 Good morning, everyone. Well, that was pretty good. I'm impressed. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. I'm glad to see you all here this morning. Really appreciate you coming for this special honor to welcome Beth Ford back to Purdue today. Beth doesn't do that many of these types of lectures right now. She's all over the country doing so many different things and we really appreciate her taking her time to come to Purdue University. She's been instrumental in building and maintaining a strong relationship with Purdue through their support of the Land O'Lakes Experiential Learning Center in Purina Pavilion, the Land O'Lakes Global Food Challenge internship with a number of our students who have taken advantage of that and Endowed Chair in Ag Economics and many other activities at Purdue. Land O'Lakes has really been a great partner to Purdue and we're proud that Beth is here to talk to us today with both faculty, staff and students about building a sustainable future. Beth was named President and CEO of Land O'Lakes in August 2018. She's only one of 25 women who sit at the head of Fortune 500 companies. Before her current position, she held a series of successful executive positions in the company. In 2017, she was named Chief Operating Officer of Land O'Lakes Businesses where she oversaw Land O'Lakes Windfield United, Purina Animal Nutrition Dairy Foods Business Units. Prior to that, she was head of Land O'Lakes Dairy Foods in Purina Animal Nutrition Businesses where she led record performance and growth, leveraging innovation through R&D to strengthen both brands. She also was instrumental in the acquisition of Vermont Creamery in early 2017. And for those that don't know, many of this is dear to my heart as an animal scientist who was involved Purina Animal Nutrition and as somebody who came from Vermont, so knows Vermont Creamery. Prior to joining Land O'Lakes in 2011, Beth had excelled in executive operations management and supply chain roles in international flavors and fragrances, mobile corporation, PepsiCo and Pepsi Bottling Company and Scholastic. She has more than 20 years experience in the areas of technology and R&D across these four companies. Beth is an Iowa native who earned an MBA at Columbia University Business School and a BBA at Iowa State University. So please join me in welcoming Beth Ford. Jason Lusk, who most of you know, he's the department head of ag economics and a distinguished professor. And he is going to be here to have a conversation with Beth. Let's chat. All right, well, thank you, Karen. Beth, we're really thrilled to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time. Well, hold your judgment. I'll see what that looks like at the end. I'm pretty confident we're gonna be happy that you're here, but thank you for being here. It's a real honor. So just in terms of plan, we'll have a little chat here for about 45 minutes or so and then open the floor to some questions from the audience. So if you're sitting out there in the audience and something comes to mind, you might hold it for a few minutes and you'll have a question asked Beth here in a minute. So as you probably know here at Purdue, this is our 150th anniversary and there's four themes that the university has been celebrating and one of those is a theme around sustainability. And at Land O'Lakes, you're intimately involved in the food supply chain all the way from ag input supplies to farm to the retail. And in that context, what does sustainability mean to you and to Land O'Lakes and how do you implement that concept in a business like Land O'Lakes? Yeah, I think the farmer, so Land O'Lakes retains farmer ownership or a co-op. In fact, we have some of our members here and board members here today. And I think the original environmentalists, the original entrepreneurs, the American farmer, and they have every reason to continue to invest in their land and improve sustainable production. So when we think of it, we think of it right at the farm level all the way to retail. Now there has been increasing, not just pressures, but increasing interest from consumers about sustainable production, making sure, especially with discussions of climate change, the production at the farm level is sustainable for the long term. And that is the investment that farmers make every day in their land. They want to hand it over to their children to the next generation. Many of the farmers that we work with are third, fourth generation farmers or more. And so they have every reason to invest in their land and continue down that journey. So I think that, how do we think of it? Well, we think of it right at the farm level. Our tools, we just launched our Trutera platform and it is a technology platform. It has over a trillion data points where we can use this information and a farmer's information aligned with applied research plots that allow them to get a better visual, and we also have satellite technology, a better visual of different productive areas of their farm and where they should invest, where they should produce investment, what different changes they can make that can monetize the changes where they're improving or increasing their sustainable production. And that's really important because the ag economy, many of you know, and who of you from a farm yourself? Quite a few. And so it's a very difficult time. It's been a challenging time. And so a farmer like any businessman or woman needs to make sure that the changes they make are productive and profitable. So we think of it in terms of tools, technology, leverage of technology, our own insights, and then working with them to improve this and do it at the same level or at the same time as improving their profitability. One of the things that I think comes up quite a bit is whether that can be priced in the market. So do you get a differentiated price because your production is sustainable? And I would say that probably most instances is the price of admission. You're not necessarily gonna get price up for sustainable production. It's an expectation for consumers. So consumers in many instances are in charge. They're making a value-based assessment of who you are. And when I say values, it's not the monetary values. It's who you are from a person. How do you treat your employees? Are you aligned with what's going on in the environment? And so for many, this is the price of admission. We do see companies focusing in and wanting to make sure that they're working with ingredient suppliers that have sustainable production. The question is whether they'll fund that or help fund that over the long term. It's sporadic, I would say. So there are many, many elements of the response to that question, whether it's consumer side working right with the farmer, and then of course, sustainability up and down the value chain, which is relatively unique for Mlanda Lake since we go right from the farm all the way to the store shelf. Sure. So let's drill in a little bit more on those incentives to adopt some of those sustainability practices. Some maybe like the new technologies that you touched on, it's a benefit to the farmer if it lowers production costs, but presumably some of the