Sanah Baig: Our relationships with the academic sector are among our most important at the Department of Agriculture. And it was a real treat to actually get to participate in your annual meeting. I understand I might be the first USD official that has presented during that meeting, which we hope to change that moving forward because there's such, to your point, a critical opportunity to bring in more university community college trade school partners as well, to realize our vision. But again, we can't solve problems unless we deeply understand the problems that we're trying to solve. And so we're lucky to have data from the economic research service that kind of helps us paint a picture of where we are today and where do we need to go. Speaker 2: You're listening to Further Together, the ORAU podcast, join Michael Holtz and his guests for conversations about all things ORAU. They'll talk about ORAU storied history, our impact on an ever-changing world, our innovative, scientific and technical solutions for our customers, and our commitment to the communities where we do business. Welcome to Further Together, the ORAU podcast. Michael Holtz: Welcome to Further Together the ORAU podcast As ever, it's me, your host, Michael Holtz in the Communications and Marketing Department at ORAU, and today I'm delighted to be having a conversation with Sanah Baig, who is the Deputy Undersecretary for research, education and economics at the US Department of Agriculture. We've been trying to have this conversation for a little while, so I'm glad that the stars have finally aligned for us to be able to do this. Sanah Baig, welcome to Further Together. Sanah Baig: Well, thank you very much indeed. It has been a long time in the making. I had the incredible opportunity to speak at the ORAU, I think, annual meeting last March. And since then we've been trying to connect, but there's been so much good work happening at the Department of Agriculture. I'm looking forward to sharing a little bit more since that time. So thank you for having me. Michael Holtz: Absolutely thrilled to have you And yeah, work happens and exciting things are happening, and we get to talk about all of that today. So where I wanted to start though is with your current role at the USDA, talk about what it means to be the Deputy Undersecretary for Research, education, and economics and what your role is. Sanah Baig: I'd be delighted to. So the Department of Agriculture, for those who are familiar, it's pretty huge. We have at our peak about a hundred thousand employees. And so USDA is divided into what are called mission areas. And so I have the honor of being the deputy undersecretary or essentially the number two of our scientific enterprise, also known as the research, education and economics mission area. So that includes four science and research agencies, including the Agricultural Research Service, the Economic Research Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. And then wrapping all of that in a bow is the Office of the Chief Scientist, which really coordinates research and policy and data, not just for our REE missionary and not just for USDA, but really for the entire federal government and serves a really key coordinating role. So I have, again, the privilege and the honor of supporting about at our peak, 10,000 scientists, statisticians, grant makers, everybody in between that is really leveraging science research and partnerships to drive agriculture forward. Michael Holtz: It's huge mission area. I mean, that's a lot of people. And as you said, a lot of great work being done. Just to take a little step back before we sort of dig into your mission area specifically, how did you get to where you are? Sanah Baig: Luck and preparation, but more than anything, I can't tell my story without telling the story of my father who some folks joke that they're a military brat. I would say I'm a bureaucratic brat in a way because my dad worked for the federal government and state government for nearly 50 years, the majority of that time at the Environmental Protection Agency. So very much had the opportunity to understand the power of public service, and it runs in my blood on both sides of my family. And so my philosophy has always been taking on whatever opportunity would allow me to do the most good. I really believe in the tenets of effective altruism. And I also, having grown up in the DC area, know the power of working within the system to create change, recognizing in particular that we have a lot of challenges ahead of us. So I got really lucky actually, Michael, that when I was in college, I had an internship. I got lucky to get an internship with the Agricultural Research Service. And more than 15 years later now, I happen to be the deputy undersecretary over ARS in the entire scientific enterprise. So it really is remarkable. I pinched myself every day that I have had a chance to get this opportunity, but really it's because. I believe in democracy. I believe in the power of public service. I don't take it lightly that every project that we fund, every partnership that we build has significant impact on millions and millions of lives, not just in America, but really all over the world. And so that little internship at ARS, that summer internship all those years ago really changed the trajectory of my career. I thought I would go into foreign service. I thought I might be a diplomat one day, I thought I might practice economic development in the global south in developing world. And then I recognize actually we have a lot of challenges here at home. And not only that, we have a lot of opportunity through science and innovation to continue to ensure that we have nourishing food readily available, accessible, affordable