[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 66 (Monday, May 10, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4939-S4940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             FAMILY FARMERS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor briefly today to talk 
about two issues. First, tomorrow the appropriations conference begins 
between the House and the Senate on the emergency supplemental 
appropriations bill. That includes specifically the President's request 
for emergency appropriations to be made for some agricultural spring 
planting loans, some emergency appropriations to be made for the 
purpose of helping the victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America, 
and then since that time the President has made new recommendations on 
emergency funding for the Defense Department needs as a result of the 
actions in Kosovo.
  The House of Representatives took a request by President Clinton for 
nearly $6 billion in added funds for the military especially, but 
including some humanitarian relief for the actions in Kosovo, and added 
to that $6 billion of emergency funding nearly $7 billion more, to 
reach a total of close to $13 billion in emergency funding.
  A number of us believe that, while we are on the subject of 
emergencies and in a supplemental appropriations conference, it would 
be inappropriate to add $7 billion to the defense budget for emergency 
needs relating to Kosovo--although some of it has very little 
relationship to Kosovo, it has a relationship to what is called 
``readiness'' in defense accounts and other things--that it would be 
inappropriate to consider that without considering other emergency 
needs here at home on the domestic front. One of those is agriculture.
  The plight of the family farmer in this country has been pretty well 
described by myself and others on the floor of the Senate in recent 
months. The Congress did some emergency work last fall to provide some 
income support to family farmers above and beyond the current farm 
bill. But it is not nearly enough.
  We now come to May of 1999, at a time in which prices for many 
commodities in agriculture, in constant dollars, are at Depression 
level, and we are going to lose thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps 
hundreds of thousands, of family farmers if we decide to do nothing. 
Tomorrow's conference between the House and Senate may be the only 
opportunity that exists this year to provide support for emergency 
funding, to add some income price support to family farmers, which they 
desperately need.
  This chart shows what is happening in rural America. This map shows 
counties marked in red which are being depopulated in our country. 
These are counties that have lost at least 10 percent of their 
population in the last 18 years. You can see on this map the large red 
area that shows the middle of this country--the farm belt--is being 
depopulated, people are leaving.
  Why are people leaving the farm belt in droves, and especially now in 
more recent years? Why are people leaving their family farms, leaving 
the farm belt, and leaving rural counties? The answer is, family 
farmers cannot make a living when they produce grain and then have to 
sell it at a price far below their cost of production. It does not work 
that way. You go broke. Bad trade agreements, concentration in 
agricultural industries--there are a whole series of reasons--but the 
central reason, it seems to me, is low prices. If you do not get a 
decent price for that which you produce, you are not going to be able 
to make a decent living.
  The question for this country is, What kind of price supports are 
available to farmers when market prices collapse? Every one of us in 
this Chamber would prefer that farmers received their prices from the 
marketplace. But when the marketplace collapses, farmers load a couple 
hundred bushels of wheat on their trucks, drive to the elevators, are 
told that wheat has no value, or has very little value, then the 
question for Congress is, Do we want family farmers in our future? And, 
if we do, What kind of income support are we willing to offer to create 
a bridge over that price valley when prices collapse?
  The largest enterprises, the big agrifactories, will make it across 
that valley. They are big enough, strong enough, have the financial 
resources to make it across that price valley. It is the family farmer 
who will not make it. So the question for the Congress is, Do we care 
about family farming? And, if we do, what can we do to provide some 
income support when prices collapse?
  A number of us will offer, during this deliberation in the conference 
between the House and the Senate on emergency needs, a proposal to 
restore some emergency funding to family farmers. There are lots of 
ways of doing that. I have my own feeling about how to do

[[Page S4940]]

it. Senator Harkin and I, along with Senator Conrad and others--Senator 
Harkin and I, incidentally, will be in the conference tomorrow, are 
prepared to offer some proposals to deal with emergency needs, it is 
not just the Defense Department that has emergency needs, family 
farming is in a full-scale emergency in this country.
  This Congress must take steps to save it. Tomorrow, again, Senator 
Harkin, myself and some others in the conference on appropriations, of 
which Senator Harkin and I are conferees, intend to raise this question 
in a very forceful way and push very aggressively for action on an 
emergency basis with our colleagues.
  Republican and Democrat colleagues here in this Chamber understand 
that we face a very serious problem. All of my colleagues who come from 
the farm belt have said the same thing. Family farmers are in trouble. 
There is no disagreement about that. There might be some disagreement 
about the mechanism by which we address this question, but I think 
everyone here, with whom I share the long-term interests of the welfare 
of family farming, believes that we need, during periods of collapsed 
prices, to provide some income price support. The question is how do we 
do that. My hope is the first step will be tomorrow during the 
conference that we have with the House of Representatives.

                          ____________________