[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 92 (Monday, July 13, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8020-S8022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FARM CRISIS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to make some remarks on the subject 
of the farm crisis that exists in North Dakota and other parts of the 
country, and discuss some legislation a number of us intend to offer in 
the coming days and weeks dealing with that issue.
  As a way of describing that issue, the New York Times had a front-
page story yesterday that talks about it. The article reports, ``As the 
national economy is booming, lawmakers have begun to focus on one of 
the few places in the country where times are bad--the northern plains 
where wheat and livestock prices have plunged and many farmers are 
desperate.''
  The story goes on to describe the condition in North Dakota and some 
other States where we have a serious agricultural crisis. Collapsing 
profits in agriculture mean that we are seeing family farmers going out 
of business at a record pace.
  Let me describe that with one chart for those who watch these 
proceedings. In my home State of North Dakota, net

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farm income has dropped 98 percent in 1 year. That's right; a 98-
percent drop in net farm income in 1 year.
  Then ask yourself what this statistic means. Ask yourself what would 
be the result for you, your neighbor, or your community, if you 
experienced a 98-percent drop in net income? That is what the farmers 
of North Dakota are facing because of collapsed grain prices and the 
worst crop disease in a century. The primary crop disease they face is 
called scab, or fusarium head blight, and it has devastated wheat and 
barley crops and some others. The combination of crop disease and a 
collapsed grain price has produced a farm crisis that is very, very 
serious and to which this Congress must respond.
  In the same New York Times article, it says some who wrote the 
current farm bill two years ago--which I did not support and voted 
against it--say that a free-market agricultural policy is the best. It 
quotes the authors of the farm bill as saying ``Farmers can best be 
helped by people staying out of their hair and promoting export 
markets.''
  I want to describe part of the problem that farmers face with this 
kind of free-trade philosophy. There really isn't free trade for 
farmers. There isn't a free market for farmers. On both ends, they are 
pinched badly and hurt badly. On one end where they are trying to sell 
their product, they are trying to sell up through the neck of a bottle. 
The iron fist around the neck is the grain trade firms, the millers, 
the railroads where three, four, or five firms control virtually all of 
it and they squeeze back down resulting in increased costs for farmers 
and depressed farm prices. So there is no free market moving up.

