I ended up being the governor of a very ag state, Nebraska.
We're going to do everything possible to make sure that food safety is always paramount, and that we work with the industry as aggressively as we can to make sure that we're paying attention to the food-safety issues.
When one cow was found with BSE in 2003, many of our trading partners closed their borders to our beef.
We had Taiwan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Oman open their markets to our beef, and we're excited about that.
We asked ourselves and the world to base decisions on good science, and I really believe the United States can be the leader in delivering that message to our international trading partners.
There is a certain amount of momentum that is achieved when one country after another reopens their borders.
The industry is becoming very ready for animal identification.
In this day and age when we do so much business in foreign trade, we need the ability to identify trace an animal very quickly, identifying where it came from - where it has been, and where it is at today.
The big producer is going to figure out how to deal with whatever the rules are, but the little guy who is running a few hundred units or maybe feeding 1,500 cattle a year, how will they ever comply with these requirements?
There is a tremendous amount of support for the approach we have taken, which again is to base our decisions on risk analysis and thoughtful scientific process.
Today, we can tell people we have a testing process and facilities in place on a nationwide basis.