for families, and we can do it in a climate smart way. So that has driven me to where I am, and it's a much longer story what I've been able to do since that internship at ARS, but that was really foundational. And the beautiful thing about working at USD is that you actually hear a lot of those stories like, oh, I had a postdoc opportunity. I was an 1890 scholar, 1994 tribal scholar, and that changed my life. And that's something that we're investing heavily in right now to do just that, train 20,000 NextGen students to reflect the diversity of the communities that we serve. So excited to share more about that too. Michael Holtz: Absolutely, and that's really important, and I definitely do want to dig into that. You've spent most of your career, as you've said, in the agricultural space at USDA. What drives your interest in your work in that area? I mean, you've touched on it a little bit in terms of it's an exciting time to be in agriculture. We need to feed the people, we need to do it in a climate friendly way, plus it's an economic driver. So there are a lot of pieces at play. What keeps you driven to focus on agriculture? Sanah Baig: There are a ton of different things I think, that continue to grow my interest. I mean, in the beginning it was, there were food safety challenges. I remember back in the early two thousands, and I recognize that really is the role of USD science, our researchers that are working together to eliminate pests and diseases and to make sure we're always one step ahead of the next outbreak or whatever challenge or shock that might hit our agricultural system. But truly, it's the people. I had a chance to meet all types of farmers across every type of commodity, local, regional, organic. And it is the passion and the dedication of people that grow and produce and sell and distribute our food that keeps me going because they are incredibly creative, they're incredibly dedicated, and I think they're really our unsung heroes. And so recognizing that I'm a problem solver at heart, and we have unfortunately, a lot of challenges, intersecting challenges in agriculture, I know that I will always have a job and a career because unfortunately, there will always be a new challenge to tackle. But really what gives me hope is the fact that they're really brilliant minds that are not just doing what is possible to keep our food system safe, affordable, accessible, nutritious today. But really, again, thinking about 50 years down the line when we have about, well, not even 50, 50, 100, you name it, but when we look at 2050, we have about 2 billion more amounts to feed, and we know that we just can't do it with the status quo systems that we have in place today. So USDA and our partnerships, especially with land grant and public universities, has always been key to driving innovation for more than 150 years. USD was actually created at the same time that we created our land grant university system in this country, recognizing that we needed dedicated support through laboratories and research and extension to provide those solutions directly into the hands of farmers. And we're continuing to invest in that. We're being a lot more creative about building an equity into the way that we're releasing our solutions and solving these challenges. Michael Holtz: So it is an exciting time to be at the USDA. And as you mentioned, you were a keynote speaker at ORU's annual meeting last March. And our annual meeting for folks who may not be familiar with it, is a gathering of representatives from the 150 plus agents research universities that are part of our consortium, and then representatives from federal agencies like USDA and others. And you basically had an opportunity to present USDA's vision to the counselors from the universities who were there. Talk about the importance of, I guess, the role of academia. You mentioned there's this need for 20,000 scientists, basically more research to be done. I assume that's a huge part of a role that America's academic institutions can play in helping fill those gaps, keep things moving from an innovation perspective and an equity perspective in the agricultural space. Sanah Baig: I mean, I think our relationships with the academic sector are among our most important at the Department of Agriculture. And it was a real treat to actually get to participate in your annual meeting. I understand I might be the first USDA official that has presented during that meeting, which we hope to change that moving forward because there's such, to your point, a critical opportunity to bring in more university community college trade school partners as well to realize our vision. But again, we can't solve problems unless we deeply understand the problems that we're trying to solve. And so we're lucky to have data from the economic research service that kind of helps us paint a picture of where we are today and where do we need to go? And so when I hear Secretary Vilsack talk about the system that has really been created over about the past 60 or so years, really, really intentionally in the seventies, a change from our new deal systems of agriculture production to one that was more market oriented. We really prioritized hypergrowth and productivity in agriculture. And we've been, over the past many decades, incredibly successful at producing a lot of food, feed, fuel to feed the world. And we recognize too that in 2022, we had record farm income in the United States, which is a pretty huge deal and a very clear reflection of the policies that we've undertaken over this administration. And now typically, a regular agriculture secretary would see that say that and be able to kind of wipe his hands and walk away and say, things are going great. But Secretary