[Senate Hearing 110-798]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-798
ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
AGRICULTURAL DISASTER ASSISTANCE
PROGRAMS IN THE WAKE OF THE 2008
MIDWEST FLOODS, HURRICANE GUSTAV,
AND HURRICANE IKE
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
UNITED STATES SENATE
and the
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
KENT CONRAD, North Dakota RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
MAX BAUCUS, Montana THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
KEN SALAZAR, Colorado NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
Mark Halverson, Majority Staff Director
Jessica L. Williams, Chief Clerk
Martha Scott Poindexter, Minority Staff Director
Vernie Hubert, Minority Chief Counsel
(ii)
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH,Ohio
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN WARNER, Virginia
JON TESTER, Montana JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
Michael L Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISASTER RECOVERY
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas
TED STEVENS, Alaska PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
Donny Williams, Staff Director
Aprille Raabe, Minority Staff Director
Kelsey Stroud, Chief Clerk
(iii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing(s):
Assessing the Effectiveness of Agricultural Disaster Assistance
Programs in the Wake of the 2008 Midwest Floods, Hurricane
Gustav, and Hurricane Ike...................................... 1
----------
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS
Harkin, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa,
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry..... 1
Landrieu, Hon. Mary L., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Louisiana...................................................... 3
Vitter, Hon. David, a U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana... 4
Panel I
Conner, Charles F., Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of
Agriculture; accompanied by Kate Houston, Deputy Under
Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, and Arlen
Lancaster, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture...................................... 6
Panel II
Asell, Lyle W., Special Assistant to the Director of Agriculture,
Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Des Moines, Iowa......... 27
Ellender, Wallace ``Dickie'' IV, Southwest Louisiana Sugar Cane
Farmer, Bourg, Louisiana, and Chairman, National Legislative
Committee, American Sugar Cane League.......................... 29
Hardwick, Jon W. ``Jay'', Northeast Louisiana Cotton Farmer,
Newellton, Louisiana, and Vice Chairman, National Cotton
Council........................................................ 34
Jayroe, Natalie, President and Chief Executive Officer, Second
Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, New
Orleans, Louisiana............................................. 32
Prather, Barbara, Executive Director, Northeast Iowa Food Bank,
Waterloo, Iowa................................................. 25
Strain, Mike, Commissioner, Louisiana Department of Agriculture
and Forestry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana........................... 22
----------
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Grassley, Hon. Charles E..................................... 42
Asell, Lyle W................................................ 47
Conner, Charles F............................................ 49
Ellender, Wallace............................................ 59
Hardwick, Jon W.............................................. 71
Jayroe, Natalie.............................................. 75
Prather, Barbara............................................. 79
Strain, Mike................................................. 83
Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of Texas, prepared
statement.................................................. 88
Louisiana Bankers Association, prepared statement............ 90
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food, Nutrition and Consumer
Services, prepared statement............................... 91
United Way of Central Iowa, prepared statement............... 96
USA Rice Federation and U.S. Rice Producers Association,
prepared statement......................................... 101
``Restoring the Hoosier Heartland'', written report submitted
by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana....................... 107
Written letter to Hon. Nancy Montanez-Johner, Under Secretary
of Agriculture for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services
from various Members of Congress........................... 125
Question and Answer:
Chambliss, Hon. Saxby:
Written questions to Charles F. Conner....................... 128
Coleman, Hon. Norm:
Written questions to Charles F. Conner....................... 129
Grassley, Hon. Charles E.:
Written questions to Lyle Asell.............................. 130
Written questions to Barbara Prather......................... 132
Asell, Lyle:
Written response to Hon. Charles E. Grassley................. 133
Conner, Charles F.:
Written response to Hon. Saxby Chambliss..................... 138
Written response to Hon. Norm Coleman........................ 142
Prather, Barbara:
Written response to Hon. Charles E. Grassley................. 147
ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
AGRICULTURAL DISASTER ASSISTANCE
PROGRAMS IN THE WAKE OF THE 2008
MIDWEST FLOODS, HURRICANE GUSTAV,
AND HURRICANE IKE
----------
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition, and Forestry,
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on
Disaster Recovery,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:16 a.m., in
room SR-328A, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Harkin, Landrieu, Chambliss, Thune, and
Grassley.
Also present: Senator Vitter.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOM HARKIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
IOWA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND
FORESTRY
Chairman Harkin. The Senate Committee on Agriculture and
the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs will come to order.
We thank you for joining us today as we begin this joint
hearing between these two committees. I especially want to
thank my colleague Senator Landrieu for her hard work in
helping to put this hearing together.
The devastation caused by these natural disasters has
turned the lives of thousands of Americans upside down. I hope
the hearing today can help provide some insight into how the
Federal Government has helped and how it can improve its
ability to help communities in need following a disaster.
Now, of course, I will speak about what happened in Iowa.
Perhaps the biggest remaining need of agricultural producers
hit hard by the floods involves restoring the land. The
flooding that we had, some tornadoes, of course, the hurricanes
have devastated conservation structures that will need to be
rebuilt and shows the need for a greater effort to
prospectively address conservation needs through more
floodplain easements and better conservation stewardship. A
famous cartoonist but also a famous conservationist by the name
of J.N. ``Ding'' Darling, from Iowa, a very famous cartoonist
but one of the first of the conservationists back in the early
part of the last century, once said that the best way to
prevent floods is to stop the raindrop where it falls. And I
have thought about that a lot, seeing all these floods in Iowa.
For emergency conservation needs, the supplemental
appropriations bill passed before the July 4th recess provided
funding to the Emergency Conservation Program and the Emergency
Watershed Program.
I did a lot of flying over Iowa in a small plane during and
right after the flooding in Iowa, and I saw and actually took
some pictures--which I gave to Secretary Schafer at one time,
Chuck, you may remember--of the dramatic benefits of sound
agricultural conservation practices. I have pictures where you
could see buffer strips, grassed waterways, no-till, and
wetlands that kept the topsoil in place, filter sediment helped
hold the water back. By contrast, I took other pictures of bare
black fields with little or no conservation measures in place
that had obvious erosion of topsoil from the rains and the
flooding.
So Iowa's experience over the past couple of months
demonstrates the need for the future conservation investments
that we wrote into the new farm bill. We have to do more in
every State to improve conservation activities. At the same
time, it is important to provide farmers with the financial and
technical assistance they need to achieve demonstrably greater
conservation performance, through things like the EQIP program
and the CSP program.
For farmers facing significant crop losses, USDA has in
place both the Federal crop insurance program and, beginning
for this crop year, the 2008 crop year, a standing crop
disaster assistance program that was established in the 2008
farm bill. That legislation also included additional disaster
assistance for livestock farmers, tree crop producers,
producers of other things like fish and others that do not
neatly fit into these other programs. It is critically
important that USDA reach out to farmers so that they have the
information they need to understand whether these programs will
be of use to them, and that be the focus of the line of
questioning that I will pursue on that.
Last, lest we forget, one big role of agriculture is food
assistance. And on the food assistance side of the equation, we
know that the Federal Food Stamp Program is the first line of
defense against hunger not only for low-income families but for
people who have been hit by a natural disaster, and it becomes
even more important there. The experiences in Iowa--and I am
sure in Louisiana and Texas--will offer us insight into how the
Federal Government can help make sure that that food assistance
is there readily and rapidly and make sure it gets to people
who need it, those who were impacted by these disasters.
The waters in our State have receded, the rebuilding phase
is underway, but significant challenges remain for low-income
families hit hardest by the flooding. So continued support is
needed for them, and continued support is needed for
agriculture and rebuilding and renewing some of the things that
were--conservation measures that were damaged or destroyed. But
then, again, I always say we have to think prospectively. Let's
think ahead, and what can we do to be better at stopping that
raindrop when it falls in the future?
With that, I would recognize my dear friend and colleague,
Senator Landrieu.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARY L. LANDRIEU, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF LOUISIANA
Senator Landrieu. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, and I so
appreciate your willingness to co-host this hearing with me as
we try to bring some focus on a disaster that has unfolded and
is continuing to unfold today as we speak in several States
throughout our country.
Those of us who represent strong agricultural economies
understand, Senator, that natural disasters are not just about
the human tragedy of cities and urban areas besieged by water
and wind in hurricanes and storms and heavy rains. But we have
all seen reporters at the seawalls in Galveston or at the
Industrial Canal system in New Orleans. But that only tells
part of the story, Senator, of these hurricanes that have
rammed the Gulf Coast.
Far from the television cameras, there is an economic
crisis unfolding of major proportions throughout Louisiana.
Northeast Louisiana particularly has been an agricultural
breadbasket of our Nation since the 1790's. From soybeans to
sweet potatoes, cotton, and corn, Louisiana farmers have been
an integral part of the food chain in our country. And looking
further south, of course, you know because you have visited,
sugar cane has been the part of our economy since the Jesuits
planted the first stalk on Baronne Street right now across from
St. Patrick's Cathedral in New Orleans.
These centuries of productivity, culture, and history are
literally, Senator, threatened by the devastation caused by
Gustav and Ike. Our farmers are not standing on rooftops. They
were not rescued by the Coast Guard. But the tragedy and loss
that they have experienced is every bit as real as the loss
that other citizens in Louisiana have experienced through these
storms.
The point of our hearing today is to bring the spotlight on
this untold story of this disaster and to bolster our request
for immediate and substantial assistance to the agricultural
sector of Louisiana and other States that need similar help.
I want to say that both in Iowa, where your industry, your
agriculture industry, is about a $19 billion industry and ours
a $10 billion industry is one of the largest in our State. The
storms that hit Louisiana--Faye, heavy rains in Faye, although
it hit Florida, the rains traveled throughout our area of the
country--not just inches, Senator, but feet. Gustav and Ike
then came on the heels of Faye, and not only had tremendous
coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion, but, again, dumped heavy
rains and precipitated flooding in creeks and rivers and
streams throughout bayous throughout our State. It has caused
unprecedented damage, which is the testimony that you will
hear.
So we are not just talking only, though, about the farmers
and the fields. Right here is a good picture. I do not know
whether this came from Louisiana or Iowa, but a lot of our
fields look just like this. I was walking through them this
weekend. But these storms have a domino effect on our entire
agricultural industry. Lenders, grain storage elevators, and
our bankers are all sitting on pins and needles.
This is a rice farmer holding the destroyed rice in his
hands in Cheneyville, Louisiana, and up here is a picture of
our cotton crop in North Louisiana. Right before these rains,
Senator, this was the most beautiful cotton crop that you could
have ever seen in Louisiana. Our farmers were giddy with
excitement about the banner agricultural year that they were
just about ready to have. And unfortunately, these storms hit
right before harvest time. So we are literally sitting in miles
and miles of fields of cotton that looks like this, rice that
looks like this. Some of our rice was harvested, but not enough
of it.
So far, the estimated damage--and these are simply,
Senator, preliminary estimates--is $700 million just for Gustav
because the Ike numbers have not come in yet. We have not seen
agricultural losses like this in memory--in memory.
So that is what this hearing is about. I am very happy to
have our Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strain, newly elected
but not new to this issue. He comes to us as a veterinarian and
as a leader of our ag community. He has been walking the halls
of Congress here with our Lieutenant Governor and other elected
officials for days trying to bring this message to Congress.
So I thank you. I am going to submit the rest of my
statement for the record, but, again, the point of this
hearing, Senator, is to really sound the alarm before Congress
leaves to give some special attention to the agricultural
sectors of our State that have not been photographed very much.
And this is not a hit to the press. They have more pictures
than they know what to do with to take of Galveston and other
areas that have been flooded. But we must bring this issue to
the attention of our Congress, and I thank you very much, and I
will have more questions later.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Senator Landrieu.
Now I yield to Senator Vitter, our other Senator from the
great State of Louisiana.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID VITTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF LOUISIANA
Senator Vitter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be very
brief.
First of all, I, too, want to thank you for this hearing
and also express our support for your people and all of the
difficulty you all have gone through with enormous flooding in
the Midwest for several, several months. So we certainly stand
with you with regard to that, and you can count on our help in
any way possible. And certainly we feel the same way about the
people of Texas who were very hard hit and face significant ag
impacts. In general, the impacts are great there, particularly
southeast Texas and areas like Galveston.
