Taxpayer dollars are being well spent in this regard . Well, ive asked the deputy secretary to lead this effort and she is traveling around the country visiting with a number of organizations and groups who are interested in getting into farming or folks who are encouraging people to get into farming. One of the issues that has cropped up is this issue of land tenure. Candidly, you mentioned the fact that there are going to be a lot of people retiring and leaving the farming business. That is probably true. The the question is what happens to the land . Whoever owns that land what is their ultimate goal here or their relatives ultimate goal . Is it to maximize return or is it to create opportunity for the next generation or is it a combination of both . Frankly, ive asked the this task force to come with recommendations on this issue of land tenure. What can we do should we do . As usda with reference to our programs to ensure that there is that proper balance so that its not a focus simply on bottom line but its a focus on next generation. Number one. Number two, you all asked us to create a liaison position with the military which we have done. Karas is actively pursuing efforts to try to get into military bases with information about farming opportunities. And basically providing opportunities for us to actually go on base to talk to folks that may be retiring or thinking about retiring about the opportunities that exist in farming. I think its also helpful the recent alliance to create a more positive image about farming and a more supportive image to push back a little bit on some of the folks who are constantly critical of farmers. And i have seen recently some very very positive good ads. I saw one yesterday from corn growers that was fabulous about the opportunities in farming. And i think the more we are we focus on the positive aspects of farming the more we focus on all kind of diversity within farming and diversity size of operations, methods of production, crops being produced and people, the better its going to be in terms of our ability to attract more young people younger people or more folks into this business. Were seeing an uptick in beginning farmers. We still have more to do. And i appreciate you bringing up the military. I would encourage you our Veterans Administration in vermont on the border with New Hampshire has the programs for veterans in farming because of the connections to working with their hands, working outdoors, there is Good Mental Health aspects conducive to a better transition back into civilian life. I also wanted to commend your deputy for come to New Hampshire to have an event with women farmers. And i really appreciate that. I think that is something that we need to look into and i look forward to working with you on all of these programs to bring in different constituencies to farming. You know if i can, mr. Chairman, the issue of veterans is one that i care deeply about. Its obviously personal to me because of a nephew that served in afghanistan who is now potentially hopefully thinking about a career after a he graduates from college in Forest Service. These folks are good problem solvers. One of the challenges that weve seen at usda and ive asked secretary mcdonald about this is were trying to get more veterans to work at the usda and were trying to get more veterans to work in federal government generally. Weve had some success. But the attrition rate, folks coming and leaving is disproportionately high. Why is that. What do we need to do to make sure these folks are acclimated to get back into a system inspect the Forest Service is nice because it has a military mindset, but the other missionaryists, i think we need to continue to do a little more work so we make it a welcoming place for veteranes and that should increase the number of people getting into farming from veterans. Mr. Secretary you mentioned a vaccine thats 100 effective for ai. I wonder if that might be in reference to a company out of iowa. Its not. Its a different company. The seed strain congressman, has been done by our researchers in concert with another company. But there is nothing to prevent vaccine from participating in this once we get it figured out. And im hopeful there will be an open competition to that and we can bring all the technology to the table and i appreciate your words on that. The key here, i think, is for whatever entity gets to it first being willing to provide the Licensing Arrangements and we would absolutely facilitate that because no one company this is my belief. I dont know if this is right or not. But no one company is going to be able to produce as much as we need as quickly as we need it. Hopefully well be able to get a lot of folks working to collaboratively together. We stockpile it enough so if this thing does hit and hits us hard were in a position to respond quickly. Theres much to be said about vaccines, and i appreciate your comments on this. I happen to have gone to watch a demonstration project in iowa right before the fourth of july that is taking out by that demonstration more than 99 of the soluble phosphorous that was expended at the discharge of the plant. And i just wanted to bring that to your attention that theres new technology thats emerging here that looks like it could effectively solve the phosphorous problem that we have. I mentioned that and i didnt know if that was something that you were aware of. I wasnt aware of that. What i was referring to was the use of foss ferus at the base of a tree thats been hit by this and somehow thats an impact on minimizing the consequences. I will get that information to you and ask you to pass that along to your people that will be focused on it. Sure. And then thats then another piece of this, theres so much to be said about bird flu. And i wanted to make sure that the committee is aware and the public is aware of how big this is. Ill say i know of no livestock disease problem ever in the history of this country thats met the magnitude of this maybe on influenza that we have. And im open to my rebuttal to that. However, into that, were looking at nationwide 48 million birds that have been affected by this. 8 75 of players in iowa. So this is devastating to a very localized