things that are being demanded, you said there's a lot of pressure, might cost the farmer more money, you indicated maybe it's a price of admission, but to what extent are consumers willing to pay more for some of these things and how do you get that supply chain to maybe channel some of that money back to the farmer? Is it just gonna be a, this is the price you have to pay to play in this business? Well, there are a lot of answers to that question. I think, so you could look at it and say, well, is organic more sustainable? And I think that there's a perception that's true and that's not necessarily true at all. It might conventional organic may not be more sustainable for the long term for the environment. You know that. And so the question is, are people deciding that they're going to pay more for that? And again, people are making a values judgment. What I find interesting and really actually kind of concerning is this idea that there's an assessment of a good food, bad food narrative, the good food, bad food. And so I had a very near and experienced where I was at a swim practice for one of my sons and the mom next to me was saying, well, you know, this year I'm not going to take, we're not taking any vacation and I'm not going to buy any clothes and stuff because I'm going to make sure my kids all get, I'm going to only shop at like this store and we're only going to have food that's like organic and things like that. And I said, you know, I was listening to your conversation, might I have a word with you? Because I want to talk with you about what is true, what is it you're trying to achieve? And no matter how much I spoke with her, I couldn't convince her. And I think what happens is people are left with guilty feelings. I'm less of a mom if I don't buy this kind of food for my child. And I think it's a very risky proposition in this good food, bad food kind of a scenario. So can you price up? Well, in some instances, the question is, is there real foundational improvement in health or in climate, impact to the climate? You know, I would argue that some of this is marketing and some of it is, you know, true sustainable production. The way that we're seeing farmers monetize this to me is more exciting. And one of the ways that we see them, I'll use California, some of our dairy producers in the Central Valley, we've been working with CalBio and there was a government policy in California to reduce methane by say 40% for our dairy producers. And we have some fairly large producers out there. And so what we found is that there's a natural gas line going in from the Central Valley down to Los Angeles. And we partnered with the government there, they gave an allocation of I would say like $90 million. And then we allowed for a loan for our farmers to put in a digester, methane digester. So they get methane capture, they clean it, it goes into a gasket, it gets put in the line and it goes down to Los Angeles and it fuels the city buses. I mean, that's the circular economy. That's the virtuous circular economy. And then the water is used to go in and clean the barns and do things like that over the long term. So this to me is a different way of thinking of it versus is the consumer willing to pay for it. The consumer in many instances is being messaged, good food, bad food, non-GMO, GMO, blah, blah, blah. And at the same time, the farmer, it doesn't necessarily translate into an improved price to the farmer and there are other ways that they can make investments like I'm mentioning here in California that I think improves their profitability because now they can sell the biogas in the marketplace and improves their operation and efficiency on their farm and is better for society. Sure, so you mentioned your dairy producers out in California, so I wanna ask a little bit just about animal agriculture. I know you have a lot of dairy member owners or dairy producers as owners. And there's been a lot of concern expressed mainly in the media, but in other quarters about animal agriculture in general. It's all kinds of concerns about health, environment, animal welfare. And really I'm just curious on your thoughts about where you see the future of animal agriculture. Where is it going? Are there, how does the industry engage in some of these concerns or is it a passing fat or is this something that's here to stay and we'll have to deal with in some meaningful way? I don't think it's a passing fat. The whole economy is built on innovators and entrepreneurs. So I get this question a lot when I'm in New York or elsewhere and it's, do I get concerned with the impossible burger and the cell base and the plant base and I'm like, you do you and I'm gonna do me. The reality is that it's growing but it's off a very small base and guess what animal protein is growing as well and it will continue to grow because when folks get in more into the middle class they come off of plant-based diets. Interesting statistic, vegans or vegetarians, four out of five only retain being a vegan or vegetarian for one year and then they go back to some level of animal protein. So it's not to say, proves it. The fact is animal agriculture will continue, animal protein will continue and will continue. So where I don't need to get into an argument about this good or bad because that's not productive. Instead, what we wanna do is work with our producers on improvements that they can make in their operation that will be more sustainable. We had a speaker at our mid-year meeting who was an expert in this field and talked about the fact that methane only stays in the atmosphere for 10 years and we've had kind of flat animal numbers. So this is not one of the big drivers for issues right now but yet of course it would look at you say, oh geez, isn't this 14%, I mean the numbers fly around. Is it 14% of the problem, 15% of the problem? Again, I think we are where we are. Animal agriculture will continue. We will continue to work with our producers and we'll continue to work to make improvements and they want to do that as well. This is being forced on them. This is what they do. I wanna remind everybody 96% of farms are still family owned. So this big corporate farm is doing this. How do farms get bigger? The farmer decides to retire or leave and so the neighbor buys the property or buys the land. This isn't some transition to large corporate farming which again in and of itself puts a visual for people as though this is a bad thing and I would argue that's not been the heritage and the nature of what happens in the evolution of the increase of farm size. This might be heretical to ask but some of the other ag companies have considered investing or have invested in some of these plant based or cell based alternatives. Has that been anything Lando Lakes has considered or is it not in your strategic mix of alternatives? It's not a primary. We look at all options and we'll continue to do that. We're not doing that right this minute but of course our R&D teams look at all of these alternatives in our marketing and our consumer goods areas continue to look at this as well. Yeah, speaking of your R&D, whose idea was it to come up with the, taking a stick of butter and