 agriculture and public health together so that we have an agricultural system that supports public health, as well as taking care of the farmers who produce the food we eat every day. How's that for a challenge? That's a great intro. Yes. Thank you so much. Thanks for those comments. And welcome. Welcome to the world of agriculture. So you probably figured out I'm the overdressed farmer on the panel up here today. But thank you for this opportunity. Great comments so far. It is all about the food. I think this is a great time for this discussion. You know, we've gone through a couple of years of COVID-19 where a generational challenge came upon us. We had to figure that out. But I think that what lies in front of us after the light was shown very brightly in all the corners of the food system, the opportunity for a generational opportunity for us to take advantage of that. And, Steve, I'm going to need another hat. My dog ripped up the last one I got, but sorry to digress there. Hopefully this is the beginning of discussions, not the end of discussions here. But I like the fact that we're having conversations and talking to each other. As a farmer, always remarked about how New York State has such a remarkable agricultural system. You know, we rank in the top 30, top 10 of over 30 different commodities in New York State. And we have great water. We have great resources in our education for agriculture. We have some of the best farmers in the country in New York State. We figure in every national conversation and we get to live and work and farm next to the most amazing and diverse marketplace anywhere in the world that we have right here. So connecting the dots, and I know that's been used quite a lot, I actually invented that phrase, connecting the dots between upstate and downstate when the differences between upstate and downstate, urban and rural have probably never been more stark. This is a great opportunity for us going forward, so I'm excited about that. I think, to your question, first of all, we got to get to know each other. We've been disconnected by generations of efficiency in our agricultural production systems. And so, you know, our farmers didn't really need to know who their customer was. But today it's obvious. I remember going to about 20 years ago, my introduction to farm to school was my local high school, the school my kids went to, two miles from my farm. I was asked to be a part of a panel, and some of you in the health world will remember, Fit by Five. And the effort was to help stamp out childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes before the age of five. And I thought as a farmer, that's a problem. And I remember going to a meeting at the school and I walked in and I listened to the issue, it was very much an issue. And I walked around the corner and looked at the cafeteria. Now, I live in the Skihari Valley. We have about 43,000 acres in the Skihari Valley. It's one of the top 10 soils in the world. We're famous for carrots, potatoes, vegetables, lots of crops. I looked at the menu there. There was nothing on the menu that came from my valley. And I thought, this is a crime. Young people are growing up in a rural community upstate New York, frankly any community in New York, not understanding about nutrition, not understanding where their food is coming from. And that bothered me, what bothered me more was that in my community, those kids were going to grow up and think they needed to leave that community to make a living. Because they didn't know what opportunities existed in the food system. So that truly drove my passion about farm to school. And I think that's a great point. We need to teach young people. I'd like to see nutrition be part of education curriculum, K through 12, into grad school. So first of all, we need to connect the dots between upstate and downstate, urban and rural. We don't know much, very much, about each other. And the schools are a great starting point. So I'm excited about, Dr, your efforts around nutrition. I have a good friend who has three medical degrees and one law degree. The amount of time that he was taught nutrition doctors, I should say, was very minimal. The idea, the way we approach growing vegetables on my farm, is that it's kind of like growing kids. It's much easier to keep them healthy than it is to try to make them healthy once they're sick. So that's been our approach in agriculture. I think that should be our approach with kids. So I want to talk a little bit about just a couple of highlights, things we're doing in New York State, because we're doing some great things in New York State. We have initiatives in New York State that are very much modeling, connecting the dots, connecting and understanding the importance of a Brazilian and responsive food system right here in New York. Not another part of the world, not another region, but right here in New York, as COVID taught us very well. First of all, nourish New York. Some of you remember when COVID hit, we were able to connect the dots between our farmers. We had farmers who were dumping milk, farmers that raised apples, farmers that raised potatoes, and they lost half their market because they were shipping half our products in New York, go into the food service world. They go to our schools, they go to our universities, they go into our restaurant world and the distribution that works in our hospitals. And that was shut off, just shut right off. So suddenly, half the product didn't have a home. So we scrambled, we worked with our food banks, our 10 regional food banks. Very quickly, we're able to, within 10 days, set up nourish New York where we supplied produce from New York State, dairy products from New York State, meat products from New York State, got them directly to the food banks and into their distribution system. It's been codified into law now, a fantastic program, and a great way, again, to connect the dots. I get to convene the Hunger and Food Policy Council. I'm looking at Joel Berg here, who's a part of that council, where we, yeah, give Joel a round of applause. He's our walking encyclopedia about USDA and food concerns. But we have the state agencies represented. We have farmers represented. We have people in this space represented. And we talk about issues and we talk about how to connect the dots with the goal of getting more New York food products into our food system across the spectrum. People who need access to food, people who grow food, let's connect them in a better way. So I'm excited about that opportunity that affords us. That's what enabled us to set up nourish New York in such a quick period of time. I'm excited to tell you that we're building a food hub in the South Bronx right now. I was able to be, oh, thank you. It's been talked about for years, been in the works for years. We finally made it happen. I was able to be there with then-Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hockel, put a shovel in the ground. It was very emotional. It was very emotional for me to see an opportunity to connect food with people who need food. I already talked about Farm to School. We're also putting together an advisory committee on rural access to New York healthy food. So I'm excited about all those efforts, but I'm also excited about our opportunities nationally. I think that I see an alignment between what is coming out of Washington, what we are doing in New York. We're talking on a regular basis. The focus on not just food security, but nutrition security that's coming from Secretary Vilsack. We were in Manhattan just a couple of months ago talking about that. That's exciting. Talking about transformation of the food system. He announced a week ago. And looking at how we transform in looking back at COVID what we can do there. So we got two bites of the apple here. We have this conference coming up at the White House. We also have the Farm Bill. I will be doing a series of listening sessions around the state, including New York City. Talking about the Farm Bill, looking at the nutrition title, looking at the farm title. And I think I like our chances here. Every five years, Washington gets to look at the most complicated piece of legislation ever to go through Congress, the Farm Bill. We're going to weigh in, make sure New York is represented there in a big way. So I like our chances, New York. Thank you so much. Thank you, Commissioners, all. So I want to thank all the panelists. And I don't know what you heard, but I'll tell you what I heard. First of all, what I heard was the integration of all of the units in which these commissioners and chancellors are working. You can't deal with one part of the food system without dealing with the rest of the food system at the same time. And so all of you are working, it sounds to me, in the same direction. And maybe this will help you work together and do some joint efforts. Wouldn't that be fun? And then the other thing that I heard was the fabulous opportunity that this moment in time represents. We have the opportunity to make a real difference in policy. And this conference here with the breakout session will be an opportunity to try to talk about the kinds of policies that you think we ought to be having. And I'm just really so happy and honored to be part of this, to have met all of you and we've been able to chair this. And to be here with you today, thank you very much. Thank you all so, so much. So everyone here knows how critical food is to individual, community, and planetary health and well-being. This is precisely why you're here. So now we are eager to hear directly from you all. We want to use our time here to really drill down and develop those innovative and actionable recommendations. Each of you have indicated your preferences for your breakout. We had to take a few liberties to make sure that the groups were even. And that is on the back of your name tag. Each breakout session has two facilitators and a note taker. And again, as Congressman McGovern pointed out, to the outcomes of these breakouts are going to be compiled into proceedings that will be received by the White House. So these breakouts are spread across the lawn. We're going to start from my left here. We've got the health care followed by business and innovation, followed by public health and nutrition education, science and research, and finally eradicating hunger through federal nutrition programs. Please reconvene here at 1210 for some quick highlights as we then head into lunch. Thank you.