[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19143-19145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      THE VALUE OF THE FAMILY FARM

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I actually came to this Chamber to talk 
about something else, which I want to do now for about 3 or 4 minutes. 
But, I was inspired by my colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, who 
was talking about the urgency of the aviation security bill and wanted 
to comment first about that.
  I want to speak for a moment about another priority. When I was 
talking with the Senator from Idaho about priorities, let me describe 
another one that ranks right near the top, in my judgment. As soon as 
we finish the legislation dealing with aviation security, the 
antiterrorism bill, and the appropriations bills, we need in this 
Congress to turn to the farm bill. If one does not come from farm 
country, they may not understand the need for a farm bill, but let me 
describe the urgency of this Congress passing a decent bill that gives 
family farmers a chance to make a living.
  We have been living with a farm bill called the Freedom to Farm Act, 
which has been a terrible failure for family farmers. It literally has 
pulled the rug out from under family farmers in our country.
  Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed a new farm bill, and 
good for them. The bill that was passed by the House of Representatives 
is better than the current farm bill that is now in place. We can make 
it even better. It shortchanges wheat and barley, for example, on loan 
rates, and there are some things that I would change.
  I say this: The bill the House of Representatives passed is better 
than the current farm bill. Now the Senate has an obligation to take up 
a farm bill and pass it before we finish our work this year. We must do 
that. We do not have the choice. If we do not pass a new farm bill this 
year and accept the challenge with the House having passed its bill, we 
will shortchange American farmers in a significant way. There are many 
families hanging on by their financial fingertips wondering whether 
they are going to be around to plant the crop next spring. I hope this 
Congress will say to them that family farmers matter to this country, 
they strengthen this country, and we are going to give them a farm bill 
that provides countercyclical help when prices collapse so they can 
stay around and be part of our country's future.
  Now why is that important? Two reasons. One reason is one I have 
talked about a long time in this Chamber, and that is from both an 
economic and social standpoint, family farms are important to this 
country's character and its future. Family values have always rolled 
from family farms to small towns to big cities, nurturing and 
refreshing the value system in our country. Having a network of family 
farm