Vilsack has been here before, and he was called to come and serve during a time of an incredible challenge in this country, not just what happened with the elections January 6th, but really looking at COVID and the vulnerabilities exposed in our food system. And he recognized that we have a lot of people doing well, but we have a lot more people that are not doing well in agriculture. He's a historian really at heart too. So he always reminds us to look to the past to see where we need to go. So he talks about these statistics that in 1935 we peaked, the United States peaked in terms of our number of farms in this country. We had about 7 million. In 2022, there were just 2 million farms in America. And unfortunately since about 1980, we have lost more than 440,000 farms and more than 141 million acres of farmland. That is a rapid change. And we really need to understand the underpinnings of what happened in order to figure out where we can go from here. I mentioned record farm income in 2022 and still really, really high income in 2023. But when we look at the numbers, Michael, it's a really worrying story. Actually, 50% of producers in that time did not make money from agriculture. And an additional 40% on top of that had to take off farm income to feed their families. So you're looking at 10%, actually fewer than that, about seven and a half percent of farmers and operations in this country that are doing incredibly well. They're capturing the vast majority of that farm income. And we have a reckoning right now. We need to ask ourselves, "Are we okay with that?" And when the former Secretary of Agriculture under Secretary Purdue, during the Trump administration was asked about this, he was very candid. And he said, we've actually created a system in this country where essentially you either go big or you go home. And to be honest, we don't accept that. And so our focus over the past couple of years has been how do we create new sources of income to support producers? So not just selling one commodity and trying to compete in those markets, we're embracing a more circular economy, a bioeconomy where we've launched a historic climate smart agriculture program so you can get new value. Our producers and everyone across the supply chain can generate additional income from these new opportunities. And the role that universities play in that, as I mentioned, we partner together. We partnered together for coming up in a couple of decades for 200 years. And so my mission area actually provides $2 billion every year in grant funding to our land-grant universities, to our public universities, to community-based organizations and everybody in between to ensure that the solutions that we're generating are regional, they're local, they're tailored to the needs of the communities that we're trying to serve. And most importantly, as I mentioned as well, that they can get into the hands of the producers that really, really need it, especially our small and mid-size producers that we know have been struggling with greater consolidation across the industry, with rise of inputs, and with a greater globalized market. So that really is the key. And the Climate Smart Commodities program I mentioned has I think more than a hundred universities involved across the country. So they have been a key partner working with some of the biggest food companies, working directly with farmer and farm facing organizations. But again, academia is critical to that because a lot of the best cutting edge research we know is happening in these institutions, in academia, and we have a real, real urgency to be able to translate those solutions. How do we turn agricultural waste into bioproducts and replace plastic? How do we do that and build that into the supply chain in a real way? So that's kind of one example of how I see academia fitting in. But there are hundreds, there are thousands. If you look at our tech transfer report, if you follow USDA Science on X, and we all are always talking about the role of academia. So clearly it's something I'm very excited about and something that the Secretary of Agriculture himself talks about a lot is the role of our universities and our institutions. Michael Holtz: That's great. And a lot of students, a lot of undergrads, grads, postdocs, hear the podcast as we talk about these kind of research opportunities all the time. If you were to make a pitch to students to get involved in agriculture, what do you say to them? Sanah Baig: I would say that anything you're passionate about, any skillset you might have, you'll have a home in agriculture, you can find a place for it, and we need you. Where we have more than 100 research projects through our ARS, through our agricultural research service right now, empowering AI. We're using machine learning, robotics, drones, controlled environmental agriculture, alternative proteins, bioplastic, the bioeconomy. This is a place where if you're values driven, if you're mission driven, if you believe that we can create a more sustainable, a more equitable, a more nutritious food future for everyone, we need you. And you have a place here to not just conduct your research, but if you care about, if you're more on the finance side, we have tons of opportunities, right? Finance, HR, the backbone. We need science communicators. We need folks that deeply understand science, but then can kind of simplify a message and deliver it at kind of an eighth grade level so folks can really understand the power of science to undergird policy. If you don't really want to be on the political face and side of things and be somebody that interfaces with Congress, which by the way, we have those jobs too. You can be somebody that can work on our communications team, our