During a House Agricultural Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. David Taylor (R-OH) asked Director of Agronomy at Nutrien Dr. Karl Wyant about differing regulations in the agricultural sector.
00:00To recognize a patient and very effective legislator, Mr. Taylor from Ohio for five minutes.
00:11Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member. I think if I just yield back before anybody walks in, you guys get to go home, but let's gamble a little bit here.
00:19Dr. Wyant, you have a lot of experience dealing with all the different state regulations and regulators, and you talked in your testimony about the trouble of a patchwork approach concerning definitions as well.
00:34Can you talk about how having 50 different regulations and 50 different definitions of something would complicate your business?
00:41Thank you, Congressman. Appreciate that question.
00:43And yeah, so having this patchwork of regulation means some farmers in some states have tools available to them.
00:49We're just going over a border. They don't have that tool. And that's quite frustrating to the growers.
00:55We experienced that. I'm from Arizona. We have access to tools that Californians don't, even though it's just a river that separates us.
01:03Climate's very similar. The stressors are very similar.
01:06Maybe the same for Midwestern growers now where there's this heat dome going across the country.
01:11An incredible stressful event for a crop that's developing at a sensitive time for yield.
01:18The heat dome doesn't care where state borders end and where they begin.
01:23It's a climate event. It's a weather event.
01:26So I think cleaning up some of that patchwork and providing a federal definition of what a biostimulant is and what it isn't,
01:34and then excluding it from FIFRA would really just expand access to the toolbox and even it out throughout these different states.
01:43Is that something you see a level of concern from the average farmer about, or are they not as concerned as they should be?
01:51If you understand what I'm trying to ask you.
01:53I hear the frustration. I came up in agriculture, California, Arizona.
01:57My first territory was Phoenix to San Diego.
02:00We farm out there.
02:01If you're eating a salad in the wintertime, it's coming from us.
02:05And lots of frustration from growers on the California side because they know their buddies over the river in Arizona have a tool that they don't have access to,
02:14and they're frustrated.
02:15And it's slow, it's delayed, and it's years later, maybe that tool does show up on the toolbox.
02:21And it's just differences in how states approach innovation.
02:26Sure.
02:26All right.
02:27Mr. Cameron, as a farmer at the Terranova Ranch for nearly 40 years, I think you can provide a unique perspective on the changes in the agricultural industry.
02:37From technology and equipment to yield and productivity, things have changed immensely in the ag industry over the last 40 years.
02:43During that time, I'm sure you've seen new technologies that helped, some that weren't the right fit, and maybe even some that you thought were going to be widespread but ultimately did not take off.
02:54America has been built on consistently changing and improving, but it can take time for adoption to occur.
02:59I'm curious, as a farmer, could you talk about how adopting new technologies, especially from startup companies, can be a daunting task?
03:09Yeah, we've worked with several startups over the years.
03:11We've actually worked with a company that is producing nitrogen fertilizer out of the atmosphere with electric energy.
03:22They came to our farm.
03:24We gave them a corner of the ranch.
03:26We actually had Secretary Vilsack see that, called it lightning in a bottle.
03:30They're now, due to federal grants, they upsized, and they're now cutting, they're going to start groundwork for a new facility in California in September.
03:43So I think working growers can help.
03:47They can give them advice.
03:48They can, there are things that are going to be great for agriculture.
03:52But the changes I've seen over the years are immense.
03:56I've got a vape amp, sodium metham, one-quart container that was purchased at Kmart generations ago.
04:05And now we know the restrictive nature of using that product.
04:10We've come a long way.
04:11We've improved a lot.
04:12And I think we have a great future as long as we continue with research, development, and being open to new products.
04:20Right.
04:21Are there things that we can do, meaning Congress, to incentivize the adoption of these things?
04:26I mean, other than make them cheaper, subsidize them, are there other things we can do?
04:30Yeah, I mean, we know that maybe tax breaks for new developments, possibly, for incentivizing growers to make adoption of new technology.
04:42There's a lot of ways to incentivize farmers to get these new methods on farm.
04:48Thank you very much.
04:50Appreciate everyone's time and sacrifices you made to be with us today.
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