Congressional Record, Volume 147 Issue 89 (Monday, June 25, 2001)

[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 89 (Monday, June 25, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3505-H3511]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE IN AMERICA

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kennedy of Minnesota). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from South
Dakota (Mr. Thune) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will engage in a debate on this
floor which I think will be the first volley of what will be a very
long discussion here in the House about the future of agriculture in
America.
Tomorrow we will pass legislation here that provides emergency
disaster assistance to our producers. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, as
that bill moves through the Committee on Agriculture, of which I am a
Member, it was pared down from what was originally proposed. I believe
that it was a mistake, Mr. Speaker, to do that, because we have a
responsibility to the producers of this country.
Frankly, we had set expectations at a certain level about what we
were going to do to help address the catastrophic low prices which we
have seen now for year after year after year.
Mr. Speaker, the legislation that will move through the House
tomorrow, is in my judgment inadequate and insufficient to get the job
done for American agriculture in this year. What that debate will do,
Mr. Speaker, is begin to lay the groundwork for the ensuing debate and
that is the debate over foreign policy in this country.
We are long overdue of making some changes in agricultural policy for
America. The farm bill debate is under way in the House of
Representatives. It has been for some time. We have been listening
intently across this country to producers about what they want to see
in the next farm bill and we have listened from coast to coast in
different regions. And we have had hearings after hearings after
hearings here in Washington from different commodity groups and grower
groups.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear in my mind that producers across the country
want a bill, a farm bill that is written specifically for producers,
not one that is written with some ulterior policy objective in mind or
some other agenda, but a farm bill that is specifically written by
producers for producers and hopefully will lay the framework that will
help govern our foreign policy as we head into the years ahead.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very, very desperate time for American
agriculture. We are seeing people leave the farm. We are seeing
outmigration from rural areas. We are seeing the family farm structure
which, in my mind, is the backbone of America, start to disintegrate
partly because farmers and ranchers cannot make a living on their farms
and ranches, as a consequence, we have seen prices fall; we have seen
costs go up; we have seen the bottom line get squeezed to where
producers are either forced to sell out, go out of business.
They are, unfortunately, in a position where the future of
agriculture is very much in question in America, and I think it is high
time that this Congress take necessary steps to correct that.
Granted, foreign policy is not going to solve this. We are going to
write a farm bill. That is not going to be the only solution. There are
a lot of issues that impact agriculture today. We lost some foreign
markets. We need to recapture those markets.
We need strong trade policies that recognize that we have to have a
level playing field around the world in order for our producers to
compete and compete fairly, but when we write this foreign policy, we
need to bear in mind, I believe, Mr. Speaker, that there are some very
necessary component parts that need to be in it. Of course, the

[[Page H3506]]

most immediate is what do we do when prices are where they are today.
We need to have a countercyclical repayment program that provides
assistance to our producers when prices fall; and as they begin to
improve that, that government assistance begins to phase out, but we
need a program that recognizes those types of rises and falls in the
market and allows our producers to continue to farm.
I believe that we need a heavier emphasis on conservation. We need a
farm bill that encourages our producers, provides incentives so that
they will implement conservation practices, enhance our soil and our
water, add the wildlife production across this country.
It is going to be very important, I believe, Mr. Speaker, in this
next bill that we have a strong conservation component and make the
necessary investment to not only support our producers, but also to
improve the land and the water, to help address the questions of
marginal lands and erodible lands that oftentimes have led to problems
in our streams and our rivers.
Mr. Speaker, I would also add that as we look at this farm bill, I
think it is important that we also look at the entire context of rural
economy. Yes, we talk about commodity programs and all of these other
issues, but we are losing jobs on our Main Streets.
We are expressing an economic downturn that has gone on now for
several years, and we need to do something to reverse that.

