We trade with other countries, and so leading us through this very important global conversation is adam ferris, our moderator, legislative assessment for senator James Langford who covers International Trade, policy and homeland security. Adam will graduate from the u. S. Army war college with a mavsers of Strategic Study in july. So congratulations, adam. The light at the end of the tunnel. Some students graduating in may in the room. Dale moore, executive director for Public Policy at the American Farm bureau federation, joined afbf in 2011 as deputy direct oroff Public Policy and manager of the greg and trade policy team. Brings 30 years of experience in Public Policy and communications to afbf. Lisa schroeder the global director of trade for the dow chemical company. As part she has direct responsibilities for defining and making the companys global trade agenda and developing a strategy on International Aspects of corporate issues. Based in washington, dc, her responsibilities include trade policy and legislation, trade negotiation, and investment issues that foster growth and dows global businesses through identification of policies facilitating Market Access and reducing Global Distribution costs. Ken backus is director of International Trade and Market Access and is based in washington, dc. Ken is the National Lead advocate on trade issues, including nafta, restoring access to china, expanding access to japan and other pacific rim markets and this position kent works with congress, the white house, and foreign governments to advance the u. S. Beef industrys trade priorities. He was the associate director or legislative affairs and represented ncpa on texas, trade and transportation issues. Ken joined ncba in 2010 after serving on several political campaigns in texas and working at the agriculture and appropriateses assistant to u. S. Senator elizabeth dole. Give me a big georgetown welcome to our panelists. [applause] thank you very much for introduction, im adam ferris and we have three distinguished pammests today that are eager to share their insights and thoughts with you guys about the importance of free trade and agriculture. I note that you just got to hear a little bit about us and i thought it might be a good idea if the panel knew more about our audience. So, can we gate show of hands how many georgetown students in the audience today . Awesome. Very good. Any congressional hill staff . A couple rows. Thank you. Any executive branch folks that might be in the audience . One. Nice. Thanks for being here. So if its okay, open is up for introductions and then go off into a q a section which i will start off. Kent, if you want to start off. Thanks so much for havingmer here. Let me tell you about who the National CattlemensBeef Association is, as an industry we represent the the largest and oldest trade association representing the cattle industry. Been around since the 1890s, and have been had a presence here in washington, dc for quite some time. We cover production from the cowcalf side to retail, and thats really the important thing for us is to make sure that we can speak on behalf of those men and women who are producing our food, who cant have a daily presence here in washington. As far as trade goes, when you look at beef production in the United States, most of what we consume what we produce is consumed here in domestically. Only about 10 to 15 is actually exported. The United States is still one of the greatest marketness the world for beef consumption and beef sales in the United States, beef industry, we dominate here. So, weve got a saturated market here. Very developed Consumer Base, and so in order to increase our sales, we have to look beyond our borders. You hear the statistic commonly used that 9596 of the worlds consumers live outside of our borders. And so its important for us to try to target those different markets. For beef in particular, north america has been a great place for us. Nafta created two 1 billion markets on either side of the bored, mexico consumes a lot of cuts that american consumes find less desirable and were able to sell things there at a premium. Well talk more about that. The main focus has been asia, where we have seen a tremendous growth and really over the last five years, weve seen a shift in our expert focus export focus from north america to asia. The biggest market is japan. In 2017 we came close to selling almost 2 billion worth of u. S. Beef products to japanese consumers and thats with a 381 2 take tariff applied to the beef. Its been a great market for us, cuts like tongues, rounds, chuck shoulders, Everything Else like that, we were able to sell there at a premium, and really we would not be able to sell at a premium here domestically so thats why we target those areas. Korea is our second largest export market. We sold roughly 1. 