[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 130 (Tuesday, October 17, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10608-S10611]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AGRICULTURE APPROPRIATIONS AND FAMILY FARMERS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I indicated I wanted to talk today about 
the appropriations bill conference report that is going to be 
considered by the Senate. The vote at this point is ordered for 
tomorrow. It is a vote on the Agriculture appropriations bill 
conference report.
  I am a member of the subcommittee dealing with Agriculture 
appropriations in the Senate. We have had a lengthy conference with the 
House of Representatives and have reported out a piece of legislation. 
While I am critical of the farm bill we have in this country because I 
believe it does not work, I do not want to start with criticism of 
anything or anybody. Rather, I want to start with compliments.
  I compliment Senator Thad Cochran who is the chairman of the Senate 
Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. He does just an excellent job. 
I appreciate very much the work he does.
  I compliment Senator Herb Kohl who is the ranking member on that 
subcommittee.
  I thank Galen Fountain, our minority clerk on the subcommittee, who 
does a lot of work with us, and good work; Rebecca Davies, Martha 
Scott-Poindexter, Les Spivey, Hunt Shipman--staff people who have done 
a great deal of work to put this legislation together.
  On my staff, Dale Thorenson and Nicole Kroetsch, Brian Moran, and 
Stephanie Mohl, who worked on parts of this. Thanks to all those 
people.
  When we bring a piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate after 
it has gone through conference, it has gone through a long, tortured 
process. It is not an easy thing to put together. It represents a lot 
of work and compromise. Thanks to all the people I have mentioned.
  I will try to, for a moment, describe why all of this is important to 
me. There are a lot of things in this legislation dealing with 
research, agricultural research, food research, Food for Peace--you 
name it, there is a whole range of programs that deal with very 
important and serious issues. But I want to focus on one thing, and 
that is family farming.
  I come from a State that is largely an agricultural State. The fact 
is, our family farmers in this country are in deep trouble. Some people 
probably couldn't care less. They get their butter from a carton, they 
get their eggs from a carton, they buy their milk in a bottle, they get 
their pasta in a package, and they couldn't care less what is happening 
to family farmers.
  Those who think a lot about it understand the importance of farmers 
who are out there with their families living on the farm, with the yard 
light that illuminates their place at night. They understand its 
culture, and understand its contribution to our country. Those who 
think about it understand the importance of broad-based economic 
ownership in our country's food production.
  I want to read a couple of letters because we are in a situation 
where commodity prices have collapsed, the grain prices are rock 
bottom, and our farmers are in desperate trouble. They are losing their 
livelihood, losing their farms, having to quit. This is a letter I 
received a couple of days ago from a woman named Lois. I will not read 
her last name. I do not know if she has indicated she would want me to 
read this on the floor of the Senate. This is a family farm in North 
Dakota. Lois and her husband run a family farm. The letter says:

       Dear Byron, it's 6 a.m. I woke up [this morning] and feel 
     compelled to write, as I feel farmers here are now at rock 
     bottom.
       Right now as we harvest a worthless crop, pay huge 
     prices for our oil products, face winter and bills to pay, 
     we find the [crops sprout damaged and injured] by rain. 
     Harvest brings more stress and fears to all of us. I'm 
     afraid for us. I'm afraid for my neighbors and others like 
     us who can't make a profit thru no fault of our own. We . 
     . . have other jobs, but we can't keep farming. . . . I am 
     taking time off these days (from my work) to drive a grain 
     truck. I'm hauling grain that is below $1 a bushel. . . . 
     We need a price that is more than cost. It's called 
     profit. I don't have a lot of answers. We've attended many 
     meetings. . . . We can feed the world . . . we should feel 
     pride in that.

