[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 143 (Thursday, September 14, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13575-S13576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me attend to one other item as long as 
the Senate is waiting on the welfare reform bill.
  I would like to comment on the issue of the farm bill. We had some 
comments yesterday by the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee 
in which the chairman indicated that it was very difficult, if not 
impossible, to get a majority on the Senate Agriculture Committee to 
vote for some kind of a farm bill.
  What is happening is that it is becoming evident to everyone that 
some have painted themselves into a corner on this question of 
agriculture. The proposed $14 billion cut in agriculture is way beyond 
what agriculture should bear in cuts. I have supported budget 

[[Page S 13576]]
cuts in agriculture and will support them again this year. But a $14 
billion cut has now put the chairman of the Senate Agriculture 
Committee and the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee in a 
position where they cannot write a decent farm bill, and they know it. 
The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee now comes out with a 
proposal he calls the Freedom of the Farm Act. It is a white flag of 
surrender saying we understand we cannot finance a farm program, so let 
us forget it.
  There is a much better way to do this. You can provide a better 
support price, a decent safety net for family-sized farms, and you can 
do it at the same time that you save the taxpayers $5 billion in the 
coming 7 years by targeting farm program support prices or that safety 
net for the family farmers, targeting it to family-sized farms. A 
number of us have been working on that. We have developed some plans 
which we will be announcing.
  But our point is to say to family farmers, at least if there are 
those who are surrendering on the issue of whether or not they think 
family farms are important to their country's future, that many of us 
will not surrender on that. It seems to us that this country is best 
served by nurturing and protecting a network of family-sized farms in 
our country to produce Americans' foodstuffs.
  We have for many, many years understood that the development and the 
maintenance of family farms nurture a lot of what is good in this 
country. Where do you find better family values than on family farms 
that nurture our small towns and, through migration, nurture our 
cities? It seems to me that the genesis of all of that starts out on 
the farm in our country, and we ought to decide that it is worth 
keeping.
  It is worth keeping a farm program that provides some safety net for 
the only people left in this country who, first of all, do not know 
when they plant a seed whether they will get a crop. So they risk all 
that money at the front end. And then they do not know, if they get a 
crop, whether they will get a price. So you have twin risks which 
family-size farms simply cannot overcome unless we have some basic 
support price or some kind of a safety net.
  In the coming days, I hope others will become aware as well that you 
cannot write a farm program that helps and nurtures a future for family 
farmers with the $14 billion that is now proposed in reductions. You 
can do it in a thoughtful way with even better price supports than now 
exist for the first increment of production and saving the taxpayers 
somewhere around $5 billion. That is what I hope the Congress will 
decide on later this year.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 
minutes as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  

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