Mary is exactly right, and the horn of our dilemma or the
nature of our challenge is this: First, I think the Nation has
a general sense that although Gustav and Ike were significant
storms, we sort of dodged the bullet in Louisiana. Well,
certainly that is true in the sense that it did not cause
crisis and devastation like Katrina and Rita did, particularly
in urban areas like New Orleans. But, in other ways, it is
really not true, and the biggest area where it is really not
true is agriculture. And, unfortunately, Gustav and Ike
together caused more devastation and more loss across more of
the State in agriculture than Katrina and Rita.
It is hard to really grasp that just based on the nature of
the storms and the categories, but it is true. Gustav and Ike
impacted almost every corner of the State, including with
torrential rains in central and north Louisiana. And so the
impact to ag was enormous and was absolutely greater than the
impacts of Katrina and Rita.
Now, you couple that with the fact that under our disaster
laws like the Stafford Act, many things happen automatically
once you have a Presidential disaster declaration. But,
unfortunately, for the most part, help for ag and fisheries
does not happen automatically. For the most part, we need to
act affirmatively for anything meaningful to get done. There is
no automatic grants of certain monies as there is for debris
removal or individual assistance under the Stafford Act.
And so that is really the nature of our challenge: enormous
loss, particularly in ag and fisheries, that is widely
underappreciated on the national scale, with the fact that
there is nothing in Federal law that automatically kicks in. So
we really truly need to act, and I appreciate your leadership
as we do act on a very tight timetable.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Senator Vitter, and,
again, to both of you, again, whatever help we can be we are
sort of all in this together. And we need to let the rest of
the country know just how badly our people are hurting and what
is happening, of course, in the area of agriculture, is not
highlighted as much, perhaps, as you said, as other things are
highlighted.
I just remember the floods in Iowa. All over the world TV
viewers saw pictures of Cedar Rapids underwater, and it was
devastating. But you did not see much about what was happening
out on the farms, and those farmers out there and stuff like
that in their fields just gone.
Once I was in a field of a number of farms where a levee
broke, and there was, I think, about 12,000 acres totally
devastated. You just do not see pictures of that. It sort of
looked like that, Mary, something like that.
Well, we have two panels. Our first panel, Mr. Chuck
Conner, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Ms.
Kate Houston, Deputy Under Standard for Food, Nutrition, and
Consumer Services; and Mr. Arlen Lancaster, Chief of the
Natural Resources Conservation Service. This will be our first
panel. The next panel will have people from both Louisiana and
Iowa testifying.
So, Mr. Conner, welcome to the Committee. Your statement
will be made a part of the record in its entirety. If you could
summarize for us, we would be most appreciative. Welcome back.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES F. CONNER, DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE; ACCOMPANIED BY KATE HOUSTON, DEPUTY
UNDER SECRETARY FOR FOOD, NUTRITION, AND CONSUMER SERVICES, AND
ARLEN LANCASTER, CHIEF, NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Conner. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Harkin,
Chairwoman Landrieu, and Senator Vitter. I am pleased to be
here today to share with you the Department of
Agriculture'srole in disaster response and recovery in the wake
of the 2008 Midwest floods and, of course, Hurricanes Gustav
and Ike.
I am joined today by Arlen Lancaster, our Chief of the
Natural Resource Conservation Service, and Kate Houston, the
Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer
Services. They will be available to help me with any questions
that you may have. I also have a number of other technical
experts that we have brought with me today in order to respond
properly and in detail to your questions.
This year's natural disasters did wreak havoc, serious
damage throughout the Midwest, Texas, and Louisiana. They
destroyed crops, killed livestock, put thousands of people out
of their homes, and destroyed businesses. They presented a
serious test of our Department's emergency response
capabilities. But, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to say today
and am proud to say today that I believe the people of USDA did
rise to this occasion.
Most of USDA's 110,000 employees, Mr. Chairman, live in the
very communities where they work. And when USDA responds, it is
often our employees helping their neighbors, their family, and
others in their communities. This year, they applied lessons
learned from our experiences with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
in 2005. They worked tirelessly and effectively to deliver
essential services and supplies for the people who needed them
most and to cut through bureaucratic red tape wherever it was
possible.
USDA, as you know, carries out a very broad range of
missions. They range from fighting hunger through our nutrition
programs to assuring the safety of food products through
inspection and public education efforts, to protecting soil and
water resources through conservation, to supporting our
agricultural producers and managing our Nation's forests.
Nearly all of USDA's 17 agencies have been involved in our
disaster response efforts to some degree.
Mr. Chairman, as you might expect, when situations like
this arise, providing food to the victims of disasters is
always our absolute No. 1 priority. The Food and Nutrition
Service meets this need on two levels. In the earliest stages
of the disaster recovery, when grocery stores and banks are
closed, utility services are interrupted, and people are
actually displaced from their homes, we provide food supplies
to shelter and food banks for use in serving meals and
restocking household needs.
As the recovery proceeds, FNS focuses on providing Disaster
Food Stamp Program benefits to people who may have returned to
their homes but still may be dealing with income interruptions
and other disaster-related financial losses. Those who receive
the benefits must meet income guidelines, but the thresholds
are higher than they are with regular food stamp applications.
To date, FNS has provided nearly $192 million of benefits
and supplements through the DFSP to 40,000 new and 19,500
ongoing households that were victims of the Midwest flood. It
has also provided $184 million in benefits to 490,000 new and
over 119,000 ongoing households that were victims of Hurricane
Gustav in Louisiana. And in Texas, some of the data that we are
just reporting in, we have now offered benefits to 58,000 new
recipients and over 245,000 existing food stamp households for
additional benefits of $42 million to date as a result of
Hurricane Ike as well. So these benefits are flowing, and they
are flowing in a very substantial way.
Keeping food safe, Mr. Chairman, during an emergency is
another essential mission. Through alerts to the media and
updates on its website, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection
Service has kept the public informed on how to keep food safe
during power outages. And in Texas and Louisiana, we have also
been handing out packets of information on food safety at key
distribution points. This is the packet. We brought a few of
these here today for you to have as a visual so that you can
understand the type of communication that we are having with
people that are adversely impacted in these situations who need
to know what food is safe to eat and what is not.
As important as they are, food supplies and food safety
issues are only part of our overall response to these
disasters. We have also been working to help the victims of
these disasters restore damage done to crops, roads, homes, and
infrastructure.
In the States affected by the Midwest floods, the Natural
Resource Conservation Service and the Farm Service Agency have
already started distributing Emergency Watershed Protection
funds and Emergency Conservation Program funds to restore
damaged water management structures, farmland, and conservation
projects. We expect to receive more EWP and ECP claims from
Texas and Louisiana and other States as we move further into
the recovery phase of our response to Hurricanes Gustav and
Ike, and we will be talking to Congress about the funding for
these programs.
To properly assess the situation, of course, it always does
help to spend a lot of time on the ground. In June, Secretary
Schafer got the chance to see the aftermath of the Midwest
floods firsthand when he joined President Bush and Senator
Harkin in Iowa. I also had the opportunity to see conditions in
my home State of Indiana. More recently, Nancy Johner, our
Under Secretary for Food and Nutrition, visited Louisiana to
see how the recovery efforts were going following Hurricane
Gustav, particularly as it related to the nutrition side of
that equation.
We have also been in close touch with State officials. Last
week, Secretary Schafer and I met with Dr. Mike Strain, who
will testify before you later, Louisiana's Commissioner of
Agriculture, and we have also met with Texas agriculture
officials to discuss how we can work together to expedite the
recovery from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
Our initial responses to these two hurricanes reflects the
lessons that we learned from the Federal response to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita 3 years ago. We determined that advanced
planning and prepositioning of people and equipment and
enhanced training of State and local emergency response
personnel could all do a great deal to improve the outcomes
from those damaged by the catastrophic storms.
The Forest Service, of course, has deep experience in
managing the logistical and supply challenges involved in
fighting wildfires under emergency conditions. We drew upon
that experience by prepositioning some 600 Forest Service
personnel throughout the Southeast so that they would be ready
to respond immediately to the anticipate hurricanes and
tropical storms. That group included Incident Management Teams
and other emergency specialists who provided direct support to
the FEMA command centers.
We also include five 50-person saw crews who tackled road
clearing and debris removal throughout Texas and Louisiana. One
of those crews, as an example, was able to clear the only road
open on Galveston Island to the Galveston Medical Center,
making medical services accessible in one of the hardest-hit
areas from Hurricane Ike.
And our response has not been solely programmatic as well.
Our people have gone the extra mile to find a way to help.
Whether that means scrambling to get out in a boat or up in a
helicopter to find stranded livestock or figuring out the best
way to shelter stranded companion animals, we have been
resourceful in simply getting the job done.
On a person-to-person basis, there have been innumerable
examples of how our emergency personnel have helped, ranging
from providing emergency ice to an elderly man in Texas whose
insulin was on the verge of going bad, to helping a daughter in
Chicago figure out how to help her mother in Houma, Louisiana,
after she had tried to make contact with her mother and was
unsuccessful in doing so.
Because of the planning and prepositioning that has been
done by many USDA agencies and their close coordination with
our partners in State and local government, our response effort
to these recent disasters has been rapid and, I believe,
carefully targeted.
That is not to say, Mr. Chairman, that there are no
glitches or unforeseen events. That is always the case. But
extensive preparation work helped us bypass many of these
logistical and bureaucratic hurdles that have hampered us in
the past.
USDA's overall response has been greatly aided by our
centralized Homeland Security Office. This office was created
by Secretary Ann Veneman shortly after the 9/11 attacks. In the
years since, it has worked to break down agency barriers and
build a unified Department-wide team to respond to disasters.
It also works closely with FEMA in planning and training
activities. The Director of the office, Sheryl Maddux, is here
today, and I would like to thank her for all she has done to
get us in shape for the tests that we have faced this year, and
they have been substantial tests. Sheryl is a career
professional, and she now heads an office that is staffed
entirely by career professionals who report directly to the
chief of staff. They do great work, Mr. Chairman. We are glad
to have her on board, and with that, Mr. Chairman, let me
please answer any questions that the Committees may have for
me.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conner can be found on page
49 in the appendix.]
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
I have one question for each of you, and most of it has to
do with rules. Mr. Conner, there was some confusion this summer
out my way on some of the new provisions in the farm bill on
the new disaster program. We contacted you. You were very
helpful in getting that straightened out, and I appreciate that
very much. But where are we in getting the draft rules for the
new disaster program that was in the farm bill? Where are we on
getting--can you give us some idea how soon we are going to be
able to see some of the draft rules for farmers to take a look
at?
Mr. Conner. Senator Harkin, that is a great question. Let
me just say that relative to the SURE Program, our people
within the Farm Service Agency are working very, very
diligently. And this is a key part of our disaster response.
This is money that is there, that is available; and such sums
as necessary have been provided to meet the disaster
requirements for those producers who qualify and have an
eligible disaster loss, which I believe is triggered at 30
percent, if I am not mistaken, in that.
In this case, though, Mr. Chairman this is also a brand-new
program.
Chairman Harkin. That is right.
Mr. Conner. A program that we have never offered anything
like this before within the Department of Agriculture. It is
based off of crop loss for the entire farm of that operation
for all crops.
Chairman Harkin. Right.
Mr. Conner. Regardless of the location of those crops. If
you have a farm that is spread out, some in the disaster area,
some not, we have to take into account all of the income, all
of the revenue from all of those crops. And that can be a very
diverse situation. We were talking this morning in preparation
for this. We insure, we believe, over 400 different crops, and
some of those crops, we do not even have an accounting for in
terms of income and prices for those crops, and we are going to
have to create that in order to implement this new SURE
Program.
Bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is we are working hard. I do not
want to leave you the impression that those regulations are
imminent. They are going to be coming as quickly as possible.
They will be available. Farmers who have losses in 2008 will
qualify for payments under that particular program. But I would
note as well, just in the interest of full disclosure, that the
statute requires us to base our determination of payments off
of income from the season average price associated with those
crops on that farm.
In corn, for example, the 2008 crop, we are just beginning
the crop marketing year for corn. And we will go the full year
for marketing of the 2008 corn marketing year.
Chairman Harkin. Right.
Mr. Conner. And so it will be a full year from now before
you would actually have the price data on corn alone to make
the determination to issue the payment under the SURE Program.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you.
Ms. Houston, from speaking with people involved in the
disaster recovery efforts in Iowa, I first want to thank you
for the good work that USDA did there. Most everyone I talked
to in communities I met with were very pleased with the way
that USDA worked with local communities and the county offices
to get the Disaster Food Stamp Program up and running. So I
just want to thank you for that, although I noticed long lines
of 500 to 600 people in Houston, and hopefully you are going to
be doing something about doing more in the future to anticipate
500 or 600 people standing in line. It can be very frustrating
and debilitating when you have lost your home and everything
else. So I hope you are going to be looking at ways of
addressing that in the future, too.
