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Good morning,
Board of Directors.

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As all of you know,
from 2000 to 2007,

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the US lost four million
acres in cultural land

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to development.

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It is really the size
of Massachusetts.

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And although there are
federal policies targeted

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to combat this loss
of farmland, they

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are not nearly enough to
deal with this problem

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we have here at home.

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And so I'll speak
about three things.

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Firstly, what I
intend to find out

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on my upcoming trips to
EU, Japan, and Australia,

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who I intend to find out
this information from.

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Secondly, what opportunities
I see in these trips

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for cross-contextual learning.

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And thirdly, what
challenges I anticipate

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translating this learning
to ideas and strategies

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that are really useful
for us here in the US.

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So firstly, in these
regions we intend

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to focus on three critical
issues drawn from the problems

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here at home.

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We termed the three Ps--

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place, policies, and people.

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So firstly, this very strong
geographical notion of place

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and a battle for it.

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The US is losing its
finest land to development,

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and we want to fight
out in these regions

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how they view the trade-off
between development

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and farmland protection,
or if it even exists

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for them in the first place.

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Secondly, we want to find out
what policies these regions

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have to combat the development
of farmland into other uses

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and that impact on performance,
and thirdly, the people.

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We want to find out the
cultural institutions

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the cultural mindsets to our
buttressing cases and policies,

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essentially what the
stakeholders of these farming

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communities are responding
to the policies that

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are being developed.

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So who do we intend to find
out this affirmation from?

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We intend to look for
stakeholders' business

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industry that are driving the
interaction between farmland

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and development.

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And they will inform us most
about the issues of place.

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We also intend to talk to
the chairpersons and culture

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committees in EU member states,
as well as officials in pockets

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of every culture in
Japan, Australia,

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to find out about their
experiences, that challenges,

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and their successes when
dealing with farmland protection

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policies.

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We also plan to
look at the people

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to whom these
effects of policies

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are filtering down to the
members of the farming

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community.

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Who through their
individually unique stories,

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as opposed to just
policy memos and big data

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will inform us most
about issues of people.

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We need these three
pieces together

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to find out what was
intended, what is happening,

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and what it really should be.

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So the next idea I'll
would like to talk about

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would be the why I want to
visit these three countries,

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what opportunities there are.

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Is it really necessary
and valuable endeavor?

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And I would say yes because
these three regions are

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similar enough to
the US to raise

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the possibility of
opportunities for learning,

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and yet different enough to
guarantee these opportunities

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for learning.

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So the US the EU,
Japan, Australia,

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they are like the US next
industrialized nations.

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If you look beyond the broad
similarities of wealth, power,

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development levels, inference,
a whole host differences appear.

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They are located in different
parts of the world--

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the Western Hemisphere, Asia,
and the Southern Hemisphere--

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there are different geographies,
histories, neighborhoods,

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contexts, and ideologies.

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And these differences drive
cross-contextual learning

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for two reasons.

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Firstly, they greatly
reduce the learning curve

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for looking at the effects
of different policies

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by providing a test bed with
exposed results as well.

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So instead of sitting up with
all of us debating the merits

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and demerits of increased
intervention in farming

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policies, we need
only look at Japan--

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highest-producing support
levels among OECD countries,

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overly protective
subsidies that have

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driven average annual
household income

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levels 25% to 30% higher
than the national average

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in Australia, the second
lowest producer support

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levels of OECD
countries and where

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a strong adherence to
market-oriented policies

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has actually created a
different result from Japan.

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And secondly, these
countries also

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provide us with different
ideas that we might not

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have considered before.

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For example, the European
Union's common agriculture

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policy contracts with
farmers for the provision

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of ecological services, which is
alternative to the traditional

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notion here in US where
farmland policy is essentially

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meant to protect land
for productive purposes.

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So essentially, exposure
to these new ideas

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would provide us
a bigger toolkit

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to develop more
robust strategies

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for farmland protection
here in the US.

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But with these
great opportunities

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also come great challenges
in two forms, essentially--

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differences in institutions
and differences in cultural.

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So differences in institutions
like political systems, laws--

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they essentially make policies
not all but irrelevant

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to the United States
in a certain vein.

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In European Union, they
have a greater acceptance

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of regional-international
treaties and conventions.

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And this has
implications for trying

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to transplant policies across
the Atlantic and culture.

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We cannot underestimate the
influx of culture, history,

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and policies.

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For example, after
all, in Japan,

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the reason for the high levels
of producer support can be

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traced back to the memories
shortage that occurred after

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World War II, something that
cannot be said of the US.

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So what may be
popular in my country

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may be wildly
unpopular in another.

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So what we intend
to do on our trip

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is not to be transplanters of
these policies back to the US.

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We intend to be translators
where we take the spirit

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and not let letter
of these policies

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and combine it with the our
understanding of the realities

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here in the US to develop
a selection of ideas

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that circumvent differences
in institutions and account

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for differences in culture.

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That said, even in the
US, the institutions

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do change and cultures do
evolve [INAUDIBLE] at a much

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lower rate.

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And even within a country,
cultures do vary very widely.

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So even ideas that
seem improbable for now

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should not be discarded, but
kept for future reference

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so whenever the time comes, we
are ready to implement them.

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So in conclusion, my trips
will have great [INAUDIBLE]

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opportunities, but also
affront with challenges,

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but an appreciation that points
that differences in countries

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are the drivers of learning,
and not similarities, and also

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an appreciation that
policy-learning observations

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are just a start to create
a translation effort

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should allow us to reap the
full benefits of our trips.

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Thank you for attending.