Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 33 (Tuesday, March 12, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1889-S1900]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

AGRICULTURE MARKET TRANSITION ACT

Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 338, H.R. 2584; further,
that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1541,
as passed the Senate, be inserted in lieu thereof, the bill be read the
third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table;
further, the Senate insist on its amendments, request a conference with
the House and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees, provided
that the total number of Democratic conferees signing the conference
report does not exceed five.

[[Page S1890]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, for the information of the Senate and my
colleagues who are in the Chamber, I wish to say that I intend to
discuss with appropriate remarks my concerns about the agriculture bill
and very likely at the end of those comments I will withdraw my
objection for the reasons I will state during the remarks I intend to
make about the farm bill. If the Chair will recognize me for that
purpose, I will make my remarks as brief as I can but not as brief as
the Senator from Nebraska usually is.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, my strong objections to the so-called
freedom-to-farm act, or son of freedom to farm act, or whatever it is
called now, both the version passed by the Senate and the one that
passed the House of Representatives, and the technical amendments and
the appointment of the conferees that has just been suggested by the
acting majority leader give me pause for great concern.
I wish to state once again, in trying to wrap up, if I might, the
strong objections this Senator has along with many other Senators from
the farm belt with regard to the basic thrust of this law, what it does
do and what it does not do, the reasons I think it is very bad
legislation; and if I withdraw my objection to the unanimous-consent
request it would only be with the hope, a wing and a prayer, if you
will, that the conference committee itself, when it discusses the farm
bill in conference and reports back the conference report for approval
of both the House and the Senate, that significant changes will be made
so that I will be able to accept the conference report.
However, I say that with a great deal of optimism and a great deal of
concern that that in the end might not happen. Therefore, I think it is
time once again as we contemplate taking the action that has just been
suggested by the acting majority leader to understand what we are
doing, which I think is not in the long-term interests of a sound food
policy or in the long-range interests of the safety net that basically
from its very beginning the freedom-to-farm act was designed to end in
7 years, notwithstanding the protestations, notwithstanding some of the
efforts which have tried to be explained as providing a safety net for
agriculture after 7 years.
Mr. President, I take a back seat to no one in the support of
agriculture and family-size farmers and rural America. During my 8
years as Governor of Nebraska before I came to this body, until now, my
18th year in the U.S. Senate, I have fought hard for agriculture. I
have joined with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to
try to tell the majority of the Members of this body that the safety
net that we have had for a long, long time with regard to farm
legislation has not been perfect, but it has led to a solid, firm food
supply for America. The genius of production of our farmers feeds not
only the United States but many parts of the world.
Last but not least, the farm programs that have been often criticized
because of the safety net feature and the expenditures have still
provided the United States with an abundance of food, more abundance
than any place in the whole world. At the same time, it has provided
prices for food at very competitive rates. The facts of the matter are
that the cost of food in the United States of America is the cheapest
of any of the industrialized nations in the world. So, certainly the
farm programs that have been often abused and cursed over the last
several years since the Great Depression of the 1930's, have served
America and agriculture overall very well.
But where are we going from here? Where are we going to be if the
freedom to farm act encompassed in the Senate version, and likewise the
freedom to farm act as encompassed in the version passed by the House
of Representatives, basically is designed in the form of transition
payments to lead to nowhere at the end of 7 years? Mr. President, 7
years of handsome, expensive payouts to agriculture, that, in my view,
is essentially a welfare system, going ahead with massive--billions of
dollars in expenditures, welfare to farmers, at a time when we are
trying to reduce the budget and at a time when we are trying to curtail
welfare, defies reason.
I say that once again, Mr. President, as a strong supporter of
family-size farms in rural Nebraska and rural America. I simply point
out, first with regard to the estimates of the costs of the program, we
all know, and it has been well established, that the so-called freedom
to farm act came out of the budget discussions and agreements and
disagreements. The freedom to farm act and the transition payments have
been fostered early on as a great budget saver, to help us balance the
budget by the year 2002.
I would simply point out that the facts, as the way this bill has
come out of the House and the Senate, are just the opposite. The most
recent CBO estimates show that the Senate farm bill will cost $1.13
billion more than the current law over the next 7 years. Some had
claimed that was too expensive. In the first 2 years alone, the Senate
farm bill will cost almost $4.6 billion more--and I emphasize more--
than current law. Turning to the House bill, to cite the figures
therein, the House bill saves only $1.8 billion over 7 years, a far cry
from the savings touted earlier in the year. And what do farmers get
for this? A healthy payoff but no long-term farm policy or safety net.

The CBO figures have just come out. I would like to cite those at
this time. For the 1996 crop, the one that we hope will be planted or
is being planted now, a corn farmer will get paid 37 cents per bushel
up to the limit of $40,000 that he can receive each and every year. The
corn farmer will get that 37 cents per bushel regardless of what the
market price is and what the farmers receive from the market price for
the products that I will identify, starting out with corn.
In other words, if corn, which is now at a price of about $3.40 a
bushel at the marketplace, if that would be maintained--and the
Department of Agriculture predicts that those prices will very likely
be maintained for 1996 and 1997--that would mean that the farmer
getting $3.40 a bushel would get 37 cents per bushel on top of that,
roughly over $3.75 a bushel. Wheat farmers will get paid 98 cents per
bushel over and above, as a gift from the taxpayers of America. Sorghum
farmers will be paid 44 cents per bushel. And so on, and so on, and so
on.
Mr. President, I point this out because I think the Republican farm
bill has strayed way off course. It is not good for agriculture in the
long term and it is certainly not good for balancing the budget. I
simply say that, at $3.40 a bushel, we should not be paying any money
out to corn farmers, unless there are some circumstances where his crop
would be wiped out. I point this out because this is just one of the
things wrong with this farm bill. This cost estimate brings the fact
home loud and clear, that S. 1541 is a sham. It is a sham to the
taxpayers, and it is a sham to the farmers over the long term.
How so? For taxpayers, it is a sham because it does not make good on
deficit reduction. For months, taxpayers have been told that Congress
was going to crack the whip and enact deficit reduction. Now we learn
that the farm program's revisions, which were advertised as saving
money, are actually going to cost more than if we would simply continue
with the farm program and its costs that we have today. In fact, for
1996 and 1997, they will cost about $4.5 billion more than the current
law.
For farmers, this sham is a little different. They have been led to
believe that the freedom to farm contracts will protect them from
fiscal unpleasantness that will surely follow. I am sad to say that
these contracts that are widely heralded have been grossly oversold.
Farmers have been led to believe that, once they sign up, their
payments from the Federal Government will be locked in and no one can
do anything about it.

A few moments ago, we were talking about the rules of the U.S.
Senate. One of the rules that we all know very well is that one
Congress cannot bind the succeeding Congress. Farmers should bear this
in mind. The reality is that future Congresses will almost certainly
take a butcher knife to the Freedom to Farm Act, and I believe that we
all should recognize and realize that.

[[Page S1891]]

These farm payments that will be received under the Freedom to Farm
Act have no relationship to farm production or to the commodity prices
that the farmers receive.
I agree that we should be cutting out all or most of the red tape
that the farmers have to wrestle with each and every year. We should
provide a piece of farm legislation that provides much more
flexibility, if not total flexibility, as to what the farmers plant and
how much they plant of a given product. But what kind of protection
will the freedom to farm contracts provide? Not enough. The National
Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information was asked to make
a careful review of the freedom to farm bill. They concluded that, ``*
* * the annual payments are not guaranteed for the life of the Freedom
to Farm legislation.''
The facts, Mr. President, could not be clearer. This is a sad
commentary on the way the farm bill has been handled, and I simply want
to set the record straight, make it very clear on several very
important points.
Mr. President, let me start out by quoting from several publications
with regard to the costs that very likely will skyrocket and make it
even that much more difficult to balance a budget.
I quote first from an article from the Omaha World Herald of February
27, 1996. The headline is: ``Glickman Says New Farm Plan's Costs are
Higher.'' We all know that Dan Glickman is Secretary of Agriculture and
a farm expert who previously served on the Agriculture Committee of the
House of Representatives with great distinction.
This article is by David Beeder of the Omaha World Herald:

Washington--Legislation guaranteeing farmers more than $40
billion over seven years would cost the Federal Government
$20 billion more than it could cost to extend a farm law that
expired December 31, Agricultural Secretary Dan Glickman said
on Monday.
``For the first 2 or 3 years, we know we are going to be
spending much more on this farm bill,'' Glickman said in a
speech to the National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture.

To save time and to stay away from being redundant, I ask unanimous
consent that all of the articles I quote be printed in the Record at
the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I wish to carry on the discussion of the
skyrocketing costs under the new farm bill. I wish to also quote from
an article from the Omaha World Herald of February 25, 1996. The
headline is: ``USDA: Dairy, Cereal Prices Expected to Rise.''
This story goes on to say that:

Food prices in the United States are likely to increase
less than the rate of inflation this year, with meat prices
expected to decline, Government economists say.
However, the price of milk should rise by 4 percent to 5
percent over last year because of the lowest surpluses of
dairy products since the mid-1970's, the Agriculture
Department said.

This goes on to explain what is happening and what the freedom to
farm policy, if you want to call it that, will do for both the
consumers of America and the producers as well.

Mr. President, I will further comment on an article from the Lincoln
Journal Star of February 25, 1996, and this one is headlined: ``Bill
Raises Farm Costs, Officials Say,'' by Robert Greene of the Associated
Press.

