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Release No. 0369.05 Contact: USDA Press Office (202) 720-4623

**Transcript of New Mexico Farm Bill Forum With Agriculture Secretary
Mike Johanns and Moderators Frank Orphey of KGRT radio in Las Cruces and
Dr. Paul H. Gutierrez, Associate Dean for Extension at New Mexico State
University At the Latino/Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers Conference in Las
Cruces, New Mexico on August 26, 2005**

SECRETARY MIKE JOHANNS: (In progress.) Or maybe you\'ve made application
for a loan and you\'re wondering what\'s going on, or your conservation
program is this, that or the next thing. We want to help you with that,
but that might be best handled by some of the USDA people that are here
today. So if you\'ve got a specific problem, reach out to us, we want to
help. But, like I said, we kind of want to get the big picture of the
Farm Bill. We\'re talking about these areas, first, the challenge for
new farmers \-- how do we do farm policy in a way that provides
opportunity for young people to be involved in agriculture?

The second area is competitiveness. I\'ll talk a little bit more about
this when I wrap up after the forum today. But, you know, 27 percent of
our farm cash receipts come from the export market. And in some areas
it\'s much larger than that. Some areas it\'s a very high percentage.
But if you just look at the total it\'s 27 percent.\
\
The third area relates to the farm program benefits: Are they evenly
distributed? Are we providing benefits in a way that is fair to all of
agriculture?\
\
The fourth area is our conservation programs: How are we doing there?
What might we be doing different?\
\
Rural economic development \-- we\'ve heard a lot about rural economic
development \-- I\'m pleased to report most of it positive \-- but how
can we help small towns, rural communities, in their future?\
\
And then the final area is just the expansion of ag products, markets
and research, what we could do there that might be better of different.\
\
Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion it is really great to be here. Thank
you very, very much, New Mexico, for the warm welcome \-- and it is a
little bit warm, isn\'t it? But we\'ll get to that. That\'s just all
part of it. It\'s summer.\
\
And let me again say thank you to the moderators.\
\
Now what\'s going to happen from my standpoint: I\'m going to pretty
much sit this microphone down and listen. I\'m not going to take a lot
more time here \-- really don\'t want to take any, because this is your
time, not my time. Get to the microphone, offer your thoughts. At the
end of the program I\'ll do some wrap-up comments. But, again, don\'t be
shy. This is your opportunity to tell us what\'s on your mind. Take it
away.\
\
FRANK ORPHEY: All right, ladies and gentlemen, first off, as moderator
I\'m kind of stuck in the in-between here, because, like I said, I grew
up in the same situation as we all have, and I\'d like to spend five or
ten minutes talking to Secretary Johanns, but there a lot of us here,
and we would like everyone to have a chance to state their opinion this
morning, and we don\'t have all day.\
\
So, as moderator, being appointed as moderator, it is my job to make
sure that everything went smoothly and to make sure that everyone gets a
fair and equal amount of input. Is that understandable?\
\
Okay, all right, so what we\'re going to do first off everyone that\'s
going to speak will have two minutes \-- we\'ll be calling by counties
\-- and of course we have a timekeeper down here as well that\'s going
to let me know when we\'re starting to run over. And, like I say, we\'re
going to take calls from the counties. And at the end \-- this is
important to remember \-- we are going to have an open commentary. So
don\'t leave right after you\'ve put your two cents\' worth in, because
there might be something towards the end that you\'re going to want to
hear about.\
\
Like I said, it\'s a pleasure for me to be here today and a pleasure to
be a part of this, and I hope that everyone here leaves with a positive
response and answers to any and all questions that they may have come to
have answered by the USDA.\
\
So, without further ado, let\'s go ahead and let\'s invite Rebecca and
Lindsey both to present the first questions for Secretary Johanns.\
\
REBECCA MEDINA: Secretary Johanns, the Farm Bill policy should address
unintended consequences that discourage future generations of production
agriculturists from entering this career by promoting agricultural
education, especially in urban communities.\
\
Through programs like FFA, 4-H and others, students learn valuable
information about agriculture and the world around them. Without these
programs many students from rural communities may not even dream of
pursuing a future education in agriculture. Those students who grow up
in urban communities are missing out on this education. Most students
lack the basic knowledge about agriculture, and this hurts our
agricultural industry. If these students learn more about agriculture,
they will be more informed about agriculture issues that face this
country. These students are also being discouraged from entering
production agriculture careers because they never have had the chance to
experience one receives when they help others and provide services for
the good of others.\
\
By promoting agricultural education, especially in urban communities,
the next generation of agriculturists will not fear entering into this
great and noble profession. They will embrace it. Thank you.
(Applause.)\
\
LINDSEY THOMAN: Can everyone hear me? Good. Mr. Secretary, in this life
we will always have unintended consequences to deal with in all that we
do. New farmers and the next generation of farmers should be well
educated in the risks that a venture like farming like possess.\
\
Being upfront and forward with the truth about farming will not
necessarily discourage future farmers. An example of this is my
grandmother Ophelia Chavez. Fifty years ago, when my grandfather passed
away, she was faced with the choice to either sell the family farm or to
make it a success. Well, she made a go of her chili and pecan operation,
and when asked if she would have backed down in knowing all she would
face, she immediately replied no.\
\
Success is not the case for all farmers today. These days there are many
more things to considering before jumping onto your tractor: the expense
of the land, the regulations that come with the operation, subsidized
credit, education, and if your crops will fetch a fair price. Each of
these things, along with many others, should be well thought over before
becoming a farmer. The youth of tomorrow are being enlightened and
inspired about agriculture through organizations like 4-H and FFA. It is
our job as leaders to teach and share information with the youth that
might become the leaders of our agricultural communities of tomorrow.\
\
The youth that are interested in farming should be given all the
knowledge available in order for them to make correct decisions and
better themselves in the future. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
SECRETARY JOHANNS: Let me say thank you to those young people. And now,
before we get to the testimony from the rest of you, I brought one more
thing that I want to do: a message from a good friend of yours. So, with
that, let\'s roll it.\
\
\
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH (from audiotape): "Thanks for letting me speak to
you at this Farm Bill forum. America\'s farm and ranch families provide
a safe and abundant food supply for our people and for much of the
world. You represent the best values of America: stewardship of the
land, hard work and independence, faith, service and community. Mike
Johanns understands the importance of America\'s farmers to our country,
which is why I chose him to lead our Department of Agriculture. I\'m
proud of his work, and he will lead our efforts on the next Farm Bill.\
\
"Secretary Johanns and I believe the first step in this process is to
ask each of you how today\'s Farm Bill is working and how it can be
better. And as we look to improve America\'s farm policy, we\'ll
continue to focus on the following goals.\
\
"See, America has about 5 percent of the world\'s population, which
means 95 percent of your potential customers are overseas. So one of our
goals must be to ensure that America\'s farmers and ranchers have access
to open global markets. A second goal is that we want future generations
to have plenty of opportunities to go into agriculture. Thirdly, we need
cooperative conservation that encourages good stewardship of our land
and natural habitats.\
\
"We also need to act wisely in delivering help to our nation\'s
producers. And we must promote cutting-edge agricultural products and
research.\
\
"And, finally, we must ensure a good quality of life in rural America.\
\
"The Farm Bill is important legislation that meets real needs. The next
Farm Bill should further strengthen the farm economy and preserve this
way of life for farmers and ranchers of the future. Hearing your advice
is an important step towards meeting these goals. I thank you for all
you do for our country, and thank you for listening."\
\
SECRETARY JOHANNS: There\'s our president. (Applause.) All right, we\'re
ready for the testimony.\
\
VOICE: Mr. Secretary, members of the audience, thank you all so much for
being here. I know most of you traveled so far to be here, but I would
like for you all to give a nice welcome applause to President Joe
Shirley of the Navajo Nation who traveled early this morning to be with
us also to give us a good message. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
JOE SHIRLEY, JR., PRESIDENT, THE NAVAJO NATION: It\'s a real honor to
meet you sir, Secretary Johanns. I was looking forward to meeting with
you, maybe putting forward some comments related to the Farm Bill ever
since I heard about it. So thank you very much for being here.\
\
I\'m Joe Shirley, Jr., president of the Navajo Nation, the biggest tribe
in all of Native America, here in the 50 states.\
\
One of the things I wanted to put forward was that we\'d like to
establish a meaningful dialogue, on Native America, including the Navajo
Nation. I hear reference to the counties and the states, and I\'d like
to see tribes be a part of that.\
\
Talking about the Farm Bill, policy reform that could be considered
there is maybe an Indian title. We just help pass that energy bill up on
the Hill, and there was what we call the Indian title \-- there is some
of the uniqueness related to tribes relative to the natural resources.
