[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 101 (Friday, July 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8770-S8771]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE FAMILY FARMER

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one only needs to open a newspaper or turn 
on a television set to a news program in this country, the United 
States, to understand we are experiencing a wonderful economy, a 
wonderful turn of events. This has lasted a long while. Most people are 
working. Inflation is down. Budget deficits have evaporated. The 
country is growing. The economy is doing better, and there is a lot of 
good news.
  In addition to the general economic news, the stock market is in a 
kind of go-go mood reaching record highs. These breathtaking heights in 
the stock market are coupled with stories about young people involved 
in the Internet who are making millions before they are old enough to 
shave. That is wonderful.
  There are a lot of people doing well in this country because of the 
economy. But there are some who are left behind and left out. We ought 
to pay attention to some of these storm clouds. I am speaking 
especially about family farmers. They are this country's economic all 
stars and have been for some long while. They are suffering silently, 
but they are suffering in a very significant way today. This Congress 
has a responsibility to do something about it.
  Let me read a letter that I received from a farmer in North Dakota a 
day or two ago. He says:

       As a family farmer and rancher, it doesn't seem to me there 
     are many people who care much about us anymore. It sometimes 
     brings tears to my eyes that maybe in a year or two I won't 
     be around in farming anymore. This won't be easy to explain 
     to my three daughters. I wanted to bring them up in a rural 
     setting. If it happens I can't farm, I hope they read in the 
     history books some day that it wasn't because their dad was a 
     dumb man. It was caused by policy and giant concentrations of 
     companies who want world dominance.

  This farmer, who worries about losing his farm and worries about how 
he will explain that to his three daughters, worries about not being 
able to raise his daughters on the family farm. He says it is not his 
fault. And it isn't.
  I want to describe what this man is going through.
  Another farmer wrote to me and said:

       I'm sitting at the kitchen table at 3:30 in the morning. It 
     is spooky quiet out here these days, neighbors going broke, 
     moving away, family farmers can't make it. My family is 
     asleep and I don't know how long I will be able to hang on to 
     this family farm.

  Let me describe what these farmers face. While the stock market 
reaches record highs, here is what happens to the price of wheat. Those 
family farmers see their income declining in a very significant way. No 
one else is experiencing declining income. CEO salaries aren't going 
down; they are going up, up, up--way up. The stock market is going up 
to record highs. Yet if you are raising wheat and you are a family 
farmer, you have seen your income collapse.
  What if you are raising corn? Exactly the same thing. Your income is 
collapsing.
  What if you are raising soybeans on the family farm? The same thing. 
The income is collapsing.
  What share are you getting as a family farmer of the retail food 
dollar? Collapsing.
  In the spring, you borrow some money, you buy some seeds, you fix up 
the tractor, plant the seeds, and hope they grow. You worry about 
insects; you worry about crop disease; you worry it will hail; you 
worry that it won't rain enough, or maybe too much; and then at the end 
you may get a crop. If you get a crop, you worry when you will get it 
off the ground. After you have combined it and harvested the crop, you 
put it on the truck and drive to the elevator, only to be told the 
grain trade says that the crop produced has no value. We are going to 
pay you $1.50 or $2 a bushel less than it cost to produce.

  You sit in the truck as a family farmer, knowing you took all of 
these risks, that your family is depending on you, and that the world 
is hungry. You hear the stories. You hear that in the Sudan a million 
people face the abyss of starvation and old women climb trees to forage 
for leaves because they have nothing to eat.
  The grain trade says the food we produce has no value. Farmers 
scratch their heads and say: I guess it is because the public policies 
in this country say that family farmers don't count. Family farmers 
don't matter.

[[Page S8771]]