  How about on the back side of it all? Is there a free market in 
trade? No; through our backdoor comes a flood of Canadian grain which 
is unfairly subsidized in my judgment, and undercuts our farmers and 
their prices.
  While that happens every day, I want to read another news story. It 
says: ``Official's Beanie Babies Stir Furor.'' I don't know what page 
this was on in the paper. It was a fairly large story about Beanie 
Babies--Beanie Babies, mind you. No offense to people who collect them 
and like them, but I have not spent a nanosecond of my life thinking 
about Beanie Babies.
  This story is about the U.S. Trade Ambassador who came home from 
China and apparently had purchased some Beanie Babies in China. She 
discovered, I guess to her embarrassment, that you can't bring 40 
Beanie Babies into this country from China. The Beanie Babies are made 
in China for an American firm. They make the Beanie Babies in China, 
and then they ship the Beanie Babies back to the United States for sale 
in the United States. But you can't buy 40 Beanie Babies in China and 
haul them back here. Apparently, visitors are restricted to one Beanie 
Baby from China to the United States. I am told also you are restricted 
to one Beanie Baby from Canada to the United States.
  Those of us who live up near the Canadian border see a lot of things 
coming in from Canada. I went up to the Canadian border one day with 
Earl Jensen of Bowbells, ND. We had a little 2-ton orange 10-year-old 
truck. We tried to take a few bushels of durum wheat into Canada. All 
the way up to the border, we met 18-wheelers coming from Canada to the 
United States full of Canadian wheat. We saw truck after truck after 
truck after truck, all full of wheat, all the way to the border.
  Earl and I got to the border with this little 10-year-old orange 
truck. Do you think we could get one quarter-truckload of durum into 
Canada? They said: No, you can't do that. You can flood the market in 
the United States with Canadian grain, but you can't get one little 
orange truckload of durum wheat into Canada.
  When it comes to restricting imports to the United States, we say one 
Beanie Baby. Boy, we're tough on Beanie Babies. And if you exceed one 
Beanie Baby, you're apparently in huge trouble. But you can ship all 
the durum wheat, all the spring wheat and barley you want, and nobody 
is going to pay any mind at all. Nobody is going to care. In fact, if 
they unfairly subsidize it, as I am convinced they are doing, it still 
doesn't seem to matter. When we send auditors up to Canada to get into 
the books and records of the Canadian Wheat Board to check it out, the 
Canadian Wheat Board says, ``Go fly a kite, we don't intend to show you 
any information; we intend to give you no records about our trade into 
the United States.''
  I say to those quoted in the New York Times and those in this Chamber 
who say, ``Gee, what we should do is rely on this free-market stuff,'' 
that there is no free market. There is no free market on either end, 
not the top end through which farmers market their products and not the 
back end through which they are facing unfair competition coming into 
this country with unfairly subsidized grain.
  We have farmers going broke in record numbers. We face a very serious 
farm crisis. A new farm bill was written 2 years ago. When that farm 
bill was written, it was written by folks who said, ``Let's have the 
farmers operate in whatever the free-market system is.'' Some of us 
said the problem is, there isn't a free market and if farmers run into 
price collapse, we are in a situation where they will not be able to 
get over that pricing valley. When they hit a price collapse, there 
needs to be a bridge over that price valley. If you don't help family 
farmers over that valley, then they go broke.
  Some people say, ``That's okay, it doesn't matter, we don't care if 
we have family farmers.'' I suppose some people don't. They don't care 
if we end up with big farms, agrifactories, farming from the west coast 
to the east coast. Does it matter? It seems to me it matters.
  For those who haven't been on a farm, if you look out the plane at 
night and you see the yard lights dotting the landscape, each of those 
lights is a family living on a family farm.
  These family farmers take more risks than almost anyone else in this 
country doing business. They risk whether they will get a crop. They 
put all their money in their crop, including the cost of seed and 
fertilizer, as they plant their fields in the spring. They have no idea 
whether there will be a dozen or more weather-related events that might 
destroy their crop. There is the threat of insects, the threat of hail, 
the threat of drought, the threat of too much moisture, among other 
things. Yet, if they are fortunate enough to get a crop, they might 
well end up seeing the market as it exists today with collapsed prices.
  And they are facing big interests that clap about that. They say, 
``Gee, that's great. We love collapsed prices.'' The big grain millers, 
they think that is just fine. Only four firms control almost sixty 
percent of the flour milling in this country. I suppose the grocery 
manufacturers think that is just fine, because they seem to love low 
farm prices.
  The problem is family farmers can't survive. They are the seed bed of 
American enterprise and the home of family values that have always 
nurtured and flowed from family farms to small towns and into big 
cities. It is these family farmers, who are the ones that we lose.
  This is not just about dollars and cents. It is about something much 
more important to this country's future than just dollars and cents. 
And that is why during this week, next week and beyond, we feel the 
need and the urgency to propose some changes here on the floor of the 
Senate. We must deal with farm policy in a way that addresses the issue 
of trade, in a way that addresses the issue of the misplaced priorities 
within a system that worries about Beanie Babies on the same day that 
nobody seems to care much about family farmers.
  We think there are some things that can be done to extend a helping 
hand to family farmers, and to say, that they matter in this country's 
future. When we offer legislation on the floor of the Senate, I expect 
there will be those who say, as they did 2 weeks ago, that the current 
farm bill is working just fine. I dearly wish we could give them a deed 
this afternoon and say, ``Here. You think it's working fine? Here is 
your farm. We'll give you 1,000 acres. Buy some fuel and fertilizers 
and seed, and farm until you go broke. When you go broke--and you 
will--you come back and tell us how well your farm policy works.'' I 
just wish we could do that. But, of course, there is not time because 
this crisis requires action on a much more immediate basis.
  Mr. President, we expect to have a substantial debate about that in 
the coming days. I hope that Republicans

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and Democrats will understand the merit, the value, and the worth of 
family farming in this country's future. I hope that we will decide to 
embark upon a farm policy that says to family farmers that when prices 
collapse and when you are ravaged by the worst crop disease of the 
century, we want to help you over those price valleys. We want you to 
be a part of this country's future.
  We need a farm policy that tells family farmers that they matter from 
the standpoint of social and economic policy. Here we are in a country 
that produces the most wholesome quality food at the lowest percent of 
disposable income of anywhere in the world. Family farmers do matter in 
this country's future. I hope that will be the result of the debate we 
have here in the next month or two in the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Ms. COLLINS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to proceed for not to exceed 12 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Ms. Collins pertaining to the introduction of S. 2292 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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