Well, we could do the same thing with this Farm Bill, because we are
indeed very unique. I don\'t know how they calculate it, Mr. Secretary,
but they tell me that on Navajo land we are about 30 years behind the
times. So you can tell by that we have to be a part of the mainstream,
but we have some catching up to do, and maybe you can put forward an
Indian title in the Farm Bill, and maybe we can talk about somehow ways
of catching up. Otherwise we also want to get educated like on Navajo
and Native America too on some of the intricacies of the Farm Bill, some
of the programs that are found within the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. We need more personnel out there to relate to us. We have
110 townships on Navajo land. We do have a membership of over 300,000.
We have land, about 25,000 square miles. So it\'s a big chunk of land,
and they never could educate my people. We need people out there to make
appearances at the agency council meetings, township town hall meetings.
We want to invite you to \-- lastly, I want to invite you to make a
visit to Navajo Country, Navajo land, and if you could do that we\'d
really appreciate it, and we could continue our dialogue at that point.
Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. (Applause.)\
\
MR. JUAN MARINEZ (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary, Juan Marinez (sp)
from the state of Michigan. We\'re not used to this sunny weather. We
had a lot of overcast. So excuse all the perspiration. (Laughter.)\
\
I\'m attending the First National Conference of Latino Farmers and
Ranchers. I\'m located at Michigan State University with the extension
service, and doing research in particularly with the new emerging
farmers in Michigan. We rank tenth in the United States. And they\'re
not coming out of the traditional places like we\'ve traditionally
heard. We will hear a lot of that today. But the largest growth rates of
the new farmers are coming from new immigrant farmers, predominantly
Mexicans. And the next big wave is farm workers. I always like to use
the equation it\'s the \-- you know, being the cook at the deli with the
wish of always wanting to own your farm. And when we look at growth
rates across the nation, these two categories are the two categories
that are increasingly going to be in the future producing the food of
our country and of the world. And when we reflect at the old Farm Bill
and when we look at the language of the new Farm Bill, we need to have
specific language that incorporates these emerging markets here in the
United States. And right now at the present time immigrants and farm
workers and any farmer programs are not categorized. So therefore you
cannot qualify your training if you had previous farming experience in
Mexico, to qualify as a beginning farmer here, as well as having 10 or
15 years of experience being a farm worker to qualify you for experience
as a beginning farmer. And so it\'s a really a crucial critical problem
that\'s covering the whole United States. And I\'d like for you to
seriously consider that as you proceed in making the next Farm Bill.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. (Applause.)\
\
SPEAKER: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. I\'m a rancher and farmer. We have
a big operation. We\'re the fourth generation family in Memphis, Texas,
and I\'m 180 miles from Crawford, Texas, where George Bush has a ranch.
He\'s a rancher like I am. We\'re only 180 miles apart. But I think
we\'re close on FSA. And we started operations in 1970s, and until 1980
we kept on going deeper. We were doing real good. Well, come \'85 all of
a sudden \-- (inaudible) \-- looking good, had all our payments up
current and everything, and here comes \'85, and all of a sudden I
can\'t make it. I said, What\'s wrong? He said, Well, it\'s just you
ain\'t got enough cattle.\
\
In 1970, we had 350 mamma cows we bought from FSA \-- me and my brother
and dad got together as farmers. I come out of the service in \'82, Joe
did, and daddy had 300 acres of his own. We started the operation. We
had 15 years in \'85. Uncle \-- (inaudible) \-- was collateral \--
(inaudible) \-- books. We owned 1,020 head, had 12 sections of land. We
lacked ne year and a half paying everything off.\
\
(Inaudible) \-- 18-wheelers coming in \-- (inaudible) \-- cows coming
in. He loads them all up. They kill 7 or 12 mamma cows we have to bury
them \-- calves, bought the next batches \-- cleared off. Later we found
out \-- (inaudible) \-- used our attorney Al Patterson (sp) \-- he\'ll
help you with declaring bankruptcy \-- you\'ll need it \-- (inaudible)
\-- carcass, after they \-- (inaudible) \-- cattle, take a trip, don\'t
worry about it. (Inaudible) \-- stealing from the government. You can\'t
touch anything, can\'t sell anything. It turns out that it \--
(inaudible) \-- I\'m just saying where do you go in line when the
government\'s done wrong to you? (Inaudible.) Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. LUPE GARCIA: Yes, I\'m Lupe Garcia. I\'m here with the outreach \--
I do outreach for the USDA and with the Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers in
Dona Ana County and El Paso County. I\'m also the president of the La
Union Soil and Water Conservation District, and I\'m also the vice
president of the Board of Latino National Farmers and Ranchers. And I\'m
also the president of the Hispanic Farmers and Ranchers of America here
in Las Cruces, and we have farmers throughout the southwest.\
\
But what my main intent is, since I do outreach here for the USDA, is
that we need to motivate our young farmers \-- and I mean all our young
farmers \-- whites and all minorities. We need to shorten the process
that it takes to get the loans approved for beginning farmers,
especially the young ones, so we can motivate them. We need to get
operating loans, farm ownership loans.\
\
I had one young farmer here \-- he\'s also on my board, one of the
boards \-- it took 11 months to get a farm ownership loan. He was lucky
that farm was not sold from under him. This is much too long, and we
need to motivate our farmers. We need to give our youth on the farm,
those ones that are interested in staying on the farm, we need to do
this, and it\'s vital to America, because we don\'t have enough youth
going into agriculture. And I want to see whether you could do this.\
\
Also, we need somebody on your staff in Washington, a program person
that has authority that we can talk to and can answer our questions and
get action done, because too many times they hear us and nothing gets
done. (Applause.) We need to have a person who can account to us, and
account to you, sir, because otherwise we don\'t get nothing done. And
you go out here and we need help out here in the Southwest and
throughout the country. Minority farmers need a lot of help, especially
with the fuel costs the way they are. And these are the key aspects I\'d
like to present. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you. As I said earlier \-- I don\'t know if I\'m the
right guy or not for this - I\'d like to hear everybody\'s comments, but
we do have to keep them to two minutes, so please keep your comments
brief. Thank you.\
\
MR. BILL MCCAMLEY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. My name is Bill McCamley.
And as the chairman of the Dona Ana County Commission, I\'d like to
welcome you to our county, and I thank you very much for coming here to
listen today. I\'m actually here to talk to you about my other hat. I\'m
the executive director of the New Mexico Rural Development Council, and
as you probably know the Rural Development Councils were formed in 1991
under George Bush, Sr., and we provide a very, very needed service to
rural communities. You talked about rural economic development \-- our
organization is doing economic development projects right now in 16 very
small communities around the state. We provide a real needed service in
that we have a clearinghouse for information for rural communities in
terms of how they do their economic development, and also serve to have
strategic goals for rural communities. A lot of times the communities
are small and they want to do this, but they don\'t have the resources,
they don\'t have the personnel, they don\'t have the expertise. And we
help provide that.\
\
You know, doing economic development in urban areas is extremely easy:
you\'ve already got the people, you\'ve got the schools, you\'ve got the
education \-- it\'s already there. Doing economic development in a town
like Artesia or a town like Raton or a town like Lordsburg is rough. And
all I ask is that when the budget comes around you don\'t forget about
the Rural Development Councils that are doing this needed work around
the country. Thank you, sir. (Applause.)\
\
MR. JOEY LAIRD (sp): My name is Joey Laird (sp) from South Texas. I\'m
in South Texas, round San Antonio. I\'m a vice chairman of MAP, Minority
Agriculture Producers. I represent at least 100 producers in our area.