That did not happen in Iowa. I just saw that in Houston.
Ms. Houston. We certainly recognize that, particularly on
the initial days of the Disaster Food Stamp Program getting up
and running, there can be a number of logical challenges
because everybody wants to kind of get there and get their
benefits. There are a number of things that we can do in
partnership with States to try to alleviate some of those
crowds. Certainly pre-planning to make sure there are an
adequate number of sites, an adequate number of trained
eligibility determination workers can really help in those
first few days, as well as communication with the public about
the number of days that the sites will be open so that they
understand they do not all need to get there on the first day.
We have also worked with States to identify some
appropriate waivers that can help to create some flexibilities
in the way the system operates, and hopefully those create some
expediencies. For example, in Texas and in Louisiana, we
recently approved a waiver that allows potential applicants to
call ahead into a phone center, provide their information, do
as much of the intake over the phone, and then when they show
up at the site, they just have to do some quick verification on
the back end, and they can walk away with their card. We have
seen that as one example as a way that we have really been able
to minimize the crowds in the last few days of the operation of
these centers.
Chairman Harkin. Very good. Thank you very much.
Mr. Lancaster, I know it does not have anything directly to
do with disaster response, but NRCS is now past the statutory
deadline of when the regulations on the Conservation Title of
the recently passed farm bill were supposed to be out. The 90-
day period expired on September 16th, and the transition period
we included in the Conservation Title expires on September
30th. Where are the regulations? And instead of addressing
this, you might for the record tell us what programs will not
be able to function as of October 1st without new regulations
in place.
Mr. Lancaster. Mr. Chairman, certainly we are working, as
the Deputy Secretary indicated, as diligently as possible on
all our rules to make them available to producers in fiscal
year 2009. Of our rules, they are in various stages of
clearance within the administration and within USDA.
Our expectation is that we will be able to offer most of
these programs again in fiscal year 2009, most of them in
calendar year 2008.
Some programs, like the Conservation Security Program, we
are working, and it is more likely that a program like that
would be--the rules would not be completed until calendar year
2009 because of the complexity of a brand-new program,
essentially.
We are working with our Office of General Counsel on what
provisions require a rule in order to offer the program and
whether or not we can offer and hold sign-ups for a number of
these programs prior to the rule being completed.
Chairman Harkin. But, again, would you for the record
provide for us, since obviously the rules are not going to be
done by September 30th or October 1st, provide us for the
record what programs would not be able to function as of
October 1st without these new regulations in place, if any?
Mr. Lancaster. Mr. Chairman, we will certainly do that for
the record. We will consult with our Office of General Counsel,
and, again, some of them we may be able to offer initially and
hold those sign-ups because the rules are specific to how we
operate on implementation rather than the sign-up with those
producers.
Chairman Harkin. I appreciate that.
Chairman Harkin. I recognize now the Chairman of the
Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery of the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Senator Landrieu.
Senator Landrieu. [Presiding.] Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, if you could just clear up just a couple
things in your testimony. One, you said that after 9/11 there
was a disaster relief coordination effort within the
Department. Who is in charge of that effort right now?
Mr. Conner. Sheryl Maddux.
Senator Landrieu. Sheryl Maddux. And her title is?
Mr. Conner. This is Sheryl Maddux.
Senator Landrieu. So Sheryl is here. Sheryl, what is your
title?
Ms. Maddux. Director of Homeland Security Office.
Senator Landrieu. OK. And you are in charge of agriculture
disasters, trying to coordinate ag disasters since 9/11?
Mr. Conner. Sheryl's responsibility, obviously she
coordinates among our 7 mission areas within USDA, but then she
directly interfaces with the Department of Homeland Security
and their operations as well, and the FEMA personnel.
Senator Landrieu. OK. Because I am wondering if the
Secretary is going to declare our State an agriculture disaster
or not. And if not, why? If so, when? And I do not know if you
want to respond to that.
Mr. Conner. Yes, let me take a shot at that, Senator
Landrieu. We have got that paperwork within the agency. I
believe--I can be corrected here by some of our folks, but I
think that it would represent the entire State of Louisiana in
terms of a disaster area. You have already recieved a
Presidential disaster declaration. In order for us to give you
a secretarial disaster declaration--and this is significant
because in order to be eligible for the SURE payments that I
was discussing with Senator Harkin, you have to have not a
Presidential but a secretarial designation. That paperwork is
coming in now. We are still waiting on some of the loss
assessments that we need from the local personnel to make that
decision. But it will be forthcoming, and it is going to be
forthcoming in a very timely way. Our folks have dealt with
this. They approve these things almost on a daily basis, and
those disaster declarations will come in for the State of
Louisiana in a timely way and----
Senator Landrieu. OK. Well, let me just----
Mr. Conner [continuing]. Well ahead of what you are going
to need in order to qualify for those SURE payments.
Senator Landrieu. Well, that is good news and bad news. I
mean, of course, we would rather have a declaration than not.
But I understand that you just testified that the regulations
for the program at not written. And so how would we write
regulations in time to get help to our farmers?
Mr. Conner. Let me share this thought, if I could, Senator
Landrieu, with you, and I think it addresses your point.
Obviously, as I mentioned to Senator Harkin, under the SURE
Program, we will provide payments in terms of crop losses----
Senator Landrieu. I realize that, but not to interrupt you,
Mr. Secretary, I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I need to
ask you something.
Mr. Conner. OK.
Senator Landrieu. You testified just now that you have not
really even started to write the regulations and that it
might--and I think your quote was, ``Chairman, do not expect it
to be imminent. It is not going to be imminent.'' So that led
me to believe that it may take a year, maybe several months, a
year, maybe even 2 years. You have 400 crops, you testified, in
America that you do not even have assessments for. I can
understand----
Mr. Conner. If I could, Senator Landrieu----
Senator Landrieu. Let me just finish. I can understand the
challenge that is before you, but we have an immediate disaster
on the ground right now, and you have testified that the
program that we have tried to structure with our best efforts
is not even--the regulations are not even written yet.
So what is the Agriculture Department's response to this?
Are you going to ask for any special help or intermediate help?
And what can we expect from you and the Secretary?
Mr. Conner. OK. If I could, in an attempt to respond to the
points you have raised, on the SURE Program, I did not say we
had not started. I indicated it is a difficult process. We have
already literally logged in hundreds of thousands of hours to
get ready for SURE.
Senator Landrieu. I stand corrected. When do you think it
will be completed?
Mr. Conner. We will be in a position to issue these checks
next fall in a timely way once we have the data that is
necessary. I am not talking about 2 or 3 years down the road.
Senator Landrieu. OK. Then that is fine. I stand corrected.
And you said that you can maybe deliver checks next fall, but
let me press my point here, if I could, in the time remaining.
Next fall is too late. Next fall it too late.
Mr. Conner. I understand that.
Senator Landrieu. Now, the Department has some
responsibility here, not only does Congress but the Department,
I think, to come up with some intermediate suggestions as to
how we might get ourselves from where we are today to where we
are going to need to go before we have an economic agricultural
collapse in Louisiana. And I am wondering if you have any
suggestions today about how that might be done?
Mr. Conner. I do, and I am going to make two points, if I
could, to address that question.
The first point is understand that we are already putting
money into the system in terms of crop insurance indemnity
payments. This fall, Senator Landrieu, we will make a record
number of crop insurance indemnity payments, I am advised now
estimated to be well over $5 billion for these types of
disasters. Some of these payments have already gone out for
those that received an early loss situation, and that is true
in Iowa. In Louisiana, where the damage has just occurred those
assessors are out there. Those payments will be made in a
timely way, and I am talking weeks in terms of that money going
out. And, again, that is going to be $5 billion that we are
going to be putting out there into the world of crop loss
situations.
Senator Landrieu. But I thought----
Mr. Conner. Also, the second part of that is in the very
near future--and, again, within a matter of weeks, not months
or certainly not years--within the very near future, we are
going to be making additional payments relative to the 2008
crop in the form of a direct payment, and that is going to be
over $4 billion----
Senator Landrieu. So you are testifying----
Mr. Conner [continuing]. In a direct payment----
Senator Landrieu. Just to be clear, you are testifying that
within the next few weeks, you can distribute $5 billion
without the rules and regulations in place?
Mr. Conner. What I am saying is that the crop insurance
system is in place. Obviously, this is a program that we
operate with private insurance companies, with private
adjusters. Those adjusters are literally down there in the
fields now making those assessments. Some of those adjustments
cannot be made until a little bit later because the harvest has
not yet occurred on the crops that have survived down there.
But all of that crop insurance business with the adjusters
assessing the damage is going to be made in a timely way, and
those payments are going to go out in a very timely way.
You know, I am not going to nail down a time because, to
some extent, that is an issue between the farmer and his
insurance company. But the resources are there, and those
payments are going to go out soon.
Senator Landrieu. Well, let me just say for the record, I
appreciate your attention, but I believe strongly that the
current insurance program is not at all adequate for what our
situation is in Louisiana. And it may not be adequate for
agriculture disasters going on in Texas or in Iowa or in other
parts of the Midwest. But I do not want to speak for those
States. But for Louisiana, that insurance program is wholly
inadequate, and the new one that we struggled for years under
the jurisdiction of this Committee to try to put in place, the
regulations, you have testified, have not been completed and
will not even be available until next year.
So I am going to conclude my 5 minutes by saying that I
really hope that you will consider, once you have heard the
testimony from our Agriculture Commissioner and others,
something that can be done more immediately and substantial to
help out not only our farmers but our bankers, our grain
elevators. And I thank the Chairman.
I would like to call--I think the Chairman is out--on
whoever the next questioner is in order of appearance. Senator
Vitter?
Senator Vitter. Thank you, Senator.
Mr. Secretary, again, I want to encourage the call for a
secretarially-declared ag disaster for the entire State of
Louisiana. You outlined why this declaration is necessary and
important. Our Governor, Governor Jindal, has requested it for
the entire State.
Mr. Conner. Yes.
Senator Vitter. I know assessment teams are on the ground.
But the sooner that can happen, the better.
I apologize if I missed it, but did you have an approximate
timetable you expected that decision within?
Mr. Conner. Well, Senator Vitter, I did not. But I will
tell you, I will commit to you and to Senator Landrieu that the
Washington review of those assessments that are coming in from
the field will not hold up that process. We will turn those
around almost immediately, as soon as we get them in from the
field, and we will not hold them up.
Senator Vitter. Right. OK. And, obviously, the assessments
on the ground need to happen quickly, too.
Mr. Conner. Absolutely.
Senator Vitter. So if you can push that through the
pipeline.
The second quick issue, crop insurance deadlines for sugar.
Right now that is September 30th, and you still have fields
underwater. You still have folks dealing with very difficult
situations. Can an additional 30 days be granted for that sign-
up in light of the disaster some folks are still in the midst
of?
Mr. Conner. Senator Vitter, the short answer to your
question is I do not think that is going to be possible. This
is a crop insurance program where we underwrite private
insurance, and we subsidize the premiums for that insurance,
but it is a privately operated insurance program. And if we
allowed people to sign up for this program after a disaster
occurs, I venture to say, Senator Vitter, next year we would
have no companies offering crop insurance. They would not--
cannot insure and allow them to get in after a disaster has
occurred. No one would sign up ahead of time if that were the
case. We currently have 17 companies offering crop insurance in
your region, and it is a very competitive environment. We want
that competition out there for the sake of the farmer. I do not
think we would have it if we let them insure after a disaster.
Senator Vitter. Let me back up, because maybe I am missing
something. The current deadline is September 30th.
Mr. Conner. Yes.
Senator Vitter. So that itself is after----
Mr. Conner. Are you talking about the reporting of the
loss, Senator?
Senator Vitter. No. I am talking about sign-up.
Mr. Conner. Sign-up for the actual insurance.
Senator Vitter. For the program. And I am just talking
about the fact that the current deadline is after Ike, so it is
not a question of moving a deadline from before an event to
after an event. It is a question of the current deadline being
September 30th and folks still being in the midst of enormous
losses and clean-up and extending that deadline, again, with no
intervening disaster. I believe that has happened in other
cases.
Mr. Conner. OK. I am going to say something, and then if I
am wrong on this, I am going to ask my staff to correct me,
because I may well be wrong on this, Senator. I believe the
actual requirement on whether or not you are going to have
insurance, that time has already come and gone. I believe that
September 30th is the deadline for reporting a disaster on
that.