just splitting in half? I love those in our house. Brilliant. Yeah, I don't know. Let's just cut it in half. Right. You know the half stick, it is very interesting because the automation of that, the manufacturing, we have a very specific agreement with the company that manufactures that line and as long as we buy one line every couple of years we retain that special differentiation in the marketplace and so we're pretty careful with that. The half stick is really interesting because one of the things we found is that people don't like to touch butter. So if you're cooking it's easy to just unwrap something and put it in there. The other thing is that people like fresh butter and so if you're a young couple or you're kind of, you don't have a large family and you don't go through as much butter, but I'm asking you, why wouldn't you go through a lot of the butter? Judge you. It ends up being perfect because it keeps it fresh and so there are multiple reasons from a cooking perspective, from a lifestyle perspective and it's one of our fastest growing areas of that butter portfolio. Yeah. Now we were talking just a little bit backstage about the ag economy in general and it's been a tough time for a lot of producers, particularly dairy producers. On the dairy side, are we gonna see more exits and bankruptcies, more consolidation? I mean, how do you see this shaking out on in terms of the economics of production agriculture? Yes, we probably will see continued consolidation. I think a concerning number to me in probably 2001, I think it's in the year, there were 90,000 registered dairy producers and today there's 50,000 and it's consolidating at a 6%, 6.5% rate right now. It has been a significant length of time where the market has been depressed and it's been overproduction because guess what? Animal numbers have not come down. It's spread about 9 million milky cows now and genetics has improved and animal husbandry have improved and feed quality has improved and so milk output continues to grow and then when you get more consolidation, they're able to hold on for a longer period of time and feed costs were lower because of grain pricing being lower. So there's multiple facets. I think we will see some additional consolidation in the dairy sector. All the farmers and the dairy farmers, the growers and everything, they have my unbelievable admiration. The fact of the matter is these dairy producers and many farmers, the average income has been 44,000. The median has been minus 1,500. They're living on loans and the only way that many of them are making money is by the second job, they have the third job. They're driving a truck. They're teaching school. They're doing other things to maintain their farm and their way of life. I think we haven't reached, I did see a statistic about the debt in the farm economy. It's reaching where it was in the 1980s during the farm crisis, but of course we don't have as much variable rate interest so they aren't seeing that 13, 14% interest. That's allowing them to hold on and then we've seen land values kind of hold their value so that's been important. So we will see some additional consolidation. Animals will move because they can't hold on for forever and many of them would wish to be able to do this. Again, nobody's giving you a medal if it's 3 a.m. and it's a blizzard and you're out because you've got a problem with a manure pump, a pump of manure, it's just, and they do that kind of work and they want to do that kind of work and so I think there's shorthand like, but if you're smart and you're young, you should go to the city and I don't think so. And a lot of people we should admire the sacrifice they're making but it's not even a sacrifice to them. This is what they do, they do the hard work and so it's heartbreaking, it's very challenging when you're with a producer or a grower who wants to do the hard work and we should be grateful they're doing the hard work and it's very difficult for them to hold on without taking on additional jobs and even then they can only hold on for so long. Yeah, is there, not to end that discussion on a pessimistic note, are there any optimistic signs in terms of the... Milk supply is balanced a little bit now. We haven't seen this much because it was multiple years in a row of an increase of a couple percent, one and a half percent, 1% to 2%. So it's getting a little bit more in supply in different regions, I think in the West Coast. All milk prices tipped up over 18, 18 and a half dollars. I think depending on if you, I think the average dairy producer now has probably got 400, 400 heads. So I think that right now we're seeing a strengthening of milk price and in some areas they're making money and that's important. What's always interesting to me is they reinvest in their land or they're paying off that. I mean, they know how to strengthen their balance sheet for the next turn. So I do see some, a bit of a lift. I see milk production kind of stabilizing. The biggest thing and as you know, I'll be leaving here to go into DC is that we need passage of USMCA. It's critical for agriculture. Critical for dairy, it's the number one dairy market that we export to and one day out of seven and dairy production is exported through different products. And so the cows are milking every day and you gotta find a home for the milk. And export markets in agriculture in general, I've been critical to the profitability and the long-term sustainability of production agriculture. So we need passage of USMCA to stabilize the market. So share a few more thoughts about policy. As you mentioned, you're going to DC right after this and you're very engaged with our elected officials. What do you sort of see as the role of farm policy sort of at a general level? There are some that say, this producer support is needed to help the struggling farmers that you just mentioned, stabilize prices, help deal with excess supply. But there are others that worry about overproduction, environmental consequences, health issues or what have you, just sort of as a general position, how do you think about farm policy and what appropriate farm policy should be? You mentioned the trade side already. Yeah, I mean, I spend a lot of time talking about trade. I'll also be spending some time talking about immigration, immigration reform because farm workers access to farm workers. I guess what the increase in wages for the farm economy has outstripped the increase in regular wages, but I don't see a lot of American citizens standing up and saying, I want to do that work. Probably 40, 50% of farmers are more, we're not able to access enough labor and there isn't enough automation yet in the sector to offset, although some in dairy are getting into robotics and robotic milkers and everything because of this lack of access to workers and then lack of access to, or the increase in wages. So I think that the policy issues around immigration and around trade are central. We've had a strong dollar that hasn't helped exports, but there are a couple of other things that I want to talk a lot about. I think people think of it, especially in the cities that the farm economy is struggling as though it's completely