I think it is critical that this farm bill also highlight and
recognize the importance of value-added agriculture, of allowing our
producers and providing incentives and encouraging them to take what we
grow, what we do well, which is production agriculture. We do it very
efficiently in this country, and to reach up the ag marketing chain and
capture more of the value of our agricultural products by processing,
whether it is ethanol, which is something that has been a huge success
story in my part of the country, soybean processing, flour milling,
seed crushing, value-added meats, finding those markets, Mr. Speaker,
that will enable our producers not only to compete by putting more
money into their pocket, but by adding economic activity and jobs on
Main Streets around this country.
Mr. Speaker, as we debate this bill tomorrow, it is the first step in
what I hope will be a very spirited and vigorous debate about the
future not only of agricultural policy, but about the future of rural
America and what we are going to do to save and preserve our rural way
of life.
It is not just an economic issue. It relates to health care and
education, to telecommunications, all of those things that people in
rural areas expect and need to survive and to prosper and to continue
to add to the overall well-being and the overall Gross Domestic Product
of this great economy, because, I believe, that as our rural economy
goes, eventually so will our national economy go.
Food security is very closely tied, Mr. Speaker, to national
security.
I would like to touch on another subject, which I think ties into
that whole issue here in a moment, and that is the question of energy
policy and where we need to be going, because not only have we seen
prices fall in agriculture, but we have also seen costs go up.
Agriculture is a very energy intensive industry and we need to
address what I believe has become a crisis not only in agriculture but
a crisis in America, and that is our lack of affordable energy for
farmers, for ranchers, for working families, for our small businesses
to keep this economy expanding and adding to the quality of life here
in America.
Mr. Speaker, this evening I am joined here on the floor by the
gentleman from the third district of Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). He is a
new Member of Congress. He has been a leader on the Committee on
Agriculture. He cares deeply about the future of agriculture in his
district which borders mine.
I think we share a lot of similar concerns, a lot of similar anxiety
as we view down the horizon and look at the future of agriculture and
the future of our rural economy.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Nebraska has had a very distinguished
career prior to coming to this body, but I know that he cares as deeply
as I do and as passionately as I do about the future of our rural
economy and wants to be engaged in the debates that are going to ensue
here in the next few weeks and months about how we shape and build a
better quality of life for people who live in rural areas of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) and
welcome him to this discussion and let him know that I am anxious to
work with him as we begin the debate over foreign policy in this
country
Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from
South Dakota (Mr. Thune) for yielding to me. The gentleman is very
correct in the fact that we do share a great deal of interest in
agriculture.
We come from similar geographical regions; a lot of problems that are
very common in South Dakota are very common in Nebraska.
The gentleman really set a very fine backdrop as to some of the
difficulties in agriculture, and so often as I travel around people
will say, why do we need to help agriculture? Nobody helps the grocer
and nobody helps the implement dealer. In coaching, if you do not win
enough games, they fire you, so why should you get any help from
agriculture?
Mr. Speaker, I guess I would like to expand on some of the things
that the gentleman said earlier that seemed to make some sense to me.
First of all, in our country we spend only 9 percent of our
discretionary income for agriculture; and in most nations around the
world, we are probably spending anywhere from 30 percent to maybe 60
percent.
Food is very cheap, relatively speaking, in the United States. Many
people go to the supermarket and think it is very high, but compared to
the rest of the world, it is very cheap.
The farmer only gets a fraction of that 9 percent, probably 1
percent, 1\1/2\ percent at most of that 9 percent. So farm income is
very marginal.
The other thing I would like to point out is that food is critical.
Everybody is very aware of the great agony and the anguish that we are
currently experiencing in regard to energy. Certainly if OPEC decides
to tighten the screws or double or triple our petroleum costs, this
country could very well grind to a halt within 2 months to 3 months,
but that crisis is nothing compared to what we would have if we had a
food crisis.
So one of the interesting things that I have noticed is that in
Europe agriculture is subsidized to the tune of anywhere from $300,
$400, $500 an acre, and some people say, why would they subsidize food
to that degree or agriculture to that degree, because in the United
States, the subsidy is roughly $60 to $70 per acre.

{time} 2045

I think the reason is that those folks have run out of food. They
know what it was like in World War I, World War II, and they have
experienced it. They realize that a good, safer food supply is critical
to their survival. So there is no question that what our farmers and
ranchers are doing is very, very important.
The other thing I would like to point out is that, compared to most
industry, agriculture is different. Let me flesh that out a little bit.
First of all, if General Motors overproduces and they have got too
many automobiles, they shut down a plant or an assembly line, and they
bring their inventory into line with the demand. But in agriculture,
you cannot do that. Farmers sitting out there cannot align his crop to
world conditions. So one really cannot control the supply side like one
does in most industry.
The second thing is that agriculture is almost entirely dependent
upon the weather. Most industry, of course, is somewhat independent of
the weather. Usually, most of it is conducted indoors. So one can do
everything right, and one can have everything going just perfectly, and
a-20 minute hail storm finishes the whole year's work. Of course, the
drought is the same way. So it is very dependent upon the weather.
Then lastly, as compared to most industry, in agriculture the farmer
does not set the price. So if one is manufacturing a product, or if one
is selling in a grocery store, one sets the price. If people do not buy
it, one lowers it. But the farmer essentially takes what he can get. He
does not set the price.