Mr. President, I simply say that this farm bill, indeed, is backed by
some farm organizations. I happen to think that they are taking a very
shortsighted approach to the whole proposition.
This farm bill leaves beginning farmers out in the cold. It provides
a rather handsome payment for the next 7 years. To those who have
participated in farm programs in the past, I have cited earlier in
speeches on the floor in this regard that if you take, for example, a
500-acre corn farm--and those of us who know and understand agriculture
know that that is not a big farm--but 500 acres of corn, and if the
farmer would sell that for $3.10 a bushel, which is under the $3.30 to
$3.40 price today, he would receive, in addition to that good price for
corn, a check free from the Federal Government, free from the
taxpayers, of $16,000 on top of the $186,000 that that corn farmer
would receive, assuming a return of about 110 bushel per acre, which is
reasonable.
Many farmers and many farm organizations that I will cite in my
remarks realize and recognize that if you are a 57-year-old farmer
today, and I must say that that is about the average age of our farmers
in Nebraska and very likely near the average age of our farmers in the
United States as a whole, if you are going to farm 7 more years, and
then when you are 65 and retire, this is a pretty good bill, because it
gives you handsome payments from the taxpayers that cannot be
justified.
In the end, it leads to nowhere, 7 years of transition payments. What
does transition payments mean? Transition payments were intended and I
predict eventually will be a payoff to farmers in rather handsome
numbers through welfare, and they will receive this check from the
Federal Government whether they even plant or not, whether they even go
to the field. They get this check from the taxpayers.

But many farm groups are protesting this, and rightly so.
Mr. President, I cite an article that I have in my hand from the
Omaha World Herald, again, on February 23, 1996, and this headline
says: ``Hundreds Expected to Protest Farm Bill,'' by Ann Toner of the
Omaha World Herald.

By bus, car and van, farmers from as far away as North
Dakota are expected to gather in Wichita, KS, today to voice
their opposition to the latest farm program proposals to gain
House and Senate approval.
Loosely dubbed the Freedom to Farm Act, the proposed law--
officially, the Agricultural Marketing Transition Act in the
Senate--is in its final stages in Washington.

This goes on to identify the farm organizations and some of the
farmers who made that trip to Wichita.
The next article that I will reference is, again, from the Lincoln
Journal Star. This is Sunday, February 25, 1996.
The headline is, ``Only people who eat need to worry about our food
policy.'' And the first paragraph of this article by Sally Herrin says:

The United States Senate put the family farm up for sale
when it voted 64-32 to send Bob Dole's Agricultural Marketing
Transition Act, S. 1541, to the House of Representatives
tomorrow morning, Feb. 26. This is a modified version of Bill
Barrett's and Newt Gingrich's Freedom to Farm proposal which
is the ``final solution'' to farm programs.
But farm programs are just for farmers rights? Think again.

And Sally Herrin goes on to explain in great detail how bad this
freedom to farm bill actually is.
Likewise, I will include in the Record an editorial from the Lincoln
Journal Star of February 18, 1996. This editorial is entitled ``Freedom
To Farm: An excuse To Abandon Agriculture.''
I will read the first two or three paragraphs of this editorial
because, in summation in a few words, this does about as good a job as
I could imagine in saying what is wrong with this measure.

Likewise, Mr. President, I will quote very briefly from another
editorial, this time of February 29, 1996, again from the Lincoln
Journal Star. This

[[Page S1892]]

headline is ``Freedom To Farm: Freedom To Plunder Treasury.'' And I
quote:

Mr. President, next I will quote from a news release from the
National Farmers Union, which is one of the leading farm organizations
whom I have worked closely with all of my 26 years in Government
service. This news release from the Farmers Union is headlined:

Senate Farm Bill A ``Sell out'' Of Farm families, Says [the
National Farmers Union] President.
Washington, DC--The farm bill passed by the U.S. Senate
Wednesday was termed a ``sell out of American farm families
and their values to the special interests of agri-business
and a license for a few corporations to further dominate the
marketing, processing and trading of agricultural
commodities'' by National Farmers Union President Leland
Swenson. Representing 250,000 farm, ranch and other rural
families across the nation, Swenson expressed concern that
the Agricultural Transition Act would escalate the move of
U.S. agriculture away from its system of independently owned
and operated family farms to that of contract production.

Mr. President, in addition to that, which will be printed in the
Record, there is a bulletin of about 9 or 10 items entitled: ``What's
wrong with the Farm Bill approved by the Senate?''
Clearly, in the opinion of the reliable National Farmers Union it is
a disaster.
What are other knowledgeable people who have had great experience in
agriculture saying? This time from the Republican side of the fence.
I refer to an article in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader of February 25,
1996, by George Anthan. George is with the Georgia Net News Service and
is a columnist.
The headline of his column is: ``Iowans wary about Freedom to Farm
bill.''
It goes on to say:

Two of Iowa's most respected voices on
national agricultural policy--both of them Republicans and
farmers--expressed strong misgivings over the GOP's
Freedom to Farm bill, which would guarantee subsidies to
farmers regardless of market price. Cooper Evans of Grundy
Center, a former Congressman and former agriculture
advisor to President Bush's White House, said the policy
advanced under the Freedom to Farm bill ``would be a
disaster.''

Mr. President, the article goes on and says:

Thurman Gaskill of Corwith--long active in national farm
policy affairs and a high-ranking political operative for
Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush--said: ``I don't understand
the thinking behind this. In the short term, it's a hell of a
deal. But I don't think it's good for the long-term farm
policy of this country.''
Evans, an influential member of the House Agriculture
Committee during his congressional service, said: ``To me,
the important point is that now is not the time for a program
that can be viewed as strictly a gift in the sense that it's
not at all tied to need, not all tied to current prices, not
at all tied to supplies.
``It's just a gift, which seems to me to be totally
incompatible with the fundamental interest of both parties to
whip the budget deficit.''
Evans continued: ``We're making all kinds of claims on
programs that have a much larger constituency, and I think it
makes those who support [the] (Freedom to Farm) [Act]
extremely vulnerable to the criticism that you're cutting
Medicare, [yes,] you're cutting Medicaid . . . and yet you're
giving this money to farmers regardless of what they do,
regardless of what they plant, regardless of what the prices
are.''

I continue to quote:

``It would be most inappropriate to do this.''

Mr. President, who are some of the supporters of the freedom to farm
act, other than the Republican majorities in both the House and the
Senate?
I reference at this point an article, again from the Lincoln Journal,
of February 19, 1996. This headline says, ``Big Agribusiness Enjoyed
Benefits in Senate Farm Bill.''

Washington, Associated Press. With a mix of luck, work and
unusual organization, the lobby for big grain companies,
railroads, meat companies, millers and shippers scored a big
win in the Senate-passed overhaul of the farm bill.
The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill, as it's called, stops the
government from forcing growers to idle land in order to keep
their Federal payments. It says farmers can grow the crop
that they most likely will sell without losing government
payments usually tied to a particular crop. For 7 years, at
least, the government would fix the price of corn, wheat and
other row crops.

Further down in the article is an interesting quote from our
distinguished friend and colleague, the Senator from Minnesota:

``In the long run it says you're on your own with Cargill.
You're on your own with the Chicago Board of Trade,'' said
Sen. Paul Wellstone, Democrat from Minnesota, taking on the
Minnesota-based food giant.
Cargill Inc. and the Chicago Board of Trade did work
Congress. So did such giants as General Mills Inc., Tysons
Foods, Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific Railroad,
Rabobank Netherlands, the Fertilizer Institute and others who
build a business from agriculture.
Unlike before, the food companies and the trade groups
banded together. In the fall of 1994, more than 120 formed
the Coalition for Competitive Food and Agricultural Systems.
``It was probably the first time in history that a broad-
based group in the food industry had gotten together with
market-oriented reforms in mind,'' said spokesman Stu Hardy,
a former staffer on the Senate Agriculture Committee, now
with the United States Chamber of Commerce.

It is really interesting, Mr. President. Any farmer or any farm
organization that really believes that business interests such as I
have just mentioned, who for years have lived off of cheap product
prices, were very much instrumental in writing the freedom to farm
bill. I think that fact alone, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tysons
foods, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Procter and Gamble, Union Pacific,
the Fertilizer Institute--if those people helped write this farm bill,
there is no way that it can be both good for them and good for the
producers.
Mr. President, there was another article that drives home this point.
This is from the Omaha World Herald of February 25, 1996. This headline
reads: ``Businesses Put Muscle Behind Farm Bill Push,'' by David
Beeder, Washington, DC:

Major changes in U.S. farm policy--passed by the Senate and
pending in the House--will get a big push all the way to the
White House from a powerful coalition of more than 120 grain
traders, processors, shippers, retailers and producer
organizations.
``We wanted to retain a farm income safety net but also
eliminate acreage reduction programs (ARP),'' said Mary
Waters of ConAgra Inc. of Omaha. ``Both of these bills will
do that.''

Now, Mr. President, ConAgra is located in my State. It is a very fine
organization. They are processors of food. I can see why they would be
involved in writing a farm bill, because, basically speaking, the
cheaper the cost of the raw products that they produce into edible
food, the more money they make. I do not criticize ConAgra for being
concerned about agriculture prices, but I do not think they represent
the family-size farmer:

Stu Hardy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the
legislation could have been strengthened if it had reduced
the amount of acreage in the $36 million Conservation Reserve
Program in which farmers are paid to idle land. If there is
one part of the previous farm bill and if there is one part
of the new farm bill that is generally supported by all farm
organizations--as far as I know, all or most farmers--it is
the Conservation Reserve Program, which has been very
popular. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we would
have been a whole lot better off if we cut down the
Conservation Reserve Program.