messaging team, to really be, again, at that intersection of where science meets communication to help farmers and producers understand how they can leverage this new information, these new tools to be more profitable and to be more sustainable at the same time. We have a ton of internship opportunities. We have paid opportunities, we have scholarships, fellowships, and then we have the NextGen program. So if you are a student right now, you might be at an eligible institution. We have more than 60 organizations, more than 60 academic institutions through USD's Next Gen program that are funding exactly what I've been talking about, paid fellowship research, experiential learning opportunities to dive deeply into plant science or to become a beekeeper or to understand how to leverage economic models to support climate mitigation efforts. There's so much opportunity right now, and it has actually been really rewarding to be part of a team that recognizes that the most important work that we'll do is to build the next generation, because they're the ones that are unfortunately going to inherit a lot of these problems. And more than anything, they're more creative. They don't see issues one way. They see the overlapping, the intersections and angles that I think a lot of folks, maybe more senior in their career, don't think about problems in that way. Michael Holtz: And I remember when you shared about the NextGen program at the annual meeting, there's a huge focus too on equity and making sure that everybody has a seat at the table regardless, I guess, of what side, whether you're on the farming side or the finance side or the clean energy, clean farming side, you need everybody. Sanah Baig: We do, right? And equity is actually woven into everything that we're doing, and I'm so glad that you brought up that point. So the NextGen program really specifically is meant to support minority serving institution students who quite frankly don't have the opportunities I think that other students have. They can't afford to take an unpaid internship to come to Washington DC. I can barely afford to live in Washington DC. We recognize these challenges. We knew we had to create more nimble, flexible, and responsive scholarship and internship opportunities for students thinking about things like childcare and how do we create a more inclusive agricultural system for all? Well, it starts by investing in young people. And so we've been tremendously excited to get our 1890s land grant institutions, our 1994 institutions, our Hispanic serving institutions, our community colleges, insular areas, really enabling folks that haven't had a chance before the chance to grow their careers in agriculture. And we're going to be launching this year as well, kind of a campaign, a NextGen campaign, to not just talk about the 20,000 that we anticipate will be trained through the NextGen program, but really use it as an opportunity to draw in additional students who might say, "You know what? I'm a tissue engineer and I want to go work on cancer research." Well, actually, you can apply that same understanding to cellular agriculture where the development of proteins, which we know we're going to need a lot more to meet demand in the future. And so we're really, really embedded. We're really invested in making sure that we can tell that story of agriculture a little bit more sharply, that we can help young people understand that it's not maybe the kind of traditional image of agriculture that you see is the dominant narrative, but actually super cutting edge, right? Super high-tech, requires a lot of innovation, a lot of science, and we think that that will bring in a new generation of folks that quite frankly, we need to fuel the future. Michael Holtz: Awesome. Awesome. Let's see. Oh, we've talked about this a little bit, but how is the USDA working to transform the food and ag system to tackle some of the world's greatest challenges? I mean, there are a lot of challenges, and you've touched on some of that, but talk a little bit more about what is happening. Sanah Baig: So I mentioned the issue that we have with a lot of producers not being able to right now profit. After all, farms are businesses, are operations. We need to make sure that they can thrive well into the future. And so at a baseline, we know we have the stats around the declining number of farms, farm land. You can't sequester carbon in a parking lot as the secretary says, with that 141 million acres of farmland lost often to real estate and development. So what do we do? And then we look at the future and what's ahead. We recognize our planet is warming. We're in a climate crisis. We know what that means and that it's going to be harder to grow things in the same ways and the same areas that we have. We know we're going to have a lot more emerging pests and diseases as our climate continues to shift and change in the way that it does. We know that inputs and our natural resources are dwindling when we look at all of the news about our aquifers and water, especially in the West, and then we add fires on top, wildland fires on top of that, we think about both the nutrition problem in the United States where we have the highest number of diet related chronic diseases ever. But then at the same time, we have increasing rates of hunger and malnutrition in the developing world, especially again when we look at the aftermath of COVID. And so this is a lot to take on. It's really a lot to take on. And so again, luckily, we have had this missionary, the scientific enterprise for many generations now, recognizing that we always need to be one, two, now 10 steps ahead of whatever problem is going to come our way. And so Secretary Vilsack really under the leadership of