[[Page H3507]]

So there is some significant differences, and I think that is one
reason why people have to understand that there needs to be a farm
program. It is not something we can simply throw open on the world
market and hope that we will survive.
Lastly, just let me mention this. If we do try to go to the low-cost
producer, we did that in energy. Back in the 1970s OPEC would sell us
oil for $3, $4, $5 a barrel. So we said, okay, that is great. We cannot
produce it, we cannot pump it for that amount. So we are going to cap
our wells and quit exploring, and we are going to farm our energy, our
petroleum supply out to OPEC. We did that, and they took it gratefully.
Of course, now that price has gone up as high as $35 a barrel, and
they are in control, and we have got 60 percent of our dependence on
petroleum going to OPEC.
We can do the same thing in agriculture very quickly. We can say,
okay, in Brazil one can have two growing seasons. Land is 2- or $300 an
acre. One has no environmental regulations. Labor is cheap. So we are
not going to help our farmers, and we are going to let the low-cost
producer win. Then in that case, we will be dependent on overseas
sources for our food supply. I do not think we can allow that to happen
in terms of national security.
So, basically, those are some of my thoughts as to why we need a farm
program. I know that the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) is
interested in many different aspects of this issue.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's observations and
comments, and I would echo much of what he just said in terms of the
need to have a level playing field. The United States has not had the
experience that many of the countries around the world have had,
knowing what it is like to go without. A lot of the countries that we
have to compete with subsidize their agricultural sectors on a level
that we do not in this country. Yet we arguably are trying to compete
with them, and the international marketplace has become very
competitive.
So it is important, Mr. Speaker, that we look at what we can do to
drop those trade barriers internationally so that America can compete,
and compete on a level playing field with our foreign competitors,
because I believe our producers are the most efficient producers in the
world, but they have to have that opportunity, and they have to have
the same set of rules to adhere to and abide by and play by as the
other countries around the world.
As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) noted, one of the things
I think is going to be very important in the future, too, is that we
have renewable resources. We have corn. We have products that can be
used and converted into other products, that can help address and
diversify our energy supply in this country, our production, and make
us less dependent upon foreign countries for our energy supply.
One of the people who has become a new leader on that subject is the
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), whose district also shares the
border with mine, someone who has been a very strong advocate for
ethanol, for other value-added industries, who understands clearly how
important it is that we take what we do well, that we take production
agriculture, figure out a way to harness that, to add value to
our commodities, our raw commodities, and then be able to put more
dollars in the pockets of our producers, and also to add economic
activity in our rural economies and our rural main streets.

So I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy)
for his thoughts on that subject as well as his thoughts on where we go
in terms of farm policy as we get into this debate in the weeks and
months ahead here in the Congress.
Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
South Dakota for all his good efforts and for yielding to me. We look
forward to working together to improve the farm bill for our farmers in
southwest Minnesota.
I also thank the references to growing demand by tapping the energy
market. I often tease groups of farmers that I am with that we all seem
to be well enough fed in southern Minnesota, at least in most parts of
our State, and we have room to go in terms of feeding the world and
feeding our country. But we have our best opportunity for growing
demand in our energy markets.
I am just still very pleased with the President's decision to deny
California to waiver from their Clean Air Act and know in my recent
conversations over the weekend with farmers across our district and
with people that work with ethanol plants, that is going to result in a
great boon to our farmers throughout the country.
This is something, in the case of ethanol, that is a win-win-win
situation. It is win in that it helps us create a renewable and
domestic source of energy, something that we are in great need of
today. It helps us with the environment by helping gas burn cleaner. It
helps us provide jobs to many of our local communities. I have six
ethanol plants throughout our district. It helps as well very much with
the growing demand for our products. There is that. There is biodiesel
we will be working on and certainly opening up markets, as the
gentleman from South Dakota referred to.
These are all not necessarily parts of our farm bill, but something
that we in the Committee on Agriculture are fighting hard to make sure
we advance. In the end, they result in more flexibility to do things
with the farm bill because they naturally increase the price of
products.
But our farm bill needs to be focused on making sure that we have
countercyclical payments to help our farmers in times of need as we
clearly have today, and coming up with a program that gives them better
support than they currently have; also, making sure that we have a
strong insurance program and expanding our conservation efforts to make
sure that we are nurturing the environment at the same time that we are
growing the food to feed the world.
Finally, in rural development, and I was pleased to be able to award
two rural development grants in our district to help increase value-
added farmer-owned production.
So those are the things we will be focusing on. But I, too, was
disappointed in the House Committee on Agriculture's recent votes to
reduce supplemental aid to farmers in the new farm package to $5.5
billion. I opposed the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Stenholm) to reduce that supplemental aid and supported the
proposal of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest), our committee
Chair, to provide $6.5 billion of funding.
Our farmers are struggling, and we need to provide them with the aid
they need. I voted for the final passage because we need to give them
support. I hear that over and over as I am out in the district.
But we are at a time when our prices remain low. We have had very
poor planting conditions in our part of the country, and it is likely
to reduce our yields. Our production costs are higher than they have
been with the increased cost of energy. So this is really not the time
to reduce the funding that the farmers have historically received
during these times of need.
I hope this is a first step in progress that we can make to continue
to assist our farmers. We do need to move forward on a fast timetable
on passing the farm, a new farm bill this year. I am very pleased that
the House is moving forward on that.
I am working together with the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry),
and I received over 90 signatures from my fellow colleagues here in the
House to encourage that both bodies move forward on a pace to get the
farm bill done this year. Our farmers have waited long enough. We have
ideas for needed relief. We need to move forward on them.
We have the budget flexibility. It is time to write the farm bill
this year. Besides, I think we would all prefer, our farmers would
prefer and deserve that we focus on policy this year rather than
politics next year.
With that, I look forward to working with the gentleman from South
Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I simply note as well that it is important in
my mind that we do this farm bill this year, that we set the policy
parameters so that our producers know with certainty going into the
next planting season.