Mr. President, there is a lot of misinformation out there today about
what this program does. I have referenced several times this evening in
my remarks the fact that the freedom to farm act from its very
beginning and inception was to provide transition payments originally
to help reduce the costs--that has gone by the board now--but primarily
to have a transition from the present payments we have historically had
as part of the program, when prices were low but not when they were
high as they are now, but we have been pounding this home.
Now, even some of the introducers of the legislation have come around
to say we should have something in there very cleverly in the Senate
bill incorporated as permanent law. The 1949 act

[[Page S1893]]

has been permanent law for a long, long time as a fall-back position.
That is soft soap to agriculture because when the people understand
what is going on, and after the ``60 Minutes'' type program exposes
this for what it is, it will be tough to get any kind of responsible
farm program through the Congress.
For years I have fought, along with many of my colleagues, on the
basic concept of selling to the 535 Members of the House and Senate the
need for a farm bill, a safety net farm bill, that did not pay the
farmers anything when prices were high but gave them a stipend that
would get them somewhere near the cost of production when the corn
price--as it has historically--not stayed at $3.10 to $3.50 a bushel,
but when it drops to $2.10 to $2.50 a bushel below the cost of
production. That is when we should have farm programs. That is when
they should kick in. They should not kick in in a rich man type fashion
of selling and buying off farmers with this healthy hefty payment for
the next 7 years.

I make reference, Mr. President, to the Congressional Record of
February 28, 1996, page 1429, to bring home how there is so much
misunderstanding with regard to whether the safety net is going to be
eliminated. There is included on that page a letter from the Farm
Bureau to a Member of Congress. It says here by the writer of the
letter, who is an official of the Farm Bureau:

In my view, concerns about the ``freedom to farm" approach
have centered on two points: First, opponents are concerned
that the contract payments will be viewed as welfare
payments.

I do not know what else they are, but I think it rancors them a great
deal when we call them welfare payments.

Secondly, some are concerned that there will not be any
farm program after the seventh year of the bill. These issues
were also the same as some members' of the Farm Bureau. The
following points were used, in part, to make our policy
determination.

Then it goes on to another paragraph. I would like to quote from the
same letter from the Farm Bureau:

In regard to the future farm policy after 7 years, it is
important to keep in mind that there are no provisions in the
bill that require farm programs to be eliminated after 7
years. In fact, it is our view that public policymakers
should actively debate what farm policy should be after the
year 2002, while considering such issues as supply and demand
factors, international trade barriers, financial conditions
of agriculture, monetary policy, trade policy, and other
issues important to our farmers and ranchers.

Soft sell. Soft soap, because the very thrust of the farm bill, known
as the freedom to farm act, was to use the transition payments to
eliminate farm programs in the year 2002. Why else would you pay the
handsome payments from the taxpayers to the farmer regardless of what
the farmer is receiving for his commodity? Certainly, that is the
attitude of the New York Times. I think it is rather interesting, Mr.
President, that in addition to big business writing the farm bill, we
have those great defenders of the American family-size farmer, the New
York Times and the Washington Post, approving of this farm bill. They
have never approved of any farm bill in the history of the United
States of America, but this one. Why is that? Because they know what
the intent is. They know they are buying off the farmer, and it will
all come to an end at the end of 7 years.

Mr. President, I quote from a New York Times editorial of March 6,
1996. The headline is: ``Big Changes Down on the Farm.''
It says:

The Senate and House-passed bills would phase out wheat,
corn, rice and cotton subsidies over a 7-year period. The
Senate-House conferees need to make it clear, as the House
bill attempts to do, that after 2002, farm welfare
supplicants cannot count on reverting to the old discredited
law.

Further, it says:

The House bill would make it harder for lobbyists to extend
the dole after 7 years and is thus preferable to the Senate
version.

Mr. President, also, I think it is interesting to note this on the
front page of the New York Times of Friday, March 1, 1996. I reference
that at this point. Big farm paper, the New York Times. It says:

House approves biggest change in farm policy since the New
Deal.

Well, that is an honest statement. Below that, it says:

Legislation phases out subsidies over 7 years.

You cannot have it both ways. Yet, that is being sold today.
I simply say that the whole article will appear in the Record. It,
once again, shows that the New York Times, an opponent of agriculture
as long as I can remember, has a right, and they are getting what they
want, along with the chamber of commerce, along with the big-money
interests that live off the products of the American farmer. If I were
a farmer, I would not want those organizations saluted and backed by
the New York Times, and to write a farm bill, because down the road, in
the future, this is going to come home to haunt the safety net that we
have relied on for so long.
Then there is another newspaper that is well known as a big booster
of agriculture. This time it is the Wall Street Journal of Friday March
1, 1996. It is interesting to note that that is the same date of the
article that I just quoted from the New York Times. But the farmer
friendly Wall Street gurus, who speak frequently through the Wall
Street Journal, had this story. The headline is: ``House Approves
Ending Costliest Farm Programs.''
How ridiculous. I have just cited the facts of the matter. Yet, the
Wall Street Journal, who understands the stock market but has not a
clue about agriculture, says, ``House Approves Ending Costliest Farm
Programs.'' The Sub-headline is, ``Plan to Be Phased in Over 7 Years,
Would Stop Restrictions On Crop.''
The story:

The House measure would spend $46.6 billion through fiscal
year 2002, including $35.6 billion for transition payment.

What we have here is total allocations, if subsequent Congresses
approve it--at least this is the plan--to provide $46.6 billion through
fiscal year 2002, including all but $10 billion, or $35.6 billion for
transition payments:

It will have to be reconciled with a similar Senate bill in
a House-Senate conference before going to the White House for
the President's consideration.

Just some more, Mr. President, of what is going on today with regard
to the people who wrote the farm bill that some farmers and some farm
organizations think is just hunky-dory.
Mr. President, I may be wrong. Maybe this bill will be the greatest
thing for agriculture that we have ever seen. If so, on down the road I
will salute the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York
Times, the Union Pacific Railroad, Kraft Foods, and the many farmers in
my State, and many of my friends and colleagues here in the U.S. Senate
who support this. I will salute all of you.
I will salute all of you. I might be wrong. But as one who has
wrestled with farm programs in fairness to rural America for a long,
long time, and who consults regularly with farmers and farm
organizations--in fact, just this afternoon in Nebraska wheat growers
were in to see me. And since this is my last year in the U.S. Senate
they presented me with a plaque that I treasure saluting me for the
help I have given to--and have been part of in--protecting the
interests of family-sized farmers and the food production in America.
Each and every one of them--there were seven there--were firmly opposed
to the so-called freedom-to-farm act. Yes. There are lots of farmers
out there that have bought on to this very expensive and unfair program
that I am very fearful will be the death knell for farm safety nets and
make it almost impossible for young farmers who do not share in this
program. The money only goes to farmers who have been in the program
previously. It is a bad piece of legislation.
I am about to withdraw my objection only with the hope that maybe
some miracle will occur and we will be able to get some changes in a
whole series of areas made in the conference with the House, and that a
conference report which is eventually forwarded back to the House and
the Senate will have a much improved farm bill.
In the meantime, I have consulted with the Secretary of Agriculture
about this on several occasions. I have discussed this with the
President of the United States. Some people are speculating right now
that the President will sign the bill, or that he will not sign the
bill. I know that the President of the United States has not made up
his mind. The Secretary of Agriculture has not made up his mind. They
are waiting the outcome of the conference.

[[Page S1894]]

I hope we can have a bill that makes some sense.
With that I withdraw my objection that I raised earlier, and I will
work constructively with all concerned to make changes in this bill in
conference that I think are absolutely essential.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

[From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 27, 1996]

Glickman Says New Farm Plan's Costs Are Higher

(By David C. Beeder)

Washington.--Legislation guaranteeing farmers more than $40
billion over seven years would cost the federal government
$20 billion more than it could cost to extend a farm law that
expired Dec. 31, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said
Monday.
``For the first two or three years, we know we are going to
be spending much more on this farm bill,'' Glickman said in a
speech to the National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture.
Farmers would receive little or no subsidy payments if the
five-year 1990 farm law still were in effect, Glickman said.
``Why? Because prices are higher now,'' he said.
Subsidies, under 60-year-old U.S. farm policy, have been
based on the difference between the market price of crops and
the so-called target price set by Congress, which is usually
higher.
Glickman said economists at the U.S. Agriculture Department
expect the market price of corn and wheat to match or exceed
target prices for two or three years.
He said giving farmers a guaranteed annual payment in a
period when they are being paid high market prices ``could
create potential political problems'' for farm legislation in
the future.
``We need a well-rounded farm bill, one that people in
nonrural areas can support,'' he said. ``That's what we are
working on, and we think the Senate bill moved a few steps in
that direction.''
Glickman's speech before state agricultural directors was
followed a few hours later by Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.,
chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, who defended the
plan to guarantee annual payments to farmers.
He disputed Glickman's estimate that the legislation would
cost $20 billion more than would extending the farm law that
expired Dec. 31.
Roberts said the Freedom to Farm Act, which he has co-
sponsored with Rep. Bill Barrett, R-Neb., would reduce the
average annual cost of commodity subsidies from $10 billion a
year to $5 billion.
``The Freedom to Farm Act will save $5.2 billion over seven
years, and that's what I intend to say on the House floor
Thursday when we debate this legislation.'' Roberts said.
``What this debate is all about is who makes the
decision,'' he said. ``We feel very strongly that under
Freedom to Farm, the farmers make the decision. They have the
freedom to plant whatever they want to plant.''
Roberts said the high prices being paid for crops this year
have had little effect in the Great Plains, where poor
growing conditions left many farmers with little or nothing
to sell.
Under the 1990 farm law, many of these farmers received
subsidy payments in advance, he said.
Those subsidies must now be repaid even though a farmer may
have lost the crop, Roberts said.
``It is true that if you have the current (1990) farm bill
the farmer gets no payment this year or next year, but he has
to pay back advanced deficiency payments and there is no
requirement for conservation compliance,'' Roberts said.
____

