bedrock pistols that make a good farm bill. I think that some of these principles are just the direct result of what i heard from the people of agriculture during my travels and they are the ones that live with these policies day by day. They are the ones that have to execute the policies that we create and frankly, i believe they have some of the best ideas and what works from previous farm