[[Page H3508]]

Now, there is a tendency among some in this body and some here in the
Congress to say, well, let us wait and do this next year. After all,
then it will be a political year. But, frankly, I think heads think a
lot more clearly and judgment is a lot more focused in the absence of
the political climate that we will be encountering next year. I think
this is the time that we need to do this.
So as the House prepares to write their farm policy, I would hope
that we will be joined, as the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy)
noted, by our colleagues in the Senate, because it is important that we
get it put in place this year.
Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that I think ties into this whole
debate is the cost of doing business in agriculture. We have all talked
about prices. Farmers cannot control prices. They have to take what
they get at the elevator, what they get from the packer. They do not
have a whole lot of control of what they receive. But of late, it has
also become true they do not have a whole lot of control of what it
costs them to do business.
Look at the input and cost of energy in this country and what has
happened as we have seen prices go up and up and up in natural gas, so
fertilizer is up 90 percent, the price for diesel fuel. Farming is a
very energy-intensive business.
In States like my State of South Dakota, the second, probably one of
the next major economic benefits in my statement is tourism, the travel
industry. As gas prices go up and up and up, one sees people look into
their pocketbooks and saying, I have less and less to spend, to travel.
The farmer cannot control the rising costs of what the expense is for
him to stay in business and to continue to plant the crop every year
and harvest it.
Mr. Speaker, that is something that this Congress needs to zero in
on. We have a responsibility because we have for, I should not say we,
but for the last, essentially last administration, last 8 years, not
had an energy policy. We sit and we point fingers, and we will blame
the Clinton administration, and they will now blame the Bush
administration, and the Republicans blame the Democrats, and the
Democrats blame the Republicans, and it goes on and on and on.
The American people are sitting out there and saying, wait a minute.
What about us? What about what it costs us to drive to work in the
morning? What about the cost of transporting our kids to and from
school, the cost of the family vacation, the cost of the home heating
bill in the winter months?
These are issues that impact directly and profoundly people across
this country. It is important that we focus on this, that we develop an
energy policy, forget the fact about who is responsible and the reason
that we did not have an energy policy for the last 8 years, and we all
have our opinions about that. I do not think that the last
administration paid much attention to this.
But the reality is we have a problem that is not a Republican problem
or Democrat problem, it is an American problem. It is something that
directly impacts working families across this country.
Now, this President, President Bush, has put forward a proposal. And
not everybody may like it, but he has provided leadership. He has put
together an energy policy for this country. This manual is 170 pages
long. It has 105 specific recommendations. It is comprehensive. It is
detailed.
It has been roundly criticized because people say, well, it does not
put enough emphasis here or here or here. The fact is this is a
balanced approach. Now, there are parts of it I may not like. There are
parts of it that the individual Members of Congress may not like. But
the reality is the President of the United States has given us a
framework to work with. He has given us an energy policy that is
specific and comprehensive and detailed, that includes recommendations
for executive action, that includes directives to agencies, the changes
they can make, and which includes specific recommendations for the
Congress to act on through legislation. Some of them deal with energy
supply. Some of them deal with renewable energies and alternative
sources of energies, something that I care deeply about. Some of them
deal with conservation. In fact, half of the recommendations in here
deal with conservation or renewable sources of energy, alternatives.
But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that we need to be
looking at this in the context of what can we do to, one, increase
supply of energy in this country, or, two, reduce demand. The rest is
conversation.
We can have this discussion, but the fact is how do we get more
supply of energy, because the demand is growing for energy, and the
supply is staying flat or even dropping off. So the gap between what we
use, what we consume, and what we produce is growing every day to the
point that Saddam Hussein is going to be writing the energy policy for
this country if we fail to do it.