[From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 27, 1996]

State Ag Leaders Won't Back Plan

Washington.--State agriculture leaders from Nebraska and
Iowa said Monday they could not support farm legislation that
guarantees a fixed government payment to farmers regardless
what they are paid for their crops.
Larry Sitzman, Nebraska director of agriculture, said the
plan would be politically vulnerable in a period like today
when farmers are receiving high crop prices.
``I am concerned that a seven-year program with guaranteed
benefits would be difficult to sell with the mood of Congress
and the mood of taxpayers in this country,'' Sitzman said.
He said the plan, if adopted, could lead to elimination of
a long-standing policy of subsidizing farmers during periods
of low crop prices.
``The safety net probably would be gone in two years,''
said Sitzman, who operates a 2,000-acre farm near Culbertson,
Neb.
Dale Cochran, Iowa secretary of agriculture said he expects
Congress to pass a farm bill that includes guaranteed
payments while continuing to provide subsidies when crop
prices fall.
Cochran, of Eagle Grove, Iowa, said it would be difficult
to convince taxpayers that farmers should receive a payment
when crop prices are high.
Cochran, a Democrat who served more than 22 years in the
Iowa House of Representatives, is in his third term a
secretary of agriculture, an elective office in Iowa.
Sitzman, a Democrat, was appointed director of the Nebraska
Agriculture Department by Gov. Nelson in 1991.
____

[From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 25, 1996]

USDA: Dairy, Cereal Prices Expected to Rise

Washington.--Food prices in the United States are likely to
increase less than the rate of inflation this year, with meat
prices expected to decline, government economists say.
However, the price of milk should rise by 4 percent to 5
percent over last year because of the lowest surpluses of
dairy products since the mid-1970s, the Agriculture
Department predicted.
The Consumer Price Index for food rose 2.8 percent last
year--the overall CPI was up 2.5 percent--and higher prices
for fruits and vegetables were the prime reason, USDA Chief
Economist Keith Collins noted in a report to the annual
Agricultural Outlook Forum.
``In 1996 the highlight for the American consumer will be
food-price increases below the overall inflation rate, as the
strong increase in meat production lowers meat prices
slightly,'' Collins said. Red meat and poultry account for 24
percent of the at-home food CPI.
With average weather, Collins added, this year's fruit and
vegetable price increases should be less than last year's.
Although the price of cereal and baked goods should go up
because of rising grain costs, the increase is likely to be
no more than about 5 percent because farm-level grain prices
represent only about one-tenth of the retail prices of the
finished products.
The USDA forecast relies in large part on the expectation
that 1996 beef production will increase by 2 percent to 3
percent despite higher feed costs. This envisions feed corn
prices peaking at about $3.70 per bushel.
However, Collins said, ``If 1996-crop corn prices were to
move into the $4-per-bushel range due to reduced yield
prospects, hog and poultry producers would reduce animal
numbers first with cow-calf operators making their big
reductions in the fall.
``The result would be higher meat prices in late 1996 and
into 1997, and, for beef, into 1998 and beyond.''
USDA foresees record-high season-average farm prices for
wheat in this harvest year and near-record prices for corn.
Carryover stocks of wheat on June 1 are forecast at 346
million bushels, which, as a percent of total use, would be
the lowest since 1947-1948. Corn carryover was put at 457
million bushels, lowest as a percent of use since 1937-1938.
Such low stocks make it very difficult to forecast prices,
Collins acknowledged. ``The low stocks have put feeders,
processors, traders and consumers at much greater risk if
1996 harvests are subpar.''
With higher corn prices, better planting weather and no
reduction in acreage, USDA said corn planted this year may
increase nearly 15 percent, to more than 80 million acres.
Winter wheat acreage was up 7 percent, and total wheat
acreage this year could rise about 6 percent, to 73 million
acres. That would support a wheat price near the $4-a-bushel
level.
____

[From the Lincoln Journal Star, Feb. 25, 1996]

Bill Raises Farm Costs, Officials Say

(By Robert Greene)

Washington.--A farm-program overhaul that the Senate passed
this month will raise spending rather than save billions of
dollars as Senate budget writers had planned, the Senate
Budget Committee says.
``We've lost all our savings,'' said Bill Hoagland, the
committee's staff director.
The original farm-program changes in the budget-balancing
legislation vetoed by President Clinton last year would have
cut spending for agricultural programs by $4.6 billion. The
Senate-passed farm bill instead costs $200 million to $380
million more over seven years than if farm law had been left
alone. Hoagland said.
The new estimates create problems for the farm bill as the
House prepares to take it up this week. Many added costs were
the result of amendments needed to ensure its 64-32 passage
Feb. 7. Those amendments included guaranteed spending for new
conservation, rural development and farmland preservation
programs.
Stripping down the bill could lose votes, many from
Democrats, when a final version is crafted. Or law-makers
could be forced to tinker with the core ``Freedom to Farm''
proposal, which substitutes fixed-but-declining payments for
unpredictable, price-based crop subsidies.
Democrats remain opposed to ``Freedom to Farm'' because it
continues to pay farmers even when crop prices are high. New
projections released last week by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture suggest that farmers will cash in big if Congress
removes the link between farmer payments and movements in
crop prices.
Prices for major crops are expected to be high for several
years because of heavy world demand and extreme shortages
going into the wheat and corn harvests this year.
As a result, crop subsidies could wind up costing a little
more than $12 billion over seven years, the figures show, if
farm law is unchanged.
The Senate bill and the version headed for the House calls
for giving farmers $35.5 billion over seven years--nearly
three times what the Agricultural Department forecasts.

[[Page S1895]]

The department estimates are based on more optimistic
forecasts for crop prices than those used by the
Congressional Budget Office, which Congress uses for
estimating program costs, and other forecasters.
The wide gap points to the larger debate over the massive
overhaul, including who should get the money.
The Republican bill guarantees the payments against future
budget cuts and leaves the way open for farm programs to end
after seven years. The high payments in 1996 will offset the
$2 billion in advance subsidies that farmers will have to
refund from 1995 because prices shot up.
The Democrats, including Agriculture Secretary Dan
Glickman, say farmers still need a safety net in case crop
prices unexpectedly plunge--despite the department's rosy
predictions.
Advocates for conservation and more help to small farmers
say that locking in payments to farmers, including the large
ones, means danger, especially if the House version passes
without any of the Senate amendments.
``The likely result will be that future agriculture budget
cuts will be in beginning farmer, rural development, research
and conservation programs,''said Chuck Hassebrook, an analyst
with the Center for Rural Affairs in Walthill, Neb.
Andy Fisher, spokesman for the Senate Agriculture
Committee, hinted that the Freedom to Farm payments may have
to be cut. He also said the committee was awaiting final cost
estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
He noted that the 1990 farm bill cost $57 billion over five
years--$15 billion more than forecast. The new bill would
allow no such overruns.
Hoagland, at the Budget Committee, said that even though
the farm bill had been separated from the budget-balancing
bill: ``Most of our discussions had always assumed that we
would still get some savings, even in any final negotiated
agreement, in the $3 billion to $4 billion range. But we have
no savings at all. We have a cost.''
____

[From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 23, 1996]

Hundreds Expected To Protest Farm Bill

(By Ann Toner)

