[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20889-20890]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE FARM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, it's a pleasure to be able 
to address my colleagues, and thank you for your leadership as well.
  Madam Speaker, I wanted to speak this evening on the legislation that 
is before this House that takes a completely new turn in farming and 
the agricultural agenda for this Nation, and there are certain elements 
that I would like to highlight.
  When you think of an agricultural bill, you think immediately of 
farms and ranches, particularly of large size, almost a large 
conglomerate of a series of farms that provide the food engine for 
America. But this bill draws my attention and support because of the 
number of other elements and turns and new directions that this 
legislation takes.
  It's important to note that this bill has a new definition, one of 
nutrition. This bill reauthorizes nutrition programs, accounting for 
two-thirds of the bill's funding to help low-income families in need, 
including the food stamp program that keeps many Americans from going 
hungry. The bill increases the minimum benefit under the food stamp 
program for the first time in 30 years.
  Just this past week, Madam Speaker, we announced the increase in the 
minimum wage, the first time in 10 years. One of the greatest tragedies 
here in this most powerful Nation and powerfully economic Nation is the 
number of people in America that go to bed hungry. The greatest 
disaster of that is that a huge percentage happen to be children.
  This bill eliminates the current gap on child care costs to help the 
working poor meet rising costs. In addition, it nearly doubles the fund 
for emergency food assistance programs and expands the fresh fruit and 
vegetable snack program to all 50 States.
  This bill focuses on an expanded view of nutrition and, in fact, 
increases the spending for nutrition by billions of dollars and expands 
the feeding of children by millions of dollars, but yet, it focuses on 
the family farmer and provides them with a resource base in order for 
those family farmers to survive.
  I also applaud the fact that struggling, socially disadvantaged, and 
African American families who have farmed over the years and were 
abused under the United States Department of Agriculture and suffered, 
in fact, in a lineage of discrimination now will have a remedy, now 
will have recourse to a number of sections in this legislation that 
addresses the inequity of the treatment of black farmers, a number of 
extensions and protections that will make them whole after years of 
devastating, if you will, treatment by the United States Department of 
Agriculture.

[[Page 20890]]

  I want to acknowledge the Agriculture Committee, the bipartisan work 
that they did, the chairman and the ranking member, Chairman Peterson 
and Ranking Member Goodlatte, on recognizing the work of the members of 
the Congressional Black Caucus that worked so very hard and the members 
of the committee that included David Scott and included the task force, 
Benny Thompson and G.K. Butterfield and a number of others that 
continued to work on this issue.
  I had an amendment that I hoped to continue to address and that was 
to address the question environmentally of increasing the conservation 
fund for African American socially disadvantaged farmers. We still need 
to move in a direction of increasing the ability to, if you will, draw 
out of a dry arid land farming land or ranching land a survivable farm 
or ranch. I will continue to work on that issue. Even though that 
amendment was not made in order, I believe it's an issue that is 
crucial to continue the support and build a family farming system here 
in America that is still valuable and worth saving.
  I do have an amendment that focuses on school lunches and school 
breakfasts, an issue in my district. Large corporations are now serving 
the Nation's schools for children who sometimes get no other meal other 
than school breakfast and school lunch. We're going to stand on the 
floor of the House and debate the question that it is the sense of this 
Congress to ensure that these lunches are nutritional, that they don't 
increase juvenile obesity, for we see a number of our children being 
overweight because of the food or lack of food that they have.
  One other point as I close is simply to say the importance of 
alternative fuel is also counted in this legislation.
  Overall, this legislation takes a new direction for America, an 
agricultural agenda, and I look forward to debating my amendment 
tomorrow.

                          ____________________