disconnected with your life and it isn't because we have a shared destiny in the cities and in rural communities and I'm concerned about policy issues, about infrastructure investment in rural communities, especially around broadband access, technology access because the ability for a family or for anybody to strengthen their community and everybody wants a strong vibrant rural economy is directly related to opportunity and so you have situations where people are taking their children to the McDonald's or the Dairy Queen to get broadband so they can finish their homework because they don't have it in their town or they can't afford it in their home and 25 to 30% of farmers don't have access to broadband and right now that's inefficient in about five years that'll be catastrophic. I mean that is the pace of change and the leverage of technology not just an efficiency on the farm, but we're not seeding the territory. I mean we're not giving up the land and then suddenly we're gonna hit the button and it's gonna all come back. I mean people will leave and we see stores closing, we have a shortage of 40,000 doctors, we have an opioid crisis in rural America, three of four farmers or farm workers have been directly impacted by the opioid crisis. That is a stunning number. You can't take advantage of a telemedicine, teleeducation, there's the entrepreneurs. I mean these are critical issues. So this policy issue, I talk very directly about immigration and trade, but I've been really pushing on these other investments because it doesn't just stop to say it's really been tough times for the farmers. These are surrounded by towns that lack then investment because the farm economy is central to the strength and vibrancy of that rural town. And so many universities don't recruit students at these towns because it's not profitable because I don't have enough students who can afford to go to college. I mean there's a significant number of issues that are policy issues that are central. So I do spend quite a bit of my time, we also have a government affairs team and a communications team and I spend quite a bit of time on these issues because they are central given especially that Land O'Lakes is a farmer owned member owned business, our members live in these communities, our business is done in these communities and we need to have investment for them. And frankly I would argue that this is a security issue for the United States. I mean it's been one of the foundational, fundamental things for the strength of the U.S. economy. Healthy, not just profitable but efficient food source and food production industry. And it feels like we're forgetting that. We get into a city and we're like, we go to the grocery store. Grocery store always has stuff as though that's gonna be just present. And guess what, we have a shared destiny and we need investment in these communities. Yeah, I like that concept of shared destiny. I'm gonna steal that and use it. So hope you don't mind. You're welcome to do it. Please do because we need to raise awareness. And when I go out and I speak or when I talk about this, the encouragement I take is even when I'm doing, I haven't given a speech in Chicago or New York, they'll say we didn't know. We didn't know that there was a lack of access. We didn't know that there was a shortage of 40,000 doctors in rural America. We didn't know about all these things and how can we help? And we need that. And I'm not trying to overstate it but many of these places, I'd say it's like the rural, some of these rural towns are becoming like the inner city and we should think of that. I want of course you to have the nice library in downtown Chicago. I'd like for some basic investment in technology in the towns in rural America so that they can continue to develop businesses and raise their family and we should all be grateful that they want to do that. Yeah. So I'm gonna shift gears. We've been talking about the US, you talked a little bit about trade and you talked about investments here in the US but Land O'Lakes has a pretty extensive international development mission. In some ways it's a little strange because you're owned by US-centric producers in some sense, so talk a little bit about why Land O'Lakes would be engaged in international development and how this sort of fits with your goals as a company. Well, it's called Venture 37 actually. We now have changed because it used to just be international development and it really wasn't a distinguishing brand but we work with a lot of small holder farmers especially in West Africa but we've worked in a number of different places. So the genesis of this really was probably almost 40 years ago and our farmer members, I think this is again one of the things that I admire so much about it, they saw the neighborhood, they always want to work on continuing to improve their towns and they saw the neighborhood as the world and they knew they had information to share about farming and agriculture so that they could help other economies improve their food security and then eventually potentially grow their own business here in the United States. So our board, our farmer members, they're very actively involved, very supportive of this. It's usually funded, the projects are funded by USAID, by the Gates Foundation, by other organizations, so it's an NGO and so how does it fit with our mission? Well, it fits with the mission and the culture of what we do at Land O'Lakes, period. Now having said that, we have more recently stepped into a more commercialization of different businesses. We have a business called Villa with crop protection business in South Africa. We're building a mill with Bidco in Kenya. We do some work in China with a partner from Europe. We invested in the Dairy Institute in China. We do some business in Mexico. We have some operations in Canada. I mean, so we are not broad multinational, let's say that 7%, 8% of our revenue is coming from international areas, but 95% of the population lives outside of the United States. So I think you'd be well-served to understand what international markets are doing and then some instances be very basic and go in with our assets and not necessarily our brands, but our R&D, our understanding of technical issues with animal and production agriculture. Yeah. Well, the investments you talked about as your farmer member owners viewing their neighborhoods, I mean, it seems like one of the neighborhoods you all care about are Land Grant universities. We do. And as Dean Plout was mentioning when she was introducing you, Land O'Lakes has been very generous with this Land Grant University with Purdue. So first, thank you for that. You're welcome. Well, it's not just me. It's our board and our foundation and we think Purdue has got a spectacular, it's a terrific university. We have a number of Purdue grads and plus the investment in research here has been very much aligned with what we do at Land O'Lakes. Well, yeah. And I think one of the things I've enjoyed about Purdue are connections to organizations like Land O'Lakes and Dean Plout mentioned our animal science pavilion that y'all helped generate. We have an endowed chair in our department