We had to organize because we have the same problem that all these other
gentlemen and ladies have had, reference to program benefits \-- we\'ve
got disaster programs that we need corrected. We\'ve got insurance that
we need corrected. We\'ve got a problem with as you well know our diesel
fuel has gone sky high, close to \$2 a gallon. We had never seen
anything like that before.\
\
Our EQIP program \-- you\'ve got to be very wealthy to be able to have
enough points to be able to qualify for our EQIP program. I don\'t think
that\'s fair. We don\'t have the money to have those points, and that\'s
the reason these people get these points, because they\'ve got the money
to be able to have those resources.\
\
Another you mention, you go to your local USDA personnel, which I
understand. They said, you know, if you need any problems, you go to
your USDA. The problem is USDA local. (Applause.)\
\
MR. MIGUEL SAPASALAN (sp): Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here
today. My name is Miguel Sapasalan (sp). I\'m a small farmer in Taos,
and I conducted my graduate research on the acequia systems. I\'m not
sure if you\'re familiar with the traditional acequia systems in
northern New Mexico. It is one of the oldest kinds of agriculture here.
It came with the Spanish, heavy in Arabic traditions. When the Spanish
came and established the acequia systems, they brought these crop types
from the Old World. At the same time, they brought Mexican settlers, who
in turn brought their crops. And with the Native Americans in the area
and their crop diversity, I argued in my thesis that northern New Mexico
very well could be a cradle of crop diversity for America. And I\'m
concerned now about transgenic crops and how that might contaminate our
native crops, our heirloom varieties. And I urge you, Mr. Secretary, to
\-- with our tax dollars going to this farm bill that we do not support
research or distribution of these transgenic crops, because we are not
sure about the health impacts on our ecosystems, on our children and the
impact to our heirloom varieties, our native varieties of crops. So I
would also urge that we implement conservation programs and keep our
genetic stock pure, so that we can have an adaptable agriculture in
these changing climate times. So that is the comment I bring to you, Mr.
Secretary, that we really look at the root of our agriculture, which is
the seeds, and that we keep those as pure and that we keep the culture
as we can, and keep the cultures that are maintaining those seeds on the
land and doing agriculture, and help them with any land or water issues
they might have with the economic pressures that are removing us from
the land. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. (Applause.)\
\
(MODERATOR GIVES DIRECTIONS.)\
\
MR. ALFONZO ABEYTA: Mr. Secretary, my name is Alfonzo Abeyta. I\'m from
Colorado. And today I\'m going to ask you to \-- the distribution of
farm program benefits is the topic I\'m going to be covering a little
bit. We need to have some kind of clause in our bill that does not give
all the money that\'s appropriated to the farmers to big corporate and
to our part-timers. We need minorities to have some of this money so
that \-- and also to small farmers.\
\
For example, in 2004, there was X amount of dollars appropriated for the
minority farmers. I went to my office, FSA office, and they did not know
anything about it. And I\'m sure that most of these people here didn\'t
even hear about that appropriation of those funds for minority farmers.\
\
Also, in disaster programs, we get left out as minority farmers and
small farmers in disaster programs, mainly because there\'s not enough
money to go around. We need to have a different appropriation so that
all of us will get part of that pie.\
\
And one of the things that I think that we need to also address is
guaranteed loans in this bill. None of our banks don\'t even talk to us
on FSA guaranteed loans. We need to give more incentives to our banks so
that we can get guaranteed loans.\
\
I know that it was discussed that we should have an Hispanic bank. I
don\'t agree with that. All we need is FSA to give incentives to our
local banks. Why should we have to pay 10 percent interest when we have
a loan for 3 percent? So FSA is putting out more money to us that banks
could handle.\
\
I have a couple more things. You know, FSA treats us as farm laborers,
not as farmers.\
\
And one last thing. I would like for the Secretary of State to spend a
little time with us and face some of our needs and some of our
discriminations that have been brought forward by the past FSA
administrators. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. (Applause.)\
\
MR. DON BUSTOS (sp): Mr. Secretary, thank you for honoring us by being
here. My name is Don Bustos (sp). I own a small organic farm in the
Mesilla Valley, three and a half acres. I make my whole entire living
off of farming in those three and a half acres. I employ one full-time
employee, and we use up to six employees throughout the summer as
needed. We depend on farming as a living to subsidize our whole family
and our whole communities. I would like to see in the new Farm Bill,
sir, a small farm title to address limited resource growers in the
United States. It is important that a lot of this big money for
subsidies going to the community, to the commodities, be shifted to
start helping small-scale farmers develop their own rural economic
projects within their own communities.\
\
\
It\'s about time that we start looking in the country to create our
markets instead of going to other foreign countries, which is definitely
needed, but I think more research has to be going to directly create
markets within our own countries. In New Mexico we are number one on
food poverty issues. Our children don\'t know where their next meal is
going to come from. We have the ability to grow our food here, or we
don\'t have the resources to do it. So I would ask for new monies for
markets. I would ask for streamlined \-- not loans, because I don\'t
think loans are good for anybody in northern New Mexico, and
specifically small growers \-- but grants directly for the growers to
help improve their projects. I would like to see my money coming into
the state universities to address the stable agricultural projects
within the local communities, designed for the universities to help them
actually do the work on the ground, sir. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)\
\
SPEAKER: (Spanish not translated.) (Applause.)\
\
MR. JOSE GARCIA: Good morning, Mr. Secretary, my name is Jose Garcia,
and I work for the University of Missouri Extension. You may wonder what
a University of Missouri Extension person does in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. And the reason for me being here is because I\'m attending the
National Hispanic/Latino Farmers Association Conference, the first one.\
\
And you may also wonder you know the National Latino/Hispanic Farmers
Association, where does that come from? And Latino farmers and ranchers
are increasing rapidly in not only the state, but also the whole country
\-- (inaudible) \-- the first conference.\
\
My reason for talking to you today, Mr. Secretary, is because I am the
only person in the extension and in the state of Missouri trying to
provide support, assistance, education and training to minority farmers,
including Latinos, African Americans, Asians. And I think it\'s very
important, given nationally that the trend is increasing as minority
farmers, and to a large extent probably actually are providers of food
in the future is to get more support for those kind of programs in
extension, through USDA, through the CSREES, can provide effective
assistance to the new entry farmers, Asian farmers, Indian farmers,
Latinos and other minority farmers. Thank you very much. (Applause.)\
\
MR. TIRSO MORENO: Mr. Secretary, my name is Tirso Moreno. I am the
general coordinator for the Farm Worker Association of Florida. I wanted
to present to you other issues affecting farm workers. But given the
urgency because of the disaster with the hurricane last night, I wanted
to ask you what kind of a stand the department had to also protect or
support the farm workers who are also affected. Part of agriculture is
to help rebuild their crops. Our people lose their job they\'re not
going to have the resources to support their families.\
\
So we\'ll need you to do something right away over there, and we want to
know from you what you\'re going to do \-- assign funding, assign some
kind of resources to take care of our people in south Florida.\
\
And, also, we need something permanent to protect our people in the Farm
Bill. The farm workers don\'t have much protection. I know we\'ve got
protections for farmers, but farm workers need to be protected also in
the Farm Bill when there are disasters that affect them too. We need
somebody to coordinate the force to protect our people, to support our
people in these kinds of disasters in the future. We need you to assign
us some programs or some kind of support for our people, so they can
survive, because we need the farm workers. Agriculture will not survive
without the millions of farm workers in this country. If you don\'t need
them, but then we don\'t need them. But I know the farmers will need the
farm workers now and in the future, and we need them to stay there. We
need to support them to go through the disasters so they\'ll be there
when the farmers need them to pick the crops. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Let\'s take one last question over here, and
we\'re going to take a very, very short break, folks, to take care of
some things in the background.\
\
MR. TOBY BOSTWICK: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. I\'m Toby Bostwick from
the east side of the state with Ag 50, and also the National Sorghum
Growers. I appreciate you coming through New Mexico.\
\
Today we as farmers face many challenges that past generations did not
face. We have national security concerns involving the contamination of
our food supply; public pressure to develop environmentally-friendly
farming methods; rapidly rising labor, machinery and most of all energy
costs, while consistently getting prices for our commodities that our
grandfather received.\
\
The main problem I feel is our trade \-- increased foreign competition
in U.S. markets, while foreign trade barriers impede our export growth
of U.S. products. Half of our wheat crop goes out of our nation, and
four out of 10 rows of our sorghum crop also is exported.\
\
I wonder, Mr. Secretary, about a U.S. ag economy under a progressively
limited Farm Bill coupled with further liberalization from the Doha
Round in \'07 coming. What I feel we need for future successes on the
2002 bill, nothing should be done to jeopardize our planting
flexibility. The market, not the government, should dictate our planting
sources. We need to keep domestic support within the commodity title and
no less than that is authorized in the \'02 bill. I would like to see
income supports rather than price supports. Currently the direct payment
is non-trade distorting and falls within the WTO obligations. There are
too many profit-takes in our current insurance program that the funds
don\'t become and get to the landowners. I\'d like to see us expand our
NAP insurance programs and other programs offered by the FSA.\
\
In short, Mr. Secretary, the \'07 Farm Bill is more than just a piece of
legislation. It is literally going to be an investment in rural America.
