SECRETARY JOHANNS: Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Gale, for that very, very generous introduction. To all of you, welcome. We're glad to have you here. I must admit I look forward to this event because it's an opportunity for me to kind of reconnect, if you will. I was a member of 4-H myself some many years ago.

Mention was made that I grew up on a farm. I did. I grew up on a dairy farm in northern Iowa, Mitchell County, Iowa. Let me just use a little speaker's privilege here and ask are there any Iowans here in the crowd? Yes, right there. Well, very good. Where from? (Reponses off mike.) Black Hawk County, great.

Well, at some point in my life I went off to college and I left Iowa to go to Nebraska -

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah!

SECRETARY JOHANNS: Yeah, are there Nebraskans here? All right, great. Well, good. We're glad to have everybody here, but as I said, I wanted to use a little speaker's privilege to acknowledge those two groups.

I also want to, if I might, recognize our collegiate 4-H members for all the work that they have done to make this conference a success, to offer their leadership to the delegates and keep the roundtable discussions going. I appreciate the recommendations that have been made. I hope you noticed I was taking copious notes of what was being said.

I also want to say thank you to Dr. Kress for a great job in organizing this conference, but you got a lot of help in this effort, didn't you?

DR. CATHANN KRESS: (Laughs.) Yes.

SECRETARY JOHANNS: So we want to acknowledge that too. I met with the organizing committee a little earlier today and said thanks to them.

I know Dr. Kress says that you're the think tank of 4-H, and you know what? She's exactly right. I want you to know that we're going to give your recommendations and your comments very, very serious consideration. You may not realize that this working conference is very similar to what we did here at the USDA to develop our proposals for the 2007 Farm Bill. Like you, we went out and we listened to good ideas. We're asking folks -- who don't necessarily agree - to get together to talk about changes, problems facing U.S. agriculture. You know, in my judgment, this is kind of the very heart of the democratic process. We asked the question, "How can we do our job better?" in a whole range of areas, from renewable fuels to research to rural development, and we're making proposals that could move U.S. agriculture in a strong direction for the next century. Just like your recommendations could lead 4-H to new programs and new approaches, hopefully, to keep students not only today, but in the future, ahead of the curve.

I want you to know how proud I am of each and every one of you. The selection process for this conference has got to be tough. I mean, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of 4-H members out there that aren't here with us today, so you've achieved a great deal just to be here. The fact that you're a delegate this week says so much about you as a person. Don't ever forget that. It says a lot about your leadership skills, your citizenship, your community service. Now, looking back many, many years on those days I spent in 4-H, those years I spent in 4-H, I can tell you that it became the core of who I am - who I am today.

I want to say a few words, if I might, about 4-H. I think this is what 4-H is all about, you who stand in front of me. And because I'm a part of the 4-H family myself, I think I can promise you two things without hesitation. First, these qualities that I mentioned - leadership, community service, citizenship - are going to stand by you and serve you well in your years to come. Don't ever forget who you are. You have a great advantage, being a part of 4-H, being part of an organization that's so diverse, so complex, so dynamic.

You know, when I think about agriculture today, it's a different enterprise than when I grew up on that dairy farm in Mitchell County, Iowa, but some things, I would suggest to you, will never change. A life on a farm isn't easy, and I see a head or two nodding in agreement. You know what it's like to get up in the morning to do chores, to finish long after dark. But I wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the world. Growing up on that farm taught me discipline, it taught me a very strong work ethic, it taught me commitment to purpose. It also gave me mentors and heroes that I looked up to when I was growing up. They were the farmers that I admire even today.

And I promise you something else. If you pursue a career in agriculture, really, in any capacity - maybe you'll be in research, maybe you'll be in farming or ranching - I strongly urge you to pick this career. I promise you, you're going to find it enormously rewarding. This nation really is built on hard work, the solid values, the character, the contributions of rural America. Heroes are found in our small communities. Traditional values are still a part of their life. These things, as I suggested to you, haven't really changed, and they give you a foundation for meeting head-on all that has changed in American agriculture.

