[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S729-S731]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 CONSTRUCTING A COMPROMISE FARM PROGRAM

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Ogden Nash wrote a little four line poem 
about a man who was a drunk and a spouse of his who nagged him about it 
all the time. I am reminded of that listening to what I have listened 
to in the last hour or so.

       He drinks because she scolds, he thinks.
       She scolds because he drinks, she thinks.
       And neither will admit what is really true.
       He's a drunk and she's a shrew.

  I listened today to discussions about who is at fault for failure. I 
listened to creative inventive discussions in which any one of several 
people choose to say that ``It's her fault,'' or ``his fault'' or 
``their fault.''
  It is of little use or value, it seems to me, to worry about anything 
other than how we construct a compromise farm program.
  There is a wide range of agreement in this Chamber about a farm 
program. There ought to be total planting flexibility for farmers. Any 
new farm program should provide for total planting flexibility on base 
acres. There is wide agreement on that.
  Most of us agree that there ought to be forgiveness of advance 
deficiency payments for those who suffered crop losses last year. Most 
of us would agree to some kind of advance deficiency payment that would 
not have to be repayable in the next year or two. I would have no 
objection to that.
  I would not be pleased with providing payments for people who do not 
farm. If the requirement for getting a payment is simply to have some 
land and a bank account, but you do not have to plant a seed and you 
still get a generous payment, that is wrong. I have some trouble with 
that. But I have no problem at all with providing some kind of advance 
or certain payments for farmers in order to recapitalize their farm 
operation.
  My hope had been this evening that we would proceed during this 
period to have constructed some kind of a compromise. The reason that 
we are not proceeding late tonight or tomorrow or Saturday or Sunday or 
Monday I assume has a lot to do with what a lot of people are doing 
around the country. 

[[Page S730]]

  There is a Presidential campaign going on. We have the equivalent of 
a football team in the U.S. Senate running for the Presidency. They are 
off around the country campaigning. I understand all that.
  I have to tell you, I have enormous respect for the majority leader. 
I think the majority leader in this Chamber is a remarkable legislator, 
someone for whom I have had deep respect for many, many years. I had 
hoped, and I think the minority leader had hoped, and others had hoped, 
that there would be some method found by which we could reach a 
compromise. The talks that have been ongoing for the last number of 
hours have appeared to me to reach some significant agreement.
  Will that agreement mean that next Tuesday there will be a 
compromise? I do not know the answer to that, but I sure hope there 
will be a compromise, because there is plenty of area for agreement 
between the aisles.
  There is one area in which there is wide disagreement, and it seems 
to me it is the reason that we have not had a farm program to this 
point. The freedom to farm bill presupposes that there will be no 
further farm program. I know some of the supporters say, ``No, that's 
not what we are trying to do.'' Others are more candid and up front and 
say, ``Sure, that is what we are doing. We will have a buy-out up front 
with transition payments and we will transition you, and once you are 
transitioned, there will not be a safety net in the event that prices 
collapse.''
  My concern with that is I do not think we will have family farmers in 
our country if, when prices collapse--and there are plenty of reasons 
for grain prices to collapse from time to time--there is then not some 
kind of basic safety net.
  The interesting thing about the farmers is they face a so-called free 
market with a lot of enemies in that free market. They have a big grain 
trade that would love to knock down prices at every opportunity. They 
would love to knock down prices the minute prices start to strengthen, 
and they do it in dozens of different ways. When farmers try to market, 
they have to market up the narrow neck of a bottle with about a dozen 
major grain trading firms controlling where that market stream of 
product goes.
  The fact is, they want to buy grain at lower prices, not higher 
prices, and in dozens of ways, they try to find a way to knock down 
higher prices when prices firm up.
  Do you think millers love to see high prices? No; no, they would like 
to find a way to knock down prices a bit. Food processors, do they like 
high grain prices? No, they find a way to knock them down. So every 
time prices start to firm up--and, yes, even USDA.
  I heard an Assistant Secretary about 5 or 6 years ago sidle up to the 
table in the House Agriculture Committee and say, ``We had to take 
action to release grain, because we thought prices were firming up too 
much.'' That is a euphemism for saying, ``We over in USDA thought farm 
prices were getting too high, so we used our leverage and the 
mechanisms we have to try to trim them down a bit.''
  The interesting thing is, family farmers never seem to be able to 
take advantage on any continuing basis of a free market of higher 
prices, because there is always someone in there to interrupt those 
higher prices, big grain trading firms, food processors and others. 
Well, I do not object--in fact I think we must find a much more market-
oriented, market-sensitive farm program. Those who say we should are 
absolutely correct and they will find support from me for that. But I 
do not believe that we ought to decide that there should be no further 
price supports in the outyears in order that when international prices 
drop, family farmers will be left with no ability to deal with that 
risk.

