[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21221-21222]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   ECONOMIC CONVULSION IN AGRICULTURE

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will not speak for a long time about 
the economic convulsion in agriculture. I think my colleague sees some 
of this in Wyoming as well. I said last week I was going to come to the 
floor and talk about what is happening to family farmers in Minnesota 
and around the country. I want to speak about this briefly today and 
announce a bill that I will be introducing. I also want to say to my 
colleagues, as I see us moving forward over the next couple of days 
this week, that I do intend to be back on the floor with amendments 
that relate to how we can get a decent price for family farmers and how 
we can get some competition and how we can put some free enterprise 
back into the food industry.
  I am also prepared--and I am sure other Senators would feel the same 
way if they came from an agricultural State--I am also prepared, 
starting this week and every week, to spend a considerable amount of 
time before the Senate talking, not so much in statistical terms but 
more in personal terms, about what is happening.
  I give, by the way, a lot of credit to Willie Nelson and Neil Young 
and John Mellencamp for putting together Farm Aid. I had a chance to be 
there yesterday morning with my wife Sheila. It was an important 
gathering. I thank them for bringing some attention to the crisis in 
agriculture and what is happening to family farmers.
  They are not Johnny-come-latelys. They have been at this for some 
time. There was a rally this morning, a ``Save the Family Farm'' 
coalition rally, and then the Farmers Union was meeting with Secretary 
Glickman. I know there are hundreds of Farmers Union members who are 
going to be meeting with Republican and Democratic Senators.
  What everybody is saying right now is, we have this convulsion in 
agriculture. When I was a college teacher

[[Page 21222]]

in the mid-1980s in Northfield, MN, in Rice County, I did a lot of 
organizing with farmers. I had some friends who took their lives. I am 
not being melodramatic, unfortunately. I was at more foreclosures than 
I ever wanted to be. I saw a tremendous amount of economic pain.
  What we are experiencing now in agriculture in this country is far 
worse. On present course, we are going to lose, as I said last week, a 
generation of family farmers. I simply say, in an emphatic way, the 
political question for us is whether we stay the course or whether we 
change course. I do not believe that any Senator, Democrat or 
Republican, who comes from a State like the State of Minnesota and who 
has been traveling in communities and seeing the pain in people's eyes 
and seeing people who literally are almost at the very end, could not 
take the position that we have to do something different when it comes 
to agricultural policy.
  I am not going to be shrill today--or hopefully any other day--but I 
am telling my colleagues, the status quo is unacceptable. It is 
unacceptable. The piece of legislation we passed several years ago 
called Freedom to Farm--I believe it's really ``Freedom to Fail,'' 
though others can take a different position--at minimum has to be 
modified. If we do not take the cap off the loan rate and we do not 
have some kind of target price and we do not do something to make sure 
that farmers have a decent price for what they produce so they can get 
the cash flow to earn a decent living, they are going to go under. Many 
of them are going under right now as I speak.
  The second thing I want to talk about is a piece of legislation I 
will offer this week as an amendment to the bankruptcy bill. I will 
have plenty of data. For example, five firms account for over 80 
percent of beef packing market. That is a higher concentration than the 
FTC found in 1918 leading up to enactment of the Packers and Stockyards 
Act. Six firms account for 75 percent of pork packing. Now we have a 
situation where Smithfield wants to buy out Murphy. And the largest 
four grain buyers control nearly 40 percent of the elevator facilities.
  The legislation I am going to introduce--I am now waiting for the 
final draft from legislative counsel--will impose a moratorium on 
mergers, acquisitions, and marketing agreements among dealers, 
processors, commission merchants, brokers, or operators of a warehouse 
of agricultural commodities with annual net sales or total assets of 
more than $50 million. The moratorium would last for 1 year, or until 
Congress enacts legislation that addresses the problems of 
concentration of agriculture, whichever comes first. I think Senator 
Dorgan is working on a similar piece of legislation. I am sure there 
are other Senators who are going to be talking about this.
  Going back to the Sherman Act or the Clayton Act, or Senator Estes 
Kefauver's work in the 1950s, Congress has said there was a role for 
Government to protect consumers and also to protect producers. In fact, 
a lot of the history of the Sherman Act and Clayton Act goes back to 
agriculture and the concerns of family farmers.
  What I am saying in this legislation is, obviously, the status quo is 
not working. These conglomerates have muscled their way to the dinner 
table. They are pushing family farmers out. There is no real 
competition in the food industry any longer. In order for our producers 
to get a decent price, and in order to make sure our producers and 
family farmers have a future, in order to make sure the rural 
communities of my State of Minnesota have a future, we are going to 
have to take some action. Our action and our legislation ought to be on 
the side of family farmers.
  So I intend to introduce this bill later today. I will also draft 
this as an amendment to the bankruptcy bill. I also will be on the 
floor with other amendments. Unfortunately, the bankruptcy bill applies 
all too well to family farmers in my State of Minnesota and to family 
farmers all around the country.
  There are other colleagues who want to speak, so I am going to try to 
conclude in the next 3 or 4 minutes, I say to my colleague from Oregon. 
I will not take a lot of time because we only have an hour and others 
want to speak as well.
  But I have had a chance to travel a lot in Minnesota. I have had a 
chance to spend time in other States--in Iowa, in Texas, in Missouri. I 
have met with a lot of organizers around the country--in the Midwest 
and in the South--and I am telling you that I think rural America has 
to take a stand. I do not care whether we use the language of modifying 
legislation or amending legislation.
  I personally thought the Freedom to Farm was really ``Freedom to 
Fail'' from the word ``go.'' Others can have different opinions. But 
for sure, time is not on the side of family farmers. A lot of people in 
Minnesota, a lot of farmers are 45, 50 years old. They are burning 
their equity up. They look at me hard, and they say: Look, Paul, do we 
basically take everything we have and try to keep this farm going? We 
will. We want to. It has been in our family for four generations. We 
love farming. But if there is no future for us, tell us now.
  I do not want to tell family farmers in Minnesota there is no future 
for them. I do not want to tell our rural communities there is no 
future for them. I do not want to tell our country that a few 
conglomerates are going to own all the land. Then what will the price 
be, and what will be the quality of the food? Will there be an 
agriculture that respects the air and the land and the water and the 
environment? I think not.
  I do not think our country is yet engaged. I hope the national media 
will cover this crisis. And it is a crisis. I will be coming to the 
floor of the Senate with longer and longer and longer and longer 
speeches, backed up by lots of data and statistics of what is happening 
in Minnesota, backed up with a lot of personal stories of hard-working 
people who have now lost their farms, where they not only live but 
where they have also worked. I will have amendments on legislation, in 
an effort to change things for the better.
  If my colleagues have other ideas about how to change things for the 
better, great. Then get out on the floor of the Senate--this week, next 
week, the following week. Personally, at this point in time, I am 
focused on family farmers in the State of Minnesota. I am focused on 
our rural communities. I am focused on family farmers and rural 
communities all across our country.
  I intend, as a Senator, to do everything I can on the floor of the 
Senate to fight for people, everything I know how to do to fight for 
people. I also am going to spend as much time as I can organizing the 
farmers because I am convinced, I say to Senator Reid and Senator 
Wyden, we are going to need farmers and rural people to come and rock 
this capital before we get the change we need. But we are going to keep 
pushing very hard. An awful lot of good people's lives are at stake.
  I think in many ways this is a question that speaks to what America 
is about as well. I cannot be silent on it. I know of many Senators 
from other agricultural States who feel the same way. We have to push 
this on to the agenda of the Congress, and we have to do it now.

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