sitting right there, Alan Gray, who has Land O'Lakes endowed chair and several of our students. I know both in our department of agricultural economics when the university have been involved in the global food challenge that you've done for those. So, just talk a little bit about what you're trying to accomplish with some of those activities and we know what's in it for us. What's in it for you? Well, I mean, I'd say multiple things. First of all, we do think you have some of the best in class research. And so we like to be connected. Sometimes we'll do a discrete project. Sometimes we're learning. That's critically important. Obviously, there are a lot of students here that we think highly of. And this is a key market for us in Indiana and elsewhere in the Upper Midwest and elsewhere because it's not like Indiana. You graduate from Purdue and then you only stay in the region, right? You go everywhere in the world. So we do it because we wanna recruit the best students and I think that that's important for us. We also understand this public-private partnership that is beneficial, I think, not from just the business perspective, but from the economy, from the learning perspective. So we really concentrate our efforts with a few key universities, Purdue is one of them. And we want that partnership. I'd say oftentimes when I'm speaking, people say, Land O'Lakes, we love your butter. And then they kind of leave it at that. I'm like, I love the butter too. It's awesome. But it's a fraction of the business and let me tell you what we really do and why this business is so interesting. And so that opportunity to help people understand what it is that we do and what business is and what we're focused on. And I mean, that's just a terrific opportunity. So we concentrate our efforts with universities who we believe are aligned in their research. In one other point I would make what I appreciate and what I'm hopeful for from the universities that we partner with is that they will be advocates for appropriate, to me, use of science in industry. So I appreciated your president coming out with a very strong statement about GMOs because that was a technology that was almost going to be lost. And so it takes what many would perceive as an independent voice, an experienced voice, deep in research, like a university, like a professor, like a dean, like a president, to make that point because if I make the point, it's like, oh, well, of course they have something in it. We get a little bit of past because we're farmer-owned so they can say, oh, the farmers, we can represent the farmers. But the universities, I would encourage to be active voices and students to be active voices for things that you know are aligned with science and research. And unfortunately, there are a lot of voices in social media or marketing or things like that that oftentimes drown out the facts. And that's a problem. So universities who have that depth of knowledge and are willing to stand up and say, wait a minute, this is, I think every university president said this is a moral issue. Right, I mean, here we're just talking about our development group and these technologies can help save a family. I mean, it was literally that intimate. So we hope for this partnership where we're sharing information but also we love the universities who step out, the leaders who step out to kind of, I don't wanna say debate, but put a halt to, I think, false perceptions that are developed in social media. Yeah, well, thanks for that encouragement. That's good to hear. You talked about one of the reasons you come to produce to recruit students for those students who are in the audience that might want to work at Lando Lakes or one of the affiliated companies. What advice would you give them to be both an attractive person to hire but also as a successful in their career, no matter what they choose? Well, I mean, I say a couple of things. First of all, you have such a unique opportunity on campus and I know you're busy, but be well-rounded. I love it when I get a good resume. They've got a good grade point average, but it's not everything. And now, I'm sorry, teachers. Don't listen to that part. Exactly, yeah. That's, I'm sorry, I asked, you know you shouldn't know the answer before you ask that question. It is important to have a foundation of decent grades, don't misunderstand. I love it when you got a 4.0, but to me, you have to be a whole person. We hire the whole person. So I like it when you're involved in a club or your house or something in the community or you have a job, especially if it's kind of not a sexy job. I clean toilets, that's how I pay my way through college. And not because I say, oh, everybody should go out and clean toilets, because that's not fun work. But you do this because what I wanna see is the work ethic, the willingness to work hard and do the tough things, I think it's important. No matter the business, this is not unique to agriculture. It is not unique to any, it's not, I've been on the trading floor. I mean, it's just that ability or that willingness to have the intellectual curiosity to continue to learn and to do the different types of things. The other thing I always tell interns when they come in with us is that you're smart enough, I mean, Purdue is not an easy school to get into. So I'm gonna assume everybody's smart enough to figure out the jobs, right? Careers are built on relationships. Careers are built on relationships. And so when you understand, especially in this role, it's really little about you and it's really about enabling others to achieve their success. It's about making sure at every level, including right now as a student, hey, do you want this job or we're thinking about a tree for this job? And you say, it's not really right for me, but Sally, I was working with Sally and you should talk with her. Enabling and understanding that this isn't a zero-sum game, that this is about long-term relationships in your career and in your life, I would say would be most important. So while you're here, take advantage of all of the different opportunities. You wanna become more well-rounded, develop your desire for and you're pushing intellectual curiosity. But build relationships. They will stay with you throughout your life, throughout your career. And I have had people that have worked with me or for me three or four times in my career as I've moved across companies. I mean, I still stay in touch with my friends from grade school, literally. They have stories and I don't want them to share it on. They're like, oh, I see you're back in the Midwest. I said, zip it. I don't need to talk about the event down by the river. But those relationships are so important. It is the fabric of your life and it is so central to successful careers and career development. Yeah. So shortly after you were named CEO, there was a Time Magazine article that quoted you and you said you would rather talk about the challenges of helping farmers feed a growing world population. You'd rather talk more about that than your personal life but I'm gonna ask you a question anyway. You said now that, quote, and it's not gonna be anything about down by the river. Okay. I