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producers producing our food in this country produces more than food. 
It produces communities, it produces a lifestyle, it produces character 
in rural America that adds to this country and who we are and what we 
are.
  Even more than that, if one does not care about that--and I do 
deeply--we could have, perhaps, a country in which we farm from 
California to Maine with giant agrifactories in which no one lives out 
on the land. It is just a bunch of corporate bookkeepers. That, in my 
judgment, erodes and detracts from the culture that has helped make 
America great. So even if one does not care about family farming--and I 
do very deeply--even if one believes that agrifactories are the way of 
the future--and I really disagree with that--from a national security 
standpoint it makes good sense to have wide dispersal of food 
production in America.
  There was a report the other night on a national television program 
talking about feedlots that feed 200,000 head of cattle. This report 
talked about the real possibility of the introduction of bioterrorism 
through the food supply in concentrations of agriculture production of 
that size. It is true. How difficult would it be, however, to do that 
to a food production system which you have a wide network of family 
farms on America's land producing America's food? From a national 
security standpoint, it is important that we have support for family 
farmers.
  Europe does it. Europe does it for another reason. Europe has been 
hungry and decided never again to be hungry and never again to be 
dependent on concentrations of food producers. So they, in Europe, have 
a network of producers, small farmers, dotting the landscape of Europe 
because they have been hungry once and have determined never to do that 
again, and the best defense against hunger is to have family farmers 
all across Europe producing their food supply.
  The same is true in this country, in my judgment. Exactly the same is 
true. Add to that the national security implications of having broad 
distribution of food supplies in this country produced by family farms. 
Again, as I said when I started, I think family farms produce something 
very enriching and very important to who we are as a country. Much more 
than that, they also contribute to this country's national security.
  The House of Representatives has passed its farm bill. We have a 
responsibility in the Senate to pass ours. The difference between the 
House and the Senate farm bill that would amend or change the Freedom 
to Farm Act will be hundreds of millions of dollars to farmers in North 
Dakota alone.
  The Freedom to Farm bill was passed when the price of grain was quite 
high and it collapsed almost immediately, and family farmers have lived 
now for 4 or 5 years with commodity prices that are far below the cost 
of production. The result is a whole lot of families are struggling. 
Many have lost that struggle and have moved from the family farm 
because they went broke. Others are hanging on, just hoping.
  The only thing farmers have ever been able to live on is hope; hope 
that somehow next spring they would be able to find somebody who would 
lend them the money to plant a crop; hope if they put the crop in that 
perhaps it would rain enough so that the crop would grow; hope that it 
would not rain too much and drown out that crop; hope they did not have 
insects; hope they did not have hail; hope that crop disease did not 
destroy the crop.
  If beyond all of those hopes they finally raised a crop, hope when 
they combined or harvested that crop and put it in a truck and drove it 
to an elevator that there would be a price that was decent. With that 
kind of hope, farmers deserve our help during the tough times, and it 
is my hope the Senate will understand its responsibility right now in 
the next several weeks to take up the challenge of the House and pass a 
farm bill, a good farm bill, that says to family farmers we are 
standing with them, we are standing behind them, and we want to provide 
a bridge over price valleys to try to help them through these tough 
times. If we do that, it also will strengthen our country. That also 
will strengthen our economy.
  We will not have economic recovery in this country if we say it does 
not matter what happens to those who live on the land; it does not 
matter what happens to family farmers.
  Economic recovery also begins by helping those who produce America's 
food supply, and I hope the Senate will take up this challenge in the 
next couple of weeks.
  I conclude by saying this: I come from rural America. I was raised in 
a town of 300 people. We raised horses, had some cattle. When I left my 
home county--it was a fairly large county geographically--there were 
5,000 people living there. There are now 3,000 people living there. 
Like most rural counties, it is shrinking. The Lutheran minister in one 
of the communities in my home county told me she has four funerals for 
every wedding at which she officiates.
  There is this movie ``Four Weddings and a Funeral.'' This is the 
opposite: four funerals for every wedding. Why is that the case? 
Because in those small towns and those rural areas, people are getting 
older, the population is aging. Very few new people are moving in, very 
few young people are taking over the farms, because they can't make a 
living.
  As the age increases, the economies of the communities are shrinking. 
What used to be a plum is now a prune--my home county and thousands 
like it across this country.
  If one just thinks this is about numbers and balance sheets, let me 
again describe how it is not. It is about dreams, about people's lives. 
There was an auction sale, which happens too often in my State. A 
fellow named Arlo was the auctioneer. He told me he was auctioning a 
tractor at the auction sale. People bid and bought the tractor. At the 
end of the auction sale, where he auctioned many things from the family 
farm because the farmers could not make it, a little boy, about 9 years 
old, came up to him. He was the son of the farmer who was being sold 
out. He grabbed the auctioneer around his leg, and he kind of shouted 
at him. He said: You sold my dad's tractor. Arlo kind of patted him on 
the shoulder to try to calm him down. This little boy had tears in his 
eyes. He looked up and said: I wanted to drive that tractor when I got 
big.
  This is about dreams, about families, about kids. It is about the 
future. Family farming is much more than just business, it is part of 
our culture. Our country needs to understand that. We have a 
responsibility to write a new farm bill, one that works, one that works 
for family farmers.
  In conclusion, as I have said before, if writing a farm bill is not 
about investing in families who farm in this country, retaining a 
network of families across the prairies of this country, then we don't 
even need a farm bill. We don't need a farm bill to help the giant 
agrifactories. If someone wants to buy 3,000 milk cows and milk them 3 
times a day, God bless them. They don't need Uncle Sam's money. But a 
family with a family yard and a light that shines over where that 
family sleeps, where the dreams reside, cannot make it through tough 
times and price depressions. The only way to save family farms when the 
prices collapse is that the Government say: This part of our economy 
matters; we hope you get through the tough times--we will build a 
bridge over the valleys. If the Government is willing to do that, it 
will retain a food supply network populated on average by family farms 
that produce that food supply.
  In a world desperately hungry, where so many people go to bed at 
night with an ache in their belly, when thousands die every day from 
hunger and hunger-related causes, it is unthinkable to me that what we 
produce in so great abundance somehow has no value. They take it to the 
elevator, and farmers are told their grain has no value. It has value 
to the people in the world who are starving. It has value to the 500 
million people who go to bed at night hungry. But our farmers are told, 
that which you produced, which rested on your hope in the spring to 
produce a crop, has now no value in the fall when it is harvested.

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  There is a major disconnection in this country about the value of 
agriculture, its worth to family farmers, its worth to the world and 
what it contributes to the stability of the world. We had better think 
through in a more clear way how all of that fits together. Food is an 
enormous asset. Those families who produce it are a significant asset 
to this country. It is time the Congress understands that.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam 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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