President Biden has been super clear. We need to focus on building a more climate smart agricultural system, recognizing both the contributions of agriculture to climate change as well as the impact of climate change on agriculture. And so agriculture really is a solution in many, many ways the add to the climate crisis, we saw that on display at COP this past fall where they had an entire day dedicated to food and agriculture for the first time, which is wonderful. Our Aim for Climate initiative is, the Agriculture Innovation Mission for climate, we call it Aim for Climate, is really our global effort with I think more than 15 billion. It might be something closer to $17 billion invested by more than 500 partners that are saying, "Hey, we care about fighting the climate crisis, and we know we can't do it without investments in agricultural innovation." So we've been able to create this effort, co-create it with the Department of State and bring on dozens of governments as part of this fight. In addition to that, I was talking about the productivity focus that we've had in US agriculture over the past many, many decades, again, really in earnest, starting in the seventies. We know that we need to leverage science and breeding to not just factor for increased yields. We do need to, of course support production agriculture, and we need to be a little bit more thoughtful about how we're building in traits around nutrition. How are we making sure that those nutrition elements are there? And we're not just hyper-focused on how much we grow, but really the quality of what we're growing as well. We need a lot more science and partnerships on soil health, which has become a huge, huge issue in the food and ag space, thankfully so, we recognize with that soil we have nothing. And so it's been really heartening to see academia step up in a lot of ways with innovative soil health management practices, to work with the private sector to help deploy and test some of those practices. And now we have a whole effort through the Department of Agriculture, $300 million invested in the measurement, monitoring, verification of those practices as well embedded within our Climate Smart Commodities program. So we are actually trying to test and make sure that the practices that we are recommending have a climate benefit, have a sequestration benefit as well. And then when we look at the people, we look at the people within agriculture and the communities that have been impacted by all of the changes that I've mentioned in the landscape, we know that we need to do a better job. Quite frankly, USDA has been called the last plantation. It doesn't have the best reputation historically for how we have treated communities of color, in particular, how we've treated black farmers, how we have treated tribal farmers. And so again, that has been probably the most heartening thing I've gotten to work on is really supporting a Historic Equity Commission, which Congress directed to take a look from top to bottom at our programs and where is inequity discrimination baked in, not just to our farm loans, but really across the board even looking at research. And so we've taken a huge, huge step forward in being intentional about building those partnerships with minority serving institutions. Again, thinking about our historically black land-grant universities and how we could do more to support capacity building efforts. So ARS and NIFA, two of our agencies have actually said, "Hey, we're going to provide workshops and trainings to researchers, to faculty members so they can be more competitive in getting agricultural and NSF and NIH for that matter, research dollars." And not just being able to get that money, but then to manage really quite large federal grants, which are, it's an art and science in and of itself. So we've been really trying to be creative on that front. And the other thing I'll mention quickly too is the partnership around nutrition security and nutrition research and really recognizing, I mentioned the rise in rates of diet related chronic disease. President Biden relaunched, reignited the cancer moonshot when he came back in, he launched it when he was VP. And really it's back. And the role of the United States Department of Agriculture is to help prevent cancers. We know that other agencies are importantly working on the cure and helping to make sure that patients have a good experience and they can get the care that we need. But we recognize that, "Hey, we can actually prevent people from having to go through such a painful and devastating experience at all." Recognizing that potentially 30 to 50% of cancers can be avoided through better diet and lifestyle. And so one of the things that we've been able to do is launch our ASCEND initiative, which is, you won't be shocked, but it's a very long [inaudible 00:30:03] for the Agricultural Science Center of Excellence for Nutrition and Diet for Better Health, or Ascend for Better Health, which is a virtual science center of excellence to really bring all of our research together. We have six human nutrition research centers in this country. We have a ton of funding and partnerships, as I mentioned, that we work with academia and practitioners. We have the GusNIP program, which enables income eligible participants to get better access to fresh and frozen foods and vegetables. We have all of that, but yet we know that these rates of cancer and diet related diseases are on the incline, unfortunately. And so we launched a pilot nutrition hub in partnership with Southern University in Louisiana and saying, "Hey, all of this research is important, but we can't let it sit on the shelf." We need to engage in community. We need to meet people where they are, and we need to