{time} 2100

So I hope we can have an honest debate. Let us talk about finding
sources of oil. Let us talk about domestic sources of petroleum, and,
if we can, get at that in an environmentally sound way; and I happen to
believe there are places in this country where that can be done. But
let us have an honest debate, not one that is based on emotion, not one
that is based upon some preconceived notion about how things ought to
be, but one based on science and fact and truth, Mr. Speaker. Let us
get after this problem for the American people.
I am also joined this evening on the floor by the gentleman from the
first district of Kansas, what they call The Big First. My State of
South Dakota, the district I represent, is 77,000 square miles, just
slightly larger than the gentleman from the first district, which I
think is about 66,000 square miles. But the gentleman from Kansas is
someone who has been a strong advocate, a strong leader on agricultural
issues in this country, someone who cares deeply about the plight of
rural areas of America, about the quality of life of our citizens who
live there.
So I am happy to be joined on the floor this evening by the gentleman
from Kansas (Mr. Moran); and, Mr. Speaker, I yield to him.
Mr. MORAN of Kansas. I thank the gentleman from South Dakota for
yielding to me, and I am pleased to participate with my colleagues from
Nebraska and South Dakota and Minnesota. And I know there are many
other Members of Congress who care deeply about the issues we are
attempting to address and to bring to our colleagues and the country's
attention this evening.
I came to Congress with a goal in mind, and that goal was to do what
I could do as one Member of Congress, as one individual, to have a
little prosperity in rural America, to have an opportunity for my
children to raise their families in rural communities in our State or
across the country. So much of what goes on in this body, in this House
of Representatives, and goes on here in our Nation's capital, affects
whether or not there is prosperity in Kansas and whether or not there
is prosperity across the country. It also affects the likelihood that
the next generation can enjoy the quality of life that we have enjoyed
in my State of Kansas and across the country in rural States around our
Nation.
So we have our challenges and our tasks before us. It is difficult to
meet those challenges. Rural America is suffering. We have heard a lot
during my early days in Congress about the booming national economy,
and it became clear to me that the folks of my State in agriculture and
in the oil and gas industry were financing this booming national
economy and that we were left behind. Seems to me that those of us who
care about rural America, the tasks before us are related to
agriculture and whether or not farmers can break even and can earn a
little money and whether or not the next generation of our young people
in the farming communities have the opportunity to return to their
communities and return to their family farms.
It is about small business and whether or not businesses are going to
remain on Main Street America across our country. It is about the rules
and regulations and taxes and all the requirements and paperwork and
bureaucracy that we put in front of businessmen and women and tell them
to compete and to survive. And yet in many of the communities I
represent, whether or not a grocery store is on Main Street is the main
talk of economic development in the community.

[[Page H3509]]

It is not about whether or not there is a new factory arriving in town
but whether or not there is a hardware store and a pharmacy.
So much of what we do here increases the cost of being in business,
and yet we do not have growing populations such that we can spread
those increased costs to meet those rules and regulations and taxes and
workers compensation premiums and health care costs among more
customers. So it is agriculture, it is small business, it is
transportation. How do we make certain we can get from one community to
another, that we can get our agricultural products to market?
Not too many months ago we received complaints from our constituents
about soybeans being imported into the United States from Brazil, from
South America. And my constituents, my farmers who grow soybeans, could
not understand how can they bring soybeans and soy meal from South
America to the United States and sell it in North Carolina cheaper than
we can get it there from the middle of the country. The answer was our
transportation costs. It was cheaper to put it on a boat from South
America and ship it to the United States than it was to put it on a
train and move it just halfway across our country.
Transportation costs matter to us; and whether or not we have roads
and bridges and highways and railroads, and even airports and aviation
will affect whether or not rural America remains alive and well.
It is about education and technology. I know the gentleman from
Nebraska has championed issues related to whether or not we are going
to have access to technology in our communities.