By bus, car and van, farmers from as far away as North
Dakota are expected to gather in Wichita, Kan., today to
voice their opposition to the latest farm program proposals
to gain House and Senate approval.
Loosely dubbed the Freedom to Farm Act, the proposed law--
officially, the Agricultural Marketing Transition Act in the
Senate--is in its final stages in Washington.
While some other farm groups favor the proposal, the
opponents believe that unless substantial changes are made,
President Clinton should veto the bill.
``Doing nothing is a far better option than committing
economic suicide just to end the suspense of waiting,'' said
John Hansen of Tilden, president of the Nebraska Farmers
Union.
Proponents ``listened to the grain trade and shut out the
interests of production agriculture,'' he said. ``It's a
hostile takeover of ag policy by the grain trade that will
flood the market with lots of cheap product at the expense of
family farmers.''
John Whitaker, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said he
hopes to convince Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman that
unless substantial changes are made in the bill, Clinton
should veto it.
``Real farmers don't want welfare,'' Whitaker said. ``We
want to veto it and unless it can be improved, revert to 1949
law.
``Under the Senate bill, you don't even have to farm for
seven years to get a payment. Farm programs are supposed to
be a safety net. In years when they don't need it, like this
year, they shouldn't get a payment.''
The final bill isn't finished--House and Senate versions
are due to be reconciled before being forwarded to Clinton--
but opponents said they are meeting now to send their message
to Washington.
But the proposal has strong defenders, said Rep. Bill
Barrett, R-Neb.
``This bill echoes the sentiment of the majority of those
in agriculture,'' Barrett said. ``This bill provides planting
flexibility, promises full production, and allows farmers to
manage their own businesses based on economic factors without
government intervention.''
Rob Robertson, vice president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau
Federation, said provisions of the law would ``benefit
farmers by providing income stability over seven years and
allowing U.S. agriculture to compete in the world
marketplace.''
Opponents include Sen. J.J. Exon, D-Neb.
``If we buy into the Freedom to Farm Act now, by the year
2002 there would be no farm programs at all, no safety net,
not anything,'' Exon said. ``For the next seven years, it
turns farm programs into welfare programs.''
Today's rally is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. in the
parking lot of the Cotillion Ballroom in Wichita. Between
1,500 and 2,000 farmers are expected to participate,
representing several farm groups that oppose all or parts of
the proposal.
Some of the groups represent mostly small farmers, but
others have many large-farm members as well.
After the rally and a 6 p.m. barbecue, a 7 p.m. question-
and-answer session with Glickman is planned inside the
ballroom.
Glickman, a former Kansas congressman, opposes many aspects
of both versions.
But sponsors of the Glickman dinner--Kansas Farmers Union
and KFDI, a Kansas radio station--said Glickman is not coming
to Wichita either to take part in the rally or to be rallied
against.
In fact, Glickman isn't even scheduled to arrive until the
rally is over.
The sponsors said Glickman is coming to Wichita for the
sole purpose of breaking bread with the farmers, speaking and
answering questions from farmers after dinner.
National Farmers Union President Leland Swenson and Farmers
Union leaders from about 15 states are expected to be in
attendance.
``After two years under this program, production would
increase significantly, driving down prices,'' Swenson said.
That would leave farmers no chance to sell their crops at a
profit, he said.
Gene Paul of Delavan, Minn., president of the National
Farmers Organization, also opposes the bill.
``Freedom to Farm will do nothing to improve the image of
agriculture, nor will it deal with the solution of America's
farm problem: sustained, profitable commodity prices,'' he
said.
Wheat grower Tom Giesel of Larned, Kan., one of the
organizers of the rally, said farmers, not farm leaders, will
speak.
``We've invited speakers who can speak from the heart about
how this farm bill will affect their farms and rural
communities,'' Giesel said. ``Their message, that this bill
will devastate the rural economy, is very important for
people to understand.''
More than a busload of Nebraskans are expected to attend
the Wichita event, said Hansen, the Nebraska Farmers Union
president.
Other Nebraskans will represent the American Corn Growers
Association, the Nebraska State Grange, the NFO, the Nebraska
Wheat Growers Association and the League of Rural Voters.
Hansen said he and many of the attending Nebraskans believe
the House and Senate bills would make their farms too
vulnerable to the marketplace and the whims of grain trading
giants.
``It's a political and economic bonanza to the grain
trade,'' he said. ``They got what they've wanted for a long
time.''
Hansen said the promise of payments to farmers during the
transition without program restrictions would be so offensive
to taxpayer groups and members of Congress that it will ``set
us up for the political kill'' later on.
Roy Frederick, a public policy specialist for the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said calling it an
Agricultural Market Transition Program is appropriate.
``It seems highly unlikely that flat payments without
regard for market conditions could last beyond 2002,''
Frederick said.
John Dittrich of Meadow Grove, Neb., who will speak at the
rally, said ending price supports would be ``extremely
destabilizing to farmers and destabilizing to consumers.''
The increased risk of farming without a safety net would
discourage young farmers from entering the business and
jeopardize older farmers, Dittrich said.
He said the proposals are influenced by businesses and
``legislative theoreticians'' who don't understand the risks
and instabilities of farming.
``They've never had to look nature in the eye the way
farmers have had to do,'' he said.

key provisions of ``freedom to farm'' act

Subsidies

Eliminate crop subsidies and reduce payments annually to
farmers, ending them altogether in seven years.

Planting

Eliminate crop acreage restrictions. Farmers would be
allowed to plant as much or little of any crop as they
choose.

Maximum payments

Lower the maximum payment to farmers under the programs
from $50,000 to $40,000 but enlarge provisions that could
increase payments to large farmers who create several
subentities.

Conservation

Senate version: Reauthorize the Conservation Reserve
Program through 2002 for up to 36.4 million acres, provide
incentives for farmers leaving the program to protect the
most environmentally sensitive land and fund a program to
reduce pollution from farm and livestock runoff.
House version: Reduce the Conservation Reserve Program and
allow land to be withdrawn from the program at any time.

Future

Senate version: Require Congress to pass additional farm
legislation when the current bill expires.
House version: Instead of requiring a new bill, name a
Commission on 21st Century Production Agriculture to make
future policy recommendations.
____

Lugar To Keep Campaigning, Hold Ag Panel Position

Washington.--Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., said Thursday that he
would not consider stepping down as chairman of the Senate
Agriculture Committee while he continues campaigning for the
Republican presidential nomination.
Lugar also said that Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., should remain
as Senate majority leader while campaigning for the
nomination.

[[Page S1896]]

``I think Bob Dole is doing a great job as our majority
leader.'' Lugar said at a press conference. ``I hope I have
done a good job getting a farm bill through the Senate.''
Lugar, who received less than 6 percent of the vote in the
Iowa party caucuses and the New Hampshire primary election,
said he plans to continue campaigning ``as long as there is
money and some momentum.''
____

[From the Lincoln Journal Star, Feb. 25, 1996]

Only People Who Eat Need To Worry About Our Food Policy

(By Sally Herrin)

The United States Senate put the family farm up for sale
when it voted 64-32 to send Bob Dole's Agriculture Marketing
Transition Act. S1541, to the House of Representatives
tomorrow morning, Feb. 26. This is a modified version of Bill
Barrett's and Newt Gingrich's Freedom to Farm proposal, which
is the ``final solution'' to farm programs.
But farm programs are just for farmers, rights? Think
again.
Concerned about the environment? No wilderness protection
initiative has anything like the impact on soil and water
quality that a national farm policy has, because farmers and
ranchers own more than three-fourths of the non-public land
in the country. And while S1541 retains authorization for the
Conservation Reserve (the butt of many a late night's comic
joke, this poorly understood program builds the nation's
environmental capital), the stone truth is the carrot-and-
stick good faith partnership between ag producers and the
nation is broken. Added long-term conservation goals will be
sacrificed for short-term economic survival.
Is food security national security? Europeans old enough to
have survived World War II would say so. Yet, the proposed
farm bill excludes farmers who haven't participated in farm
programs in at least one of the last five years, cutting off
farm kids at the knees.
The average farmer in Nebraska is 57. Seven years of
declining severance pay takes most of them right up to
retirement. Who will farm then?
Nebraska lost 33.9 percent of its rural population between
1980 and 1990. Just as agriculture is the prime economic base
for the state as a whole, farm families are the economic base
for the main street businesses which serve them. When the
families leave and fail, the towns dry up and stand rattling
like pin oaks in the wind.
Earl Butz--former secretary of agriculture, forced to
resign for telling off-color, racist jokes and later
convicted of income tax fraud, mentor to Clayton Yeutter and
economic godfather to Freedom to Farm--Earl Butz described
rural depopulation resulting from low commodity prices this
way: ``This trend toward fewer farms isn't bad. Rather, it's
good because it frees a larger percentage of the population
to become productive members of society.''
While Butz and Yeutter laid the groundwork for the
industrialization of our food supply, it has taken Dole and
Gingrich to bring big business to its perilous new heights of
corporate economic advantage, which is what Freedom to Farm
is all about.
The only people who should care about farm policy are the
people who eat. As for so much else in modern life, we are in
denial about how food comes to our table. But no Martha
Stewart recipe will take away the stink of corporate hog
farming and the environmental and economic devastation that
it means to communities just across the Missouri River in
Iowa.
National food security is a matter of reasonable production
goals that also give something back to the land, and it's a
matter of a strategic food reserve. Freedom to Farm creates
planting chaos and a world of boom-and-bust cycles with huge
surpluses and terrible shortages. The last time the
agricultural market was this ``free,'' they called it the
Great Depression. It not only can happen here, it has.
Freedom to Farm means seven years of decoupled welfare
payments to farmers, politically indefensible in times when
welfare to poor women and children being gutted, and lending
new meaning to ``planned obsolescence.''
In a letter to the editor (LJS, Feb. 21), Bill Barrett
claimed his proposal was designed to let farmers get their
income from the market. But his bill strips farmers of their
traditional marketing tools, including the Farmer-Owned
Reserve and the Emergency Livestock Fee Program, and caps the
loan rate for corn at $1.89. Since loan caps in practice
generally become price ceilings, this means farmers selling
corn at or below the cost of production.
The food sector, the most profitable in the national
economy bar none, is shared by four corporations: Cargill,
ConAgra, ADM and IBP. Mexican farmers call them the Coyotes,
and I'm hoping the tag will catch on.
There is no free market. The food sector has become a
system of shared monopolies, and by letting men like Dole and
Barrett shape our national policy who consistently favor big
corporations at the expense of the public good, we permit it
to happen.
While you may want government off your back as the shadow
of tax time creeps near, you'd do well to remember that
government is all you've got to mitigate, much less control,
big business.
Bob Dole has been one of Archer Daniels Midland's best
long-term political investments. Bill Barrett, ConAgra's
largest single PAC recipient for the years 1980-92, is
repaying his contributor with the Freedom to Farm the Farmer
is Spades.
The farm hits the auction block tomorrow morning when the
House takes up debate. The land is the only thing the Coyotes
don't own. Yet. But unless our president and representatives
get a lot of calls and wires tonight, we've just sold the
family farm.
____

[From the Lincoln Journal Star, Feb. 18, 1996]