region in the country. And it began in the turkey region in minnesota as far as the midwestern component of this is concerned. I know the usda deployed people up there quickly. By the time it hit in iowa my numbers are about 47 turkey locations were positive before it spilled over into two turkey locations in iowa. From there it hit the large laying operation near harris, iowa, and accounting. Thats when i think it became such a large epidemic that it was for a time out of control. So i wanted to speak with you about the things that need to be prepared for another event that may happen. And the focus on the east coast im glad to see that here. I think its very appropriate that they do that. But the resources that youve had, i think you testified here that they were at least adequate to this moment. And im happy to be supportive if you need more resources. I would want to bring to your attention some of the things like the Emergency Response component of this. The level of urgency that i thought i should have seen more in line with a flood or hurricane, i thought that level of urgency should have been higher. The chain of command so we know what that order of command is and who we can community with. Maybe look tts core of engineers approach on how they bring a lot of resources into play under a military style command so there can be a quicker response. You mentioned the disposal. That was the biggest problem. It was the biggest problem from the beginning. Im very troubled by what we had to do and some of that is composting birds outside. An attempt to cover them with sawdust or cover silver, but still exposed to birds that can carry that disease elsewhere. There are a number of epidemiological studies that is at this point not completely complete. It is going to be, i think, the key to how we bring biosecurity to bear which might well be the key to how we set up something maybe under rma for an income interruption type of insurance for our producers. Not only the layers. So there are a lot of components of this that i would like to weigh in on. I should write a series of open he hads on this and have a talk or is there a better method so that we can convey if the next disaster pray it doesnt that i can be in a position to see can be implemented for solutions. He think the first stop is any ideas you have come to the meeting in iowa and share them which is designed to get people to discuss this openly and fully, number one. Number two i agree with you in terms of the instant command process. Thats why we are setting up a much different system. I agree with you disposal is an issue. Its not dictated just by the federal folks. That is why identify instructed our team to begin to think about where this could potentially happen in states that have not yet been hit. Where in landfills can we begin having discussions now to acquire them with what this is all about, why its not a risk for them to participate in disposal disposal issues absolutely. No question thats an issue and thats why were looking at ways in which we can do a better job of that. The study is going to be supplemented, i think, by next week. We may learn additional steps in terms of biosecurity and i think longterm the issue of a Disaster Program makes a lot of sense. So theres an awful lot of work thats been done, going to be done. If you have input, id be more than happy to receive it next week. Thank you. Mr. Labafa for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. And thank you, secretary bill for being so available to this committee and to faithfully coming as often as you do. Its appreciated. I just wanted to follow up on previous talks in the past about californias drought situation and emergency or relief funding that was made available which was announced february of 2014. And intended for Emergency Assistance in the drought period. So actually it was in response to 2013 drought and so we still have additional years of on top of that. We just need some more help with the state fsa offices on getting that out there because weve had only a handful that have actually been issued of drought relief funds that have been processed. We have and i have the email from one of the state here that shows that theres still outstanding 180 applications of an initial 5. 4 million that was approved in an account and theres at least 3. 9 million still remaining in that same reserve that needs to be disbursed in response to the 2013. So were here in 2015 and for those that really need that, they must be having a lot of answers here having to provide their bankers, etcetera. Can you help us with whatever its going to take to expedite in 2015 asap to get those dashls of those 180 appear applicants, get those out and the remaineder of those funds, get those disbursed please . Conch man, as a result of your efforts, were prioritizing the county because of your concerns. Its not just our office. We work and have to work through the state of companys rules and regulations. Theres a Cultural Resource review, a tribal preservation officer that are involved in reviewing these projects. It depends on even for something as simple as the disbursement of funds . Yes, yes. It is california. The producer has to basically submit their receipts and then he is essentially reimbursed for 75 of the work. So were we will do what we can. We understand how important this is. Thats why we allocated Additional Resources in 2014. Why we just recently announced Additional Resources in 2015. Thank you. We understand the problem. All right. Can we work with you on finding ways to where youve run into roadblocks to be able to move those hurdles . Sure opinion this should not have any cultural effect. Im not pointing at you sir. Just the other end of the process. If we can hem us find that, it doesnt have that negative effect and need all that review. Is that reasonable . Yes, it is. And just to follow up on one of my previous questions, talked about the waters v. United states ruling on the epa. To the other side of that, if the usda were to identify a wetland that the corps or whoever have not identified what would that mean for farmers and ranchers . Would that make those wetlands identified as uca a clean water act wetland, too, do you think . Congressman, i apologize. I just dont have the information and knowledge to be able to answer your question accurately or adequately. But i have obviously been asked this question by you and variations of it by other members of the committee. Im certainly happen to go back and ask our team to brief me on there and get me up to speed on precisely how best to answer. I appreciate it. The United States waters are a moving target, too. Maybe if we can anticipate a this some of these things woernt happen. Ing, sir. I agree with you that its a moving target and it may very well take a political process and a judge at some point in time to figure it out. But i apologize that im not able to answer your question. So thank you, sir. The question that i have, and its because my district right now sometimes you hear around this nation where people are lack of water, lack of water, lack of water, well, we would like to send some to them. And im just kind of wondering because i know our kwfr from the state of illinois is applying for a disaster declaration. How are you prepared and how does that process work for or forms that are just devastated from the flooding that were experiencing right through the corn belt . Well if the governor is asking for sectarian designation, it comes through our process and we try to respond to it as quickly as we can. We know that that then gives us the capacity to make emergency loans more readily available, those kinds of things. The other question i have, i know youre talking about implementing new Information Technology and that type of programs out there. Would any of that reduce and or shut down any of our Service Centers by the does it centralize it or do we still have our centers in the field or is there any well it should reduce the amount of busy work and paperwork and is already actually doing that in terms of reducing the amount of staff time. In the past what would happen is if you came into an fsa office and you needed information literally paper records would have to be pulled. That obviously takes time. Now, thats no longer the situation. You can call it up on the screen pretty quickly. Clearly, thats going to reduce the amount of time thats been spent in the past on those issues. Now, what weve attempted to do is to try to plan for that by create ing creating we can create an opportunity where fsa becomes more by minimizing what they do in terms of their relationship with farmers. We would like to see them be a provider of information about other usda programs that might assist the farmer that may not be an nrcs program or may not be a farm loan program, but they could be a marketing programs. Whether there can learn enough about our Rural Development programs to say, hey, have you ever thought about this value added opportunity . Have you ever thought about this cooperative opportunity . As way of create additional responsibilities, Additional Information that will allow them to maintain their legitimacy and their relevance. There are issues relative to this structure that we have today. In my view there are 31 offices today in fsa that have no full Time Employee in them. But i cannot close those offices because congress has directed me not to close any office. So when you basically say to me close 31 office webs i say fine, but you have to ask the question is that really operating it like a bit . Thank you. I yield back. I wanted to touch base basically on the issue of the ad26s and new conservation compliance requirements that we have in the farm bill. And the chief and we had a conversation on that. So i wanted to follow up on that. I know the agencies has talk bd the need to have that form. But i do have concerns that the fall is going to come and the bill is going to come due and there are maybe some farmers or ranchers kind of surprises because they missed it. Whether it was livestock or perhaps specialty crops some folks that this may be somewhat new to and any of those did or did not complete the ad1026 form in time of that number some of them are no longer farming. Some of them are no longer around. So that number is going to be significantly reduced by the time its all said and done. Congressman, we really made an effort. Every press release that went out about this, six months in advance made reference about that one day. We worked with the companies to make phone calls, to send emails. There was an aggressive comprehensive effort and i think thats why you saw as many people sign up. At the end of the day there may well be a handful of folks that just didnt get it done. But i think on balance, we did the best we could with a firm date that was set in law. Is there any do you have any flexibility at this point . And im glad to hear that that was the number i had heard, too, 10,000. As you said, some of those may not be farming today. They may be choosing not to just go down that route in terms of cross insurance. But i mean im just curious, any tolls that you may have as we get closer to that and we see that people start to discover that theyre just not going to be in compliance therefore their premiums may not take it out of range in terms of whats affordable in terms of managing the risk . I dont know if we provide you with any flexible in the final hour. We are sending out letters now to the handful of folks that may, as you say, be surprised when they find out. Ive been told we dont have any flexibility. Im happy to go back and ask that question one more time. But i dont think we have much of thats why i was so insistent on a massive effort to make sure that everybody knew the june 1 date was come up. I cant tell you how many interviews i gave about that, how many times i mentioned it. I think the department has done a great job of pushing that information out. So i look forward to keeping in contact with you as we get closer to that date just to see how we did in the end. Fair enough. Thank you. Mr. Chairman i yield back. The gentlemans time the gentleman yields back. Mr. Abraham for five minutes. Thank you for being here. I representative northeast louisiana. The problem we had coming up it goes back to how generic based acres are former cotton acreage are divided among farmers. For some reason, the fsa has decided to divide u