Vilsack accepts Holmberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Bioeconomy

At ABLC, the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, accepted the William C. Holmberg Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Bioeconomy and in his Holmberg Address said that “There’s a competition going on here. There can only be one winner, and that’s us. We need to be the premier leader of this new clean economy, which puts all of you right in the center of that opportunity, because that’s what you are all about. With these investments, with this infrastructure, we are poised to emerge, as again, the world leader in biotechnology, the world leader in healthcare innovation, the world leader, in clean energy, the world leader in food security, the world leader in addressing the challenge that climate presents to us and how we might mitigate the consequences. So we should accept the challenge, understand that there are serious resources committed to this, and be excited about that future. And I think sustainable aviation fuel is the poster child, if you will, for this new clean economy. So I’m extraordinarily excited about this.” Secretary Vilsack’s complete remarks are here.

In introducing Vilsack and giving the award, Digest editor & publisher Jim Lane said “I’m going to tell you a story about a young man who came to Iowa to follow a girl, who as a young country lawyer, saw the 1980s farm crisis, up close and personal.

“Like everyone at that time, he said, “never again!” Like many, he has tried to change rural America through technology and diversification. Like a few, he has kept at it, and at it, until ‘The World Turned Upside Down’. That’s the tune they played at Yorktown in 1781 when a nation of farmers won its independence, and they’re playing it again today. Because there are more than 8000 bioproducts, alternatives to petroleum made today and available through USDA BioPreferred, and other outlets throughout the world. You can drive, shop, work and play, petroleum free, if you want it, it’s your choice. What’s more American than that, to have a choice, and to have that choice be an alternative that’s made in rural America.

“Ronald Reagan used to say, There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” That comes to mind, of course, because the gentleman to my left here, is thinking right now desperately, how do I deflect all this, and give the credit to all the people who did the work, and he’s going to probably do quite a bit of that in his own remarks. But I will tell you this.

“No one, in the long story of the bioeconomy, has done so much, for so many, for so long.”