Freedom To Farm: An Excuse To Abandon Agriculture

Blow a little dust off your memories of the 1988 Senate
race in Nebraska. David Karnes is at the podium at State Fair
Park in Lincoln. Row after row of Republican cheerleaders
lean forward, gathering themselves for their next explosion.
But coming out of Karnes' mouth are these fateful words: ``We
need fewer farmers at this point in time.''
Groans. Gasps. Even boos. Cheerleaders slump in their
seats. Bob Kerrey seizes on what Karnes later describes as a
slip of the tongue and delivers a stern lecture. A few weeks
later, voters elect Kerrey and cast Karnes into the basement
of political esteem.
But guess what? Eight years after a promising conservative
showed his poor grasp for acceptable rhetoric, the
underpinnings of the once unutterable are being uttered
daily. As Congress and President Clinton stumble toward
passage of new farm policy, the words ``freedom to farm'' are
much in vogue. They are represented, not as the first step
toward abandonment of agriculture, but as breath-taking
reform.
When Karnes charged into Lincoln with a solid shot at
beating Kerrey, the underpinnings for sweeping change were
called ``decoupling.'' It was a simply slogan meant to break
the link between public payments to financially challenged
farmers and public attempts to manage grain supplies and
natural resources.
Eight years later, ``freedom to farm'' is a softer sell of
essentially the same thing. If conservatives have their way
with the next farm bill, farmers will still get money from
the government over the next seven years, but there will no
longer be any requirement of idle acres.
The trouble with this policy is that it neglects farmers'
protection against mountainous and ruinous grain surpluses.
It neglects consumers' protection against shortage. It edges
farmers away from earning their way by conserving and under-
utilizing their land assets. The new policy has the
government doling out compassion and dollars in diminishing
increments over the next seven years.
Momentum is still building to send this very message to
farmers by mid March, before the last-ditch deadline for
enrollment in the payment-compliance system and the start of
planting season. The freedom to farm crowd continues to
describe it as the one true path toward self-reliance and
cutting into the federal debt.
It is not. It's not even close. Reformers could save tons
of money if they just targeted farm payments toward the
smaller and often younger farmers who need them and cut off
the big farmers who have plenty of equity and cash. In what
may be the only country in the world that has never known
food shortages, rational policy makers could keep a proven
food security system in place, cut costs and still offer
farmers familiar incentives for controlling erosion and
ground-water contamination.
According to the most recent portrayals of its leadership,
the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest alliance of
grain producers nationally and in Nebraska, is among those
sold on much rasher behavior. Its legions are ready to roll
up their sleeves, renounce reliance on tax dollars, and
exercise this new freedom to farm.
According to recent portrayals by Sen. Jim Exon, the Farm
Bureau is mentally ill. It must be schizophrenia. Exon said,
that has its spokesmen calling for more of the same in the
federal-farmer partnership one moment and much less of the
same the next.
Those eager to demolish farm programs suggest the average
farmer is a millionaire, because he has a million dollars'
worth of paper assets. They smugly suggest that the
government could have bought all the farmland in 41 states
with the money it spent on the farm program in the last 10
years.
Much of this is the rhetoric of insanity. But regardless of
what farm groups and farmers really want, consumers should
embrace sanity and a system that can continue to serve their
food needs at a more acceptable budget price.
Reform is a wonderful thing. Adjusting farm policy so that
farmers are cast in the role of welfare recipients is not
reform. It is a calculated abandonment of government's
crucial role in ensuring a good supply and reasonable food
prices.
____

Term Limits Can't Go on '96 Ballot

Any attempt to put another question dealing with term
limits on the November ballot could run afoul of the Nebraska
Constitution, said Secretary of State Scott Moore.
Article III, Section 2 of the constitution says: ``The same
measure, either in form or in essential substance, shall not
be submitted to the people by initiative petition, either
affirmatively or negatively, more often than once in three
years.''
The Nebraska Supreme Court last week threw out term limits
that were placed on the ballot in 1994.

[[Page S1897]]

Moore said his warning did not apply to a petition already
filed that would seek to force legislators to support term
limits. Rather than putting term limits in the State
constitution, that measure seeks to label on the ballot those
candidates who do not support the idea.
____

Freedom to Farm: Freedom to Plunder Treasury

Farming experts will tell you that a farmer who can't make
money raising corn at $3 a bushel should sell the tractor and
move to town. Fortunately, most Nebraska farmers are much too
smart to miss out on the $3 corn and the profits that appear
will within reach as the 1996 growing season approaches.
But misfortune is in this picture, too--misfortune for
taxpayers. Congress is hammering out a farm bill that
proposes to give these same savvy farmers as much as $40,000
each in extra income, in precious tax money, this year. Why?
Because that how Freedom To Farm, the new approach that is
supposed to get the government off the farmer's back, is
supposed to work. It put more government, more cost, on the
taxpayer's back instead.
It does this by severing the long-standing connection
between grain supplies, market conditions and levels of price
support payments to producers.
Conservatives have opened the door to one of the biggest
boondoggles in farm program history. In the first year of
this ill-named ``reform,'' farmers can get almost $4 a bushel
for any corn they have in the bin right now. The have every
night to expect that they can lock in prices of $3 per bushel
or better on their 1996 production--and they will still
qualify for thousands of dollars in government support!
Freedom to Farm sets aside several billions dollars for the
first of seven years of annually declining financial support
to farmers. Allocators of that amount are completely
oblivious to need and profit influences. Right in front of us
here, in fact, is a year when farmers are unlikely to need
any help at all.
A typical Nebraska farmers could easily make $200 an
irrigated acre in profit in 1996--$200 after expenses. If he
has 1,000 acres of corn, that's profit in six figures. That's
not the sort of financial statement that ought to be
supported by another $40,000 from taxpayers.
Much less likely, but not impossible is this market
scenario: A bad export forecast or the kind of weather that
causes bin-busting surpluses intrudes in the next few weeks,
prices plummet, and this financial safety net is suddenly
woefully inadequate.
The point in either case is that this twisted vision of
farm policy helps farmers when they don't need help and could
well help them too little when they need lots of help. That's
what Freedom to Farm would do if it passes in present form.
As it exists in the House, scene of the debate this week,
it is even worse. Freedom to Farm on the House side is also
woefully deficient in protection of soil and water resources
and in support for rural development of things that should
matter to farmers, to consumers, and anybody who understands
that farm policy is also food policy and environmental
policy.
In all of those areas, Congress has edged dangerously close
to handing us bad policy.

Senate Farm Bill a ``Sell Out'' of Farm Families, Says NFU President

Washington, DC.--The farm bill passed by the U.S. Senate
Wednesday was termed a ``sell out of American farm families
and their values to the special interests of agi-business and
a licence for a few corporations to further dominate the
marketing, processing and trading of agricultural
commodities'' by National Farmers Union President Leland
Swenson. Representing 250,000 farm, ranch and other rural
families across the nation, Swenson expressed concern that
the Agricultural Transition Act would escalate the move of
U.S. agriculture away from its system of independently owned
and operated family farms to that of contract production.
``How ironic it is for this reform-mined Congress to
establish a brand new bureaucracy instead of enacting real
farm policy reforms. The Agricultural Transition Act
guarantees payments regardless of commodity prices and
regardless of whether or not a crop is even planted,'' Said
Swenson. ``This bill would provide producers with a short-
term gain, but it will inevitably lead to long-term economic
pain for independent family farmers and for other rural
communities,'' said Swenson.
The Senate is irresponsible in this proposal to enact
policies which maximize production, lower commodity prices at
the farm gate and make set payment,'' said Swenson. He also
notes that under this bill farmers would be asked to sign
seven-year compliance contracts without even knowing what
their transition payments will be.
The Agricultural Transition Act caps marketing loan rates
for seven years. The maximum loan rates under this bill would
be: corn--$1.89 per bushel; wheat--$2.58 per bushel;
soybeans--$5.26 per bushel; cotton--52 cents per pound; and
rice--$6.50 cwt.
``Loan rates are capped at artifically low levels,
stripping away any opportunity producers might have to market
their commodities in a manner that positively affects farm
income,'' said Swenson. ``After two years under this program,
production would increase significantly, driving down
prices.''
Farmers Union supports the U.S. Senate's retention of
permanent farm law and the reauthorization of nutrition,
conservation and rural development programs, as well as
increased planting flexibility.
``The bottom line is that the Agricultural Transition Act
will drive down commodity prices, lower farm income and make
it difficult for young farmers to enter production
agriculture,'' said Swenson. ``We will urge President Clinton
to veto the proposal if it reaches his desk.''
``Beyond the devastating economic impact this proposal
would have on rural communities, we need to question the
long-term consequences of a food supply controlled by a
handful of multi-national corporations. We also need to ask
ourselves if such a system of food production is worth the
environmental degradation and the loss of rural businesses
and infrastructrue,'' said Swenson.
____

What's Wrong With the Farm Bill Approved by the Senate?

