[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 112 (Monday, August 31, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S9693]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             EFFECTS OF THE FARM CRISIS ON OUR COMMUNITIES

 Mr. DORGAN. Madam 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. North Dakota is faced with a combination of 
collapsed grain prices and crop disease. This has produced a farm 
crisis that is very, very serious and to which this Congress must 
respond.
  In my home State of North Dakota, net farm income has dropped 98 
percent in 1 year. That's right; a 98-percent drop in net farm income 
in 1 year. Ask yourself what would be the result for you, your 
neighbor, or your community, if you experienced a 98-percent drop in 
net income?
  Many third and fourth generation farmers have been unable to get an 
operating loan this season due to low grain prices. They have had so 
many auction sales on North Dakota farms that they have had to call 
retired auctioneers back from retirement to handle the auction sales. 
Every one of these auction sales represents a family farmer who has 
worked hard, and invested everything they have, to run a family farm. 
And then they discover they can't make it.
  I'd like to share it with you a poem written by Luella F. Hermanson 
of Hampden, North Dakota. She describes what the farm crisis has done 
to her community and what it will do to ours unless we take decisive 
action.

                     When the Farmers All Shut Down

           (By Luella F. Hermanson of Hampden, North Dakota)

     They're selling out my neighbor
     It's his auction sale today
     Life's hard out in the country
     We can't farm the good old way

     Remember neighbor helping neighbor
     It's not like that anymore
     We're hanging on by just our boot straps
     Wondering what we have in store

     What will our city cousins do
     When the farm boys move to town
     Will there be jobs for all of them
     When our farms are all shut down

     Who'll buy that big machinery
     Standing idle on the lots
     And the gas and parts and fuel oil
     They might have to close their shops

     Who'll buy the fertilizer
     and the spray to kill the weeds
     They'll probably close the diner
     There'll be no one left to feed

     There'll be no grain to borrow on
     So the bank will close its door
     The insurance boys will duck and run
     When we can't pay them anymore

     Who'll buy the tractors, plows and trucks
     Or plant the barley, beans and wheat
     Who'll pick the rocks and mow the roads
     And smile in dark defeat

     Who'll spend forty bucks an hour
     To fix a combine in the fall
     And his last red cent to save his land
     When his back's against the wall

     Yes they're selling out my neighbor
     Heard he's moving into town
     What will happen to this land we love
     When farmers all shut down.

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