be as thoughtful and respectful as we can be about the fact that people have very busy lives and very different levels of understanding of what is right for them and their families. And so that pilot Nutrition Hub at Southern University, the focus is really to be in community, engaging with folks in that community, primarily African-American, very heavily skewed towards seniors. And we want to make sure that they understand the true connection between nutrition, diet, lifestyle, and health. And there is a great, huge amount of need and desire to do more of that. So we're grateful to have that opportunity and hoping to partner with more universities and academic institutions well into the future to drive this initiative forward. Again, that community engagement piece is so critical. Michael Holtz: I love that you talked about the nutrition and relaunching the cancer moonshot. Cancer's a very personal issue to me. I'm a 12 year colorectal cancer survivor, and so we've talked about cancer a lot in the last six months on the podcast with different agencies and different groups. But one of the things that's alarming for me, and so I'm hardened to hear about the world of nutrition and physical activity is that cancers that have historically been considered old people cancer, like colon cancer and others are being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. And so something is wrong, right? Something somewhere. And not that I'm asking you to be a doctor, but it seems like it's nutrition and physical activity and lifestyle and all of that plays a huge role, which you all are working on and helping people understand the important role of nutrition in staying healthy. Sanah Baig: Well, thank you for sharing that. And well just congratulations on your own journey. And again, that link between diet and nutrition lifestyle is understood unfortunately by many who might have gone through a similar experience. But maybe until you get that diagnosis or are affected by it in your family, you don't maybe make that connection as clearly. The other thing that we recognize too, and folks can go to and look at USD's dietary guidelines. We have advice. We have all of these recommendations for Americans, and we recognize that we cannot continue to have a one size fits all approach for everybody. So a key part of our work through ASCEND and through USDAARS, our intramural research agency, is to drive precision nutrition and really look at subpopulations and really figure out, okay, if you're an elderly American from a certain background, what are your nutritional diet needs? I know that's different from a pre-teen who's active in sports every day, right? And it's different from a mother with young children. And so we recognize we need to do better and be more precise with our nutrition advice. And so we're investing a lot more, and again, working in partnership with agencies like NIH to drive forward that precision nutrition research, which is critically, critically important because we know currently our dietary guidelines are broad in the average, and we have the power, we have the information about the science to be able to go a bit deeper. Michael Holtz: And then it's being able to communicate that, as you said earlier, you need people who can communicate the science to the rest of the world. So again, another opportunity, if you're listening... Sanah Baig: That's a huge opportunity Michael Holtz: If you're listening and you're into science and communication. But I love the notion of we have precision medicine, of course we should have precision nutrition. It makes a difference. We have talked about a lot in the time [inaudible 00:34:55]. Sanah Baig: [inaudible 00:34:56] fun. Michael Holtz: Is there anything we haven't talked about that I haven't asked you that you want to make sure that we cover? Sanah Baig: Oh my gosh. Well, for folks that might be trying to figure out all of the opportunities to plug into USDA, one thing that I would say is that we've tried really hard and continue to try to make our information, our science, our grant opportunities, our new programs as accessible as possible. So I hope that you'll check out the USDA website if you're interested in food systems transformation, all of the investments we've made, there are more than $4 billion, we have a webpage for that. You can go in and look at all the Agricultural Marketing Service is doing. You can look at how the Rural Development Mission Area is supporting opportunities like the Reconnect program to actually ensure that we have internet, in not just rural communities, but agricultural communities, which I mentioned are more and more high-tech. They're higher tech than ever, and of course they need wifi. They need internet to be able to continue to be profitable in their operations. We have our Food and Nutrition consumer services. We have FNS, which supports more than a dozen different nutrition and feeding programs, really our most critical social safety net. And we just launched this summer EBT program, I think one of the first new permanent feeding programs in more than a generation. So we have a tremendous amount of work going on really across the department. And I would say, Michael, honestly, if you can't keep up, I can barely keep up because our team has been super busy, not just with the Climate Smart Commodities, the $3 billion program that I mentioned, not just even thinking about the Forest Service, where the president himself has called attention to the issue of making sure that we're doing right by our firefighters and paying them what they need to be paid, that they're doing everything we can on the natural resource management side of things, that we're supporting tribal communities and really having nation to