S. 1541, the Agriculture Market Transition Act, is still
``Freedom to Farm.'' This is the grain trade bill, designed
as a watershed legislation to end farm programs.
This bill decouples production from payments. Farmers don't
want decoupled welfare payment, they want a fair price for
what they produce. In a political climate where welfare
payments to the poorest children are under attack, given the
already massive national negative press characterizations of
farmers as rich welfare cheats, given the declining
population and political base of farmers, given the fact that
farmers will collect decoupled welfare type payments during
periods of relatively high commodity prices, Congress will
most likely eliminate the Farm Bill before its scheduled 7
years. This amounts to an invitation to our own hanging.
How can anyone be expected to sign a seven-year contract
for declining payments without knowing what is being offered?
There is nothing in S. 1541 to even allow producers to
calculate what their transition payment would be. All we know
is that payment is limited to 85 percent of contract acres,
and based on historical yields, frozen since 1985. There is
no price factor in this formula. USDA just divides the
available pool of money between contracting farmers.
S. 1541 provides what amounts to as ``severance payment''
to older farmers looking to get out of farming, but what
about young farmers trying to get in? Young farmers are
locked out.
This bill actually reduces marketing flexibility. It
eliminates traditional marketing tools used by farmers to
store farm commodities during periods of low commodity
prices: The Farmer Owned Reserve is dead. So is the Emergency
Feed Program and the Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance
Program.
This lowers the non-recourse marketing assistance loans
down to: corn--$1.89, wheat--$2.58, rice--$6.50/cwt, and
soybeans based on 85% of recent average prices, using the
same formula used for wheat and feed grains or between $4.92
to $5.25/bu. In addition, it gives the Secretary of
Agriculture the authority to make downward adjustments to
wheat and feed grain loan rates based on stocks-to-use-
formulas, but no authority to raise loan rates.
Contracts must be signed by April 15. The House has yet to
act on the Farm Bill, and will not likely do so until the end
of February. The House and Senate versions will then need to
go to Conference Committee, and then reported to the
President. Will that be enough time to develop new rules and
program regs by then? No.
This Farm Bill will cause a tremendous amount of
uncertainty in crop production as farmers chase whatever crop
they think will work best this year. Boom and Bust. Huge
surpluses, and major crop shortages. National Food Safety is
clearly at risk. Land values and other assets will decrease
as crop prices wildly gyrate and auger their way to the
bottom of the unprotected world market price, which tends to
be the ``dump price.''
So what is so bad about the 1949 Permanent Farm Bill? Not
much. Is it better than the current law or the proposed Farm
Bills in either the Senate or House? Yes, much better.
What do we want the President to do? VETO the Farm Bill.

[From the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Feb. 25, 1996]

Iowans Wary About Freedom to Farm Bill

(By George Anthan)

Washington.--Two of Iowa's most respected voices on
national agricultural policy--both of them Republicans and
farmers--express strong misgivings over the GOP's Freedom to
Farm bill, which would guarantee subsidies to farmers
regardless of market prices.
Cooper Evans of Grundy Center, a former congressman and
former agriculture adviser to President Bush's White House,
said the policy advanced under the Freedom To Farm bill
``would be a disaster.''
Thurman Gaskill of Corwith--long active in national farm
policy affairs and a high-ranking political operative for
Presidents Nixon, Ford and Bush--said: ``I don't understand
the thinking behind this. In the short term, it's a hell of a
deal. But I don't think it's good for the long-term farm
policy of this country.''
Evans, an influential member of the House Agriculture
Committee during his congressional service, said: ``To me,
the important point is that now is not the time for a program
that can be viewed as strictly a gift in

[[Page S1898]]

the sense that it's not at all tied to need, not at all tied
to current prices, not at all tied to supplies.
``It's just a gift, which seems to me to be totally
incompatible with the fundamental interest of both parties to
whip the budget deficit.''
Evans continued: ``We're making all kinds of claims on
programs that have a much larger constituency, and I think it
makes those who support (Freedom To Farm) extremely
vulnerable to the criticism that you're cutting Medicare,
you're cutting Medicaid . . . and yet you're giving this
money to farmers regardless of what they do, regardless of
what they plant, regardless of what the prices are.
``It would be most inappropriate to do this.''
Conversely, Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, who strongly supports
Freedom To Farm, said it ``eases our farm economy into a
market-oriented economy though guaranteed market transition
payments.''
But Freedom To Farm, approved recently by the Senate, isn't
law, yet. The House returns this week to take it up amid
signs of rebellion among conservatives, environmentalists,
consumer advocates and even farm-state legislators.
House conservatives are upset because the Senate, to avoid
a filibuster, added $4 billion to the bill's cost and
reauthorized food stamps and other nutrition programs they
wanted to cut back as part of welfare reform.
Also, the Senate avoided dealing with the complex dairy
issue. But a House proposal is being attacked by consumer and
food manufacturing interests as a measure that would force
higher milk prices.
____

Economist: Farm Bill Will Drop Crop Prices

The Freedom to Farm bill, as written, would mean lower crop
prices, more production and could ultimately affect property
tax revenues, an agricultural economist said.
The bill, passed by the U.S. Senate, would phase out crop
subsidies to producers over a seven-year period.
Because farmers will no longer be told what to plant and
how much to plant, production will increase, said Gene Murra,
an economist at South Dakota State University.
``I think it would be very easy, in many cases, for
producers to say, `Well heck, I might just as well plant as
much as I can,' and given the fact that we have a relatively
high price this year, that's going to encourage even more of
that kind of thing. So we could have very large production in
any given year if the weather is just right,'' Murra said.
Lower crop prices could lower values of agricultural
property lending to lower property tax collections, he said.
____

NFO Opposes ``Freedom to Farm Act'' as Passed by Senate

Ames, IA.--The National Farmers Organization (NFO) opposes
the Freedom to Farm Act as passed by the U.S. Senate.
``The statement that Iowa U.S. Senator Charles Grassley is
circulating that all farm organizations support the Freedom
to Farm Act is erroneous,'' says NFO president Gene Paul.
``The NFO cannot support the act because in the long run it
will not benefit NFO members, nor rural communities.''
``The one thing that farmers and ranchers in this country
need is more economic stability and sustained profitability
based on fair farm commodity prices. Otherwise, they are
unable to make sound farm management and marketing decisions.
Freedom to Farm does just the opposite. It transitions
farmers into a world market that is anything but free, and is
most notable for price instability,'' Paul explains.''
``Furthermore, while no one wants deep government intrusion
into day-to-day farming decisions, the federal government has
a legitimate role in agriculture,'' Paul notes. ``It needs to
insure fair competition, both domestic and foreign. It needs
to keep accurate records of the agricultural industry. And it
needs to provide some form of an income safety net to food
and fiber producers who are the victims of circumstances
beyond their control, such as severe weather, political
shenanigans, and market manipulations.''
Another NFO concern about Freedom to Farm, according to
Paul, is the image it will convey to consumers and taxpayers
that farmers are benefitting from an unnecessary government
subsidy or handout.
``The American public already has a false conception that
family farmers are doing well economically, when in fact
thousands of them continue to go out of business each year,''
Paul concludes. ``Freedom to Farm will do nothing to improve
the image of agriculture, nor will it deal with the solution
to America's farm problem, which is sustained, profitable
commodity prices.''
____

[From the New York Times, Mar. 1, 1996]

House Approves Biggest Change in Farm Policy Since New Deal

legislation phases out subsidies over 7 years

(By Eric Schmitt)

Washington.--The House today approved a major overhaul of
American farm programs, voting to end 1930's policies that
pay farmers not to plant certain crops and to replace many
subsidies with fixed payments that would end after seven
years.
The $46 billion legislation, the most far-reaching
agricultural bill since the New Deal, ends most Government
controls over planting decisions for America's 1.5 million
farmers. The vote was 270 to 155, with 54 Democrats voting
for the bill and 19 Republicans voting against.
``We've now changed the farm-program world,'' said
Representative Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the
House Agriculture Committee.
The Senate approved a similar, but slightly more costly
bill earlier this month. Lawmakers from both chambers will
likely meet next week to hammer out a compromise version.
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said the House bill ``fell
short'' in maintaining financing for research, rural
development and food for the poor. He said he would not
recommend the bill to Mr. Clinton unless the conference
committee altered these and other provisions.
The Administration and Congress both want to pass a farm
bill soon and farmers are clamoring for a resolution because
planting season has begun or will begin soon in many areas.
Mr. Glickman also complained that elimination of the
market-based subsidy payments would deprive farmers of a
vital safety net. But with crop prices at 10-year highs,
consumer groups say the fixed payments the bill calls for
would actually cost more in the next few years than the
current subsidies, which fall when prices are high.

From the New York Times, Mar. 6, 1996]

Big Changes Down on the Farm

Reforming the nation's bloated farm subsidy programs is no
overnight task. It has taken 60 years for an emergency relief
program to mutate into what now amounts to a welfare system
for the rural middle class. Nevertheless, Congress has moved
an amazing distance toward ending support programs for wheat,
corn, rice and cotton. It even took aim, although it missed,
at peanuts, sugar and dairy support systems that milk
consumers.
The Senate and House have passed bills that would phase out
wheat, corn, rice and cotton subsidies over a seven-year
period. The House came within a few votes of ending peanut
and sugar programs and beat back an audacious attempt by some
dairy interests to make milk marketing even more costly to
consumers. Senate-House conferees need to make clear, as the
House bill attempts to do, that after 2002 the farm welfare
supplicants cannot count on reverting to old, discredited
law.
The seven-year weaning process, a schedule of declining
annual payments to farmers regardless of their planting
decisions, is itself a form of welfare designed to appease
long-pampered farm lobbyists. The House bill would make it
harder for lobbyists to extend the dole after seven years and
is thus preferable to the Senate version.
Peanuts and sugar have narrowly survived but they are
rapidly becoming endangered species at a time of budget
constraints and growing impatience with wasteful government
spending. It is now planting season, time for the Senate and
House to adopt the better elements of both bills.
____

[From the Lincoln Journal-Star, Feb. 19, 1996]