2 billion worth of beef there, and under the korea Free Trade Agreement we have seen our experts double. So we exports double. So we have lot of opportunities in asia. Going to be a big focus for us and thats where a lot of our trade barriers still lie. Thats why we have really requested so much attention from congress, from the administration to focus efforts on opening those asian markets. Thats really where we see a lot of potential and thats where our focus is going to be. The reason why that is so important to us is that experts account for 300 per head. So its important to our producers because with market with market volatility, the different swings in cattle prices its important to develop sturdy export markets to help offset the volatility. So, were, again, happy to be here today and look forward to the questions. I can tell already i have to hold the microphone and i talk with my hand. So if i fade in and out thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to be here. I work for American Farm bureau federation, we are the nations largest general farm organization, roughly 6 million member families across the country. We have presence, footprint, if in every state puerto rico. So we have a 51 affiliates. We also are in the Car Insurance business, banking business, number of other branches of the family that are, again, part of farm bureau. One of the things in trade being one of those, when we look at trade, because we represent all commodities, we represent all the different size us of farmers and rank ranchers. We represent the organic growers to nose using the latest hightech, biotech kind of approaches to managing their farms. When we look at trade, our basic macro level is roughly a third of what is produced in the United States by americas farms and ranch is destined for export. It veries much accommodate commodities. In the pacific northwest, wheat degree america that area and the type of wheat they, raise anywhere from 80 to 85 of that wheat is destined for exhort. You then crops, the grains and cotton, Dairy Products but theres also the specialty crop crop crops, future and vehicle damages, farmers in hawaii and puerto rico, very active in the coffee market. Maybe a small niche marketing kind of approach. When it comes to trait its fundamentally and linked to where the farm economy is. Without trade, were in deep economic strife. Were looking at going into the fifth year of downturn in terms of the economic platform that agriculture stands on. We have lost roughly have the net farm income over the last five years. Most of our producers are in the commodity business which means the prices they get nor their commodities, their crops, livestock, are not things they get to set. Theyre price takers, not pricemakers, so when you have a commodity that is particularly dependent on exports, you run into a on trade, you run into situations where a little ripple right now were wrestling with china who is upset about tariffs announcements on washing machines, on solar panels and other things so they in effect are dropping the hammer on grains. A their little form of retaliation getting our attention. Not a whole lot we can do about what is going on we solar panels but at the same time knew wore working to fight to get that work out. Working on the nafta renegotiation, working on a lot of different fronts, including the fact that when we pulled out of the Transpacific Partnership, the tariff kent mentioned on beef, we had a really good deal with japan on that. Thats not in the offing now. When you talk about a Bilateral Agreement with these countries, theyre pretty straightforward in telling you, were not really interested in going back to that particular drawing board. Yall are going to have to start over. When we look at trade, there is out in the countryside i guarantee if you brought to and filled this auditorium with farmers and ranchers, a good number of them would say i dont understand the trade thing. I dont sell to japan or mexico. Sell to the local Grain Elevator or the local meat packer or the local farm stand, and now im dealing with an issue when id much rather have you focusing on the farm bill 0 other issues. So trade is one where we spend as much time encouraging congress, encouraging the executive branch to Pay Attention to agriculture trade as we do spending time out in the countryside, letting our members know why this issue is so important. So appreciate the opportunity to be here. Look forward to answering questions, as always, been in town 30 years ceasefire the questions are easy youll get a short answer. Thank you. Lisa schroeder with dow chemical. Dow chemical is a historic and american iconic company, operating not only here in the u. S. But around the world. We also as of last year permanented wherever i dupont, so one thing i really want to highlight out of that merger and gives us a great opportunity in terms of looking at the Agriculture Sector, as my colleagues talk about, ag is a sector, its an entire value chain, not just the end product in your supermarket. So, when we look at agriculture, were looking at everything from seeds and Crop Protection technology, innovation and farm and heavy machinery, equipment, to data and packaging and the Logistics Network that actually gets that product into your supermarket or farm stand. Its really important to look at that think that ag across the chain because then you get a sense of the impact we have on the economy. That is a lot of jobs, even from the guy just helping to pack the truck thats on the way to your super market. Thats why the u. S. Has real advantages. We are an enormous Agricultural Producer and one of to the most innovative territories in tick. In particular we you think Crop Production, seed technology, thats a great example of where signs is driving health, environment, yield innovation to help get the farmer more out of his crop that ends up getting more out into the food value chain. Great example is dow back in 2005, we created a new canola oil. Its taken a billion pounds of fat out of the american diet. Theres a lot of innovation and signs that americans bring to agriculture that is a benefit not only for our health and nutrition here in the out but around the world at a time. When the Food Security challenge is only getting more difficult. We drive innovation in things like precision agriculture that partnership width Great Companies like john deere to look at how data can help us ensure