  But what's wrong? There's something not connecting here.
  She, like so many others, is trying to make a living on a family 
farm, and they are going broke.
  A farm family--a man and his wife--wrote to me about a week ago and 
said:

       It is with tears in my eyes that I find myself writing to 
     you today. After I have been assisting in what should be a 
     joyous time, it just couldn't be further from that. So for 
     the first time, I am taking steps to try and find help, for 
     not only ourselves, but all of those who are worse off around 
     us. Somebody has to help us now. . . . My husband and I 
     farm--near a small community in the northwest corner of North 
     Dakota.
       We are blessed with some of the greatest soil and we felt 
     very fortunate until now that it has helped to provide us 
     with thousands of bushels of grain, plus cattle. In fact, up 
     until recently, we had thought we were very fortunate. We 
     couldn't have been more wrong, however.
       We are facing the worst times our 3rd generation farm has 
     ever seen since its existence began in 1914. As combines are 
     cutting our fields, the last thing I would normally be doing 
     right now is writing a letter, but we have no choice. 
     Something has to be done and people need to know what kind of 
     devastation is [occurring] in our economy.
       It was just this morning that we were told that our very 
     rare and beautifully colored, disease free durum wheat is now 
     only worth 80 cents a bushel. Our neighbors were not so 
     ``lucky.'' There is no market for theirs as it was not close 
     to perfect.
       Our banks will not collect on their loans, young people 
     like ourselves are going to just pack up and leave. . . 
     . There is just no reason for us to continually be abused. 
     . . .

  She raises the questions, as other farmers do, about everyone else 
making record profits that handle their grain. The grain elevators, 
railroads, and the grain trade all make record profits.
  She says:

       We are one of the very few young farmers left in our 
     community and after this harvest there will be many more 
     forced to leave. There just will be no alternative.

  Another letter from another family farm in North Dakota. A farmer 
writes:

       So why do I write? Simply to encourage you to continue the 
     battle, to be a voice alerting the nation to the financial, 
     cultural and social devastation that is taking place in rural 
     America. As a seventy two year old lifetime farmer, now 
     retired, I am a witness to farm after farm being 
     discontinued. The immediate community in which I live vastly 
     changed and changing. Good young family farmers are quitting 
     one after the other, some forced out financially, others 
     giving up before complete financial ruin. There is no profit 
     incentive, the gamble is too great, the fight against 
     weather, disease, regulations and prices too heavy a burden 
     to bear.

  This farmer writes:

       Personally, I have a son now forty five, who has farmed 
     since graduating from the University of North Dakota. His 
     hope is fading. He talks of farming one more year and [then 
     giving up]. He is a fourth generation farmer ready to give 
     up. His son now seven never to continue into the fifth 
     generation [on the family farm].

  He says:

       My concern is for my family, my community, the nation.

  I will not read any more. I have so many letters from farmers. They 
are out there wondering what is wrong with an economic system which 
rewards everyone except those who produce the crops.
  Some say: The ``family farm,'' that is kind of like the little old 
diner that

[[Page S10609]]

gets left behind when the interstate comes through. It was a great old 
place once, but it is irrelevant now because the interstate moves 
people past that diner. They say that is what the family farm is like. 
They couldn't be more wrong.
  I have indicated before, go to Europe, if you wonder what an economy 
ought to be with respect to rural values. Europe was hungry at one 
point so it decided never to be hungry again. One part of national 
security is to make sure you have a network of producers, a network of 
family farms producing your food. That way you will not have 
concentration; you will have broad-based economic ownership, and you 
will provide national security with respect to food. Europe has a 
healthy agricultural base. Europe has family farmers who are making 
money and small towns that have life on their main streets. Why? 
Because Europe has chosen an economic model that says they intend to 
keep their family farmers on the farm.
  Our country ought to do the same, for a whole series of reasons, some 
economic, some cultural, some social. But family farms contribute more 
than just grain. They contribute families, yes; they contribute 
community; they contribute a culture that is very important to this 
country.
  A wonderful author named Critchfield used to write about the 
nurturing of family values in this country. He said family values have 
always started, in the two centuries of America, on its family farms, 
and rolled to its small towns and to its cities. The refreshment and 
nurturing of family values has always come from the seedbed of family 
values; and that is our family farms.
  If one wonders what kind of cultural devastation occurs or what kind 
of cultural changes will occur in this country if we lose our family 
farms, our rural economy, and turn into a country in which corporations 
farm all of America from coast to coast--one can see that model in a 
number of other areas. It is not something that advances our country's 
interests. Rather, it retards our country's interests.

