U.S. China Trade and the Future of Agriculture in the Heartland

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About This Webinar

A majority of the U.S. agricultural exports to China are produced in the Heartland region, giving these Midwestern states an increased interest in U.S-China collaboration. With recent trade tensions and the impacts of COVID-19, the Heartland’s agriculture industry is facing many uncertainties and challenges. There is much to be gained between the collaboration of the US and China, the countries that are home to the two largest economies in the world. The continuance of successful U.S.-China trade should be of high concern to those in the Heartland region.

In this webinar replay, we’re proud to host a panel of agricultural industry veterans, policymakers, and investors who’ll explore the opportunities and challenges for the future of agriculture in the Heartland and how the U.S. and China can continue to work together and build bridges of economic security between the two countries.

This event is part of USHCA’s ongoing series, The Way Forward, where we discuss different ideas and initiatives used by the U.S. and China and how they can be applied to the Heartland region.

Resources

Sources of Food Supply Chain Information.pdf -Jennifer Hilliman

Panelists: 

Secretary Tom Vilsack

Tom Vilsack - President and CEO, USDEC - Former Secretary of Agriculture

As president and CEO, Vilsack provides strategic leadership and oversight of USDEC’s global promotional and research activities, regulatory affairs and trade policy initiatives. This includes working with industry leaders to develop a long-term vision for building sales and consumer trust in U.S. dairy.

Tom Vilsack

As president and CEO, Vilsack provides strategic leadership and oversight of USDEC's global promotional and research activities, regulatory affairs and trade policy initiatives. This includes working with industry leaders to develop a long-term vision for building sales and consumer trust in U.S. dairy.

Vilsack joined USDEC in January 2017 after serving eight years as the nation’s 30th Secretary of Agriculture, where he worked to strengthen the American agricultural economy, build vibrant rural communities and create new markets for the innovation of rural America. Prior to his appointment, he served two terms as the governor of Iowa, in the Iowa State Senate and as the mayor of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.

Secretary Vilsack has been a proud member of the Iowa Bar Association since 1975 after graduating from Hamilton College and Albany Law School. He is a proud husband to his wife of 46 years, and father of two sons. He is fortunate to have 2 daughters-in-law and 5 grandchildren. 

Tom Vilsack Bio
Hillman Headshot

Jennifer Hillman - Senior Fellow for Trade and International Political Economy at the Council on Foreign Relations

Jennifer A. Hillman is a senior fellow for trade and international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), specializing in U.S. trade policy, the law and politics of the World Trade Organization (WTO), international organizations, and Brexit.  

Jennifer Hillman

Jennifer A. Hillman is a senior fellow for trade and international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), specializing in U.S. trade policy, the law and politics of the World Trade Organization (WTO), international organizations, and Brexit.   

Hillman was most recently a professor of practice at the Georgetown University Law Center, teaching the lead courses in international business and international trade, along with a practicum on international trade and investment law that gave students the opportunity to resolve real-world problems for developing country governments and a wide variety of NGOs. She recently published Getting to Brexit: Legal Aspects of the Process of the UK’s Withdrawal from the EU (IIEL 2018) and Legal Aspects of Brexit: Implications of the United Kingdom’s Decision to Withdraw from the European Union (IIEL 2017). She also co-authored the leading casebook on trade, International Trade Law, 3rd ed., Wolters Kluwer (2016). Additional writings have covered climate change, carbon taxes, the trade war with China, and reforms to the WTO.

Hillman has had a distinguished career in public service. In 2012, she completed her term as one of seven members serving on the WTO's highest court, its Appellate Body. Hillman also has in-depth experience adjudicating antidumping, countervailing duty, patent and safeguards cases along with conducting numerous studies of the economics of trade policy and trade agreements as a result of her service as a Commissioner at the United States International Trade Commission. Through her work as the General Counsel at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Hillman was involved in all litigation matters in which the United States was a party or third party in disputes before panels of the NAFTA or the WTO and in addressing the intersection between trade policy, trade law, and foreign policy. She negotiated bilateral agreements with forty-five countries while serving as USTR’s Ambassador and Chief Textiles Negotiator and was the legislative director and counsel to U.S. Senator Terry Sanford of North Carolina before joining USTR.

Hillman was a partner in the law firm of Cassidy Levy Kent, a senior transatlantic fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, president of the Trade Policy Forum, and a member of the selection panel for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.  She serves on the board of visitors at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and Duke University.

Affiliations:

  • Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, board of visitors
  • Georgetown University Law Center, professor from practice
  • International Capital Strategies, senior advisor
  • Providing outside informal counsel to the Biden for President Campaign
Jennifer Hillman Bio
Rob Dongoski_Color photo 2020

Rob Dongoski - EY Partner, Global Agribusiness Leader

As EY’s global Agribusiness leader, Rob is at the forefront of industry issues working directly with executives to optimize their approach in the global markets. Rob works across the food and agriculture value chain integrating innovation, driving digital adoption and developing strategy. 

Rob Dongoski

As EY’s global Agribusiness leader, Rob is at the forefront of industry issues working directly with executives to optimize their approach in the global markets. Rob works across the food and agriculture value chain integrating innovation, driving digital adoption and developing strategy.

Through his work with corporate clients, private equity firms, venture capitalists and the accelerator community Rob has become a knowledge leader on matters of critical importance to global and market-leading companies.

Rob Dongoski Bio

Rajiv Singh - Co-Chairman of FoodShot Global

Co-Chairman of FoodShot Global, an organization empowering ideas to accelerate the transformation to a health, sustainable and equitable food system

Retired CEO of Rabobank North America Wholesale Banking

Rajiv Singh

Rajiv is a strategic advisor, and investor, serving corporations, funds, entrepreneurs and professionals with a focus on innovation, value creation and corporate finance.