I invested my family and my livelihood in rural America under historic
farm programs. I certainly can\'t afford a reduced Farm Bill. As we and
you, American farmers must have some bit of certainty if we\'re going to
expand this industry. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. I apologize. I saw you standing in line, but
if you would give us a short five-minute intermission to take care of
some things.\
\
(Intermission.)\
\
MODERATOR: All right, thank you for your patience in the intermission,
ladies and gentlemen. At this time I\'d like to reintroduce Secretary
Johanns. We\'re going to begin over here.\
\
SPEAKER: (In Spanish.)\
\
MS. ARI STOMA DINADO (sp): Hello, Mr. Secretary. I am Ari Stoma Dinado
(sp), and I come from a group of Latin farm workers in Washington State.
This is the interpretation for the gentleman.\
\
They found it necessary to form a group of young farmers. They formed a
corporation, and the purpose of this is to survive. They\'re looking for
credits. They\'re looking for credit in order to purchase the necessary
packing equipment that exists and is plentiful in Washington State, and
is still in good condition. What they seek to do is to export to foreign
markets. What\'s being presently done is that the packing is being done
by packing plants that are taking a good share of the profits and giving
them only what\'s left.\
\
He further expressed that these farmers are people who love the land.
They were born there and they will die there, and they are simply
seeking economic improvement so that they can sustain in that lifestyle.
(Applause.)\
\
MR. BLAKE CURTIS: Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. My name is
Blake Curtis. I come from the eastern side of the state, in Clovis. I\'m
a fourth generation New Mexican. We homesteaded here. We\'re still on
the original ranch \-- homesteaded from both sides of the family. My
granddaughter will be the sixth generation New Mexican if she chooses to
stay there.\
\
We have a situation that exists involving CRP. There are three counties
on the eastern side of the state. Those three counties are enrolled at a
35 percent level. As you know, the Farm Bill authorizes 25 percent.
During the first expiration, there will be 150,000 acres that will
become available or come out and hit the market. It won\'t be available
\-- it won\'t be allowed to be considered for reentry into CRP until
well below the 25 percent level \-- 150,000 acres would represent about
a \$4.5 million impact to our area. The cost of this is, number one, the
\$4.5 million. We\'re concerned it will also have a cost on the value of
land. What does that do? It costs bankers in lost collateral and
landowners in their ability to borrow money. Additionally, we\'re
concerned that part of this production area would go idle because people
would idle land in preference to other land that might be more
productive, and it would also encourage wind and water erosion and then
additionally the loss of wildlife habitat.\
\
What\'s the solution? We\'re thinking that you have the authorization in
the existing Farm Bill to extend contracts. If we could have extensions
from three to five years and modifications that would allow maybe for
individuals to graze every other year and reduction of payments by about
30 percent, those offsetting funds could help to offset the cost to the
Department of Ag. And additionally allowing people to graze could offset
the loss of income. We hope you\'ll give this consideration, and
generations of agriculturists of New Mexico will appreciate you. Thank
you, Mr. Secretary.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you for your time.\
\
(Moderator directions.) USDA has provided laptops which allow us an
Internet connection, and we are actually looped up to different
extension services throughout the state, and they have comments that we
would like to stream over the Internet to this forum this morning. So
what I am going to do, if you will take a very short break, we are going
to go to the system now and we are going to any county for their
comments on the Farm Bill over the Internet.\
\
MR. WOODS HOUGHTON: Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming to New Mexico
and thank you for this technology where we did not have to travel to
visit. I\'m Woods Houghton. I\'m a county agricultural agent in Eddy
County. I have four producers who have asked me to voice their
concerns.\
\
One is the next Farm Bill needs to address unintended consequences with
the increased cost of fuel, fertilizer, cost of chemical and water
increases while crop return on investment stays steady or declines, and
this makes it difficult for the producers to stay in production and for
young producers to make payments on their loans. So they feel the next
Farm Bill needs to address that.\
\
The other one is non-programmed crops. Alfalfa is the number one
production crop in New Mexico, and is the number one production crop in
Eddy County. And oftentimes programs are developed for prominent crops
such as corn and has a detrimental effect on the alfalfa market. And so
there needs to be a process in the Farm Bill to mitigate that from
occurring.\
\
The third item was moving USDA offices from small rural towns into
larger regional cities. While this may not be a major loss \-- or seem
like a major loss of one or two jobs, but if you\'re a town of 1,000 or
2,000 people, that would be the same as losing 1,000 jobs if you\'re a
town of 10,000 people. So they\'d like to keep the small rural offices
or make an effort where they regionalize \-- not to larger towns but
regionalize to smaller towns and increase rural development by leasing
offices in small towns where it\'s needed.\
\
The fourth item was technology and reliance on USDA on newer
technologies. While in any county in much of New Mexico we have some
ranches that are still using four- and five-party phone lines, so
they\'re going to have no Internet connection or have no phone. We also
have a few ranches that still do not have electricity. And so the
ability to still work with paper would be appreciated. Thank you again.\
\
MODERATOR: How cool is that, folks? I think that\'s great. We\'ll be
checking in with other counties and other officials from around the
state who couldn\'t make it here today later on. So we\'ll continue with
the forum.\
\
MR. JOSE GUZMAN: My name is Jose Guzman. I come from Washington State. I
grow apples. And when me and my wife signed up for a loan for land, we
buy it, we were very happy with that. My daughters and my family \--
everybody was really happy with that. But today we pay, because we
don\'t get any money back from the warehouses. We love to see something
buy it \-- you guys can help us with that \-- to our warehouse, or get
some money from the budget to be able to pack our own apples for the
next generation. I think that\'s it, and I would like to see that in the
next budget for 2007. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Next.\
\
MR. SYD STRIEBECK (sp): Mr. Secretary, I\'m Syd Striebeck (sp) with the
Ag 50 of Eastern New Mexico, and also want to reiterate it says a lot
about you when you\'re willing to come out here and sit out in the hot
sun in rural New Mexico and listen to what we have to say, and we
certainly appreciate it. (Applause.)\
\
We just want to bring up some points that partly have already been said.
But as we consider the 2007 Farm Bill, we need to make sure that it\'s
innovative and that it has flexibility, because one of the things we
have to do in agriculture is we have to be light on our feet and be
looking for innovative ways to expand the opportunity to keep young
people in agriculture. And just some examples that have been mentioned,
the NAP program and flexibility in crops. We\'ve got nine program crops.