was gonna say who called you. But your quote was, I'm being announced as a CEO, not a woman CEO, not a Iowan CEO or a gay CEO. But that being said in agriculture, you know, it's often viewed as a very male dominated field. It's something sometimes a diversity and inclusion we've struggled with a little bit in agriculture. What can we do to make agriculture and agribusiness a desirable place to work for women and minorities? And what advice do you potentially have for young women in the audience who are interested in a career in agriculture? Well, I think agriculture and food production itself is such important work, such meaningful work. And I think it's perfectly aligned with women. So we have actually an increase in the number of women we recruit. We probably now have 40 plus percent in our company and that's improving. I think that it's always the pipeline. Do you bring them in and then do they rise to the top? That's the bigger concern that I have and it's any industry. It's whether you're continuing to get promotions at the same rate and whether you're staying in a line job which will qualify you for more senior roles. So the advice I always say is please get diverse and get broad early in your career. Please take the field job. They'll say, oh, the job at headquarters and they'll feel great and I'm gonna wear this nice clothing and it's gonna be terrific. And you should not not do that but there's a huge value in your career for early stages getting opportunities to be a leader and opportunities to understand how a business really works because you'll be more credible and the breadth of experiences, take a sideways move, take a downward move, do something different because, again, it gives you so much more opportunity as you go further in your career and it is a bit of a pyramid. So they're gonna look for who's brought us and they'll especially look for those and I look all the way to COO, EVP when I hire and down at the line level whether they are able to be a good leader of people. No matter the job, head of tech services, quality. And the reason is you won't know everything and if you have the humility enough to realize you don't know everything but you're smart enough to understand that others want to engage with you and you can ask for help, then you can be a good leader of people. You wanna develop good followership and have that experience. So getting broad early and then being a good leader of people I think is centrally important to an effective career management. This other thing, this characterization of diversity in the sector, I think that people who want to do meaningful work would find some of the most, I mean, this is the most meaningful work of my career and I've worked in publishing and I love that, again, because it was meaningful work to me. Scholastic, children's quick publisher is about literacy in children and who doesn't wanna do that? So yeah, I'm gonna do that. But I was in the oil industry, I was in consumer goods, I was in chemicals, I've worked internationally, I've worked in a lot of different businesses and it felt like all of those experiences put me right here where I'm supposed to be with a breath of experience and an appreciation for the structure and for the members and for the team. And so I think it's the most meaningful work of my career. Rather than say the industry or anything, what I would always encourage people to do is just allow yourself to go on the journey of your career and don't expect it's gonna be linear and it's gonna be just like this. The interesting thing about life as it happens, you're on the field and so things will happen. Make be selective, be a good partner, don't be that guy, the guy or gal who nobody wants to work with because they're hard to get along with, you don't get your work done. We all know this because we have group projects, right? You know, I was like, oh, Joe, really? Hey, Joe, Joe never gets his stuff done, right? And that always is, I'm like, don't be Joe, don't be Joe because it is very simple like that. It is very much like be somebody who isn't about themselves, be somebody who is about enabling somebody else, be interesting, read broadly, try new things, fail, fail a lot, that's how you learn and there will be many failures in your career and you should embrace them, you should embrace them. There is that saying that if you don't have a Joe in your projects, it might be you. So that's also that it might require a little kind of introspection, occasionally. Well, good, well, I'm gonna ask you one more question and after that we'll open the floor for questions from you all. So if you have a question in mind, I think I just encourage you to come to one of these mics here on the side and I also might ask that if you have a question you ask a pithy question. So it's an opportunity to ask Beth a question, not to have your own speech, we can do that later. But so if you have something you wanna say, feel free to make your way over to the mic. I just wanted to end on a kind of broader question about your thoughts on the future. I mentioned produce celebration of 150 years. Actually today we're celebrating my department of Agricultural Economics 100th year. And as I, if I understand right, in about two years Land O'Lakes will be 100 years old. And so what are some of the big things you've seen, the changes at Land O'Lakes, but maybe more important than that, where is Land O'Lakes gonna be 100 years from now or if that's too hard, maybe five years. Well, I'd say even five years will be challenging because that's the speed of change and we should all recognize that. Foundationally, the business started in 1921 upper Midwest dairy farmers wanting to get power on the channel and get their sweet cream butter into the population centers in the East. So they formed this co-op and that marketing co-op was successful and then they formed a supply co-op that balance for animal feed and other supplies. And so what was interesting about the evolution of Land O'Lakes is over time, very much like any business, they kind of got outside those kind of, this is the lane where we have strength, right? Instead they got into other businesses, live animals, we got some hog produced production, we did an egg business because we have an animal feed business, we know how to feed the chickens and we know the egg industry, not true. And so I think that there was a kind of a decentralization of the structure and then got into other businesses that were somehow aligned. And then our last CEO, Chris Palsinski, brought it back into an operating company model and pulled us back into the core areas where Land O'Lakes has differentiated from farmers, so the animal nutrition business, the wind field technologies and dairy. So I think that that's the case. Now we have been going through a very challenging cycle as you know in agriculture right now. And so my job, the team's job is to look at growth opportunities for the business going forward and that's what we've been very busy working on. And the exciting news for us was the teams came up with over a hundred and some ideas. So it's not like we lack any vision for what things are aligned with our portfolio or where things are