For 2009, OK, that is September--so for 2008 the loss has
already occurred, you have already had to make a decision
whether to be----
Senator Vitter. I am talking about next year.
Mr. Conner. For next year, OK.
Senator Vitter. I am talking about just the fact that
people----
Mr. Conner. OK. Then I apologize.
Senator Vitter [continuing]. Are in the midst of clean-up
and disaster, and this deadline is coming for next year. So can
we extend the 30 days?
Mr. Conner. Well, I think we have got some flexibility both
in terms of when they report their loss, because obviously some
people are trying to get back into their home situation as
well. Let us go back and look and see what kind of flexibility
we may have for them to sign up for next year, because I
understand some of these people are just trying to get their
homes back in order. They cannot deal with this.
Senator Vitter. Right.
Mr. Conner. If we have got any flexibility that does not
hurt the integrity of the program, Senator, we will try and use
that.
Senator Vitter. OK. That is all I am talking about, not
moving a deadline----
Mr. Conner. I commit that--OK. I apologize for my
misunderstanding.
Senator Vitter [continuing]. From before an event to after
an event.
A third and final quick question is crop insurance claims.
As I understand it, the requirement is that a claim be filed
after a producer destroys the crops involved. Again, some of
those crops are still underwater, so the process of draining
the field, pulling them out, destroying them is fairly
significant. Can some flexibility be exercised so they can
begin to make a claim now when there is obvious evidence of
loss?
Mr. Conner. I am going to ask for some technical assistance
on that. Obviously, my gut instinct is if the field is
underwater, that is a pretty sure sign that there has been a
crop loss on this. So let us just look at that issue.
Senator Vitter. OK.
Mr. Conner. And if we have got any flexibility on that--
again, I understand what your point is, and they are anxious to
file those claims, and we ought to be able to enable them to
file the claims as soon as possible.
Senator Vitter. If you all could just follow-up with my
office about those specific issues, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Conner. We will do that.
Senator Vitter. Thank you.
Chairman Harkin. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Vitter.
Senator Grassley?
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The second question I was going to ask Senator Harkin has
already asked, but I wanted to associate myself with the
disaster program being implemented like yesterday. But we need
to get it done so we can make use of it.
The other question I was going to ask you, Secretary
Conner, I sent a letter on September 4th to FSA Administrator
Teresa Lasseter regarding nine counties in Iowa that had
requested Emergency Conservation Program funds that have not
been included in the Department's announcement of $87 million
that would be distributed among Midwest States. First, why were
these nine counties excluded?
And, finally, I have heard reports that the money may be
going out, but I have not received a formal response from the
Department. Will those nine counties receive the emergency
funding?
Mr. Conner. They will, Senator Grassley. I am not sure I
can identify exactly what happened, but there was, relative to
those nine counties, some bad information. Those counties are
eligible, and the payments will be going out to those nine
counties.
Senator Grassley. Well, when I see the FSA Administrator
for Hardin County in church on Sunday, I can tell her she is
going to get it.
Mr. Conner. That is correct.
Senator Grassley. OK.
Mr. Conner. And I am further advised that the response to
your September 4th letter was actually being sent today.
Senator Grassley. OK. Well----
Mr. Conner. You should get that in writing.
Senator Grassley. That is very good, and that is a quicker
response than we get from most bureaucracies around this town.
Mr. Conner. That does not always happen, Senator.
Senator Grassley. Thank you.
And the next one is for Mr. Lancaster. It is a long
question so wait until I get there. Because of the extremely
wet spring, we have these questions, and that is the fact that
what led up to the record flooding in much of Iowa was this
500-year rain event that we had. Unfortunately, some editorial
writers and experts quickly jumped on kind of a ``blame
farmers'' bandwagon for bringing these extreme events to us
all, and one of the Washington Post's headline was ``Man blamed
for Iowa flooding,'' June 18th.
How anyone can rationalize that is beyond my imagination.
Keep in mind that most field scale practices are designed for
10- to 25-year rain events. Larger watershed scale structures
may be designed to handle 100-year rain events. However, these
practices and structures were obviously not designed for 500-
year rain events, and there was severe damage. The Iowa
Department of Agriculture initially put the damage estimate
conservatively to grassed waterways, terraces, et cetera, at
approximately $40 million. But officials from my State tell me
where good conservation practices and systems were in place to
protect agricultural land, homes, and infrastructure, they were
doing a very good job. And I think Senator Harkin saw that as
we traveled by helicopter over Iowa back in June when the
floods were hitting. The challenge is to get more working
conservation on land where it is most needed and will provide
the most benefit given our limited resources.
Therefore, in the long run, how can the Federal Government
best help my State do this, that is, target conservation
practices to critical needs?
Mr. Lancaster. Senator, Chairman Harkin raised this point
certainly in his opening statement, the fact they did
conservation practices, have an ability to mitigate the effects
of natural disaster, be it flooding or drought. The ability to
have a more resilient soil that serves as a better drainage
system for that is certainly important.
I will say that the tools that Congress has provided in the
2008 farm bill for conservation are the types of tools that we
need to implement these programs on the ground. In working with
our partners, with the Soil and Water Conservation Districts,
delivering programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program where we are providing cost-share and incentive
payments to producers to implement these practices, that is a
tremendous tool and one that is very important in Iowa.
What I cannot understate, though, is the importance of
other programs like the Wetlands Reserve Program where you
create buffers from flooding, where you provide a filter
system, riparian buffers and others. And, again, I believe that
the tools that Congress provided in the 2008 farm bill are
broad enough that we can address each of these concerns, and
the way we implement it is through our partnership with State
agencies through Conservation Districts and, importantly, by
helping producers develop a good conservation plan at the
forefront so they can identify what resource concerns they want
to protect and how best to do that.
Senator Grassley. Mr. Chairman, I do not have questions for
these two witnesses, and we do have two Iowans, Lyle and
Barbara, on the program. I have got some questions I am going
to have to leave in writing for them to answer, unless you want
to ask them for me, because I have got to go to another
meeting.
Chairman Harkin. Whichever you would like, I would be glad
to do whichever.
Senator Grassley. OK. Well, let's just wait and see how
things work out.
Chairman Harkin. OK. Thanks.
Senator Grassley. And I welcome Lyle and Barbara.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you, Senator Grassley.
Senator Thune?
Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
our panelists today, too, for all their assistance in dealing
with past disasters. Many of you have been involved and played
critical roles in helping us develop programs to respond to
past natural disasters and are now playing, of course, a
critical role in helping to improve Federal programs for future
events. And I think all the floods and the hurricanes and the
disasters we have dealt with this year are obviously going to
create a great need for the type of assistance that I think is
now available under the permanent disaster program.
As you all know, we deal with disasters in our part of the
country, too, generally more along the lines of drought. But
whether it is indemnity payments or Emergency Conservation
Programs or impacted landowners or emergency food assistance to
local food banks, these Federal programs are critically
important in terms of disaster response. And so we appreciate
the important role that you play, and it is our responsibility,
obviously, to make sure that these programs work in the way in
which they were intended and that they are available when they
are needed.
A lot of the disasters that strike are outside the control
of agricultural producers. And as I said, in the Upper Great
Plains, they are expected. We know we are going to have
droughts from year to year, an occasional flood. Unfortunately,
the assistance to recover from these events is not always as
reliable, but we work to, I think, eliminate the ad hoc
disaster assistance programs that we have been dealing with the
past few years and created some permanent disaster relief,
which we hope will make those programs less dependent upon the
political currents up here and a little bit more predictable
for our producers.
I do want to ask a question--and some of them have been
touched on already--on those programs, and then I want to come
back to one other question I have on another program. But the
whole issue of 2008 losses and sign-up period is September
16th, I think. Senator Grassley and I have a bill that would
allow for advance payments to be made for 2008 losses and also
that would expedite the rulemaking process for the new program
so that it is completed this year as opposed to 2009.
But I guess I would be curious in your response with regard
to losses this year, the sign-up period, and whether or not--
the question was asked that sign-up period might be extended,
and even whether or not the sign-up period for the 2009 crop
year might be extended based on the fact that we do not have
regulations in place. And I guess I would like to get a
response, too, about the whole idea of in the past advance
payments have been available to producers for this crop year.
If they do not get that payment until the next crop year, you
miss in some respects the window or the timing or the
opportunity to make that assistance meaningful to them as they
planting decisions for next year.
The question on advance payments for crop disasters that
occurred this year, crop losses that occurred this year, and
then, second, flexibility, again, on sign-up for the new
program given the fact the regulations are not in place.
Mr. Conner. OK. Senator Thune, as you know--and I think I
am addressing your question here--we have issued 22 percent of
the advanced direct payment to the producers already, and the
remainder of that payment will be forthcoming pretty quickly.
There has been discussion of issuing future advance payments to
producers for the 2009 crop once they sign up, which we will be
starting relatively soon. The statute does, again, spell out
for us the amounts of that advance payment, and so we--unlike
past farm bills, where we had a little bit of latitude it is
locked into statute in terms of how much of that advance
payment we have to give producers and when they get it. So that
would require a statutory change if that were to be altered in
any way, because that 22 percent and the remaining payments
after that are part of the statute.
Senator Thune. So for 2008 losses, 22 percent payments,
advance payments, have already been made. And the balance then
would be made still in this calendar year?
Mr. Conner. This is the direct payment, so, remember, it is
not directly tied to losses themselves. I mean, this is the
payment that everybody gets.
Senator Thune. Right. OK.
Mr. Conner. That is correct. The balance would be made.
Senator Thune. All right. And with regard to sign-up
periods on the--the regulations are not in place yet for the
new program.
Mr. Conner. Right.
Senator Thune. You indicated that, where Louisiana was
concerned, you might have some flexibility with regard to sign-
ups. Would that also be true for other parts of the country?
Mr. Conner. Yes. I mean, if I understood Senator Vitter's
question correctly, that sign-up was specifically for the 2009
crop crop insurance program. I would expect us to start sign-up
for the acre claims--I mean, in effect, I guess in some ways
sign-up has already begun in that way because the statute
specifically required that you had to have crop insurance in
place.
Senator Thune. Crop insurance or NAP, right.
Mr. Conner. Or NAP in place in order to qualify for the
SURE payment. Obviously, that came after farmers had made their
decision on the 2008 crop, so the statute required us to have
this buy-in situation for producers for the 2008 crop. That
sign-up has come and gone. We have demonstrated some
flexibility on that sign-up for the buy-in because we----
Senator Thune. And that is on the September 16th deadline.
Mr. Conner. Yes, that is on the September 16th deadline. I
think for those disaster areas like Louisiana--and there may be
other parts of the country on this--we have given them
additional time look, we can be a little bit flexible on that.
The statute gives us that flexibility, but it does require a
buy-in payment in 2008 in order to be eligible then for those
SURE payments that are going to come on down the road later on.
I do want to make one point on SURE as well, and I was
reminded of this by some of the folks behind me. You know,
there are parts of the farm bill, Senator Harkin, that require
us to, in effect, bypass the normal rulemaking process in order
to get these programs administered quickly. But the statute is
very clear on which provisions we can do that for and which we
cannot.
The SURE Program, we are not authorized to do expedited or,
if you will, what I would call a short-circuited rulemaking
process. We have to go to a proposed rule. We will obviously
have to take comments on that proposed rule, and then
ultimately go to a final rule in that process as well.
So again, I say that, Senator Landrieu, in great
appreciation for your need to get this thing rolling so the
producers can count on that. There is a process, though, that
by law we are going to have to go through on that, and that is
probably a good process. Again, this is a brand-new program.
You know, we need public input to make sure we are doing it
right.
Senator Thune. When is the end line for that? You are
talking to get through the process and----
Mr. Conner. Well, we have not published the proposed rule
yet. We will at some point in the not too distant future and
then seek comments probably 60 days' worth of comments on that
proposed rule before going final.
Senator Thune. Are we going to be well into 2009, do you
think, or is this like early 2009?
Mr. Conner. I would not say--it will not be well into--if
it is well into 2009, we could not get final before next fall.
So I would not say it is going to be well into 2009.
Senator Thune. I have, if I could, Mr. Chairman, another
question related to the disaster program, but I want to ask
just very quickly another----
Senator Landrieu. Senator, Senator, just one more question
because we have got to get to the other panel.
Senator Thune. OK.
Chairman Harkin. We have another panel.