We should have some kind of national pool and some incentive program
both in the USDA and to the citizens and the county committees where we
reward a county committee that brings forth a proposal that\'s really
innovative that is something we can implement in other areas, because
usually problems aren\'t specific to a specific area.\
\
The second thing is education. And we know that that\'s been an
important focus of the USDA, and we just want to encourage you to
continue that. We need to educate the citizens of America in terms of
what agriculture does for them. And then we also need to emphasize
through our community colleges and junior colleges \-- we need to
educate our farmers and our ranchers on some of these programs and on
new innovations, because that\'s something that we could help them
tremendously with.\
\
And the third thing, just to reemphasize, if we want young people to
stay in agriculture and to stay in rural areas, is we have some of our
rural economic development programs \-- there are lots of those that are
great programs, but through education we can educate people on what
opportunities are available out there, so that we can keep the young
people on the farm. Thanks again for being here. (Applause.)\
\
SPEAKER: (Spanish not translated.) (Applause.)\
\
MS. MARISTA SILVA (sp): Mr. Secretary, I\'m Marista Silva (sp), and I\'m
here, unfortunately, to complain against the USDA. In 1982, I requested
a loan. I was faced with many barriers and it was not something I
achieved. I continued with this from \'82 to \'92, and then I finally
gave up. I was not able to buy my ranch. Eventually though I did meet a
person who was willing to sell me the ranch directly. It was with a very
high price, and I\'m paying very high interest rates.\
\
I\'m not sorry that I bought this. I was a rancher in my native land,
Mexico, and now I\'m a rancher here. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. MAX BIST (sp): Mr. Secretary, I\'m Max Bist (sp). I\'m also with Ag
50 of Eastern New Mexico. Our area has a significant region of irrigated
farmland, which is irrigated through a source that you\'re familiar
with, Ogallala Aquifer. In fact, our area contains the extreme
southwestern section of that valuable aquifer.\
\
In terms of water conservation in the Farm Bill, we believe that the
EQIP program has really worked well in our area. However, Mr. Secretary,
we would ask the department maybe consider revamping the CRP or
Conservation Reserve Program as it affects irrigated farmland. It\'s
just not resulted in much sign-up or enrollment in our part of the
state.\
\
And, finally, Mr. Secretary, and I know this issue doesn\'t have to do
at all with the Farm Bill, but our group strongly supports continued
reform and hopefully repeal of the state inheritance taxes. They\'ve
been a drag throughout our state on secession and passing down farms and
ranches to succeeding generations. So we would hope that Congress would
hopefully repeal the state inheritance tax, or alternativly raise \--
substantially raise the exemptions, lower the marginal rates and for
sure keep the step up in basis. And, again, Mr. Secretary, we really
appreciate you being with us, and thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. SIPIDIA (sp): Mr. Secretary, Sipidia (sp) with Dona Ana County
Utilities. Again, I want to thank you for the support and everything
that USDA has done for our projects.\
\
As many of you might not know, USDA assists rural communities in water,
waste water and solid waste projects. We were fortunate this year to be
funded by one of those projects. Dona Ana County has over 35 colonias
communities within our county. There are many, many people out there
without basic facilities. It\'s something that we\'re out there trying
to help them \-- provide for them. The grant funds allow us to do this
at a reasonable rate, and something that they\'re able to live with as
well.\
\
The relationship that we\'ve developed over the years has been
invaluable to us. RUS has made it possible for many residents to provide
simple necessities to their homes \-- bathrooms \-- something many of us
take for granted. These are great people. We\'ve been out there, we work
with them, and right now our project request is \-- (inaudible) \-- as
you know. We want to continue to thank those people funding it, and just
keep that interest alive and knowing that we are out there doing good
things. We\'re protecting the groundwater that\'s below us and one of
our most precious resources. And, by the way, I\'m a graduate of this
university over here. (Inaudible.) Thank you for being here.
(Applause.)\
\
MS. GLOJEAN TODACHEENE: Welcome, Mr. Secretary. My name is Glojean
Todacheene. I\'m the vice president of the Shiprock Chapter, which is
the local government in the northern part of the Navajo Nation. We\'re
in the San Juan River Valley, and recently President Shirley and
Governor Richardson signed the Navajo Nation San Juan River Water Rights
settlement. This is going to go before Congress. If Congress passes it,
then we will be able to have our irrigation canals rehabilitated. We
will also have a water treatment plant built, which will take water to
the Navajo Nation communities in the Gallup area. It\'s call the Navajo
Nation Gallup Water Pipeline. So with your influence we need help with
talking to the congressional leaders. So, Mr. Secretary, you can help us
on that.\
\
The second thing is please continue to provide funding to combat the
noxious and invasive weeds so that \-- especially on the tribal nations
\-- these seeds and what-not flow through the river and these begin to
take over a lot of our native plants.\
\
Third thing, there is a lack of jobs in many of the tribal nations, and
we need student employment. Students who get out of college, are in
college, a lot of times they\'re told they have no experience. So we
need funding for them so that they can work during the summer or during
the school year. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for your time.
(Applause.)\
\
MS. HELEN DUNYON SMILEY (sp): Good morning, my name is Helen Dunyon
Smiley (sp). Secretary Johanns, thank you for giving us the opportunity
to come together and communicate with you one on one.\
\
The concern I\'d like to address this morning pertains to two of the
questions that you gave us to try to participate with you. My first
concern I\'d like to address: Is there any measure being taken to make
sure rural America will be here for the next generation, my
grandchildren? I\'m in the process of seeking farmland around Memphis,
Tennessee to convert into the organic livestock industry. My research
and market analysis shows that market is high in demand in this
industry. Most of the farmland in this region is being sold out to
subdivision developers. Our small farmers are getting out of business,
because they cannot survive.\
\
Another concern is I\'ve been in sales and marketing for 30 years. I
have tapped into a profitable industry that with my experience I can
market into the health-conscious community, Internet sales and world
market in the Memphis area. This vehicle will keep our small farmers
that are left and encourage others to get into farm and ranch. In the
mid-South there is no organic industry there.\
\
Yet to get where I need to be, I need funding resources to buy a local
slaughterhouse and expand it into processed meats. I also need farmland
to keep holding stock that wait for slaughter.\
\
In closing, with this it\'s a definite fact there\'s a growing Muslim
community, Hispanic community and a large Jewish community in the
Memphis area. This is keeping the sheep and goat industry alive today.
