[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11791-11797]
[From the U.S. 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 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

[[Page 11792]]

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.
  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.

[[Page 11793]]

  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 11794]]

  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

[[Page 11795]]

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. 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

[[Page 11796]]

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.
  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

[[Page 11797]]

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 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.

                          ____________________