  So I do not come here making excuses in support of family farms. I 
come saying that the support of family farms is essential for the long 
term well-being of this country.
  How do we support family farms? Well, we have a farm bill that is a 
disaster called Freedom to Farm. We gave farmers so-called freedom to 
farm, but not freedom to sell. So farmers are prevented from selling 
into certain markets. The freedom to farm is a presumption that 
individual family farmers have the economic clout in which to deal with 
everyone else with whom they have to deal.
  Does a family farmer have a chance when complaining about railroad 
rates? I do not think so. Ask the folks in Montana who filed a 
complaint against the railroad rates. Ask them if they got a fair shake 
when it took 16 years to get the complaint processed down through the 
ICC.
  Who wins when the family farmer is overcharged by a railroad for 
hauling grain? The railroad wins.
  Who wins when the food manufacturers or the grain trade takes a 
kernel of wheat, moves it somewhere down the line on the railroad and 
into a plant, puffs it up, puts it on a grocery store, and calls it 
puffed wheat? Who wins when they take produce from farmers and give 
them a pittance for it, and then charge a fortune for it on the grocery 
store shelf? It is the same kernel of wheat, only it has had a puff 
added to it. The puff is worth more than the wheat. The people selling 
the puffed wheat are making a fortune, and the family farmers are going 
broke.
  Is that an economic model that has any justice in it at all? The 
answer is no. So we ought to have a farm program that works. And we do 
not. Next year we ought to commit ourselves to repealing Freedom to 
Farm, and rewriting a bill that works for family farmers, that provides 
a safety net for family farms in the country. This is not rocket 
science. They do it in Europe. We ought to be able to do it in our 
country.
  Let me describe, just for a moment, what we have in this 
appropriations bill. We have disaster assistance in this appropriations 
bill.
  I want to show a couple of charts that talk about what happened in 
North Dakota in the spring of this year after the crops were planted. 
This chart happens to show a grain field. It does not look like it, but 
it is a grain field. From the evening of June 12 until the morning of 
June 14--a day and a half--a stalled thunderstorm system--actually 
several thunderstorms converging together--dumped as much as 18 inches 
of rain in the Red River Valley, near Grand Forks, ND.
  North Dakota is a state that usually gets 15 to 17 inches of rain a 
year. We are a semiarid state which averages 15 to 17 inches of 
rainfall a year. From June 12 through June 14, in some of these areas, 
we had 18 inches in 36 hours.
  A few days later on the evening of June 19, around 7 o'clock in the 
evening, flash flooding and severe thunderstorms hit the Fargo-Morehead 
area about 80 miles south of the first set of storms in the Red River 
Valley. By 11 p.m. that evening, more than 4 inches of rain had fallen, 
and it looked as if maybe the worst had passed. But thundershower after 
thundershower pummeled the area after midnight, dropping an additional 
2 inches of rain in 90 minutes. So, this area ended up with a total of 
6 inches of rain in a very short period. This is a totally flat 
terrain. It caused massive sheet flooding. Throughout the area around 
Fargo, seven to 9 inches of rain in total fell in the timespan of 6 
hours.
  This chart shows what a grain field looked like the day after. Here 
is another picture of grain fields. As you can see, there is no grain 
there. This is a lake. In fact, this area used to be Lake Agassiz long 
before any of us were around. But you can see what this does if you are 
a family farmer and you have been out in the spring planting grain. We 
now have a flood.