My business plan will keep these farmers in business and will grow in
demand.\
\
I am a single Hispanic woman, minority. Can you, sir, direct me to the
state and federal departments that can help me help farmers? I have
recently been to the local rural development. They didn\'t have no
knowledge of minority funding and grants. All they had to offer me was a
B&I loan. And but I can do it in grants. I can go to investors and
conventional loans. But to get started I need help. (Applause.)\
\
MS. PAULA GARCIA: Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here and thank you
for the opportunity to speak with you. And welcome to New Mexico. My
name is Paula Garcia. I am the Director of the New Mexico Acequia
Association. As was mentioned earlier, the acequias are the
community-based irrigation systems that have been in New Mexico for
centuries, and continue to be used in much the same way they were used
several hundred years ago by the initial settlers, and it\'s one of the
riches of New Mexico. And we\'re located throughout the state, but are
mainly concentrated in north-central New Mexico in the areas of Taos,
Mora, Rio Arriba, and San Miguel Counties, which has high percentages of
Hispanic population, but also some of the highest rates of rural
poverty. And it\'s our interest to rebuild and reclaim and recreate our
local food systems. The area that I\'m from, which is Mora County, used
to be known as the bread basket of the Southwest. It produced abundant
crops, abundant goats, and was a very fertile area. Like other areas of
small-scale farming, we\'ve gone through a transition. We aren\'t the
same farmers as we were in the time of our parents and grandparents. And
we want to be farmers. We want to be farmers and ranchers. And there has
to be access to capital for those of us that want to start and continue
our traditions. We want to stay on the land. It\'s very important for
those of us who have generations on the same ranch to stay there and
farm in that same place. We have a very special relationship with the
land. There\'s a spiritual and cultural connection to the places that
we\'re from. We continue to practice our cultural traditions around the
land and the water.\
\
Some of our land and water, some of the most sought-after by real estate
developers and speculators. And so the next Farm Bill ought to create a
greater safety net for those areas that have those tremendous
development pressures. In some parts of New Mexico the land is going for
over \$100,000 an acre. And so there\'s tremendous pressure to keep the
farmland and water rights in place in agriculture, and that could be
strengthened into the next round of the Farm Bill.\
\
Finally, small-scale farmers like ourselves, we need technical
assistance \-- in addition to access to capital \-- technical assistance
in order to access those programs and technical assistance that\'s
geared towards our communities in a way that\'s culturally appropriate
in consideration of our unique cultural approaches to farming our
traditions.\
\
In closing, overall the next Farm Bill has to acknowledge the
small-scale farms are being put \-- (inaudible) \-- needed. And that
would recognize that the next evolution of food and farm policy in this
country would have a stronger emphasis on the small-scale diverse farms.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. (Applause.)\
\
MR. PAUL STOUT: Good morning, Mr. Secretary I am Paul Stout from the
small rural community of Broadview, New Mexico, which is on the far east
side of the state close to the Texas Panhandle. I come before you today
representing two organizations. I serve as the president of the New
Mexico Wheat growers Association, and I also serve as the vice president
of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, which represents the states of New
Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. And I thank you for coming to our state
and hearing our concerns.\
\
As you have heard from many of the people out here, we have a long and
diverse agricultural history dating back before the Spanish colonial
era. I would say that our greatest challenge today is the rising cost of
doing business. We as a nation produce the safest food supply anywhere
in the world. A key component of that cost of doing business is
environmental, and high labor standards along with equipment and energy
costs, and costs to purchase land. We are at a competitive disadvantage
with other nations around the world, particularly Central and South
America, and also nations like China and Australia, where the main
issues relate to currency exchange.\
\
At this time I\'d like to put in a plug for a land-grant institution,
New Mexico State University. For many years the Agriculture Economics
Department has provided cost and return estimates on what it costs to do
business in farming and ranching. It is our intent that this data be
utilized nationally for the benefit of our producers and to educate the
consumer about production agriculture, separating the myths from the
truth \-- one of those myths being that farm programs are nothing but a
windfall profit scheme.\
\
We believe that the determination of budget outlays and payments for
commodity programs, conservation programs and risk management should be
indexed to the true cost of production as provided by these reports not
only from New Mexico but from all of the 50 states of the union. And we
believe that these payments should be tailored for each state or region
to account for differences in climate, crops grown and soil types. The
one-size-fits-all approach does not and will never work. Given our past
disasters in the Western United States or the Eastern United States have
now been affected. We cannot continue to survive as long as the playing
field continues to be unlevel and inequitable. We must establish a
support payment plan that includes as little global competition and
ensures that our producers are able to meet expenses and obtain a profit
while delivering value to consumers. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. LOUISE MAFANG GUTIERREZ: Mr. Secretary, my name is Louise Mafang
Gutierrez (sp), and I come from the great state of Washington \-- not
Washington, D.C. \-- Washington. And I\'m here to speak to you on
several issues regarding the Farm Bill. But first I\'d like you to know
that someone mentioned earlier that \-- I think it was you \-- that
there was a doubling of Latino farmers throughout the United States. But
in Washington State there\'s been a tripling of Latino farmers that are
going into farming. So we are talking about the new generation of
American farmers.\
\
We\'ve seen \-- our CBO has been fortunate that \-- our community-based
organization has been fortunate \-- it\'s called the Center for Latino
Farmers Rural Community Development Resources, and I\'d like you to
recognize all those gentlemen in the front row that are a part of our
delegation, and because of them we are here today and because of them
they are the future of farming in America.\
\
We\'ve been working with the new generation of American farmers. Most of
them are farm workers that have become farm owners. Because of them we
were able to get our program started, and because of USDA we were able
to have an outreach program to reach them. We have identified over 250
farmers in our state that are Latino farmers that are new generation
farmers. What we are doing is helping USDA count and outreach to the
farmers so that they can have access to USDA services. Before they had
never really \-- they had made an attempt, but because of lack of
bilingual and culturally-sensitive staff in these offices they were not
able to access services.\
\
I think we have been fortunate that we had Assistant Secretary Vernon
Parker and Paul Gutierrez and Under Secretary Moseley actually made a
visit and had a small Listening Session in our area. And because of them
we have seen a change in the FSA offices in a very positive way. And I
think that\'s the way it should be. It should be partnerships, because
we are there to help the farmers as USDA is supposed to be helping the
farmers. So we should work in partnerships.\
\
So, related to that, number two, it\'s important that \-- I\'m going to
take a little bit more time \-- we need to have resources, equitable
resources for limited resource and minority farmers. We\'ve had in a lot
of these programs rural development. We don\'t see that in a lot of
these programs. An example is rural development. We don\'t see that
equity there in the services that are provided. We need some cooperative
funds. You had two or three farmers talk about that. Right now
cooperative dollars are given to, in our particular state, to one
organization. They\'ve been getting it for the last 10 years, and
there\'s no opportunity to be able to get cooperative dollars for
cooperatives that are being set up. So we need some grant funds \-- and
someone has talked about it as well \-- to help these growing farmers
set up a cooperative so that they can have those kinds of trainings and
also money to be able to loan as part of this cooperative. We know that
we have banks that are willing to partner with us, if USDA is willing to
provide some resources and say, Okay, we\'ll provide this much money,
we\'ll match it, and that\'s the way it goes.\
\
The other thing is I already talked about diversity in staffing. And I
just want you to know that we\'re talking about people who have a
passion and a love for the land, and that\'s what you\'ve been hearing.
And I think those are the new generation of farmers in the future.
They\'re just like the way the other farmers are: they love the land,
they want to farm, they just want the same opportunities. Thank you.
(Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you. Once again, folks, please keep an eye on the time.
We want to be sure everybody gets the opportunity to speak this morning,
so keep it brief. Thank you.\
\
MS. ROSE GARCIA: I\'m Rose Garcia, and I\'m executive director of Tierra
del Sol Housing Corporation, and I\'ve been with Tierra del Sol for 25
years. It\'s a nonprofit rural housing development organization that
works in southern New Mexico in the colonias with West Texas. We work
very closely with Congressman Bonilla\'s office, Congressman Pearce. And
through the years we\'ve developed over 5,000 units of rural housing,
with much of the resources from your Rural Housing Services Agency, and
locally we know it more as \"rural development.\"\
\
But I\'m here to tell you that I really appreciate the years of
experience that we\'ve had with rural development housing. The staff \--
there\'s so few of them left, because many are retiring or the agency is
being reorganized and offices cut back to urban areas. And I want to
urge you to try to very quickly transition in some new people to
cross-train with those that you have left, and treat the ones you have
left with maybe a little bit more TLC and to keep them there so that
they can pass on their knowledge, the institutional knowledge that we
need in the field.\
\
What I care very much about is the agricultural workers. You heard this
whole day about the farmers and agriculture, et cetera. But the work
force is very important \-- it drives their economy. And the
agricultural workers live a very distressed life in this part of the
country, and I develop housing for farm workers to help stabilize them
the little bit that we can. And I urge you to keep the rural housing
programs with your department rather than they to be reorganized. I know
there\'s been a lot of discussions of national policy to reorganize the
housing into the Department of Commerce, other agencies. But I think
that it\'s worked with your Rural Development Agency. So if it works,
don\'t try to fix it \-- and just maybe support it a little bit more.\
\
But I want to thank you very much for all of the hard work that your
people have done in the many years that I\'ve worked with them. Thank
you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. JOEL SCOTT HOUSE (sp): Good morning, Secretary. I\'d like to welcome
you to New Mexico, and I\'d like to also reemphasize we want to invite
you to Navajo Land. My name is Joel Scott House (sp). I\'m a project
manager. I build schools and youth facilities on the Navajo Nation. And
I think one of the big things \-- we\'re very interested in just the
things that you just recently heard, is the technology of today, the
Internet. We have satellite systems on our nation, all 110 communities.
We want to work to continue to improve that dialogue, and improve the
communication with the USDA and the Navajo Nation in providing the
message out to our farmers about technology and what\'s available and
also how to build our nation.\
\
We need your assistance to have more active participation from your
program by hiring bilingual people that can use the Navajo language to
teach farming to our people, because like our president said we\'re
about 30 years behind. I think we\'re very economics in knowing the
economics of self-sustainability and that\'s really why we want to ask
you to come out and visit with us, talk with us. We can communicate.