Senator Thune. All right. Thank you. Thanks. OK. All right.
This has to do with the--this is not the permanent disaster
program, but it is another new program, and that is the ACRE
Program in the farm bill.
Mr. Conner. Yes.
Senator Thune. And the question about which crop years are
going to be included in determining national price. I am
wondering if USDA has made a decision with regard to that yet.
We obviously have contended that it should be the 2007-08 crop
year, which, as I understand it, is what CBO used in its
calibration. USDA has indicated they might use an earlier crop
year, and, of course, that makes a big difference to our
producers. Has there been a decision made?
Mr. Conner. There has not been a decision made on that,
Senator Thune. You know, in the interest of time, perhaps I
will withhold kind of the dilemma we find ourselves in and what
we are weighing in that decision. But the short answer to your
question is we have not made that call yet on which year it
will be.
Senator Landrieu. Thank you.
Senator Thune. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Landrieu. Mr. Chairman, if I might, Mr. Secretary,
as we end this panel, I just really need to make this point so
that you and I have a clear understanding as your testimony
comes to an end.
I acknowledge that the SURE Program is going to take quite
a while, and I also acknowledge that you could not expedite it
if you wanted to because Congress required you to go through
rulemaking. I am clear. But I need to make this point: That
program, even if it was finished today--which it is not--is
wholly insufficient for our situation. I am not asking you to
hurry the program because it really would not help us anyway. I
am asking you to declare Louisiana as an agricultural disaster
and to come up with expedited, extraordinary help for an
extraordinary situation. Are we clear on that?
Mr. Conner. I understand that, Senator. I appreciate----
Senator Landrieu. Thank you. And I want you just to
consider that.
Mr. Conner. If I could, just one quick comment because I
think this is important as you communicate with your producers
as well. In Louisiana, and in other States as well we have a
large loan portfolio of producers who borrow through the Farm
Service Agency. Credit is going to be a key issue going
forward, and we have loan guarantee programs that are capable
of helping out in this circumstance. We have already dispatched
some teams to your State and to other regions for those
existing borrowers. The instructions to those teams are work
with these producers to reschedule debt, in some cases write
off debt where there has been a disaster so that those loans
can work so that they can be in business for another year. We
are very involved in that.
Senator Landrieu. I appreciate that, and I want to get to
this next panel, because if you hear the testimony of our next
panel representing States that have really been hard hit, I
think you can appreciate our situation. But I do want to submit
for the record a letter from the Louisiana Bankers Association
talking exactly about the credit situation. I also want to
submit, Senator Harkin, a letter from some members of our
delegation about the difficulties with the Food Stamp Program
that, while we have made some progress, we have not yet gotten
adequate response. And I do acknowledge the six-page letter
that I received this morning. I have not been able to review
it, but I want to acknowledge that.
[The following information can be found on page 90 in the
appendix.]
Senator Landrieu. But as we call the next panel up, I want
to just show you again, Mr. Secretary, to make this point, this
is--and you do not have to be an expert, which I am not, to see
this looks like some really good corn. It looks healthy and
golden and something that anyone would want to consume.
This is the rotten corn, basically, the damaged corn that
has come out of our fields. And I am going to show you all
this--this is throughout Louisiana, right before harvest, a
bumper crop is literally being left in the field to rot. There
is no market for it. It cannot be sold. There is a credit
crisis in the agriculture economy. And I could show you
soybeans, and I will put these up for our for show and tell. I
think it is important to see it.
And these are healthy beans, and these are rotten beans.
The bankers and the elevators really do not know what to do
with a crop like this. It has no value. And it is a $700
million disaster.
So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we will move to the next
panel
Mr. Conner. Thank you.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you. We will dismiss this panel.
We will call the second panel up: Dr. Mike Strain, Ms. Barb
Prather, Lyle Asell, Wallace Ellender, Natalie Jayroe, and Jay
Hardwick. If the second panel will please take the appropriate
seats. Again, we will recognize the panel in the order which I
had outlined it: Mr. Strain, Ms. Prather, Mr. Asell, Mr.
Ellender, Ms. Jayroe, and then Mr. Hardwick.
I will ask each of you to keep your statements to 5 minutes
or less, and you have a clock, and somebody up here is
operating that so we will keep to 5 minutes or less so we can
have a discussion with you afterward. And in order to start
things off, I would recognize Senator Landrieu for purposes of
introduction.
Senator Landrieu. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are
very honored to have our Commissioner of Agriculture to
testify. He was born and raised on a cattle farm in Covington,
Louisiana, has a degree in veterinary medicine from LSU. He has
been a leader in agriculture his whole life, was just recently
elected, Mr. Chairman, as our Commissioner. He served
previously in the legislature on the Ag Committee. So he most
certainly comes prepared for the post that he now holds, and he
has my confidence as he helps to lead our State through this
difficulty.
And may I also say we are proud to have Mr. Ellender with
us, who has run the Sugar Cane National Legislative Committee
for the Sugar Cane League. He is a sugar cane farmer in the
southern part of the State, in Terrebonne Parish, which was
very hard hit by the tidal surge that came in in the southern
part of our State, as well as the rains that fell in central
and north Louisiana.
So I am proud to have both of our Louisiana guests with us
on this panel.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Senator Landrieu,
and, again, we will start with Dr. Strain. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF MIKE STRAIN, COMMISSIONER, LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
Mr. Strain. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
allowing us to come here from Louisiana and speak. Senator
Landrieu, Senator Vitter, thank you so very much. You have been
with us on the ground as we went through these disasters, and
also for all of your help here in D.C. We truly appreciate
that.
I also have with me Dr. Kurt Guidry and Dr. Mike Salassi,
experts from the LSU AgCenter, who helped us compile data; Mr.
Kyle McCann from the Farm Bureau, who is quite knowledgeable
about farm programs; and Mr. Rene Simon from LDAF.
We come to you today in a unique situation in Louisiana. We
have in 3 years endured four major storms, and if you count
Faye, five. The situation we find ourselves in today is that
Faye brought unprecedented rainfall through the heartland and
through the northeast portion of Louisiana, flooding, and an
inability to harvest, following by Hurricane Gustav that came
in with a great deal of tidal surge, saltwater intrusion, wind
damage, rain, and a tremendous amount of floods, followed
directly by Hurricane Ike with an unprecedented amount of
water, saltwater intrusion, and increased damage. Never before,
even with the Great Flood of 1929, has Louisiana seen total
devastation through the entirety of its State to its
agriculture.
We went immediately, as soon as the winds went down, to
begin touring the State, meeting with our farmers. We have held
11 meetings, meeting with several thousand farmers, and a
number of issues resounded over and over. These include in this
year significantly increased input costs and total costs;
inadequate crop insurance; insufficient disaster provision of
the farm bill; farmers who have contracts with elevators and
cannot deliver the commodity; bank liens against the partially
filled commodity contracts; and deterioration of the grain and
cotton quality.
Higher input costs. Fuel and fertilizer and input costs are
the highest on record and more than doubled since last year--
never before seen costs. Many farmers did not borrow enough to
cover these high costs. They have used all available credit.
Since the storms occurred just prior to and during harvest,
many of the farmers have incurred the highest amount of costs
they could prior to receiving dollars for their funds and are
not going to be able to repay the lenders or suppliers.
Inadequate crop insurance. The farm bill was signed late.
Had the producers known that there would be a disaster program
that was based on their crop insurance coverage levels, they
may have made different decisions. In order to be eligible for
the SURE Program, USDA requires farmers to purchase
Catastrophic Insurance or the Noninsured Assistance Program.
Due to thin margins and the high cost of buy-up coverage, crop
insurance participation is relatively low in Louisiana and in
other Southern States. Although a farmer may have harvested
only a portion of his crop, he may have already surpassed the
yield threshold.
A farmer reported to me that he met with his insurance
agent, and based on preliminary calculations, although he has
more than 1,000 acres of cotton and is facing a 50-percent crop
loss, he will only receive $3,300.
Disaster provisions of the farm bill. Many of our crops
will not qualify for assistance under the current provisions.
All of the rules and regulations have not been written, and
payments may not and probably will not be available until
October or November of 2009. Our farmers cannot wait this long.
Partially filled contracts. Farmers prudently but
cautiously forward contracted a portion of their commodities to
take advantage of prices. We were at harvest. Because of the
substantially reduced yields, many of these contracts will not
be fulfilled. The grain elevators expect the farmer to deliver
on these contracts. They could refuse to pay the farmer for the
partially fulfilled contracts. And, in addition, now the
farmers are responsible and financially liable for the
unfulfilled portion of the contract. That is not covered by
insurance. These elevators have already contracted out the
grain to the exporters. This creates a vicious cycle. The
elevators, the lenders, and the farmers are going to have to
work together to try to stay in business.
Bank liens against these contracts. A farmer may have
already partially filled his contract, but the elevator may not
be able to pay him because the banks have first title on that
crop. The bank that has made the crop loan to the farmer has a
lien. This is another problem.
Deterioration of grain, sweet potatoes, and cotton. The wet
weather has caused the quality of the commodities to
deteriorate rapidly, which you have seen. Many of the
elevators, gins, and sweet potato canners cannot accept the
commodities because of quality issues. The processors who are
accepting the commodities will have to dock the farmer because
of the poor conditions. What we find now is that even when we
bring these commodities, for instance, our soybeans and our
cotton, the elevators cannot take it. They cannot sell it
downstream, and now we are beginning to look at dumping what we
can salvage.
Rice. Eighty-five percent of the harvest in North Louisiana
has not yet been harvested. A lot of the rice now has begun to
sprout in the fields.
Corn. Twenty-five percent is left in the fields, and a lot
of that is damaged.
We have lost 50 percent of our cotton crop. The cotton that
is left is of poor quality. The seed is of poor quality. We are
getting calls from the gins today saying they cannot gin it.
And, in addition, instead of receiving money for the seed, for
the cotton seed, now the farmers are going to have to pay more
to try to get it harvested.
Soybeans. Most of the time, mostly based on 10 percent or
less damage. A lot of the beans that are left are 30, 40, 50
percent. They cannot sell them downstream. So even what is
left, they cannot use that to fulfill the contracts.
Sweet Potatoes. Only a few parishes are covered under
insurance in sweet potatoes, and that coverage is based on the
firmness on the potato. What is happening now, because of the
anaerobic environment, no oxygen, and the moisture, we estimate
we have lost 50 to 70 percent in the ground. We could lose the
rest of the crop if it is harvest. The $2,000 input cost to
plant and raise potatoes, $600 to harvest it. And if you spend
that $600, you will get no value. The potatoes are rotting.
Sugar cane. We have lost most of our plant cane. Only about
10 percent is there, and yield loss at 15 percent. It is very
important, though, that we do not increase allocation of
imported sugar. This would be a double storm and would
devastate our sugar industry.
Pecans. In some areas, 75-percent loss.
Aquaculture and fisheries, $100 million worth of damage to
aquaculture and fisheries, not counting infrastructure.
Overall, by and large, our farmers, ranchers, and fishermen
need help now. We cannot wait a year. Our entirety of our State
with unprecedented damage. We cannot bring dollars to help. Our
entire farming economy is on the verge of collapse. We have met
with farmers. We have looked them in the eye. They are very
tired. They are very concerned. They are not looking for a
handout. They are looking for a hand-up.
We must be able to stabilize the situation to stop the
domino effect from collapsing our economy because we now have
to replant.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Strain can be found on page
83 in the appendix.]
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Dr. Strain, and now
we will turn----
Senator Landrieu. Can I just say one thing I forgot? Mr.
Hardwick is also from Louisiana, and please forgive me for not
recognizing you.
I was on Jay's farm this weekend. He is a cotton farmer
from North Louisiana.
Senator Vitter. Mr. Chairman, let me briefly thank all of
our witnesses. I, unfortunately, have to attend another
meeting, but thank you all very much for your important
testimony. We will obviously be acting immediately.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Senator Vitter.
Now we will turn to Barb Prather, Executive Director of the
Northeast Iowa Food Bank. She has been in that position since
1999. We all know Barb and all the great work she does here and
in Iowa. But prior to that, Barb worked for 7 years at the
Capital Area Food Bank here inst, D.C. She also developed and
implemented and opened the Northern Virginia branch. So she has
just been involved in food banks and operations like food banks
for all of her adult life. She resides in Hudson, Iowa, and we
are just delighted you are here. Thank you very much, Barb, for
being here. Again, thank you for all the great work you do in
our State of Iowa. And, again, all your statements will be made
a part of the record. Five minutes, hopefully.
