[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10975-H10976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   FLORIDA'S WINTER FRUIT AND VEGETABLE FARMERS FACE GRAVE SITUATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, this morning in Lake Worth, FL, the 
Subcommittee on Risk Management and Specialty Crops held an important 
field hearing regarding Florida's winter fruit and vegetable industry. 
I commend our colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, Mark Foley, and 
the gentleman from Illinois, Tom Ewing, for making this effort.
  Although I was not able to be there myself, I want to share the 
feedback that my staff who were there got, because it definitely 
matches the information from the recent meetings we have been having in 
my own southwest Florida district, and that information is not good.
  The situation on the ground in Florida for these farmers is grave. 
Bankruptcy, in fact, looms for many, many of whom have been in farming 
families, growing winter vegetables and fruits in Florida, for 
literally generations. Planted acreage numbers are declining and they 
are declining rapidly. In some places we understand the contraction of 
the industry this year has been as much as 30 percent. That is a giant 
impact and it is a negative one.
  We have also heard from local bankers in my district who, despite 
longstanding relationships with the farming community, today just 
simply have to say ``no'' to new loans because the risks are too high 
for them.
  In the long term there are legislative steps this Congress can take, 
such as country-of-origin labeling laws, we know about and have been 
working on to assist our growers' in the transition to what we call a 
post-NAFTA trade system. In fact, the House has already taken action to 
relieve some farmers of unnecessary burdens by modernizing pesticide 
regulation, by voting for commonsense regulatory reform and doing 
things like that.
  But the farmers face more immediate problems, a situation that I 
think now clearly calls for decisive action by the executive branch 
within the existing authority that it has to provide immediate 
assistance for our farmers.
  Prior to the passage of NAFTA, I well recall the Clinton White House 
made a lot of promises to the Florida delegation and to the fruit and 
vegetable industry in our area, and today the Florida growers need the 
administration to take action to halt the potentially unfair Mexican 
trading practices we are seeing; to get full enforcement of NAFTA and 
its side agreements; to utilize existing mechanisms, notably section 
316 of NAFTA, to consult with their Mexican counterparts; and to simply 
give growers a chance to compete on a level playing field. They think 
they can win competitively, and so do I, if they have a level playing 
field.

  So we are looking to the administration for help. We only hope the 
White House will honor the pledge they made to these hard-working 
Americans and give them a chance to prove that they can do the job in a 
fair field.
  Mr. MILLER OF Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOSS. I yield to my friend and colleague from the west coast of 
Florida, Dan Miller, who knows this problem as well as I do and is 
working just as hard to bring a satisfactory conclusion.
  Mr. MILLER OF Florida. Mr. Speaker, both of our districts have a very 
significant amount of winter tomato raised in our area. We have two 
crops a year in our area. We have one in November and one in May. The 
Florida tomato farmers are really hurting. They really are.
  Last season the imports of Mexican tomatoes went up 44 percent. The 
production of Florida tomatoes went down 23 percent. Another set of 
numbers is that in 1991, 5 years ago, there were 230 growers of 
tomatoes in Florida. Today there are only 80 growers in Florida. They 
are going out of business. And these are families that have been around 
a hundred years. Third and fourth generation. One hundred years in 
Florida is a long time. That may not be very long in Massachusetts, but 
it is in Florida.
  So they are really hurting, and the question is, is the 
administration doing everything they should be doing.
  When NAFTA was voted on, at the very end it was the Florida 
delegation who held out to make sure that agriculture was taken care of 
properly under NAFTA. Because Florida agriculture competes directly 
with Mexican agriculture. Michigan tomatoes do not compete with Mexican 
tomatoes. Mexican tomatoes only grow in the winter, and that is when we 
grow our tomatoes.
  And it is not always a fair trade that is going on. There is a 
difference between free trade and fair trade. We want to have both. To 
make it fair, we need a level playing field. It is not always a level 
playing field, and we think the administration can and should do more, 
and they promised to do everything they could back when we talked about 
NAFTA in the fall of 1993.
  I am really delighted that the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman 
Ewing, was able to have the hearing down in Florida today, and so they 
are trying to get to the bottom of what can be done. There are certain 
limits to what we can do, but the gentleman is right, the 
administration has some ability, and I think the Department of Commerce 
is getting ready to come out with a ruling soon and maybe will tell us 
what is available for us.
  One of the things that make it a fair trade issue, and one of the 
things I have been working on, is the situation of methyl bromide. The 
administration should be more cooperative. The President spoke out in 
California about the issue and he said, yes, I will help on that issue, 
but then, when he gets back to Washington, he turns it over to the EPA 
and they say, no, we are not going to do anything.
  A University of Florida study showed the impact of methyl bromide to 
be a 43 percent reduction in production of

[[Page H10976]]

those agriculture products where methyl bromide is eliminated. It would 
destroy Florida agriculture; not just tomatoes but winter vegetables in 
general.
  So it is very important to work with us on that issue. They have beat 
us up with the Mexican tomatoes, so why can they not allow us something 
to give the farmer. The minimum wage will hurt our tomato farmers, so 
we need to see what can be done.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I am glad the gentleman 
brought these points out because this is a half billion dollar industry 
for Florida and there are a lot of folks who have nothing else. This is 
what they do. They are small farms. They have been growing for years 
and generations, and they are being displaced and the administration is 
not keeping the promises it made to help in the enforcement and the 
side agreements on the NAFTA compact.
  It is quite clear the Mexicans, indeed, are dumping. They are selling 
below cost. This is putting our farmers at an unfair disadvantage. And 
I believe if they comply with the laws of NAFTA that our farmers can 
beat the socks off the Mexicans, but they have both got to play by the 
same rules.

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