With that, we can create a partnership and we can provide a better
service to assist USDA to help its people to become better farmers.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)\
\
MS. NORA BAILEY: Good morning, sir, and welcome to New Mexico. My name
is Nora Bailey, and I am contract administrator in the city of Sunland
Park just south of here. All of the engineering and construction work
right now in the city is on my desk. And I speak to the question about
how do we get rural economic development. And one of the critical
answers is we continue building the infrastructure. The president
mentioned the quality of life in rural communities, and infrastructure
is absolutely critical.\
\
And I believe it\'s Title VI of your Farm Bill, sir, that talks about
rural development, and I have come simply to raise the importance of
that in the whole scheme of things with the Farm Bill.\
\
The city of Sunland Park is very easy to locate on the map. It is a
point on the map where four cultures, three states, two countries meet
in one point, mile marker one and a river runs through it. In 1990 the
per capita was \$3,412. And I had not been in the city very long when I
discovered those numbers, and I went through the Census and there were
only 10 communities in the state with that, and we were one of them. So
we are a very low-income community.\
\
We have benefited from your colonias program, sir. Last year you funded
a treatment plant for us that we finished. You have bought a water
utility for us. And we want you to know we appreciate it, and the
critical nature of continuing your rural development activities in the
state of New Mexico and around the country. And I hope that I\'m
speaking also for other colonias who could not be here.\
\
I want briefly to make the point that the impact of the money that you
spend in colonias communities is greater than it will look on a
spreadsheet when you look at it, and I found that quickly in
street-lighting project that you didn\'t fund, but it was a park \-- and
just the lights brought light \-- it changed those people\'s
communities. I\'m from the Midwest. We think nothing of streetlights. So
what you do in colonias communities makes a very big difference.\
\
I discussed my meeting with the mayor of Sunland Park, and he wanted me
also on his behalf to thank you for coming. And, as I leave, if you
would permit me to just one second \-- I want to read a letter, because
you have outstanding staff who have worked with her. And this was
written to Clyde Hudson, who is your program director in the Las Cruces
office, with whom we have worked, and it reads as follows, sir:\
\
\"Dear Mr. Hudson, We recognize you today, Clyde, because you exemplify
the very best of a special breed. Most people think of federal employees
as strangers in faraway places. You are a federal manager who has chosen
to serve in that most important place, home. Your responsibility then is
to balance federal requirements with the realities that you know to be
true on the home front.\
\
\"In your interaction with Sunland Park, you have brought wisdom and
excellence to bear on both of these arenas. You have done this with the
highest of professional standards. You have cared about the needs of
Sunland Park. Under your leadership, your highly competent staff members
have worked with us so that together we have been able to achieve both
federal and local objectives. You help us, and we thank you. Jesus Ruben
Segura, Mayor.\"\
\
Please continue what you\'re doing. Don\'t let it slip by. Give us more
if you can. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you. Folks, we\'re going to take one more, and we\'ll
take a very short intermission once again, and I\'ll be welcoming Dr.
Gutierrez, and he\'ll be moderating the rest of the show today. So one
last comment before a very short intermission.\
\
MR. GENE LACKEY (sp): Good morning. My name is Gene Lackey (sp). I\'m
the eldest son of a southeast New Mexico cotton farmer. I\'d like to
read a statement prepared by him.\
\
American farmers only want one thing in the development of the 2000 Farm
Bill. We simply want policies that will allow us to make reasonable
profit. If that were accomplished, all six of the forum questions would
automatically be solved.\
\
\"One, profits commensurate with other industries will keep our
brightest and best on the farm.\
\
\"Two, profitable domestic renewable fuel markets will reduce our
dependence on global markets.\
\
\"Three, reasonable profits should eliminate the need for subsidies.\
\
\"Four, with adequate revenue, farmers are great conservationists and
environmentalists.\
\
\"Five, renewable fuel plans in related industries would revitalize
rural America.\
\
\"Six, profit is the driving machine for product development, marketing
and research related issues.\
\
\"Presently we are at an historical point in U.S. agriculture. Our
country needs relief from foreign fuel dominance, while U.S. producers
need relief from unfair global commodity markets. USDA farm policy, led
by you, Mr. Secretary, can solve both problems simultaneously. For the
policy to work, it must be voluntary, and it must be profitable. Most
producers are very satisfied with the 2002 Farm Bill. Even for the lack
of a better alternative, we\'d like to stay with a similar bill in 2007.
However, the 2007 bill should offer producers two options.\
\
\"Option one would mimic the 2002 bill. Option two would eliminate
producer direct subsidies, in return making producers eligible for a new
type of multi-peril crop insurance. This high guarantee insurance
becomes the producer\'s only safety net. The new insurance would use the
same mainframe as the original version, except the coverage now on the
premium subsidies would be dramatically different. Their 80 to 90
percent level APH would be the most highly-subsidized level. APH would
be derived from high production years. Only production for renewable
fuels would qualify producers for option two. The USDA would pay for
these highly-subsidized levels from forgone subsidies. The goal of
option two is to create a renewable fuel commodity that draws acreage
away from surplus commodity costs. Two birds are killed with one stone.
One, U.S. consumers reap the benefits of lower-cost renewable fuels;
two, reduced acreage of standard commodity costs provides better price
opportunities in domestic markets. Right down to the USDA will create a
very healthy ag economy, as well as a very healthy consumer economy.\
\
\"Respectfully submitted, Wilbur Lackey (sp).\" Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you, sir.\
\
Now, ladies and gentlemen, once again it personally has been a real
pleasure to be up here. I\'m going to share the stage with Dr. Gutierrez
when we come back after this short intermission. Once again, thanks so
much to Mr. Chapman and Secretary Johanns for having me here this
morning. And I\'m going to stick around for the rest of the session.
It\'s been really cool, and I don\'t know \-- I\'m only 21 years old,
and I get to do a lot of cool stuff in this town, but to be a part of
the agricultural community growing up and seeing people from all over
the state and all over the country come here today has really given me a
boost in confidence personally in our system. So from me too, thank you
very much for having me here this morning. (Applause.)\
\
We\'ll be right back after a short intermission. Thank you.\
\
(Intermission.)\
\
DR. PAUL GUTIERREZ: Let\'s go ahead and get started here. Again, my name
is Dr. Paul Gutierrez. I\'m with New Mexico State University Cooperative
Extension, and we\'re going to try to move right along here. If you
count the people still standing in line and the time we have left, we
need to really concentrate on staying on time.\
\
So I\'m going to honor the time limit of two minutes, and so if I
interrupt you, don\'t take it personally, but we\'ve got to start
moving.\
\
But I would like to thank Calabreas (sp), their producers, Ag 50 Clovis
and NMSU for running water here on this warm afternoon \-- morning, I
should say \-- it\'s going to be a warm afternoon.\
\
So, without any further ado, where did we leave off? Over here, this
gentleman. Yes, sir?\
\
MR. RICK COURTNEY: Mr. Secretary, I\'m here today through invitation by
Carmen Lopez of your Albuquerque USDA office, and I\'m standing before
you today at the invitation of Susan Pelsey (sp) of your Las Cruces USDA
office.\
\
My name is Rick Courtney. I\'m the executive director for the Truth or
Consequences Housing Authority. I come before you today to speak to you
about the concerns of the preservation of low-income multi-family
housing.\
\
Fortunately, rural development has done a comprehensive study on the
potential train wreck that\'s fixing to happen in multi-family housing.