STATEMENT OF BARBARA PRATHER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NORTHEAST
IOWA FOOD BANK, WATERLOO, IOWA
Ms. Prather. Thank you very much. I want to first thank you
for giving me the opportunity to testify today on flood relief
in Iowa and our Food Bank's response to it.
To begin with, the Northeast Iowa Food Bank and the HACAP
Food Reservoir in Cedar Rapids have provided over 400,000
pounds of mostly privately donated product for disaster relief
in Iowa. We are both members of Feeding America, formally known
as America's Second Harvest.
Disaster relief for us began a day after the EF5 tornado
hit Parkersburg and New Hartford, Iowa, and traveled north
through Black Hawk County. We were called out on Memorial Day
to provide food and water to northern Black Hawk County. In the
week that followed, working with various organizations, we
provided food and water to relief workers and victims.
Two weeks after the tornado, we felt the impact from many
days of hard rain. On Monday, June 9th, we received a call from
a pastor in Greene, Iowa, who informed us that the water was
rising and there were no resources to help this small town. We
made arrangements to bring product up there that morning.
Greene is a community that had not used our services before.
Here is a story of a family in Greene: They had to turn to
the newly stocked food pantry. The husband had a good job, but
he drives 34 miles one way each day, while the mother does in-
home day care. They lost everything in the flood. The water
started coming up on Sunday night, and by Tuesday they had to
evacuate their home. They had always helped the local food
pantry, but never needed their assistance. While the family had
flood insurance, they knew it would be a struggle to pay their
rent and their and mortgage. They eventually applied for and
received food stamps, but they really needed the help of the
pantry in the meantime. As you can imagine, it was hard for
these hard-working people to go in and ask for help, but they
were grateful that it was there when they needed it.
The next day, June 10th, very serious flooding hit Waterloo
and Cedar Falls. The Food Bank was called to the Black Hawk
County Emergency Operations Center. We did get the food up to
Greene that morning, but a 90-mile round trip ended up being a
240-mile round trip because the roads were all flooded.
At the same time, we began making arrangements to secure
our facility, which was right along the Cedar River in
Waterloo. However, we did not get water in it, but thanks to
local support we were able to empty the warehouse and keep the
product on trailers for a few days.
Throughout the week we worked with various officials all
over northeast Iowa. We followed the Black Hawk County Health
Department when they did their immunizations to get food and
water to people. And later in the week, parts of Waterloo on
the east side began to have water back-up. This is a low-income
area, and many residents in that area had water in their
basements.
To highlight what we saw during the disasters, there was
considerable press coverage about the availability of disaster
food stamps. In the State of Iowa, over 13,000 households and
35,000 people received them. I was extremely impressed with the
outreach that took place, and people knew that they could apply
for them. I believe our area did an exceptional job in regards
to getting the word out about their availability and people
applying for it.
Our State staff who are responsible for TEFAP commodities
were on the phone with us during the flood asking what type of
extra resources we needed. I know that they were working
closely with USDA officials. We were offered our July shipment
in June, but we decided to hold off because we did not want to
short ourselves on the product in the long term.
Since last spring we have seen the amount of TEFAP
commodity foods increase substantially due to increased support
from USDA and the increased support from the farm bill. This
increased funding from the farm bill is critical to our food
bank and others in Iowa and throughout the United States. In
addition to our continuing need for more food, we are really in
need of additional storage and distribution funds as authorized
in the farm bill. Increased food and fuel prices have left food
banks in Iowa and throughout the country with a shortage of
funds to pay for storing and distributing food to the agencies
we serve. I want to thank you, Senator Harkin, for your
leadership in getting that vital funding included in the bill.
What would be helpful in the future is to be able to access
USDA TEFAP commodities immediately rather than having to take
our July allotment of entitlement food early, from day one of
the crisis without having to worry about them counting against
future shipments. We know that once the waters recede, we need
to have product available immediately to help meet the
immediate needs, and the future needs will be even greater as
people work to recover from the disaster.
To date, the Northeast Iowa Food Bank itself has provided
over 280,000 pounds of disaster assistance product to nearly 60
organizations. It is a small part of a much larger picture of
what is happening and continues to happen in northeast Iowa.
Because of the increased need because of the struggling economy
and the impact of the disasters, as fast as the product comes
in, it goes out. The need is there. Even before these
tragedies, we had seen an increase of 25 percent in the numbers
of clients our agencies have been serving. We are anticipating
seeing even more coming through the doors of food pantries in
Iowa this winter.
Recovery takes many years. We are going to need ongoing
help to help these families who are working and living on a
limited income. With high food and fuel prices, budgets are
already stretched, and adding a disaster to the mix does not
help. The family I talked about is trying to do their best, and
they will bounce back. This is just one example of many similar
faces in Iowa.
Please continue to help us. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman,
for giving me the opportunity to share our experiences in
helping to meet the food needs of people in northeast Iowa and
Iowa following our back-to-back tornado and flooding disasters.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Prather can be found on page
79 in the appendix.]
Chairman Harkin. Ms. Prather, thank you very much for that
testimony and for all the good work you do in Iowa.
Next we will go to another Iowan, Mr. Lyle Asell. I hope I
pronounced that right. Mr. Asell was raised on a livestock and
grain farm in southwest Iowa, graduated from Iowa State
University with a bachelor's degree in fish and wildlife
biology, had held positions as soil conservationist, district
conservationist, biologist, RC&D coordinator, assistant State
conservationist, for NRCS all of this in Iowa. He lives on a
small farm near Chariton, has a partnership farm interest in
family farms in both Mills and Pottawattamie Counties. A
Vietnam war veteran, he and his wife Charlotte have three sons,
and Lyle currently serves as a Special Assistant to the
Director for the Department of Natural Resources.
Mr. Asell, welcome to the Committee, and please proceed.
STATEMENT OF LYLE W. ASELL, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR
OF AGRICULTURE, IOWA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES, DES
MOINES, IOWA
Mr. Asell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Iowa storms of 2008 are approaching or surpassed the
tenth largest natural disaster in U.S. history. We have seen
precipitation increase approximately 10 percent over the last
30 years, and we have seen a change in the pattern of
precipitation. This will lead to increased flooding over time.
Farmers in Iowa use financial risk management tools very
effectively, with about 90 percent of farmland covered through
crop insurance at relatively high rates. However, the land
itself is at risk and was hurt very badly during these storms.
The primary tools that we have available to help heal these
wounds come from the Emergency Watershed Program and the
Emergency Conservation Program. We have a current need of $225
million in Iowa for the Emergency Watershed Program, and this
is growing. Sign-up continues through the end of the month for
conservation easements on floodplains.
As both Senators Harkin and Grassley recognized,
conservation practices in systems work very effectively to
reduce damages. However, the precipitation simply overwhelmed
the systems, and so we did end up with somewhere around $40
million in damages to conservation practices, such as grassed
waterways, terraces, and farm ponds. We also need about $8
million in technical assistance to help restore the damage.
There is another $36 million in needs to repair stream bank
erosion to help protect transportation facilities and cropland.
The greatest need comes from the Emergency Watershed Program
floodplain easements, with applications to date exceeding over
$150 million. Just as homeowners often opt for a buyout through
FEMA for the houses, we see farmers wanting that same program.
The policy was changed following the 1993 floods and worked
very effectively. It is very good public policy. Today we have
over 400 farmers and about 35,000 acres that are attempting to
enroll land in the easement program.
This follows even record commodity price and land values,
and it is an indication of how serious the damage is to that
land. There is virtually no alternative that is economically
viable for them to restore that to productive ag land.
There are two provisions in the farm bill that, if applied
to EWP, could be detrimental, and these are both pertaining to
the Wetland Reserve Program. The first is a requirement that
land be owned for 7 years before it is eligible to be enrolled
in the program. Iowa State University's data shows that most of
the last in Iowa is bought by existing farmers, so if you
bought land 6 years ago, fully intending to have it in a
farming operation, you are now going to find yourself carrying
a debt and not being eligible for a program that is intended to
buy out in such situations. We would suggest looking at this
rule.
The other one involved governmental agencies not being able
to receive restoration assistance through the program. In Iowa,
we work very effectively with farmers, and they are good
business people. They understand that the easement will provide
most but not all of the value of that property. They also
understand that if they retain ownership, they are responsible
for paying property taxes when there is not a source of income,
and it will be managed for wildlife when their interests and
their livelihood comes from managing crops and livestock. Let's
let farmers do what they do best. Let's let others do what they
do best.
Time is critical. They have to be making decisions very
soon on what to do with this land. Most of this land did not
produce a crop in 2008. They cannot wait another season without
knowing what to do with that land. They want to take that
funding and move it out of a high-risk venture and put it into
a low-risk venture. We want to help them do that.
The other program is the ECP. They have requested $24
million, received about $12 million. That has been disbursed
predominantly to clear sand off of floodplains. there is a need
for additional funding there.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Asell can be found on page
47 in the appendix.]
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Mr. Asell, and thank
you for all the work you do on the Rebuild Iowa board there.
Next we go to Wallace Ellender from Bourg, Louisiana. He
has already been introduced by Senator Landrieu, but I was just
told that your great uncle was Allen Ellender.
Mr. Ellender. Correct.
Chairman Harkin. Chair of this Committee.
Mr. Ellender. Correct. I remember visiting this room when I
was 15 years old.
Chairman Harkin. Oh, my gosh.
Senator Landrieu. Well, welcome back.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ellender. I wish it was under different circumstances.
Chairman Harkin. Good to have you back, Mr. Ellender.
STATEMENT OF WALLACE ``DICKIE'' ELLENDER IV, SOUTHWEST
LOUISIANA SUGAR CANE FARMER, BOURG, LOUISIANA, AND CHAIRMAN,
NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE, AMERICAN SUGAR CANE LEAGUE
Mr. Ellender. Thank you. Again, my brother and I formed
Sugar Cane in Southeastern Louisiana on two farms in the
Raceland and Bourg, Louisiana, area, which was at ground zero
for Gustav.
Senator Landrieu. Would you pull the mic a little closer,
please.
Mr. Ellender. Including the land that my ancestors settled
in 1853. We are the only people ever to farm the land that we
currently farm. As a child, I remember asking my grandfather
for one of his earliest memories, and one of the stories he
told me was a story about a stubborn dog when he was a kid that
wanted to go on this boat ride to the barrier islands with the
family. On one occasion they loaded up everything but the dog
on the sailboat and sailed down to the coast, which is about 30
or 40 miles away. The dog trotted down the side of the bayou
all the way to the coast with them, having to ford a few
streams, but made it to the island. Today that dog would have
to swim 30 miles to get to the same location across open water.
Coastal problems we are having.
Gone are some of the barrier islands and most of the
wetlands that served as a natural buffer from the worst storms
that came from the Gulf of Mexico. We are losing coastal
wetlands at a rate of 40 square miles each year. Some experts
predict that the shoreline may move inland over 30 miles in the
next 30 years. I hope this gives you some perspective of the
breadth of the long-term problem our communities are facing
when we look to the south. The ominous power of the sea when it
surges 20 to 30 miles inland is something to behold. What the
sea leaves behind when it retreats can be bad, but what it
leaves behind when it stays in the fields is worse. Once
breached, levees that held back the tide will hold back the
ebbing waters. We tear holes in those levees to get the water
recede, but with sea of the magnitude of Rita and Ike of 2008
flow over the levees vast volumes of water into the lowest
field, making our cane fields salt fields.
But sugar cane is a hearty plant, and with good weather and
time, the cane can rebound and produce a decent crop.
Harvesting it will be more difficult and costly, but we can
still hope for a mild autumn and a good price to help offset
some of the additional costs we will incur in harvesting a bent
and broken crop. On the other hand, we may not have enough time
to finish planting and harvesting before winter frosts and
freeze become a concern. Further complicating the matter, sugar
cane is a perennial crop, and time will be needed to determine
whether fields holding surge water for extended periods will
recover for next year's crops.
The worst damage that occurred to the sugar cane fields
from Gustav occurred in Terrebonne, Assumption, Lafourche,
Ascension, Iberville, West Baton Rouge, and Point Coupee
parishes. The northeastern corner of the eye of the hurricane
caused the worst stalk breakage, but this damage occurred
virtually everywhere in the belt. The cane varieties that tend
to produce higher tonnage suffered more breakage than lower-
yielding varieties, and the brittleness of the higher-yielding
varieties will make cutting the cane very problematic.
