[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 79 (Thursday, June 6, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H3228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  (Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak 
about a bill that's going to be on the House floor here in a couple of 
weeks. It should be certainly of interest to every man, woman, and 
child in this country because we all shake hands with a farmer at least 
three times a day--breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  And also it's relevant to my home State, the Keystone State of 
Pennsylvania, as agriculture is the number one industry in 
Pennsylvania. Some folks would be surprised to hear that.
  But the fact is we'll have the farm bill before us. I'm proud to be a 
member of the Agriculture Committee. We have worked long and hard on 
this farm bill. We've made some great improvements.
  We've eliminated many of the subsidies that have kind of clouded the 
farm bill, in my opinion, for decades; and we've moved towards a more 
free-market, risk-management approach, protecting our farmers, 
providing them some access to crop insurance and a dairy margin 
insurance to protect against the weather.
  Agriculture is probably one of the most vulnerable parts, vulnerable 
industries, when it comes to all extremes of weather.
  The farm bill also, I'm proud to say, ensures that every man, woman, 
and child in this country will have access to nutrition, every income-
eligible man, woman, and child, because it also, the House version, 
ensures some reforms to stop the fraud and abuse that has run rampant 
with the farm bill.
  So I encourage my colleagues to support the farm bill when it comes 
to the floor in the weeks ahead.

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