And awfully important to us is whether or not we have access to
health care. Our ability to keep hospital doors open, to keep
physicians and nurses and home health care agencies in our communities
has a great effect upon whether or not those communities survive. So
many of our people living in rural communities are seniors, and they
will not be able to take the risk to live in a community where the
hospital is not there anymore. Young kids who are just starting their
families do not want to raise their children where there are no
doctors.
So those of us who care about rural America need to make certain that
we protect the delivery of health care in rural America. And this issue
called Medicare that we deal with in this Congress and in this Nation's
capital affects us greatly.
So we have our challenges. Tonight we wanted to talk a bit about
agriculture. It is clear to me that without prosperity on the farm,
there is no prosperity in the communities of Kansas. And that is true
whether you live in Topeka, Wichita, or Overland Park, the larger
cities of our State, or whether you live in Goodland, Smith Center, or
Protection. Agriculture matters, and the future of our economy and our
State is determined whether or not our farmers and ranchers are
surviving, whether or not they are making ends meet, and whether they
have anything left over at the end of the year.
I was taken to task by one of my constituents for the amount of time
that I spend dealing with agricultural issues, and the thought was the
farmers are doing just fine and that I do not need to worry so much or
work so hard. The reality is that we have almost no sons, no daughters
either staying in our communities or returning to the family farm after
going to college. And if there was any prosperity or any money to be
made in agriculture, those young men and women would be back on the
farm. It is not happening.
This is certainly an agricultural week in Congress. The plight of our
farmers and our ranchers is not forgotten here. We have, as has been
mentioned earlier tonight, addressed an issue of lost payments for
market, the low price, what I call disaster assistance. The Committee
on Agriculture will have a bill on the House floor tomorrow dealing
with this assistance to try to tide the farmers over for a while longer
until we can do some other things to keep them in business.
Farmers do not want payments from the government; they want to earn
their living from the markets. But unfortunately, government puts many
stumbling blocks in their way. And as the gentleman from Nebraska said,
our competitors, those particularly in the European communities, they
are subsidized eight times what we are in the United States. My hands
are going up because there is a bar graph in the office which reflects
the Europeans subsidize agriculture eight times what we do in the
United States. Yet we tell our farmers to farm the markets, to compete
in the world. It is not a level playing field at all.
A pie chart in my office reflects that 82.5 percent of all subsidies
to help export agriculture commodities around the world is provided by
the European Community. Our slice of that pie is 2.5 percent. Yet we
tell our farmers to compete in the world. Go out and grow the crops,
sell them. Yet we have such an unlevel playing field.
We have trade embargoes and sanctions against other countries. The
farmer did not ask for those; yet because of foreign policy, we
conclude we cannot sell wheat or grain or meat products to some country
around the world because we do not like their behavior. The reality is
we do not change their behavior; we just cause our farmers, our
ranchers to lose one more market.
It seems to me those of us who care about agriculture have to care
about a farm bill and farm policy. That farm bill is going to be
discussed, debated and written. This is my first time in Congress in
which we have tried to draft a farm bill, and I am looking forward to
being fully engaged in that debate. That will take place in the House
Committee on Agriculture during the month of July, and we will be back
on this House floor with an agricultural bill that will be important to
farmers.
But we have had low prices in many farm bills, so that is not the
total answer. We have issues related to trade and sanctions and
exports. These farm commodities must be assumed. We have great concerns
about lack of competition in agriculture. Everybody that the farmer
buys from and sells to is getting larger and larger, and the farmer
feels the squeeze. We need to make sure our antitrust laws are
effective and are enforced. So the challenges are there; and yet the
reality is that without prosperity in agriculture, there is no
prosperity in rural America.
We are in the middle of a wheat harvest in Kansas, and it is working
its way from south to north. It has been to Texas and Oklahoma, it is
now in Kansas working its way into Nebraska and South Dakota. We have
lived in Kansas for the last several years with these terribly low
commodity prices because we have had good yields. Last year the drought
hit Kansas and decimated the soybean crop.

This year, in wheat harvests, the number of acres that will be
harvested in Kansas is expected to be the lowest number of acres since
1957. So now this year not only will we have terribly low commodity
prices but we have no crop to harvest, or a smaller crop to harvest; 56
million bushels less wheat to be harvested in Kansas it is estimated.
And although the early harvest reports have been good, we have concerns
about kernel bunt and rust. And, unfortunately, as has been mentioned
by my colleagues, the increased cost of inputs, particularly fuel and
fertilizer, estimated by our Kansas farm management database, is an
increase of 33 percent in costs for fuel.
So our work is cut out for us. I look forward to working with my
colleagues across the country to see that we have disaster assistance,
the market loss assistance program tomorrow on the House floor, that it
is passed and sent to the Senate and that it is addressed quickly, and
that we have an agricultural policy, a farm bill through the Committee
on Agriculture later this year. And I agree with the gentleman from
Minnesota, it is critical that the Senate join us in addressing this
issue. Our farmers and their bankers need to know what farm policy is
going to be in this country.
This issue is important to me. It is not just whether farmers make a
living. This is about a way of life, and it is a way of life that is
evaporating in this country. It is about a way of life in which sons
and daughters work side by side with moms and dads and grandparents,
and where character and values and integrity is passed from one
generation to the next. So although tomorrow we will be talking about
dollars, what we are really talking about is a way of life, and a way
of life that was the history of our Nation.

[[Page H3510]]

I look forward to joining my colleagues tonight and my colleagues
throughout the year and my colleagues across the country to make sure
that rural America is not forgotten in the United States House of
Representatives. I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. THUNE. I thank the gentleman from Kansas for yielding, and I
would simply again say that we are joined geographically by the
gentleman from Nebraska, but strong similarities in the concerns, the
people that we represent, the topography of the land, the things that
we raise, and absolutely the issues that we are concerned about with
respect to the quality of life in rural areas of America.
As the gentleman from Kansas noted, so much of it is about
agriculture because there is no prosperity in rural America unless
agriculture is prospering. When we see these succeeding years of low
prices, and in agriculture the last few years it seems like the
prevailing economic theory has been that we lose a little bit on each
sale, but we make up for it in volume. We have tried to make up for
what we have lost in price in the numbers of bushels we produce; yet
this year, as the gentleman from Kansas noted, we are seeing, because
of weather and other related issues, all sorts of problems in getting
the kinds of harvest and the kinds of yields necessary in order to make
our farmers pencil out and break even.
I am anxious, along with my colleagues, to engage in this debate. I
do believe that there is no question that when we deal with this whole
issue of farm prosperity that it is about prices; it is also about the
cost of production, the cost of energy, and that it is an issue which
we are going to have to address.