  That is what angers family farmers the most. They produce something 
of enormous importance to the entire world and are told it has no 
value. They are told that the farm bill is fundamentally bankrupt. The 
Freedom to Farm Act passed by this Congress several years ago is 
totally bankrupt. It ought to be repealed immediately.
  Trade agreements, negotiated by trade negotiators who have done a 
terrible job and were totally incompetent, sold our farmers down the 
river.
  So family farmers have a right to ask the question: Why can't we 
expect from this Congress, this Administration, and this country, a 
decent opportunity to make a living, a decent price for the food we 
produce, and a decent deal from trade agreements that are negotiated 
with other countries? Why can't we expect this country to stand up for 
family farmers?
  A group from some farm States met this morning. We talked about how 
we will mobilize efforts to try to begin to provide two things. One, we 
need some emergency help--an emergency disaster relief bill to offset 
the income collapse which family farmers are facing. Second, we need a 
change in the farm program. We decided to seek a meeting next week with 
President Clinton at the White House. We will try to make sure this 
Administration proposes a robust disaster program and joins in 
proposing to change the underlying farm program to provide decent 
income support for family farmers when prices collapse.
  Next week we will try to do that, meet with the President, and 
develop an emergency bill to provide disaster relief. Senator Harkin 
and I proposed such a bill in the appropriations subcommittee. Senator 
Conrad has proposed a number of ideas on how to provide disaster 
relief. I expect we will have to propose disaster relief somewhere in 
the $10-billion-plus range.
  This Congress has a responsibility to respond to this issue and to do 
it soon.
  Second, to change the farm bill so family farmers have a safety net. 
Others in this country have a safety net. But somehow the suggestion 
was made that we can just pull the safety net out from under family 
farmers and that would be fine. Nobody will care. Families care. 
Farmers care. I do not want anybody standing up in this Chamber saying 
they are profamily and then turn a blind eye to the needs of family 
farmers. That is what has been happening.
  If there were fires or floods or tornadoes that hit our part of the 
country and devastated all the buildings, the economy and the 
infrastructure, we would have folks rushing out there with help. We 
would have FEMA all set up in big buildings and tents, getting people 
in to give help. Everybody would be helping. In fact, you wouldn't even 
need a tornado. If some hogs got sick with a mysterious disease, we 
would have the entire Department of Agriculture trying to find out what 
was wrong with the hogs. Only farmers can see their incomes collapse.
  In our State, the incomes collapsed 98 percent in 1 year. Ask 
yourself, could your family stand a 98 percent loss in income? Could 
any Members of the Senate stand a 98 percent loss in their paycheck? 
Can wage earners stand a 98 percent loss in their wage? I don't think 
so. That is what happened to farmers in my State.
  The question is, who is going to respond, when are they going to 
respond, and when is this country going to care whether we have family 
farmers left in our future? The answer for me is soon. The answer for 
me is now. Next week, we must expect to make progress with the 
President; yes, with the majority party and the minority party working 
together to try to provide disaster relief, No. 1, and a long-term 
safety net, No. 2.
  I want to tell you about a fellow named Tom Ross who did something 
that I thought was unique in Minot, ND. Tom Ross is a newscaster with 
KMOT television. He got 48 acres just north and east of Minot, ND. He 
got some partners, and he planted 48 acres of durum wheat. His partners 
were experts in this area, seed companies, chemical companies, the 
Research Extension Service and so on. In 1997, they determined exactly 
what it cost, exactly what they planted, and exactly what they 
harvested, and what the outcome was. They did this on television to try 
to demonstrate the plight that family farmers were facing. Let me 
demonstrate what it was.
  In 1997, they planted 48 acres, and they lost $50 an acre. This is 
with all the experts weighing in with Mr. Ross, the newsman, saying 
here is how we do it. They did it, and they lost $50 an acre. Next 
year, they planted the same 48 acres and they lost $1,930 an acre. So 
in 2 years they have lost almost $2,000 an acre on 48 acres of land. If 
you farm 1,000 acres, which is about an average size farm, slightly 
smaller than an average size farm in the farm belt, you would have lost 
$50,000 just in that first year.
  This year, Mr. Ross planted 48 acres of roundup ready canola. Last 
week, I stood out in that field just northeast of Minot, ND. We will 
see what happens this year. Given the price, given the circumstances, 
they expect they will lose some money this year.
  The point is that on 48 acres with controlled circumstances and all 
of the experts to help, you have massive losses of income over three 
years. This is multiplied by every family farmer across the farm belt. 
Why? Because prices have collapsed, and family farmers have no safety 
net, at least not a safety net that is available to help them survive.
  This is a unique experiment, and it shows in the clearest way 
possible that this is not about whether family farmers are good 
farmers. They are the economic All-Stars in our country. The project 
that KMOT did in Minot, ND, demonstrates that when prices collapse, 
family farmers do not have a chance to make a decent living and someone 
has a responsibility to help. That someone is this Congress, this 
Senate, this President. And the time is now; not later--now. If we want 
to save family farmers for this country's future, we must take action 
now.
  On Monday, I am going to talk about a paper that was just released by 
the Economic Policy Institute written by Robb Scott, ``The Failure of 
Agriculture Deregulation,'' describing the failure of Freedom to Farm, 
the failure of our trade policies, and the selling down the river of 
family farm interests in this country by people who should have known 
better. I will describe that in more detail on Monday.
  We do not have time to waste. We do not have time to wait. We must 
act and do so with great effect to try to help family farmers. The 
fellow who says I may not be able to farm anymore, at least is farming 
now. A whole lot of folks sold out long ago, and more are selling out 
every month and every week.
  A woman called me recently and said her 17-year-old son would not 
come down to the auction sale when they were forced to sell. She says 
it is not because he is a bad kid. This young boy stayed up in his 
bedroom because he was brokenhearted. He wanted to farm that land so 
bad and take it over from his dad at some point. He knew when the 
auction sale was held that it was over for him. His dreams were gone. 
She said he was so brokenhearted he simply could not come down and 
participate in the auction sale of the family farm.
  That is happening all across the northern plains, all cross the farm 
belt. At the same time, the stock market shows record highs, and we 
hear about this robust economy. The economic all-Stars in this country, 
who produce so much of what the world needs, are being told what they 
produce has no value and their existence does not matter. Shame on this 
country if it does not stand up now and decide that family farmers have 
value. What they produce has enormous value, and family farmers are 
important for this country's future.
  I am betting the energy exists with this President and this Congress 
to finally turn the corner and say we need to make a change. We need 
trade agreements that stand up for the interests of farmers. We need a 
safety net that says when farmers' incomes drop 98 percent, we stand to 
help because we care about you and your future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). The Senator from Massachusetts.

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