Hurricane Ike's eye stayed to our south as it moved into
Texas, but this meant that the counterclockwise winds drove the
sea surge deep into the Louisiana cane belt in a manner eerily
familiar to those of us who experienced Hurricane Rita in 2005.
In some areas, the damage was worse than Rita. From my farm in
Bourg, across Terrebonne, St. Mary's, Iberville, and Vermillion
parishes, levees were topped, and standing water still remains
to this day.
As a general rule, we keep a field in production, using the
existing root systems, for 3 years and, after harvesting the
third crop, let that ground stay fallow for nearly a year
before replanting. This generally occurs in August and
September. But the rainy weeks before Gustav came left us way
behind in our planting, so there is less newly planted cane to
be lost to the surge. This may sound like good news, but the
delay in planting increases our risk of not being able to plant
some of the fields before winter sets in. These fields are
planted this fall for next year's crop. This delay also has the
potential of pushing harvest deeper into the winter months,
when a heavy frost or freeze damage can destroy whatever cane
is left in the fields.
In order to increase our chances of getting new growth from
the damaged cane we will be planting over the next few weeks,
we will use more acres of our mature cane as seed for the
fallow ground. In my case, this means I will use 260 total
acres to plant the 800 acres necessary for my farm. I typically
use only 160 acres. This means that I have 100 acres that will
not go to the process that I will be planting in the ground for
next year.
You have asked about my experience with crop insurance as a
disaster assistance tool. Our growers have traditionally had
access to only one type of crop insurance policy, the Actual
Production History program. The costs of the APH buy-up
coverage have been prohibitively high, as USDA's Risk
Management Agency acknowledged this past year when it lowered
APH rates in response to potential competition from farmer-
developed GRP policies. While the rates are lower, the buy-up
coverage has not been seen as reducing our actual risks by a
sufficient amount to make the added expense worthwhile for most
of our farmers.
Despite the destructive natural forces that are sometimes
unleashed against it, the sugar cane plant is a hearty
survivor, and catastrophic production losses, meaning losses of
greater than 50 percent, are rare. Since 1995, when Louisiana
sugar cane participation in crop insurance went from $2 million
in liability to over $61 million, the cumulative loss ratio has
been approximately 0.17. Since 90 percent of our policies are
the basic catastrophic coverage, which has been a prerequisite
for disaster assistance eligibility in the past, this loss
ratio can conceal significant losses to a farmer's bottom-line.
The new permanent disaster assistance program included in
the 2008 farm bill has not been implemented and regulations
explaining how the Department will administer the program are
still under development. As I understand the Supplemental
Revenue Assistance Program, SURE, it provides payments to
producers in disaster counties based on the crop insurance
program. Regrettably, we have been unable to find an accurate
SURE calculator for sugar cane to gain a better understanding
of the actual assistance that might be available to farmers,
but the poorly performing crop insurance program it will be
built upon would seem to reduce its effectiveness as a
hurricane assistance program.
Congress, though, has developed a disaster assistance
mechanism that works. In response to the 2002 and 2005
hurricanes, Congress developed a delivery mechanism for ad hoc
assistance to sugar cane growers in Louisiana that is tailored
to the types and levels of damage associated with hurricanes
and cane fields. This mechanism targeted a portion of the
overall package to address losses and costs from planted cane
that was lost to the hurricanes. Another portion of the package
was designated to offset some of the increased planting costs
and harvesting costs that we incurred. A final portion was
allocated to address yield losses and other sector-wide losses.
Congress was able to link the bulk of the assistance
directly to the specific losses or costs of the hardest-hit
producers in our area, while reserving a portion to address the
yield losses that virtually every producer absorbed.
I will try to conclude here.
In conclusion, Louisiana has been growing sugar cane
commercially for well over 200 years and has received
agriculture disaster assistance twice over more than 200 years
of production. The fact that both of those assistance packages
were made necessary by intense hurricanes in this decade is a
direct result of the rampant coastal erosion. Unless we invest
in energetic coastal efforts soon, my farm may be beachfront
property in a few short years before slipping quietly beneath
the waves.
Thank you, and I am sorry I went over my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ellender can be found on
page 59 in the appendix.]
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much. Thanks for the
pictures you applied, too. It kind of brings it home as to what
you are talking about.
Mr. Ellender. Yes.
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Mr. Ellender.
And now we will go to Natalie Jayroe, joined Second Harvest
Food Bank of New Orleans as President and CEO in January of
2006. Currently, Natalie is a founding member of the Louisiana
Food Bank Association and co-chair of the Food Policy Advisory
Committee of New Orleans City Council.
Again, welcome again to the Committee, Ms. Jayroe, and
please proceed.
STATEMENT OF NATALIE JAYROE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF GREATER NEW ORLEANS AND
ACADIANA, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Ms. Jayroe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate
the opportunity to address you today. I just wanted to mention
that we are the Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana,
covering all 23 parishes of the southern part of the State.
Disaster preparedness and response have always been a part
of the mission that we plan for and train for while we are
responsible on a daily basis for the distribution of USDA TEFAP
commodities. In Louisiana, over the last 2 years, the five food
banks of the Louisiana Food Bank Association have strengthened
their relationship with the Governor, the Louisiana
Commissioner of Agriculture, and the State legislature.
Together we have developed a model for public/private
partnership that in fiscal year 2008 allowed food banks to
purchase almost 10 million pounds of food from Louisiana
farmers, fishermen, and vendors to distribute to people in need
throughout all 64 parishes. We enjoy a very good working
relationship with USDA and FEMA regionally and nationally.
During the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, TEFAP
commodities were released for disaster distribution. In my
opinion, many lives were saved as a result. Second Harvest Food
Bank became the largest food bank in history overnight,
distributing 8 million pounds of food in September 2005 alone.
Since that time, Second Harvest has distributed more than 90
million pounds of food to more than a quarter of a million
individuals throughout our 23-parish service area.
Last year, the increase in food and fuel costs along with
the decrease in USDA commodities available to food banks left
many of us seriously short of food. For instance, the 7 million
pounds of USDA commodities distributed by Second Harvest in
2004 dropped to 2.7 million in fiscal year 2008. The successful
passage of the farm bill last year has greatly improved the
supply of TEFAP commodities to food banks, and I would like to
thank Senators Harkin, Landrieu, and other members of the House
and Senate Agriculture Committees for your leadership of that
effort.
Prior to Hurricane Gustav making landfall and in the
immediate aftermath, we sought to preposition disaster foods
and later order replacements for our depleted warehouses.
Finally, after working through a number of procedural glitches
with the help of the Governor, FNS regional office, and State
agencies, we were able to order food for disaster distribution.
We were very grateful for the supplies that we received.
However, with the implementation of the emergency food stamp
program, further orders were not processed.
The system set up to distribute emergency food stamps was
immediately overwhelmed by the number of people who needed
relief. Governor Jindal has taken quick and effective action to
correct the deficiencies in this system. However, as of this
date, people are still lining up to receive benefits. We need
to be able to provide Federal commodities along with privately
donated foods to hungry people to tide them over until their
food stamp benefits become available.
Hurricane Ike passed through the Gulf of Mexico on its way
to landfall in Texas on September 13. Parish presidents, such
as Aaron Broussard of Jefferson Parish, called Second Harvest
for help as communities all along the south coast of Louisiana
had no power, no food, no Red Cross feeding sites, and
overwhelmed PODs. Second Harvest's trucks were actually stopped
by the National Guard outside of Morgan City because the Guard
did not feel it was safe for nonprofits to distribute food.
Second Harvest was the first nonprofit to bring food to these
parishes, followed by and in close collaboration with the
Salvation Army. And the food is still needed.
Of the 1.9 million pounds of food that Second Harvest Food
Bank has distributed from September 1st through September 22nd,
175,000 pounds have come from the DSS/FEMA/USDA pipeline.
Additional commodities would enable us to maintain our
distribution rate of over 100,000 pounds per day during the
next 4 weeks of immediate recovery.
In a major disaster, food banks do not have the capacity to
replace Government response. The removal of the restrictions
that current limit and slow the distribution of USDA
commodities to food banks and other emergency feeding
organizations would significantly improve the availability of
critically needed food and water in the days immediately
following a catastrophic event. Assistance to build
infrastructure and funding to help defray the rising costs of
fuel would make the Feeding America network an even stronger
partner to USDA and FEMA.
I have some recommendations that I would respectfully like
the Committee to consider.
No. 1, provide the resources and authority needed by USDA
and FEMA to purchase foods needed in disaster response.
Second, eliminate legal barriers to prestaging food.
Third, ensure that there is enough logistical support to
get the food into areas cutoff by water.
Fourthly, improve the process to bring more flexibility to
the types of products that are made available and the number of
nonprofits that distribute them.
Most importantly, let's work to make sure that the
emergency food response system has as its primary focus getting
assistance to people as efficiently and effectively as
possible, and making concerns about avoiding duplication a
secondary consideration.
Thank you for allowing me to speak before you today. Second
Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana and the
food banks of the Feeding America network are privileged to be
partners with the USDA and FEMA in disaster response and in the
everyday economic emergencies that people are currently facing.
I firmly believe that by working together we can continue to
make progress in ensuring that all people have access to
nutritious food.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jayroe can be found on page
75 in the appendix.]
Chairman Harkin. Thank you very much, Ms. Jayroe.
Now we turn to Mr. Jon W. ``Jay'' Hardwick, who produces
7,300 acres of cotton, corn, grain sorghum, peanuts, soybeans,
and wheat. I am told emphasis is placed on conservation crop
production methods, including no-till, crop rotation, residue
maintenance, erosion control, and precision technologies to
apply and reduce pesticides and nutrient resources. Maybe it is
that GPS. I do not know whether you----
Mr. Hardwick. Yes, sir.
Chairman Harkin. Oh, you are doing that--to help restore
and improve water, air, soil, wildlife habitat, and crop
production economics. Jay currently serves as Vice Chairman of
the National Cotton Council, also is a Director on the National
Peanut Board, Director of Farm and Livestock Credit, Cotton
Incorporated, and also a Director of the Tensas-Concordia Soil
and Water Conservation District.
So, Mr. Hardwick, thank you very much for being here.
Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF JON W. ``JAY'' HARDWICK, NORTHEAST LOUISIANA
COTTON FARMER, NEWELLTON, LOUISIANA, AND VICE CHAIRMAN,
NATIONAL COTTON COUNCIL
Mr. Hardwick. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding
today's hearing and for allowing me to describe some of the
devastating effects of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike on our farming
operations and rural businesses in Louisiana. And, Senator
Landrieu, we appreciate you taking time last weekend to visit
and tour some of the areas affected.
I am Jay Hardwick from Newellton, Louisiana, and I am
currently serving as Vice Chairman of the National Cotton
Council, as you mentioned. Our family operated farm is highly
diversified. We produce cotton, corn, grain sorghum, soybeans,
wheat, specialty crops, and timber in northeast Louisiana. We
are also very proud of our conservation and wildlife
preservation programs. My comments will focus on cotton, but I
wanted to emphasize that no crop was spared in Louisiana.
Louisiana State University cotton specialists estimate that
over 80,000 cotton acres will not be harvested. Many of the
harvested acres' yield losses will be high and the quality will
be low. The value of the Louisiana cotton crop will be reduced
by approximately $137 million.
The hurricanes also impacted our infrastructure. Cotton
gins, warehouses, and grain elevators rely heavily on volume to
cover fixed costs and provide jobs. Many gins and warehouses
will operate at reduced capacity or not at all in 2008. This
means fewer jobs and lower revenues for our rural communities.
Water is not generally a limiting factor in Louisiana
agricultural production. The abundance can be. Our annual
rainfall is about 58 inches. We received an additional 50
percent over the course of 30 days during August and September.
Over the years, we have adopted crop practices and management
skills to accommodate short periods of excessive rainfall using
best management practices, such as conservation tillage,
enhanced field drainage, erosion control structures, elevated
planting beds, diversified crop mixes, and marketing
strategies.
However, successive tropical storms Faye, Gustav, and Ike,
and catastrophic rainfall accumulation simply overwhelmed our
crops, landscape, and management. Even though I live 200 miles
north of the Louisiana Gulf Coast, these systems have no
boundaries, spare few, and have an extensive reach. The five-
parish area in which I live was impacted 100 percent. Above
average to total crop destruction occurred, which you have
seen, and harvested crops have been of extremely poor quality.
