[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 49 (Monday, April 12, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3582-S3583]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     FAMILY FARMING AND AGRICULTURE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me, as we 
turn towards the agenda before the Senate, from now perhaps until the 
Fourth of July, to understand that we face an urgent situation in rural 
America. Family farmers today, in my State and your State, if you 
represent the farm belt, went to the bank and were told that their 
investments, all of their 20 or 30 years invested in their farm are 
gone. They will not be able to plant the ground and raise a crop this 
year because they are out of money.
  I want to read a letter I received from a woman. I talked to her by 
phone this morning. I was so struck by it, because she represents so 
well the dilemma and the urgency that we face in family farming.
  This is a woman named, Susan Jorgenson, who is from North Dakota. Her 
husband died last August. She said that he had diabetes. She writes:

       . . . what I really feel caused his death was trying to 
     make a living as a farmer.
       I had an auction last week to sell the [farm] machinery, so 
     that I can pay off some of the debt that [we] incurred after 
     26 years of farming. I have a 17 yr. old son who would not 
     help me prepare for this auction and did not get out of bed 
     the day of the [auction] sale, because he is so heartbroken 
     that he can not continue [to farm] this land.
       My husband was an excellent manager and fully educated.

  He had a masters degree.

       He chose to farm rather than to live in Phoenix where he 
     had a job with Motorola [early on], because he wanted to 
     raise his children in a place with clean air, no crime and 
     good schools. He worked very hard, physically and emotionally 
     to make this farm work and its failure was . . . no fault of 
     his own.

  What do we say to families who live on America's farms when prices 
collapse for the product they produce? And when they take a truckload 
of grain to the elevator, that elevator operator says, ``Well, the 
grain market for this grain you produced has no value''? The farmer who 
worked to plant and harvest the crops, risked the money to farm to get 
that grain to the elevator thinks, ``Gosh, that's a strange set of 
circumstances. I'm told my crop has no value, and yet much of the world 
goes to bed with an ache in their belly because they don't have enough 
to eat.''
  People are starving in other parts of the world. We have images of 
old women climbing trees scavenging for leaves to eat because there is 
nothing else to eat. We had a report recently noting a country with a 
million to a million and a quarter people on the abyss of starvation, 
and our farmers are told their crops have no value.
  The challenge for us in this Congress is to decide whether family 
farmers matter in our country.

[[Page S3583]]

  I have a chart that shows all of those counties in America, shown in 
red, where they have lost more than 15 percent of their population. 
Largely, it shows in the center part of our country, the farm belt, 
that people have moved out. Our farm belt is being depopulated.
  A century ago we had the Homestead Act to persuade people to come out 
and begin farming. If you moved out there, the Federal Government gave 
you 160 acres of land. You were a homesteader; you farmed the land. And 
we populated the farm belt.

  Now look at what has happened: The farm belt is being depopulated for 
a good number of reasons, the most important of which, in my judgment, 
is we have a farm program that does not work. The farm program says, 
``You're on your own. When market prices collapse, we're not going to 
provide decent support prices.''
  We need to reconnect with decent price supports. We need a Fair Price 
Plan for Family Farmers, and we need it soon. This Congress has a 
responsibility, in my judgment, between now and the July 4 recess, to 
address this urgent situation on America's family farms and to say to 
family farmers, ``You matter, the products you produce make a 
difference, they have value, and this country stands behind what you 
represent in our country.''
  We need to do a number of things. We need to pass a better Farm Bill, 
as I said, a Fair Price Plan. We need meat labeling that will help our 
ranchers. Let people know what they are eating and where it came from. 
We need price reporting. Let's see fair prices and full price reporting 
on livestock prices. Let's break up some of the monopolies that exist 
in the slaughterhouses. Eighty-seven percent of America's fat steers go 
to four slaughterhouses to be slaughtered. What that means is, you pass 
that monopoly pricing back on family farmers. They are the ones who are 
already losing money.
  Isn't it interesting that every firm in this country who touches what 
a farmer produces, whether it is a steak or a bushel of wheat or a 
bushel of corn, is making money. The railroads are making record 
profits hauling it. The cereal manufacturers are making record profits 
crisping and puffing it, putting it into a box and selling it as 
cereal. The folks that slaughter the beef, the pork, the poultry, and 
the sheep are making record profits. It is the farmer who rises to do 
the chores, to plant the ground, to harvest the crops, who is going 
broke because they are told their commodities have no value.
  That is a bankrupt approach for this economy. The economy, if it 
rewards hard work and the production of things people in this world 
need, will do well. But we decided that the all-star economic producers 
in America, the American family farmers, don't matter and we passed a 
farm bill that says, you're on your own; you deal with the marketplace 
and we don't care what the marketplace looks like. The farm bill is 
stacked against you, it favors monopolistic businesses, it presses its 
heavy boot upon you and you can't do anything about it. That is tough 
luck because it says we don't need you anymore, we don't need family 
farmers, all we need are giant agribusinesses. If that is the position 
that is taken in this country, this country will have taken a giant 
step backwards.

  So I am saying that in the coming 2 or 3 months we must recognize the 
urgency of the situation on the family farm. Farmer after farmer after 
farmer in State after State are going broke, through no fault of their 
own. This young boy, who could not bear to attend the auction sale at 
his own farm, because it broke his heart not to be able to farm that 
land that his dad and his granddad and great-granddad farmed, this boy 
ought to hear from this Congress that we stand ready to help, that we 
care about preserving families on America's farms, that the 
decentralization of food production, a network of family farms dotting 
this country's prairies, strengthens America, that producing food that 
a hungry world needs is something that is an asset in this country, not 
a liability.
  So I hope in the next 2 to 3 months those who care about family 
farmers will join those of us who come from the farm belt to pass 
aggressive, good, strong legislation dealing with concentration, 
monopolies, price reporting, meat labeling, and a decent price 
support--all of those issues and more--that will finally say to family 
farmers, you have a decent opportunity to make a living on America's 
family farms.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor. But before I do, I thank my 
colleague from Maine for waiting patiently.
  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 up to 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Ms. Collins pertaining to the introduction of S. 765 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time, 
and 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. VOINOVICH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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