  Frankly, they cannot deal with that risk. Family farmers will not 
survive. Prices will drop and family farmers will fail and FAPRI, the 
research agency, says wheat prices will drop to $3.22 next year. USDA 
predicts a drop in 1998. I do not know the facts. I know wheat prices 
go up and down. But they go down a lot easier than they go up.
  When they go down, the question is, for somebody farming 800 acres of 
wheat land in the northern great plains, and wheat drops to $3 a bushel 
and their production costs are $4.50 a bushel, and there is no loan 
rate, no target price, no marketing loan, no restitution payment, no 
nothing, what happens to that family farm?
  The family farm goes broke. Who farms it? An agrifactory buys it. 
Corporations farm in this country from California to Maine. That is 
what will happen if you decide this country has no interest in 
retaining a safety net for family farms.
  Every time I hear somebody--especially somebody from Washington with 
a white shirt--talking about transitioning somebody--especially a 
farmer--I suggest you fasten the seatbelt on the tractor seat. If you 
are going to be transitioned, you better look at what is behind that 
so-called transition. It may be going to a marketing policy that says:

       Let us have a buyout and make some big payments up front in 
     exchange for no further help, even some minimum safety net in 
     the long-term.

  There does need to be a farm program enacted by the U.S. Senate and 
the U.S. House, and it needs to be done soon. I do not want to revisit 
the question of who did what and why. I can make a strong case that 
this is the first day of the 104th Congress we have had a debate on the 
farm bill on the floor of the Senate. I know one was put in the 
reconciliation bill, but it was not debated on the floor. I am not 
interested in revisiting that because it is not very important.
  What is important is the question of what do we do now, how quickly 
can we do it, and can we do it in a way that advantages the rural 
economies in this country. Can we do it in a way that especially tries 
to provide basic help to family-size farmers when prices drop.
  It is my expectation and my hope that, with the leadership of Senator 
Dole and Senator Daschle, and the work that has been ongoing today, in 
which I think there has been some fair amount of agreement, between now 
and next Tuesday, provide a proposal. We could provide to both caucuses 
an approach that provides a bridge, or deals with filling in the gaps 
between the divergent proposals, and come to the floor and truly, in a 
bipartisan way, join hands and say this makes sense and meets the test.
  This does what some in this Chamber have counseled, which is to make 
a more market-oriented farm program work. It provides more flexibility 
and it moves into the future with a more modernistic program that is 
more market-sensitive. It still retains, for those concerned about 
whether we will have family farmers in the future, a basic safety net 
of some consequence, so that when prices drop, family farmers will be 
able to ride out those times.
  I come from a town of 300 people and from an area that is a family 
farming area. I suppose some people can say, ``Of what importance is it 
whether our farms are farmed by family farmers or whether they are 
farmed by one large giant corporation that farms two counties at a 
time?"
  I think there is plenty of reason for us to believe, for both social 
and economic reasons, in the retention of the opportunity to farm, and 
that to have a network of family farms dotting these prairies in 
America, dotting the northern great plains, makes a lot of sense. It 
supports a lifestyle that I think is admired by a lot of Americans. 
Turn on the news in any major city in the country and ask yourself if 
what you hear there compares well with what you understand is going on 
in our small towns and out on our farms.
  Does the news compare in terms of family values and good living, 
living in circumstances relatively free from crime, living in 
neighborhoods and farm areas where you know all of your neighbors. The 
fact is that there are a lot of reasons to care about whether we have a 
network of family farms in our future. The answer to that question 
depends on what kind of farm program we develop here in the U.S. 
Congress.
  Mr. President, let me conclude by saying that it is not my intention 
to do anything other than suggest that all of us find a way to serve 
the common interests that we have in rural America. There are farm 
families who depend on us, and they depend on us to do the right thing. 
There are mixed messages coming from different groups, commodity groups 
and farm organizations. Some like this approach and some like that 
approach. It seems to me that there is a basis for compromise.
  I hope that between now and next Tuesday, we will reach out and find 

[[Page S731]]
  that basis and, on Tuesday, move to a conference committee, a piece of 
farm legislation passed by the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan manner.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I just say, in answer to the Senator 
from North Dakota, I feel confident that Senators on both sides of the 
aisle want to reach an agreement on a substantial, constructive farm 
bill. Nothing is more important, and it is prime legislation. I feel 
sure that I can speak on behalf of Senators on my side of the aisle 
that would say we are going to reach that agreement, and we will all 
work together in good faith to achieve what is very important, coming 
from a farm State, as I do myself.

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