We woke up early Monday morning knowing it was going to be the busiest day of the week. We went up north to Walnut Creek, CA for our first visit of the trip with Valent USA Corporation, one of the nation’s leading crop protection product firms. Here we were greeted with a lovely breakfast of eggs, fruit, juice, and bagels and had a chance to network with some of Valent’s executives. Valent’s first speaker was Richard Allen who is an agricultural chemist and Manager of the Valent Technical Center. His main suggestion was that any policy recommendations should be supported by hard facts, extensive research, and numbers. After he spoke, he was followed by Eric Tamichi who joined Valent in 1996. Although he has held many positions during his time at Valent, he is currently their Manager of Registration and Regulatory Affairs unit. He talked about the difference between California’s regulations and Illinois’ with regard to chemical pesticide use. Following Mr. Tamichi was Charlie Stevens, the Market Development Specialist for Valent. He discussed some of the current sales challenges as well as future production opportunities in agriculture specifically highlighting immigration, climate change, the Farm Bill, and biotechnology.

After a wonderful morning at Valent, we returned to San Francisco and spent the early part of the afternoon with the Wilbur-Ellis Company, an international marketer and distributor of specialty agricultural chemicals / crop protection products.  They hosted us at the City Club Hotel across the street from their headquarters. We heard from numerous executive members such Anne Cleary, Director of Human Resources, who spoke about the general history of the company, and Dan Vradenburg, President of the Agribusiness Division of W-E.  Jim Loar, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, focused on the importance of technology and efficiency when choosing and applying crop protection treatments on agricultural fields today. During his presentation, he made it clear that the integrity of the family-owned business is what keeps them running today. We broke for a buffet style lunch of salad, sandwiches, soup, and delicious cake.

Following lunch, Mr. Scott Hushbeck touched on the importance of the company’s relationship with the consumer, which sets Wilbur-Ellis apart from all the other companies and has been a huge factor in their success. He said, “Our company likes to be more proactive rather than reactive.” To conclude our visit here Scott Rawlins discussed FIFRA (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and the importance of customers demanding what they do and do not want.

After leaving Wilbur-Ellis we walked a few blocks to meet with leaders of prominent conservation and environmental organizations who have interests in preserving the environment while still feeding the world’s growing population. Jonathan Kaplan is the Senior Policy Specialist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He was accompanied by Ken Cook, President of the Environmental Working Group. We had a roundtable discussion with these two leaders and talked about the differences in views between the agricultural and environmental communities and how we can work together to find a compromise in the “gray area” as opposed to the issues being just black and white.  It was refreshing and reassuring to witness how easily these conversations can occur when people are willing to sit down at the table together and discuss common interests instead of always focusing on clashing view points.  What a world of difference it would make in the policy arena if ‘compromise’ was more prevalent.  It doesn’t matter who you are or who you represent, we all have a common interest in a safe, affordable, nutritious food supply without destroying the earth and land that produces these foods.

We then strolled back over to the building we had met the Wilbur-Ellis company in. This time however, we met the Honorable William Reilly who has an impressive set of credentials that include a BA in history from Yale and a J.D./Law degree from Harvard. He was a former EPA Administrator and was even commissioned by President Obama to help investigate the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Mr. Reilly helped establish American Farmland Trust, wrote the National Land Use Policy Act, and regulated wetlands protection as the EPA Administrator. He discussed many issues with us, including GMOs and the proposition 37 initiative to label GMO products in California (which was defeated in the most recent election by a small margin). He expressed his disappointment in GM foods as they were developed to increase yield to benefit the producer and the supply chain, rather than add more nutritional value to benefit the consumer and react to demands of the marketplace. He also talked with us about the major points of our projects and gave each group a helpful opinion in which direction we could take our topics.

The final stop of the day was a very social one that hit close to home. We visited the Illini Center West, an alumni office right in the heart of downtown San Francisco.  We met local University of Illinois graduates of all ages and backgrounds. We talked over some delicious Mexican food about their successes and life after the University, and even had the opportunity to market an alum’s patent. The Center has an impressive display wall of startup tech companies near San Francisco which were founded (at least in part) by Illinois grads including YouTube, Yelp, Military.com, Oracle, among hundreds of others.  This meeting helped us realize that the possibilities are endless, especially with a degree from the University of Illinois.