take the volatility out of american Agricultural Production. Resource efficiency. How to grow more with less water or other resources that are becoming increasingly scarce. As we look at all the Great Innovation and the development of these products in america, we also need to look at the export market. This is very much about as were growing all of this, eventually people want to get paid for what theyre contributing and that means accessing a lot of markets reasons the world. Tariffs have been mixed mentioned quite a lot and that tends to be the first place most people go to. Tariffs are a big part of grandmas because theyre very quantifiable. If you knock down the 141 2 japan charges on ag chemicals thats very much about Market Access. The trade goes way beyond. I. For agriculture there are critical areas like regular larry to use. Regulatoriy barriers are deeper barrier because theyre stopping our product from leaving the country or in some case preventing products from being introduced, innovative Crop Production materials because you dont have import licenses to key customer countries like china for those biotechnology products. And if you look at nafta, its one of the why we are such big supporters of the agreement, theres actually a regulatoriy cooperation chapter specific to chemical, and the reason thats in there and the reason thats so supported by not only the u. S. Chemical industry but also mexico and canada is because its about raising the standard trade really gives us an opportunity to imbed sound science, transparent, efficient approaches to regulatoriy that get to the heart of what regulations are supposed to do ensure high levels of health and safety while also promoting economic competitiveness. Of course, to do that, we fundamentally need an underlying nafta agreement so were very hopeful progress that was made in montreal we can continue to capture the good and eventually get to a modernized nafta. There are other areas in trade agreements these days, too. Reasons why modernization is a good idea. Dat. Nafta was signed in 1994. There was not a lot of effort to think about ecommerce or digital signatures on documentation, crossborder data flows, believe it or not there was a time when the internet was not so prevalent. We werent writing it into agreements yet. We need think about things like crossborder data flows, custom fa facilitation. A computer might be able to wait at the port. Mose gruesomal products cannot most Agricultural Products cannot and we have to be efficient great Great American innovation straight to our customer. One reason why its an interesting opportunity to have this conversation with all of you because there really have been a lot of changes in the way agriculture is produced in this country and the opportunities in the relevant of the world. Ill stuff there because im much more interested in your discussion than hearing myself rattlen on. Ill ask the first few questions but i want to leave a lot of im for the audience to ask questions as well. I think its just as important for the panel to hear from the audience as it is for the audience to hear from the panel today. So, if i could id like to start with kind of a general question about trade and agriculture that a lot of you had in your opening remarks but just wanted to leave an opportunity to mention anything else on this. So, ag has been an important part of american trade policy for many years, American Farmers are extremely efficient, which is witness bed the fact we have had a surplus in agriculturear products and many years. Can you talk a little bit about why ag has been such a success in the context of trade compared to other industries. Im going to start off because i can give a really general answer and then let the smart folks answer after me. Fundamentally because when you look around the world good,s and services we have and you look at the marketplace out across the world, there are a number of good, solid market are for agricultural food, fiber, feed, where the economies dont have them clamoring for the latest iphone or computer or whenever else. And secondly, Everybody Needs to eat. For a lot of country is have the opportunity to participate with fort mcnair and the Industrial College of the armed forces and one thing they look it is a most of the time when we have men and women in harms way there in countries where Food Security is a real deal. Is food available period . I think thats one advantage we have when we help through different programs, get the opportunity to develop a market. We also cotton is a great example where our textile industry has duped but the u. S. Exports 70plus percent of our raw cotton going to countries that have developed a milling industry and a textile industry, and we help feed that Economic Development in those countries. So, thats not really food but its Agricultural Production that helps feed the economy, not just the people around the world. I would just add to that, the point about innovation. Think in particular when you look at american agricultures, whether its getting the food out that solves these food sustainability, Food Security issues, or looking at the broader opportunity of integrating things like packaging so we can get more product out to markets safely. When you look at cotton production, the science and the opportunity to develop not only just selling cotton but cotton is actually customized. Creating solution products so that customer in other parts of the world have products that are really going fit their marketplace, where its a cotton thats more specific to highend clothing versus lowend. Theres a great amount of American Science and