I understand the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez), over here on
my left, would like a minute; and I would be happy to yield to him for
a moment.
Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman first of all
for bringing this up tonight. I think it is so important. I think we
forget that we are all involved in agriculture when it comes to the
issue of eating.
I represent a district that runs from San Antonio north to south, all
the way to the Mexican border, and I take pride that I am the seventh
producer of peanuts in the Nation. But I also do not take pride in the
fact that we are having a rough time, as the gentleman has indicated.
Nature determines a lot of times what happens to our farmers. It is
something where they basically put all their money into that crop. I
had one year, in 1998, where I had a major flood that destroyed a lot
of the crops that we had. Previously, we had about 5 years straight
where droughts hit and devastated a lot of our farmers. Those kind of
things we forget.
One of the things that I think the gentleman mentioned, and that I
think is important, is that we continue to mention the importance of
our national security when it comes to agriculture and food. We cannot
depend on foreign food when it comes to our national security. We have
got to make sure that we continue to grow that food in this country.
Because I think that is also important, as mentioned earlier in the
discussions, the fact that a lot of our farmers now are senior
citizens. The young are choosing not to go into it because it is very
difficult, and a lot of times there are not the profits, and the risks
are just tremendous.
So we as a Congress and as a people need to make sure that we protect
our farmers, and we need to do everything we can to make that happen.
We talk about the minimum wage and the prevailing wage, but we very
seldom talk about a prevailing price for that product that those
farmers have. I think it is important that we do that. There is no
doubt there is no way we can compete with Europe when they get
subsidized. There is no way we can compete with Latin America, when
they almost do not get paid for anything.
The bottom line is, for our national security, we have to make sure
we have our farmers. And I want to thank the gentleman for being out
here tonight talking about the ag bill and what we need to do. We need
to make sure that that food continues to be on the tables.
Mr. THUNE. I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez) for his
comments. Again, agriculture is not a Republican or a Democrat issue.
It is something that is important to the future of America and to our
national security, and it is something that we need to be working as a
body and focusing on in a cooperative way, in a bipartisan way, to try
to solve some of these problems and see that our producers have a
living wage, because they do not. All they ask for is a fair price for
their products.
Unfortunately, as the gentleman from Nebraska pointed out earlier,
because of the way that we have to compete with countries that
subsidize their farm economies at much higher levels, it does put our
producers at a competitive disadvantage. And that is something that we
have to try and correct through our trade policies. But we have a
responsibility as a Congress to right now focus like a laser beam on
the farm bill, on writing a new farm policy, on the energy policy in
this country to help increase the prices that farmers receive and to
lower the prices they have to pay for their inputs so that that bottom
line will begin to show up in the black again instead of in the red.
This will help us, hopefully, keep our young people in this country on
those family farms that form and shape the bedrock values of America.

{time} 2115

I believe we are much better served as a culture if we have family
farmers farming the land and producing the products and the commodities
that we consume in this country and we export around the world.
The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) has been a leader on a
number of issues, one of which is technology, and so many other issues
which are important to rural America. I yield to him at this time for
his thoughts on that matter.
Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the preceding comments from
the gentleman from Minnesota and the gentleman from Kansas.
Mr. Speaker, we talk about the new farm bill, and many times people
hold out great promise on the farm bill, and it is not the whole
answer. It will hopefully provide a safety net which will allow people
to continue in farming. We have been losing 10 percent of our farmers
every year. Sometimes people say you are keeping the inefficient people
in business, but all the inefficient people are long since gone. All of
the people left have skill and ability.
As I talk to the farmers in the Third District of Nebraska, so often
I hear the statement, we do not want a subsidy, we want profitability.
We want to make our living in the marketplace. I think other than a
safety net, there are some things that we need to focus on.
Of course, Freedom to Farm had some good ideas behind it. One is
basically the philosophy of Freedom to Farm was that the farmer would
produce all that he could. The farmers produced fence row to fence row,
and the government's part of the bargain were that they were going to
provide the markets, make sure that we had free trade, fair trade. And
I am sad to say that part of the bargain was not kept. We did not fully
fund market access programs, foreign market development, and we
continued to have foreign trade sanctions, trade embargoes.
We have great hope for the WTO and NAFTA. We would like to see
tariffs on our goods at 40 to 60 percent come down to 10 percent, which
is basically what we are charging goods coming into our country. In
theory, these two organizations, NAFTA and World Trade Organization
sound good, but most of the farmers I talk to are not happy about
implementation. They do not feel that we have a level playing field and
that we have been aggressive enough in our trade practices. We need to
open up markets and fully fund the programs that we have in place to
help our marketing procedures.
The President needs fast track authority, the ability to negotiate
quickly trade negotiations. In the last few years, we have had over 200
international trade agreements drawn up, and the United States has
participated in 2, 2 out of 200. So the President needs to be given
this authority. This is something that will be coming down the road
fairly quickly.
We have touched on value-added agriculture. That is a big part of
profitability. We have talked about ethanol, which will add 15 to 20
cents per bushel of corn; and ethanol could triple with MTBE going by
the wayside.
We currently have 62 ethanol plants in the United States, and that
should