  The floods in North Dakota, the drought in Texas, the drought in 
Georgia, the drought in Mississippi, and other parts of our country, 
the disasters in Montana, all persuaded this Agriculture appropriations 
subcommittee to add more funding for disaster aid. We originally added 
$450 million for Crop Loss Assistance due to weather disasters when the 
bill was in the Senate--an amendment I offered on the floor of the 
Senate.
  When it went to conference, the need was obvious, so we added more. 
It went to $1.1 billion for disaster aid because we had had continued 
disasters in Texas and in the Deep South. In fact, look at Georgia 
here. The weekend before we lost our late colleague, Senator 
Coverdell--who was a distinguished Senator and one I deeply admired--
the weekend before we tragically lost our colleague, I had spoken to 
him about what was happening in Georgia. He said that he was going to 
cosponsor with me a disaster piece that would provide assistance for 
farmers in that area of the country. We had need--because of the 
floods--in our area as well.
  We have had drought in the Deep South. As shown on this chart, we can 
see these red areas. We have had flooding in other areas. We have had a 
pretty difficult time this year in many areas of the country.
  So this piece of legislation adds $1.1 billion for disaster 
assistance. This help allows farmers who have been struck by natural 
disasters to be able to claim some help for crops that they were not 
able to harvest.
  In addition to that, we had folks up in this part of North Dakota 
that harvested a crop--a crop that looked great--but they had a 
disaster when they delivered that crop to the grain elevator. They took 
a durum crop from the field--a 45-bushel-to-the-acre crop, which is a 
pretty good crop--only to discover that when they got it to the grain 
elevator it was full of disease and sprout damage. They found out that 
grain they thought was going to be worth a decent price was now valued 
by the grain trade at only 80 cents a bushel.
  The cost of producing this grain is probably $4 to $4.50 a bushel. 
So, they had a field waving in the wind, getting ripe and ready to be 
harvested. They got the combine out, took the grain off, and then 
discovered what cost them $4.50 a bushel to produce was now worth 80 
cents. To make matters worse, they also found out that the crop 
insurance they had taken out to insure their crop does not provide help 
for them to cover the quality loss.
  That is called a quality loss adjustment. Actually a better word for 
it is a

[[Page S10610]]

catastrophe. If you have a product that you have produced, and it turns 
out to be worth almost nothing, that is a catastrophe.
  Here is what has happened to our farmers. You can see, going back to 
1996, wheat prices were very high. That is when Congress passed Freedom 
to Farm. Many of us stood on the floor of the Senate warning, at that 
point, this isn't going to continue. But Freedom to Farm provided 
specific payments over a period of time after which there would be a 
phaseout of the program altogether. You can see what has happened to 
prices. You can see with prices at rock bottom, having collapsed and 
stayed down for some while, that the quality loss adjustments mean that 
farmers are getting pennies for their crop.
  This disaster is not a natural disaster, but rather it has resulted 
in quality loss adjustments by the grain trade that had to be addressed 
in this bill. For the first time, this legislation will provide $500 
million for quality loss adjustments. I will talk through that for a 
moment so people understand why this is in the bill and why it was 
necessary.
  These farmers haven't caused the problem. These are good family 
farmers who have discovered that their crop, especially in our part of 
the country up in North Dakota, with the worst crop disease in a 
century, these are farmers who have discovered that they have produced 
a rather bountiful crop that is worth nothing when they take it to the 
grain elevator. Without the quality loss assistance, we would have had 
a wholesale migration from our family farms. We are going to have a lot 
of migration anyway by family farmers who simply can't make it. But the 
disaster aid and the quality loss adjustment is going to be a step in 
the right direction by at least extending a hand to say until we change 
this farm bill, here is some help.
  I pushed very hard on quality loss assistance. I know I might have 
bruised some feelings here and there, but I just didn't think we had 
any choice. We can't say to family farmers, when their prices are 
collapsed, that it doesn't matter. We can't say to family farmers who 
are out there struggling: When your crop is hit by disease, it doesn't 
matter; when your crop insurance doesn't pay off, it doesn't matter; if 
you are hit 6 or 7 years in a row by natural disaster, as has been the 
case with many counties in North Dakota, it doesn't matter.
  We have a responsibility to define the kind of economy we want in 
this country. The kind of economy I want is an economy that values that 
which is produced on our family farms. Our farm program needs changing 
desperately. We have not been able to get that done this year. In the 
meantime, this piece of legislation, this Agriculture appropriations 
bill, does provide some fill so that with respect to disaster and 
quality loss adjustments, we are able to provide some short-term, 
interim help to family farmers.
  I say to Senator Cochran, Senator Kohl, and others who were willing 
to allow me to press as hard as I did to put this in the bill, I 
appreciate--and the family farmers in my State will appreciate--the 
opportunity to continue to try to make that family farm work and to 
make a living.
  I say, again, that we have a responsibility to decide as a Congress 
whether we want family farms in our future. For those who don't, let's 
just keep doing what we are doing and that is where we will end up. We 
will eventually not have any family farmers left in this country. But 
for those who, like me, believe that a network of family farms is 
essential to this country, to its culture and its economy, then we 
better wake up and work together and write a farm bill that works and 
gives farmers some hope. We better do that, not 2 years from now, not 3 
years from now. We better do that now.
  We are about ready to adjourn, I suppose, at the end of this week or 
the end of next week, and we will reconvene as a Congress, the 107th 
Congress, in January. My hope is one of the first items of business is 
for us to understand that rural America has not shared in this 
bountiful prosperity of our country. It is not just that food has no 
value. You look around the world at night on your television screen, 
you will discover that there are people who are hungry, there are 
children who are going to bed with an ache in their belly in every 
corner of the globe. Food does have value. But the food that is 
produced in this country, regrettably, has value only for established 
monopolistic interests, those who have become big enough to flex their 
economic muscle at the expense of those who produce the food.

