[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 119 (Thursday, September 10, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7559-H7560]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FARM CRISIS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak also on this farm crisis.
  I represent coastal Georgia, 18 southeast Georgia counties. But to 
the entire State of Georgia, the farm crisis has been devastating. The 
coastal area that I represent, Savannah, Brunswick, and Hinesville, 
often get hit by hurricanes. And when they get hit by hurricanes, it is 
easy to get FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Association, to come 
in, or GEMA, the Georgia Emergency Management Association, people to 
come in; because we have visual images, trees that have crashed through 
the roofs of houses, people who have lost their homes, businesses that 
are wiped out and then have power shortages for days at a time or 
refrigeration equipment that closes down and a product that goes 
rotten. They have boats that have been washed ashore and landed on Main 
Street.
  We have that kind of visual image when a hurricane hits, and so it is 
a little bit easier to get help. People come

[[Page H7560]]

in. They send ice. They send chain saws. They send bulldozers. They 
write checks. The Red Cross comes in, the Salvation Army.
  We have been hit by such a crisis, but it is not quite as visible, 
and it is the farm crisis. We have lost $700 million in crop damage to 
the State of Georgia alone.
  I believe, listening to colleagues from all over the country, 
Democrats and Republicans alike, that the damage nationally may be as 
high as $3-, $4-,

$5-, potentially $6 billion. It is tremendous. What our farmers in 
southeast Georgia have told me in a series of farm meetings that I had 
over the last couple of weeks is that they need, right now, a lifeline. 
And they do not really want to see Congress get in a big debate about 
how the lifeline gets to them.
  If they are a drowning man and somebody throws them an inner tube, a 
life preserver, a floating piece of log, anything to cling to is 
sufficient; and that is what they are. If the relief comes in crop 
insurance liberalization, if the relief comes in disaster loans, that 
is fine. Low-interest, no-interest loans, loans with little or flexible 
collateral; they need it and they need it now.
  They need market relief of prices. Prices are lower now than they 
were 2 years ago. They are cyclical by nature, but they are worse than 
ever. It seems like their foreign counterparts are heavily subsidized, 
and they do not have to comply with the EPA standards that we make our 
farmers comply with in terms of fertilizer and pesticides and 
herbicides and so forth. And that is fine.
  Our farmers are not bellyaching about complying with our 
environmental and regulatory and labor laws. But what they are saying 
is, their foreign competitors are not; and then on top of that, they 
are subsidized. It is very difficult for a Georgia farmer to produce 
oats to compete against imported oats. And we heard this message over 
and over again.
  We on the Committee on Agriculture on the appropriations side and on 
the authorizing side, we are trying to work for solutions. We need the 
Secretary of Agriculture to submit his disaster plan so that we can 
immediately start working with the Senate and the House Members to try 
to do something for them.
  Putting this in perspective, Mr. Speaker, imagine being a young 
farmer named Roy Collins. Roy is 35 years old. His farm was started by 
his grandfather, handed down to him from his mother and dad, and he has 
been a farmer now for 12 years. And at this point, if we cannot do 
something, he is wiped out. A third-generation family farmer will be 
gone forever. He will move off to Atlanta. He will sell real estate. He 
will go to work for a bank or something. We will lose his talent. We 
will lose his generation of farmers.
  The average age of a farmer in Georgia right now is 56. We cannot 
afford to skip a generation of farming. It becomes at that point an 
issue of national security, not just making a good vocation for people. 
But America does not and should not be dependent on foreign producers 
for our food.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to indicate to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) that I have been listening to the 
very eloquent, I think ``plea'' is a fair word to say. In other words, 
that we are trying to get across what the difficulties are not only for 
the family farmer but for farming in general.
  I simply want to say that I believe another speaker had said that 
there was an appeal being made to individuals who may represent urban 
areas to understand what the implications are.

                          ____________________