nation conversations and really coming to the table in a much more respectful way, a much more collaborative way. So you can take a look at our equity action plan page and see all of the commitments that we have across every missionary, every agency at the department, to drive forward equity, not just again in our science and research, but in our programs as well. I'm just really excited about the future. I'm so excited about the future because when I go out and people ask me, "What's the best part of your job?" And it can be hard to, can be to pick, but really it's engaging with young people. I was at the University of California Santa Cruz a couple of months ago. They're one of our NextGen grantees, and they primarily have a lot of students of color, many that come from farm worker backgrounds, many who came from backgrounds where their family said, "We want a better life for you. We don't want you to go into agriculture necessarily, at least not in the fields." I met a student who had a pension for robotics and building, an engineer mind, and mom and his family members worked. They were picking strawberries and berries in organic fields in California, and he created a little autonomous robot vehicle that could weed organic berry farms. And so he might not be in agriculture in the traditional way that his family has been, and the way that they might want for him. But the experience that he had led him to create such an incredibly valuable tool for community members like his that they can actually afford, it was actually an affordable tool that he created leveraging science and engineering that can help a very, very sometimes overlooked or under supported industry. And I was actually standing with a gentleman named Mark Lipson, who is a longtime organic farmer, kind of a godfather of organic agriculture in this country, and he had a tear in his eye because he had a farm, and he recognized that how incredible and game changing this kind of simple machine was that the student created. And so that type of thing, those stories give me an incredible amount of hope. I was at Tufts University last week meeting with some of the brightest scientists in the cellular agriculture space and the work that they're doing just gives me so much confidence that we are going to be able to overcome these challenges, but we need a lot more young people, a lot more bright minds dedicated to this issue. I think the biggest issue of our time is how are we going to sustainably feed and nourish the growing world given the intersecting challenges that we have. But again, I believe we can do it. Michael Holtz: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Last question, Sanah Baig, what brings you joy? Sanah Baig: Well, I just talked a lot about... Michael Holtz: You did, a lot of joy was definitely in that answer. Sanah Baig: The students and the next generation. But I would say as well, really the fact that the academic system is excited and poised to help us create and realize this vision of agriculture that I laid out, one where small and midsize producers actually are profitable, where they're able to generate value and benefit from employing climate smart practices, where they're nourishing their communities, they're building a more circular agriculture economy and moving away from the extraction based economies that have been embedded within our systems. One that is an agricultural system that is more diverse and equitable, right? That actually supports communities that have historically had had that critical connection to the land. We just couldn't do this work without our academic partners, without all of the, not just the researchers, but the teachers that are themselves inspiring that next generation and providing those mentorship opportunities. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that we have a chance to support them through USDA research and grant dollars, capacity dollars, but also that we are taking a different approach and really welcoming anybody that wants to partner with us, anybody that sees themselves as part of this solution. We just launched a new science and research strategy for the Department of Agriculture, the first one that ever in our history looked at across the entire department and really developed our goals over the next couple of years. If you have a solution, if you're working on a strategy outlined in that plan, reach out to us. We want to make sure we're capturing that. We want to make sure you're getting credit, and we want to make sure that all of the work that you're doing is as understood as possible. So we're continuing to work on the white spaces and not duplicating efforts. And so I'm just excited that we have a clear vision. We have the right partners. We've had historic funding opportunities through Congress, and then we have young people that understand that no matter what they care about, they have a home in agriculture. Michael Holtz: Awesome. Sanah Baig, thank you so much for spending this time with me. I really, really appreciate it. It's been great getting to know you and getting to know more about what the USDA is doing really to change the world and to feed the world. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Sanah Baig: Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate the spotlight on USDA and USD Science and we are always hiring, so if anybody's interested, reach out. Michael Holtz: Opportunities abound. Sanah Baig: Abound. Well, thank you again, Michael. I really enjoyed the chance to chat with you. Michael Holtz: Absolutely. Thank you. Have a great day. Sanah Baig: You too. Take care. Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Further Together, the ORAU podcast. 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