Big Agribusiness Enjoyed Benefits in Senate Farm Bill

Washington.--With a mix of luck, work and unusual
organization, the lobby for big grain companies, railroads,
meat companies, millers and shippers scored a big win in the
Senate-passed overhaul of farm programs.
The ``Freedom to Farm'' bill, as it's called, stops the
government from forcing growers to idle land in order to keep
getting federal payments. It says farmers can grow the crop
that's most likely to sell without losing government payments
usually tied to a particular crop. For seven years, at least,
the government won't fix the price of corn, wheat and other
row crops.
Those things please the people who depend on a steady
stream of raw farm goods. The stress on volume over price has
made farmers suspicious of being exploited. Still, farmers
wanted some of the same things, too, which is one reason the
Senate could pass the bill 64-32 on Feb. 7.
Not that the antagonisms, dating to the last century, will
end. Democratic advocates for small farmers from states like
North Dakota and Minnesota futilely hammered the bill for
helping corporate America while leaving the yeoman farmer out
in the cold when price-based subsidies end.
``In the long run it says you're on your own with Cargill.
You're on your own with the Chicago Board of Trade,'' said
Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., taking on the Minnesota-based
food giant during the Senate debate.
Cargill Inc., and the Chicago Board of Trade did work
Congress. So did such giants as General Mills Inc., Tyson
Foods, Kraft Foods and Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific
Railroad, Rabobank Nederland, The Fertilizer Institute and
others who build a business from agriculture.
Unlike before, the food companies and trade groups banded
together. In the fall of 1994, more than 120 formed the
Coalition for a Competitive Food & Agricultural System.
``It was probably the first time in history that a broad-
based group in the food industry had gotten together with
market-oriented reforms in mind,'' said spokesman Stu Hardy,
a former staffer on the Senate Agriculture Committee, now
with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

[[Page S1899]]

Individual members had tried to shape earlier farm bills,
he said, but congressional committees answered mainly to
grower groups and general farm organizations like the
American Farm Bureau Federation. Others were ``pesky
intruders,'' he said.
This time the coalition planned and carried out a lobbying
campaign to show urban and suburban lawmakers what their
stake was in farm law. Farmers who depend on crop subsidies
number in the hundreds of thousands. The mills, railroads,
ports and food companies and rest of the business provide 19
million jobs, often a long distance from the fields.
The group and its members met with every member of Congress
or their staffs, putting together information on each
district. It held farm bill seminars for congressional staff
and the media.
The job turned out to be a lot easier than first thought.
The Republican takeover of Congress, the move to overhaul
government and the push to balance the budget were not sure
things.
Wanting to keep the safety net but have more freedom to
switch crops, farmers were ready for some change, then more.
The Agriculture Department made corn growers idle 8 percent
of their land in 1995. The way the market went, growers could
have planted those acres and sold the crop at a good price.
Western Kansas wheat growers suffered a crop disaster, but
had to repay advance subsidies when prices soared.
Rep. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the House Agriculture
Committee, came up with the Freedom to Farm bill, which
guaranteed a payment for farmers that falls over seven years
and is not linked to crop prices.
The coalition didn't get everything. It couldn't cut the
Conservation Reserve Program, which keeps 36 million acres of
land out of production, including some good farm land. The
Senate bill keeps ``permanent'' farm law in the attic,
meaning the old system of crop-based subsidies could return.

[From the Omaha World-Herald, Feb. 25, 1996]

Businesses Put Muscle Behind Farm Bill Push

(By David C. Beeder)

Washington.--Major changes in U.S. farm policy--passed by
the Senate and pending in the House--will get a big push all
the way to the White House from a powerful coalition of more
than 100 grain traders, processors, shippers, retailers and
producer organizations.
``We wanted to retain a farm income safety net but also
eliminate acreage reduction programs (ARPs),'' said Mary
Waters of ConAgra Inc. of Omaha. ``Both of these bills do
that.''
Stu Hardy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the
legislation could have been strengthened if it had reduced
the amount of acreage in the 36 million acre Conservation
Reserve Program, in which farmers are paid to idle land.
``This program goes on and on without adequate
opportunities for an early out,'' Hardy said.
He said the Coalition for a Competitive Food & Agricultural
System also was concerned about the Senate's retention of
government programs restricting an open market for peanuts,
sugar and dairy products.
``But we are pleased with the planting flexibility, the
elimination of ARPs and the decoupling of income support and
crop prices on a per-bushel or per-pound basis,'' Hardy said.
The seven-year Senate bill, which passed 64-32 Feb. 7,
would end government subsidies for corn, wheat, cotton and
rice on farms where those crops were planted on government-
authorized acreage year after year.
Under the Senate bill, farmers would be allowed to plant
any crop--or no crop at all--while continuing to receive
government payments based on a declining percentage of
subsidies paid in the past.
``It's a buyout. That's what it is,'' said Hardy. ``But the
costs are fixed, and they are capped.''
In the past, he said, Congress would pass a five-year farm
bill with a cost estimate that generally fell far short of
the eventual expenditure.
Opponents of the Senate-passed bill include Sens. Tom
Harkin, D-Iowa, J.J. Exon, D-Neb., and Bob Kerrey, D-Neb.,
who contend it will destroy a system intended to protect
consumers and America's food supply in years when commodity
prices fall below the cost of production.
Bob Petersen of the National Grain Trade Council said the
coalition would not have endorsed a bill without income
protections for farmers.
``But we felt the time for a 1930s-style farm bill had come
and gone,'' said Petersen, a native of Burwell, Neb. ``We
wanted an income safety net that would not distort markets.''
Petersen, whose organization represents grain markets
including the Chicago Board of Trade and the Lincoln, Neb.,
grain exchange, said U.S. farmers should have the opportunity
to capture a greater share of global markets at a time when
prices are strong.
He said the coalition of organizations supporting major
change came together gradually over a period of a year.
``Some of the farm groups were pretty suspicious of us at
first,'' Petersen said. ``As the year has gone on we've all
gravitated toward the same position.''
Petersen said the bill passed by the House could be
considerably different than the Senate bill.
``However, I think it will get done,'' he said. ``Farmers
and farm groups have been quite vocal in telling Congress
they want a bill.''
Stephanie Patrick of Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis, like
ConAgra a large grain buyer and meat packer, said she
couldn't predict the fate of the farm bill in the House or
whether it might be vetoed by President Clinton.
However, she said, the coalition has been a major factor in
moving the legislation to a point of decision.
``The most gratifying thing about this bill is that we all
were going for the same goal,'' she said.
Floyd Gaibler of the 1,200-member, 8,000-outlet
Agricultural Retailers Association, said his organization
joined the coalition because it supported the goal of ending
supply-management policies in agriculture.
``I think everybody agrees they don't work in today's
global market,'' said Gaibler, a native of Farnam, Neb., who
was an assistant to former Secretary of Agriculture Richard
Lyng.
Drew Collier of Union Pacific Railroad, a coalition member,
said the Senate-passed bill would move the country toward a
market-oriented farm policy that would result in more grain
being transported by rail to export markets.
``The market place ultimately is the best arbiter of these
issues,'' Collier said. ``Supply-side management has not
proved to be the solution.''
At the Chicago Board of Trade, where farm policy is
translated into prices and price protections, Celesta
Jurkovich said the need for more U.S. production has been
apparent for some time.
``You can see it in what's happening to prices,'' she said.
``They've been going through the roof. The demand out there
far exceeds the supply.''
Ms. Jurkovich, a senior vice president at the Chicago Board
of Trade, said global trends in population and rising living
standards indicate demand will remain strong into the next
century.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Montana renew his
unanimous-consent request?
Mr. BURNS. I propound that same unanimous-consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
So the bill (H.R. 2584), as amended, was passed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown) appointed Senators Lugar, Dole,
Helms, Cochran, McConnell, Craig, Leahy, Pryor, Heflin, Harkin, and
Conrad conferees on the part of the Senate.
Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I inquire of my friend from Nebraska who
probably knows more about football than the average Senator. I once
heard Darrell Royal, who was head football coach at the University of
Texas. They always asked him why he never passed the ball very much. He
had a great running team, and had a couple of national championships.
He said, ``You know, when you pass the football, three things happen.
And two of them are bad.''
That is kind of like the way we are running the farm program now.
When you are in the grain business because the grain companies can buy
the grain cheap, if you take out a market loan on your grain you can
forfeit the grain, if it is not market price. And that goes into the
pockets of the taxpayer. Then the grain companies buy that after that
happens probably at a lower price. Or they can go ahead and buy
the grain, and the taxpayers pick up the difference between the grain
and the target price. Three things happen. Two of them are bad for the
taxpayer, and I think for agriculture.

The reason we have high prices right now is because we had a crop
failure. How can you pay a deficiency payment when you do not have any
wheat?
We had a great crop in Montana. We had a big crop and got a big
price, and everybody is wealthy without the luxury of the deficiency
payments.
So I think what we are doing is so that a majority of agriculture
would like to get their dollars at the marketplace, and I hope that
this will work. If it does not then I will be the first Senator on the
door of the Senator from Nebraska after he has retired in Lincoln, NE,
and we might enjoy a football game and watch Big Red roll. And then we
will talk about all the mistakes that we made together.
Mr. EXON. If the Senator will yield, I thank him very much for his
comments.
There is one thing that I want to correct, because no one knows it
better than my friend and colleague from Montana. Certainly each and
every cattle farmer is not doing well today. And no one knows that
better than my

[[Page S1900]]

friend from Montana because at one time he was a very prominent cattle
person in Montana, and he knows better than anybody else the sad
condition that our cattle industry is in today. I just wanted to
correct the record. I know that he agrees with that. So everybody in
Montana is not doing well. If there are any corn people up there, and
the wheat people are probably doing pretty good and will the next 7
years, I do not know about the cattle business.
Mr. BURNS. We will hope for better times in the cattle business. The
Senator from Nebraska knows that we have been through these times
before, and we will go through this one.
I will be honest with you. I have a hard time, I say to the Senator
from Nebraska, of going down the aisle in the grocery store. And these
people are setting up here tonight. They buy a box of Wheaties.
Wheaties is $3.46 cents a pound. It is not $3.46 cents a box, but a
pound. Until this year we had a hard time getting $3.50 cents a bushel
for a bushel of wheat, and there are 60 pounds in that bushel. I have a
hard time dealing with that.
So I appreciate the comments of my friend from Nebraska.

____________________