growing. And then we take that work and we say, we're gonna narrow it down to the top 14 or 15 because you can't do everything. And even 14 or 15 is a lot. And it's across all of the businesses. And from that, we're gonna look at pockets of growth because there are still things growing. So like in grocery, very disrupted industry, what's growing is a grocery round, where you get your chicken and your salad at the grocery store or high-end deli. There's a premiumization in the market. So I say these things to say, think of the pace of change. Foundationally, the company is right here. We have to look at things that are more directly aligned, opportunities that are core. Hey, in the animal agriculture business, we didn't know that there was cattle that had moved into a particular area. Perhaps we should put some sales people over there. There's some near-end things and then there's some broader things. I think you're gonna see something that's more insight-driven, more technology-focused because we are focused on insights and analytics. We have big data, we have data silos, we have predictive analytics. So you're gonna see something that is more focused like that. I think you'll see us focusing on services. So I always say, who's winning in retail? And we are owned by local retailers in rural communities. Who's winning? Well, who isn't winning? Well, we know J.C. Pennies, Sears, right? Sears, we always used to shop at Sears, right? I see that, yeah, I got my tough skins there. Those are good times. And so why isn't, they didn't differentiate because I can go get my white t-shirt anywhere. You have to have a differentiated service or a reason for someone to shop with you. So you'll see us working with our local retailers on Omni Channel, on leverage of e-commerce and technology, on insights, a differentiated insight because some of the companies that are winning, like Best Buy, why? Because they have a services model, right? And they're providing something that is of value to a consumer. So you'll see us work our portfolio that is tied to our fundamental foundational businesses but actually also work on different services that are aligned with the things that we do. Yeah, excellent. Well, thank you. Well, I wanna give an opportunity for those of you in the audience to ask a question. So it looks like we have, let's go ahead. So I think you have an attached upon this. My question is about antibiotics in treatment of animals because this can cause antibiotics resistance. Yeah. Yeah, so what is your point on this? Well, I mean, a couple points. Now there is a requirement that you have a vet's prescription, very much like any of us going to the doctor so that when you're using antibiotics, you actually have a vet's prescription. I mean, the fact is that animals get sick. People get sick. So sometimes antibiotic use is necessary but we don't wanna rootinize it and just say we're using this to increase production or things like that. So that I think has been, we've been, as an industry, it's been pulled back but consistent with that, you still couldn't get a vet's prescription if that's what you need and that's what we're supportive of. Hi. Hi. So I had a question more on the front end. Like what do you think will happen to physical grocery stores with an increase in online services like Amazon Fresh and has the shift impacted your selling or retail strategy? Yeah, it's a really great question because there has been tremendous disruption in the grocery sector and it does have carryover effects in multiple ways. Some of the grocery stores are getting into and doing what businesses do, they go back and they look at the value chain and say, where are the profit pools? So they're getting into putting on their own animals, their own processing capability and it's pressuring price, especially in milk. A lot of them are using dairy products, for instance, to try to drive traffic in the store. They know the mom or the dad needs to go in and get fresh milk for their kids and so they're using it as a loss leader and it's pressuring the sector. And this whole click and carry that it is about if you're a grocery retailer getting people interested in coming in and shopping and getting people interested in shopping. What is it? Amazon has improved the efficiency of shopping but they've ruined shopping, right? Because they've ruined you going and kind of looking at a lot of different areas. So the place that you used to use using trade spend, using your brand, aren't quite as valuable or challenged. The reality is it's not gonna be just a price game. Many of these retailers are also putting on their own brands. They're putting on private label so they're moving in the sector to more private label and so that means the margin structure for businesses is under challenge. I think that that will just accelerate and at this point, consumers are willing to trade off and do try different things. They weren't when I was growing up. You know, it was like, we these Rice Krispies Cheerios. That was at my house. That was what we had. If you didn't like it too bad, you weren't eating breakfast and now you've got about a hundred different breakfast things and people are more willing to try that. So if you're a consumer goods company as we are as well and you have to innovate, you must innovate and you mustn't expect that you're gonna have some big huge grand release of a product and suddenly this is gonna solve every margin issue you might have or product issue. It's going to be multiple things. You have to try it and you have to be brutal about cutting things off that aren't working because most things won't work. Amazon will tell you that probably 95 or more percent of what they tried doesn't work but they are outstanding at killing it and not getting too enamored with business. So no matter whether it's click and carry in the store, online, you have to innovate and then you have to be able to showcase that innovation to consumers who are willing to try and change much more than anybody else was. Let's go over here. Good morning. My name is Mario. I'm a first year doctoral student at Agricultural Economics. My question is, what do you think might be a path forward to bridge the information gap between consumers and producers, especially when it comes to sustainability and the word itself has a contestant meaning I guess for different segments of the population. Thank you. Our whole mission is to try to reduce the distance between consumers and agriculture and the people who create their food. So I think that your question is spot on. It's one of the things that we really focus on. We spend a lot of time, it's not just marketing or talking about it, we have to show who we are and who the farmers are. One of the things we did, there were two or three things that I thought were most fascinating around this journey. At our annual meeting, we had a consumer panel and that consumer panel was comprised of literally people off the street. And there are five of them, different, some of them were retired, some of them were college students, whatever. Talking about what did they know about food. They didn't know who this was, right? And I said to the members, we're