Neighbors and friends who produce rice, sugar cane, sweet
potatoes, peanuts, and pecans have suffered incredible losses
as well. No such weather event in memory has had greater impact
on our crops throughout Louisiana.
I harvest my crops from late July through October. It
spreads my risk, cash-flow, labor, machinery, conservation
efforts, marketing and field preparations for the upcoming
year. Faye, Gustav, and Ike came at the worst possible time. I
simply could not absorb all three of these storms. Neither
could my friends and neighbors.
Now we are faced with additional expenses to restore land
from wet harvest and repair on erosion measures in preparation
for 2009. Large domestic and international grain buyers in our
area no longer purchase or accept any damaged grain against
producer contracts. These companies are expecting us to meet
those contracts. Farmers are asking how to satisfy these
contracts and determine ways to meet other financial
obligations. So one can only imagine the shock and awe of what
has happened in our area. Having no crop to sell or damaged
crop to apply to contracts may initiate an economic disaster
perhaps far greater than the weather events alone in Louisiana.
Some expect crop insurance to provide most of the necessary
financial assistance. While almost all on acres are covered by
insurance, over 50 percent have the minimum coverage known as
Catastrophic or CAT coverage, which provides minimal benefits,
only if the area is a catastrophic loss. Neighboring Catahoula
and Concordia Parishes were some of the hardest hit. They had
only CAT level policies on over 37,000 acres of cotton. I have
the same coverage.
I encourage Congress to develop a plan that will deliver
financial assistance to producers in a timely manner. Enhanced
crop insurance coverage, timely ad hoc disaster relief,
supplemental payments delivered in the same manner as direct
payments, and enhancements to the provisions of the permanent
disaster programs should all be considered in order to expedite
assistance that is commensurate with the losses that have been
incurred.
Additional funding for existing cost-share conservation
programs would help to speed restoration of damaged fields.
Also, I ask you to consider providing some form of financial
assistance to gins, warehouses, and other key components of our
infrastructure that will experience significant financial
losses due to sharply reduced volumes.
Mr. Chairman, the economic losses caused by the hurricanes
are dramatic and severe. Timely assistance is needed. Most
farmers simply do not have the financial resources to wait
until 2009.
Thank you for your consideration of the views and
recommendations presented and giving me the opportunity to
present testimony. I would be pleased to respond to your
questions at the appropriate time.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hardwick can be found on
page 71 in the appendix.]
Senator Landrieu. Thank you very much. It was really an
excellent panel, and Senator Harkin I know may have to leave in
a moment. Do you have another question?
Chairman Harkin. No, I do not. I do have to leave. I thank
everyone for their testimonies. I especially want to thank the
two Iowans who are here and also Ms. Jayroe, all of you
involved in the food bank effort. Ms. Prather and Ms. Jayroe
were involved in the food bank operations. They did a great job
in Iowa, and I take it they did a great job in Louisiana, too.
I do have some other questions. I may submit them to you in
writing. But I anticipate that maybe Senator Landrieu might ask
those questions that I was going to ask anyway.
So if you will excuse me, I do have to go, and I thank you
again very much, Senator Landrieu, for chairing this. Thank
you.
Senator Landrieu. [Presiding.] Thank you, Senator Harkin.
If I could just address a few questions--and I know our
time is somewhat limited, but starting with you, Mr.
Commissioner, you visited not only with our cotton farmers and
our sugar cane farmers, but our sweet potato farmers, et
cetera. Would you repeat for the record what help you need or
on behalf of Louisiana needs from this Congress? How quickly do
you need the help? If you could give us a general outline of
what you think would be helpful. Mr. Hardwick outlined some
things specifically in his testimony. Of course, so did Mr.
Ellender. But if you could recap that, it would be helpful.
Mr. Strain. When you specifically look at the needs, we
have between agriculture and our fisheries $750 million in
damages that we know of. The SURE Program and these other
programs, the rules have not been written, and any help that
would be forthcoming would be October or November of next year.
When you look at specific examples of how you have crop
insurance and how you have the SURE Program after that, you
find in many instances, since we were at harvest and have
harvested a portion of our crops, if you take the sheet example
of a soybean farmer that has harvested 50 percent of his crop,
he probably by our calculations will be eligible for zero
benefits because he has already met those thresholds. When you
are talking about these programs, you are talking about on
average, when you look at the crop insurance, 50 percent
coverage of 55 percent price. And then when you look and say,
well, why didn't--and the cost of the buy-up--and I will give
you this, and I think we really need to put this into the
record. When you talk about cost and coverage--and this is for
a soybean farmer with an average per acre yield in his county,
in Richland Parish, will pay $18.62 an acre to insure an APH of
45 bushels at 65-100. The same type of producer in Adams
County, Iowa, will pay $4.93 to insure a yield of 52 bushels.
So we have to pay four times the cost for an insurability that
is seven bushels lower. Corn and other rates are as well.
And if I give you just a specific example--and these have
been submitted to the record. When you look at this particular
farm, 600 acres of rice, 400 acres of beans, and when you look
at that under the particular coverages, so the cost of the 60-
100 was approximately $10,800 and the 75-100 approximately
$21,800. And then the premiums double between 60 and 75
percent.
When you look at that--and this person has had loss, total
loss on his rice, total loss on that 600 acres of rice, and the
soybean yield was reduced to 15 bushels per acre, when you boil
it all down from he will receive for what he had to pay for his
insurance, his net return on these policies is $6,000 on 1,000
acres. Many farmers did not buy enough.
The bottom line is the coverages that are there are
inadequate, and the timing is too late. We need an infusion--
and we have asked for approximately $700 million. The
programs--before, there was a program in sugar where $40
million came in, and it was divided up based on the needs to
stand our farmers back up. If we cannot do this, our economy
will collapse. After the floor of 1929, it devastated
Louisiana's economy for many years. It changed and devastated
the farms throughout the delta and the heartland of Louisiana.
We cannot allow this to happen again, and we are asking for
dollars. We are asking for them now because we have to get
ready to replant to save our entire economy.
Senator Landrieu. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.
Let me ask you, Mr. Asell, did you say--and I think I heard
you say this--that in the 200-year history of the Sugar
Program, we have only--or the sugar industry has only asked
twice in 200 years for special payments related to disasters?
Mr. Ellender. That is correct. But on those 200 years, we
often hear in South Louisiana this is the one in 100-year
storm. Well, in the last 3 years, we received four of them. You
know, so it has been a tough situation.
Senator Landrieu. OK. I really cannot overstate how
shocking that statement is to me. I thought I knew a lot about
coastal restoration, and I do. And I thought I knew a lot about
agriculture. But I am absolute shocked to hear that in 200
years of the sugar cane industry, we have only asked twice for
the Federal Government for special help.
I am going to speak about that on the floor of the Senate
because I think people have an idea that farmers come here
every year asking for special help. And I want this Congress to
understand that our sugar cane farmers have only come twice in
200 years. And I would hope that that in itself would be enough
motivation for this Congress to understand the extraordinary
circumstances in which we come and would respond accordingly,
not just, of course, to you all but to all of our many farmers
who do not come unless the need is truly there. And I think you
all have demonstrated that.
One more question to you, Ms. Jayroe, and then also, Ms.
Prather, if you want to comment. Help us understand what you
have both said in your testimony about the emergency program
that works for the first, I think, 0 to 14 days as the rains
are pouring in and there is still flooding; people are hungry;
grocery stores are closed; the restaurants are closed. There is
very little mobility; the lights are off; a lot of people are
in darkness. They might have packed a few days of food, but
they did not realize their electricity would not be on for a
month or so. OK? So that is the first 14 days that we are now
way too familiar with in Louisiana.
In that time period, can anybody receive food? Or do you
have to have a certain income level?
Ms. Jayroe. No, at that time period, anyone can receive
food from food banks. We go into a disaster declaration
ourselves and open the doors.
Senator Landrieu. So even people who are at a higher income
level, they can get help with food. What happens after that
period, though? And is that what happened to us in Louisiana,
that that period came, what you are testifying, too quickly to
an end, and then the Food Stamp Program started, and there is a
prohibition in the law which I have been trying to repeal--I
want the record to show this--for 3-1/2 years and have not been
successful yet. But there is the duplication of benefit
provision that is preventing you from feeding people that are
hungry.
Ms. Jayroe. Right.
Senator Landrieu. Because the Federal law says they cannot
get the duplicate benefit. Is that what you are testifying
today to?
Ms. Jayroe. Senator Landrieu, that is exactly what our
biggest issue was, that policy. After Katrina, the USDA TEFAP
commodities were released into our system for disaster
response, and then the determination was made that the law did
not allow that. So, in fact, this time we had USDA commodities
in our warehouses we could not distribute because of the way
the laws are currently written.
And you know the story of the Emergency Food Stamp Program.
People came back having spent a lot of money on evacuation,
came back to empty and dark grocery stores, and were unable to
get the benefits they needed. And we were called on to provide
immediate help. And I will say the USDA and our State
Department of Agriculture did everything they could within the
law to get us the commodities that we needed--in our case,
175,000 pounds of commodities. But you are exactly right in
terms of what the issue was for us.
Senator Landrieu. And, Ms. Prather, do you have anything to
add to that? Did the same thing happen to you all?
Ms. Prather. Yes, I agree. What happened in our case is we
were offered--we get shipments every month. We were offered our
July allocation in June, and at that point I had gotten
privately donated food, so I went ahead and used that because I
knew I needed the food down the road in July. So I could have
taken my July shipment early. It would have just counted
against me, and I would not have gotten that replenished.
Senator Landrieu. But you are testifying that in Iowa,
though, when people receive in the first early days, there is
no income limit.
Ms. Prather. Correct.
Senator Landrieu. But the minute you all start issuing food
stamps, there becomes a fairly tight income limit for people
that are eligible.
Ms. Jayroe. That is the case for the emergency food stamps.
It is not the case for our system. We can actually continue
with disaster response longer, and after Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, it was more than a year later, and we were still taking
care of people, St. Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, Cameron
Parish, people that were rebuilding their entire lives.
Senator Landrieu. And is that available to you now?
Ms. Jayroe. Food is the problem. If we had the food to
distribute, then, yes, we would be able to continue with
disaster response as long as we had the resources to do it. And
as Barb mentioned, the infrastructure and the fuel and the kind
of operating revenue that we need to make it happen.
Senator Landrieu. And where do you normally get your food
from?
Ms. Jayroe. Well, we are both part of a national network,
Feeding America, and we have a system of donations from
corporations at a national level and from our local retailers--
Wal-Marts, Winn-Dixies, the hospitality----
Senator Landrieu. But from the Government, where do you get
your food from, from the Government?
Ms. Jayroe. We have for many years distributed the TEFAP
commodities for household distribution. Those were the ones
that were not released, at least without having them leave
our--or not being replaced. But there are special disaster
commodities that, with a request from FEMA, USDA can make
available to us.
Senator Landrieu. OK. But I am trying to get to the point
where if you said if you had the food, you could distribute it,
but you cannot get the food. So my question is: Who can't you
get the food from? Is it the Government?
Ms. Jayroe. It is difficult to work the system the way that
it currently is with Government sources, yes. And there is just
not enough food available in our private donation system to
take care of the need.
Ms. Prather. Yes.
Senator Landrieu. OK. I am going to have to close the
hearing. Is there any other comment, briefly, that any of you
want to make that you think we did not get into the record?
[No response.]
Senator Landrieu. OK. I think your testimony has been very
complete, but let me end with this, and we are going to try to
do this relief package in a bipartisan basis. But I would hope
that this Congress would act very quickly to provide, instead
of the slow process that has been testified to that is
available to our farmers, when this Congress is seemingly
providing an expedited process for Wall Street, I would hope
that this Congress would think about the fact that we seem to
have very tight regulations for food banks and very loose
regulations for hedge funds. Something is very wrong with this
picture, and I hope that this hearing served at least some
effort to make more available food for hungry people in the
midst of these storms and to help our farmers who do not come
here often to ask for help. But because this country has turned
its back, in my view, time and time again on restoring the
coast, particularly, and also turned its back on real risk
management policies that would really help farmers in
Louisiana, we find ourselves in this predicament.
So I am going to do everything I can with my colleagues to
find a solution, but we have got a lot of work ahead of us.
Thank you so much, and the meeting is adjourned.
Mr. Strain. Thank you.
Senator Landrieu. And any written questions or comments, we
will have until the end of the day tomorrow to submit them for
the record.
[Whereupon, at 12:22 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
September 24, 2008
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
September 24, 2008
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
September 24, 2008
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