  Everyone who touches a bushel of grain produced by a family farmer 
seems to be making record profits. Every enterprise that touches it 
seems to be doing well. The railroads, the grain trade, the grocery 
manufacturers, they are all doing well. In fact, they are doing so 
well, they are marrying each other. Every day you read about another 
merger. They want to get hitched. They have so much money, they are all 
rolling in cash. It is the folks out here who took all the risks and 
plowed the ground and seeded the ground and harvested the crop. They 
are the ones who can't make a living. There is something disconnected 
about that kind of economic circumstance.
  We can have the kind of economy we choose to have. It is within our 
ability to define the kind of economy we want for this country. I hope, 
beginning next year, we will decide that there is a different way, a 
better way to extend the help for family farmers with a farm program 
that really works during tough times and a farm program that we would 
not need during better economic times when grain prices reflected the 
real value of the grain produced by family farms.
  We have made some progress in the Agriculture appropriations bill 
dealing with sanctions. It is not the best, but we have made some 
progress. Many of us in the Senate, many in the Congress, have believed 
that it is relatively foolish for our farmers to bear the brunt of 
national security interests by having sanctions against other countries 
that say you can't ship food or medicine to certain countries because 
we are angry with their leaders. That has never made any sense to me.
  We can be as angry as we like with the country of Iran or Libya or 
Cuba or Iraq, but refusing to ship food to those countries doesn't hurt 
Saddam Hussein or Fidel Castro. All that does is hurt hungry, sick, and 
poor children. It hurts hungry people, sick people, and poor people in 
countries to which we are not allowed to ship food and medicine. Talk 
about shooting yourself in the foot, our public policy has been to say 
ready, aim, fire, and we shoot ourselves right smack in the foot on the 
issue of sanctions.
  I don't have a quarrel with those who want to strap economic 
sanctions on the country of Iraq. That is fine with me. But sanctions 
should not include food. We have tried mightily to get rid of the 
sanctions with respect to a range of countries with whom we now prevent 
the shipment of food and medicine. This legislation marginally moves in 
that direction. It includes some elements of the amendment I put in the 
appropriations bill as it went through the Senate. But, once again, it 
is reactionary with respect to Cuba. There is going to be no grain sold 
to Cuba because of restrictions put in here by a few people who were 
trying to hijack this debate in the conference. The result is it 
tightens up on travel restrictions to Cuba, and virtually means there 
will be no food sold in Cuba. In my judgment, that is very foolish, but 
we will live to fight another day on that issue. At least part of what 
is done in this legislation dealing with sanctions on agricultural 
shipments is a step in the right direction.
  There is much more to talk about in this legislation. Let me end by 
mentioning my thanks to the people who helped put this legislation 
together. It is not easy to do. On balance, while there are some things 
I don't agree with--I have not described what those are--I think it is 
a good piece of legislation and a pretty good appropriations bill. It 
ought to be a precursor for all of us who support family farmers to 
understand that year after year, when you have to add a disaster piece 
and emergency pieces to deal with the failure of a farm program, it is 
time to rewrite the farm program from the start.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S10611]]

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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