gonna hear this and you're gonna hate what you hear. You're not gonna like it, it's gonna make you upset, but you need to listen to what consumers, how consumers are making these judgments and what they think about agriculture. And I'll tell you, it was fascinating. And as they left, someone was like, oh my goodness, we have so much work to do. There is no magic answer to how are we gonna inform a broad population. I do, and we do after that and did after that and constantly are working, A, with our members about policy issues in DC, but B, to be on social media, to tell their story, to make themselves accessible, ask a farmer, because we have to share information. That doesn't mean that things are gonna change, but who's in charge right now? The consumer on social media. And so you have to share information and you cannot be reluctant to do that. Otherwise, that narrative is gonna be out there. It's the same way I think of sustainability. The best way to make sure you can ensure your success is to get on the playing field and define what the playing field is. It is not helpful to just say, well, they don't know what they're talking about. Well, unless you're gonna get in there and define what true sustainable agriculture looks like, you're gonna get what you get. And then it's gonna move away from you. I promise that is what's happened with GMOs, everything else. So we need active dialogue from universities, as I mentioned, from all of you who understand production agriculture and from our farmer members, and then, of course, our company. Yeah. Calla June, one of the animal sciences professors. Thank you for giving us, contributing to a shiny new Land O'Lakes Center for Experiential Learning. Yeah, you're welcome. We are the beneficiaries of that, and we thank you so much. The last 10 years has been, I've seen the rise of nationalism across the globe in Europe, in South America, of course, here in the United States, and these could create another layer of barrier to food supply, food accessibility, especially as we try to ensure that people across the globe have food on their table, food security. How can governments like you work to shape government thinking, shape the thinking of our politicians so that issues like this, I was in China just a couple of weeks ago, pork prices have risen about double, and they say, oh, but we can import pork from the U.S. So I know some of these barriers are there. How can companies like you shape the opinions of our politicians? Well, a couple of reactions, of course, we tried to, as I was mentioning earlier, with our venture 37 NGO, we worked with smallholder farmers and others and government officials, so it's not just we're on the farm, yes, but we're working on policy issues in those countries, working on economics issues, working on ways that they can develop a business. So we try to work very directly. Here in the United States, this hog production, yeah, you would sit there and say, boy, what an opportunity, African swine flu, half or more of the hog population in China, a decimated huge industry for pork, isn't this an opportunity for own hog producers, but they've had tariffs. So again, I spent an inordinate amount of time on policy issues, talking about the implications of that for farmers. And you're right, the concern is food security. Why did we think that the major challenges in the Middle East occurred, the Arab Spring a number of years ago, and that was dealing in many ways with food shortage and rising prices that had been held down by the governments for so long, and then that was lifted, and you wanna get a population unhappy, have them not be able to feed their families, that's the issue. You look at the challenges right now going on in Central America, Guatemala, the immigrants coming here, part of that is because of changes in the climate where they are not able to grow their own food anymore. We, in addition to policy issues, one of the other things I'll do in DC, and I'm on the board for USGLC, that is focused on international investment. Again, not because we say, oh, we wanna be politicians, but these policy issues are central to food security, which is important to our business and to our members, and we believe is important to agriculture in general. So, again, it requires you to investigate and get yourself aligned with what the true policy issues are from an economics perspective, from a political perspective, and I always speak to anybody about things that impact our farmers, agriculture and rural communities, and I don't need to be a Republican or Democrat for that conversation, it really is what do I understand would be the implications of these changes. You're gonna see a rising issue of disparity that is gonna be pressured by, I think, climate change in some of these areas where you see this immigration and now it kind of all fits together, and we're gonna have to deal with that. Thank you. Let's take one last question here. Hi, my name is Brianna Britton, I'm a PhD student in food science, and kind of, I guess, piggybacking off the last question. You mentioned that you guys are involved in a lot of projects that are funded by USAID, and I was wondering what you think the US's predominant role in the international sector is, more specifically, I guess, related to food security. Well, I think, again, many people are concerned about immigration, about investments outside the borders of the United States. I think we're supportive of investment that not only grows the market, so that's great for our members, but we understand that stabilizes the country's political environment, and it makes it at least less likely. I mean, it's not like everybody's dying to pick up roots and leave their country. So it develops or it drives security in that country, and thus they're able to stay and build an economy and their families and support their families. So I think, when I think of these policy issues, we're supportive of those kinds of investments, and we think that they're central to a country's stability and thus central to our own security and the things that we're trying to do here in the United States. Too frequently, I think we get into this demonization conversation about these things, and some of them just seem fundamental, and every time I have these conversations, it's not a Republican or a Democrat thing. There are many places on both sides of the aisle that are supportive of making appropriate investments where they know it deals with a food security issue or a stability in a country issue. Well, Beth, you've given us a lot of great things to think about. I really like your concept of a shared destiny between rural and urban America and also between farmers and the consumer. I like your challenge to us here at the university to be engaged in the conversations around science and technology. That's an important role for us to play as an unbiased arbiter around some of these issues. And if I understood you right, you'd also like us to eat more butter. Yeah. So. We also have cheese. And cheese, okay. And cozy chat pudding and other things that they're just numbing. Yeah. Well, very good. Well, join me in thanking Beth for taking time. Yes. Thank you so much.