More than ever in our history, ladies and gentlemen, you'll be a part of an international, dynamic industry. I can tell you plainly and honestly that I've never seen opportunities like this in the agriculture sector. Now, in saying that I'll also share with you that there are challenges, and that's why we held those 52 Farm Bill Forums across this great nation from coast to coast. In all likelihood we were in your state. We wanted to give every farmer and rancher and stakeholder; a voice in developing farm policy for 2007. 4-H and FFA students participated in just about every session we held all across the country. In fact, we started the Forums by calling on them first. They led the line, if you will. They told us how difficult it is to get started in agriculture. Those who had an interest in production agriculture spoke to us about the high price of land and equipment. They shared real concerns about whether they could be a part of agriculture from a production standpoint in the future.

Now, the way I see it, ladies and gentlemen, we have a chance right now with the 2007 Farm Bill to make a real difference and, most importantly, to make a difference for your generation. We are making historic recommendations in our proposal that I believe will create a solid foundation for agriculture in the future. Let me talk to you a little bit about finance. How many of you here figure that you could buy a combine shortly after graduation? I have to inform you that the cost of that is about $200,000 or more, and tractors don't cost much less. Can you do this, on top of the college debt that you probably incurred just to get your way to that diploma? Well, I see a lot of heads saying no, Mike, we can't do that. Well, don't feel bad. When I was your age, I didn't have that kind of money either. In fact, my wife sometimes kids me that when she married me she married a deficit, not an asset on the financial statement.

So what we've done is to propose a bold initiative to help beginning farmers overcome these hurdles and to give them an opportunity, a pathway, for success. We're proposing to give beginning farmers a 20 percent increase in the direct payment if they're raising program crops. This would add about $250 million to their income over the next decade. On the credit side, young farmers keep asking us to figure out creative ways to help them get started, so we thought this through and we came up with some proposals to change the rules on our loan programs so we could help more beginning producers get started. We recommend cutting the interest rate in half, deferring the first payment for a year, increasing the maximum loan value, and increasing the size of both direct ownership and operating loans. But we don't want to stop there. We also want to do all we can to help what we call "socially disadvantaged" farmers, and these programs would also help those beginning farmers.

We need to bring each and every interested farmer or rancher into our system. This is the only way that we will achieve what we want to achieve, which is a transition to a new generation. And so we targeted programs in our conservation title directly tied these to farmers. Ladies and gentlemen, when we consider the bigger picture, when we talk about society, I can't help but think of the dynamic and dramatic changes taking place in rural America.

My friends, it will be your generation that will realize the goal of bringing renewable fuels into our everyday lives. I believe bioenergy from agriculture offers the rural economy its biggest new market in history. The implications for rural America of this booming energy source are truly enormous. New ethanol and biodiesel plants are going up across the country, bringing jobs and economic opportunities, and our Farm Bill package also responds to this. We plan to spend $500 million to create a bioenergy and bioproducts research program, and maybe that's where your interest is, in research. Well, we are going to be a part of funding that future. And $500 million more for grants for alternative energy and energy efficiency. We're also making proposals to speed the development of cellulosic ethanol.

You know, back in my time at 4-H, I was raised by a gentleman that grew up at a time when he could remember no electricity to rural America. And the extent of my father's productivity was how many cows he could milk by hand in a day. And when he reached that limit, 12 or 13 cows, that was it. And no matter how much government money might have been sent to him in a program, that was still his limit; it was all he could do to milk those cows. And then somebody came along with a bigger vision and said, "Whether you are the most rural county in Iowa or whether you are the most isolated county in the state of Arizona or New Mexico, we are going to bring you electricity." And all of sudden my father's world changed, and his productivity doubled or tripled with the flip of a switch. For me, that moment was a transforming moment for rural America, a divide between one way of life and the promise of progress and the promise of better opportunity for his family.

As high school students at this very historic moment in U.S. agriculture, you're right on the edge of one of these points in history that will be a defining moment. I'd love to wind back the clock, stand in your shoes and move forward, but that is in your hands now. And I'll tell you what, I am absolutely comfortable with that. I have so much confidence in each of you. Your opportunities as leaders, as wise stewards of our resources, as strong citizens, are boundless. I urge you to make the most of them - hopefully, in a career in agriculture. Agriculture needs you and the nation needs the best and the brightest, and you're it. And remember, as newsman Tom Brokaw once said, "You know, it's easy to make a buck. It's a lot harder to make a difference." Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

Well, and that moment has come. I've got the gavel. And so with that, I now declare this 77th Annual National 4-H Conference of the year 2007 officially adjourned. (Strikes gavel.)

(Cheers, applause.)