[[Page H3511]]

double or triple in the United States. We have 200,000 people employed
in the ethanol industry, and $4.5 billion a year being brought in by
ethanol. And again, those numbers could double or triple very quickly,
which would be a huge shot in the arm for agriculture.
Co-ops need to spring up. Some are occurring right now, where the
farmer participates in all levels of the process, and, of course, makes
more profit in the process. We think that value added is going to be
very important.
Let me just touch on one other thing, and that is the research issue.
So far the advantage that we have had in the United States has been
technology in agriculture and infrastructure, the ability to move our
products. As the gentleman from Kansas mentioned earlier, the
infrastructure advantage is quickly disappearing. Other countries are
beginning to move their products equally as well.
So the thing that leaves us with that is an edge in technology. So
often groups that come before the Committee on Agriculture and present
their ideas, research is sometimes left out. It is left out of the
equation. For instance, in ethanol alone right now we can get a better
conversion rate. It takes so much energy to produce a gallon of
ethanol. The ethanol that is produced produces more energy than what it
takes to produce the ethanol; but that could be double or even triple.
We could use switchgrass and all kinds of products. We could plant
switchgrass on CRP acres, which would make CRP more profitable. We need
to keep working on BSE. Foot and mouth disease. Karnal bunt was
mentioned earlier in regard to the wheat industry. This is a great
concern. So I am a great advocate of making sure that we can ensure and
maintain our edge in technology.

Of course, one last comment would be simply the fact that we are
losing young people and losing population in rural areas. The reason we
are losing them is that they are going places where they can get more
money. And the reason that they can make more money is there is more
technology and more telecommunications. So the digital divide has hit
rural America very hard.
People will tell you that roughly 90 percent of new industry is not
willing to go into an area unless there is broadband service and high-
speed Internet access. We have to do everything that we can to make
sure that the rural America has the ability to provide those kinds of
services which will allow us to keep more of our young people at home.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from South Dakota for
allowing me to participate in this dialogue.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I would reinforce what the gentleman from
Nebraska just said about technology. We do have a digital divide in
this country. One of the things that separates us from more populated
areas of the country is that having access to broadband services, high-
speed Internet services, all of those things that improve the quality
of life, allow for greater speed and efficiency in conducting business,
and connecting rural areas with the rest of the world in a very timely
and convenient way.
So as we talk about the issues that impact rural areas, obviously
agricultural policy is at the heart of that, energy policy is at the
heart of that. Also appropriate investment in our education for our
young people, rural health care, quality of life, as the gentleman from
Nebraska mentioned. We have aging population areas of this country
which present some unique challenges and unique needs.
One of the things that we want to see is the young people have the
opportunity, if they choose to, to grow up and raise their families in
rural areas of this country, in our small towns and farms and ranches.
We have seen a continual decrease in the number of farms across the
country. In my State of South Dakota, we have about 32,000-plus farms
and ranches. The average size of those operations is about 350 acres.
So it is the small, it is the family farms that constitute the real
backbone of the economy in rural areas. So many of these issues tie
into that.
Again, as we talk about what we can do to improve the quality of life
and provide incentives for investment there for the need for
technology, I am cosponsoring legislation that provides a tax credit
for those companies that would go out and offer broadband services in
rural areas. I believe we need tax incentives in place for value-added
agriculture, small-producer ethanol tax credit legislation which I am
sponsoring. Another piece of legislation that will help lower the
capital barrier to investment in agriculture, value-added-type
industries; tax credit for producers that will encourage farmer-owned
cooperatives so farmers can take more control of their own destinies
and begin to create opportunities and increase in the overall prices
that they receive for their products. These are all issues that impact
the future of rural America.
Mr. Speaker, as I would simply say in closing again, I think if we
look at the things that the Congress has to deal with, they are many.
We have all of the appropriations bills, the Patient Bill of Rights,
campaign finance reform, and they are all important. But when you come
down to it, there is nothing more important to the future of this
country than putting in place a solid farm policy and an energy policy
for America's future that will lessen our dependence on foreign sources
of energy by utilizing the great renewable sources we have in America
and finding those sources additional sources of energy.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to discuss these
issues and look forward to engaging in colloquies with my colleagues on
these important issues for all Americans, including those of us who
choose to live in rural areas.

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