He served as CEO for Rabobank North America Wholesale Banking where he directed the bank's corporate and institutional client activities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. He also led the launch of Foodbytes, MIT Food Prize, and Terra.

Rajiv Singh Bio
Lee-Strom-with-Border

Lee Strom - Partner in the Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund

Leland (Lee) Strom is a partner in the Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund, LP, a USDA licensed Rural Business Investment Company (RBIC), is the Former CEO and Chair of the Farm Credit Administration. He also serves as a founding member of The Illinois Agri-Food Alliance, and as President of the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation.

Lee Strom

Leland (Lee) Strom is a partner in the Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund, LP, a USDA licensed Rural Business Investment Company (RBIC). He also serves as a founding member of The Illinois Agri-Food Alliance, and as President of the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation.

In 2006, Lee was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate to the board of the Farm Credit Administration in Washington D.C. where he served until 2015. President Bush designated him CEO and Chairman of the Board in 2008. FCA regulates the $300 billion national network of Farm Credit System institutions and Farmer Mac which provide credit and financial services to the nation’s agriculture and agribusiness sectors.

He has previously served on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Advisory Board on Agriculture, Labor, and Small Business, and in numerous other leadership capacities within the agriculture and finance sectors.

Having previously earned a degree in agriculture, in 2011 Northern Illinois University awarded him an Honorary Doctorate for his efforts in protecting and managing the assets of the agriculture industry.

He and his wife reside on a farm just west of Chicago in Kane County, Illinois, where his ancestors settled in the late 1800’s. In 2002, their farm was the first dedicated to permanent agricultural use via the county’s Farmland Preservation Program. They have three adult children and three grandchildren.

Lee Strom Bio
Xue Lei

Dr. Xue Lei - research fellow of Institute for World Economy Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies

Dr. XUE Lei is a research fellow of Institute for World Economy Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). He earned a Ph.D. degree in International Law at the East China University of Political Science and Law in 2010.

Dr. Xue Lei

Dr. XUE Lei is a research fellow of Institute for World Economy Studies, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS). He earned a Ph.D. degree in International Law at the East China University of Political Science and Law in 2010.

Currently he works on the following research topics:

1. China’s role in major multilateral international organizations and global economic governance, including the newly established multilateral development banks (MDBs).

2. China-US Economic and Trade Relations.

3. The study of development-security nexus and peace-building in fragile and conflict-affected states.

He was a visiting scholar of German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in 2011 and the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in 2013.

Dr. Xue Lei Bio

Moderator: 

Jim-Schutlz-large

Jim Schultz - Founder Open Prairie

Jim Schultz is the founder of Open Prairie and is responsible for the management of four private equity funds with investments in innovative technologies spanning agriculture, medical devices, and information systems.  

Funds invested by Open Prairie have resulted in two successful IPO’s and created over 4,000 jobs across 22 portfolio investments.  His current fund strategy is focused on agri-business investments in rural America under a USDA licensed rural business investment program (RBIP).

Jim Schultz

Jim Schultz is the founder of Open Prairie and is responsible for the management of four private equity funds with investments in innovative technologies spanning agriculture, medical devices, and information systems.  Funds invested by Open Prairie have resulted in two successful IPO’s and created over 4,000 jobs across 22 portfolio investments.  His current fund strategy is focused on agri-business investments in rural America under a USDA licensed rural business investment program (RBIP).

Jim is a fifth-generation Illinoisan, agribusiness entrepreneur, and private equity executive.  Like his ancestors, Jim has continued his family legacy in agribusiness throughout the America’s with investments in ag-tech companies, ag-input companies, rural businesses and farmland.  He has owned three proprietary soybean seed companies and three ag-chemical companies along with farmland in the Midwest and Brazil, representing over 17,000 acres.  In his hometown of Effingham, Illinois, Jim developed and created in a bean field an office park, Network Centre, that has created over 1,500 professional jobs for college graduates seeking to remain in the east-central Illinois area. He gained extensive leadership experience with growth-stage capital expansion over the years by investing in rural America.  Jim has served as the financial expert on mergers and acquisitions for clients in rural America in software development, banking, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and entertainment.

From 2015-2017, Jim served in newly-elected State of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s cabinet as the Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity where he oversaw the following departments:   business development, job training, energy, film, and tourism.  In conjunction with this role, he co-founded Intersect Illinois with Governor Rauner and served as Chairman/CEO, creating the State’s first private economic development corporation to represent the Illinois in job creation and business development.  He travelled on behalf of Governor Rauner leading Trade Missions to Japan, China, Canada, Germany and France.

Jim is a recognized leader throughout the State of Illinois. He has served as Chairman of the Board for Prime Banc Corporation – a multi-branch rural banking group serving southern and central Illinois – which grew organically from $40 million in assets to over $800 million in assets…all in rural communities in Illinois.  He also has served as Chairman of the Board for the following organizations:  Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Southeast Illinois Community Foundation, The Cross Foundation, and Effingham County Community Foundation.  Jim also served on the Advisory Board for the Chicago Federal Reserve.

Jim earned his MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Northwestern University, a Juris Doctor Degree in Corporate Finance from DePaul University, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University (cum laude).  Jim was born in Teutopolis, Illinois - adjacent to the building which housed his great-great-grandfathers trading post which supplied wagons heading west on the Cumberland Trail.   Jim currently lives in Effingham, Illinois, where he and his wife Laura raised their three sons.

Jim Schultz Bio

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