And I\'m here to just ask you to encourage the New Mexico office to
embrace those issues and see if we can move forward in dealing with the
backlog on the rehab needs for multi-family housing. Thank you.\
\
MR. RAY KASCUN (sp): Roy Kascun (sp), New Mexico. I\'m a first-time
farmer/rancher, and according to the USDA socially disadvantaged. But my
problems are no different than a lot of people\'s regarding the FSA. My
belief is that you have a very serious attitude problem in most of your
bureaucratic personnel. They are on a power trip and do no want to
follow the code of federal regulations, do not wish to implement the
decisions in the National Appeals Division, ignore the Freedom of
Information Act and the Privacy Act, and I think you need to look into
it, sir. Thank you.\
\
MR. KEITH BIGAY (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary. My name is Keith
Bigay (sp) from the Navajo Nation and also Lynette Lan (sp) also from
the Navajo Nation, and we\'re going to occupy the same two minutes. And
we\'re both with the Navajo Nation Land Use Planning Communities. And
the Navajo Nation has been very fortunate under the very able leadership
of the Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., and the 20th Council of
the Navajo Nation Council. There are laws for all communities to do land
use planning. And over the many years that the Navajo have existed on
the reservation, no government has allowed the communities to do the
best land use options or long-term 50 years or 100 years. And we were
very fortunate that we were able to help communities plan. And only in
the last five years we came across the fact that it takes very
professional expertise to do land use planning. There are 110
communities who have that expertise, and we\'d like to ask you, sir, Mr.
Secretary, if you can allow some of your programs, one of your programs
at the USDA to work with the Navajo Nation regarding land use planning.
And we have been working with the New Mexico USDA and Arizona USDA
during the last few years, making some very good progress to expand some
of those sources. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. LYNETTE LAN (sp): He occupied the two minutes. I\'m going to say
very briefly in one sense we do need \-- our reservation \-- our Navajo
Nation is the size of West Virginia and we have little to no services
from USDA, and we want to see grandmothers, our families, our children
get some services out there. We need your help. We have been getting
help. And we\'re very thankful for Vernon Parker, for Annabelle Romero
and everybody to come out and see the Navajo Nation. But we still need
to continue that relationship. We want your help. Secretary Johanns,
thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. LIGHTHEART FILETA (sp): Secretary Johanns, thank you for being here
today. My name is Lightheart Fileta (sp), and I work with the New Mexico
State University Cooperative Extension Service. In this position I
direct the Food Stamp, Nutrition Education and expanded Food and
Nutrition Education programs, both of which are funded through the Farm
Bill. And I do appreciate the fact that you\'re going to have a forum
specifically for those programs.\
\
But I did want to express how important these programs are in New Mexico
and in the nation in providing both families and communities with very
practical education to make healthy food choices and to better feed
their families.\
\
So we in New Mexico, we rank number one in food insecurity and number
three in hunger. So these assistance programs do make the difference in
many families in New Mexico between going hungry or being able to feed
their families.\
\
Further nutrition education that we provide in these programs to youth
and families is particularly critical right now in helping stem the tide
of obesity and ultimately control health care costs. Research has shown
that for every dollar spent on programs like FNET, \$10 are saved in
health care costs.\
\
And, lastly, I would like to express my appreciation that nutrition
education and food assistance programs are a part of USDA. My background
is actually agriculture, although now I work with nutrition, and to me
it\'s a circle. Nutrition or eating is the end point of agriculture.\
\
Currently every county in New Mexico has food stamp nutrition education
or the FNET program in addition to the Navajo Nation and the Zuni Tribe.
And we just would like to express our appreciation for funding in the
past, and we would like for you to ensure that this funding continues.
Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. NOR GOOD, SR. (sp): Good morning, Mr. Johanns. My name is Nor Good,
Sr. (sp), and I come from a nation where the unemployment rate is
between 50 and 70 percent annually and regularly. The poverty rate is 10
times the national average. The per capital income is three to five
times lower than the lowest rate of any community in mainstream America;
where the cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes rates will be considered in
economic proportions in any other American community besides mine; where
62 percent of the population is between the ages of 0 and 18, where 60
percent of all students entering grade 9 can expect to drop out before
finishing grade 12; and where 100 percent of the resident population
have been taxed either directly or indirectly by a loved one afflicted
with alcoholism, drug abuse or suicide; where the principal source of
income for individuals, families, and the community and the government
was derived through agricultural production; where 80 to 90 percent of
the developed agricultural resource within our nation are at least now
Caucasian farmers or ranchers; where just recently a program funded by
USDA\'s Farm Services is finally gaining momentum and actually providing
community members with a hand up versus a hand out. This program,
entitled the National FSA American Community Outreach initiative already
established a solid reputation of reaching those who have never really
had this. This is an issue that is quite frankly empowering the
powerless to dream the American dream.\
\
You see, Mr. Secretary, my home is the Great Chippewa Cree Nation, and
we\'re located on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in North Central
Montana, and I\'m a chief operating officer for the National Tribal
Involvement Association, who has had the privilege of administering this
program over the past three and a half years. In that time, we have
assisted in placing over \$8 million in FSA loans to over 200 American
Indian farmers, ranchers and youth to tribes located in the Lower 48
States.\
\
MODERATOR: You\'re going to have to wrap up.\
\
MR. GOOD (sp): Mr. Secretary, I offer you a solution, and that solution
is this program funded by FSA but in danger of being deleted from their
programs because of budget cuts. This program can be replicated across
minority lines to the Hispanic community, which is why I\'m here, to the
African American community and to the Asian community. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary. (Applause.)\
\
MODERATOR: Again, emphasizing time \-- there\'s still a long line for
two minutes \-- you may not get through this. So I encourage you to not
even take the two minutes if you don\'t need them. Just make the point
to the Secretary.\
\
MR. EDGAR CODY (sp): Hello, Mr. Secretary, my is Edgar Cody (sp). And
I\'m from the \-- (inaudible) \-- from the Navajo Nation, and I would
like to restate President Shirley\'s call for more representation on
Navajo from USDA, greater access to programs of assistance, education
and technical assistance, development of infrastructure, e.g., roads, on
the Navajo Nation \-- all of these items can be categorized under an
Indian title of the Farm Bill.\
\
Second, I want to say it is misleading in the least to characterize the
rest of the world as potential consumers. In areas of the rest of the
world, our farmers \-- the true economic opportunity for farmers here is
their own domestic market, the economic buying power of the Central
American countries and Dominican Republic that are part of the CAFTA
agreement is equivalent to the state of Connecticut. Why not allow small
farmers more access to Connecticut\'s markets, as well as the rest of
the United States. What is needed is caps on the subsidies that benefit
the largest and most vertically integrated farms. Thirty-eight percent
of U.S. subsidies goes to 50 percent of U.S. producers. Only six farms
in New Mexico receive subsidies over \$250,000 in 2003, according to the
Environmental Working Group \-- or from them. Farmers around the world
are suffering from the price commodity prices caused by subsidies to
large farms.\
\
In closing, all I have to say is just focus more on development for
small farmers\' access to domestic market to ensure economic life rather
than seeking out mystical foreign markets. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. SHARON LOMBARDI: Good morning, Mr. Secretary, it is a pleasure to
have you here today. My name is Sharon Lombardi. I\'m executive director
of Dairy Producers of New Mexico. The Dairy Producers of New Mexico is a
grass-roots association for our New Mexico and West Texas dairy farmers.
As you probably know, New Mexico is seventh in the nation in milk
production, first in the nation herd size. We\'re often soley-owned and
operated. Dairy Producers of New Mexico actively involves itself with
public policy. So I\'m going to make sure you understand exactly where
we\'re coming from. So I will tell you what we support and what we
oppose.\
\
We believe the 2007 Farm Bill has the ability to help the entire dairy
industry by being a truly national Farm Bill and not a fragmented one.
For instance, the milk income loss contract program does not help all
producers equally. Dairy Producers of New Mexico opposes any form of
direct payments from the government based upon production. Such payments
distort the market, reduce milk prices and waste tax dollars.\
\
The Dairy Producers of New Mexico also opposes forward contracting milk.
DPNM believes that this program overrides USDA\'s administrative
rule-making authority. However, DPNM would not oppose any program that
allows a producer and a handler to agree to establish a cash price for
some or all of the producer\'s milk for a period not to exceed one year
or longer as nonfat milk is used in class I, and none of that milk
participates in the uniform pricing or producers price differential of
the order.\
\
The Dairy Producers of New Mexico opposes any form of daily compact.
DPNM believes that we rely on the ready market of milk throughout the
various states. We believe in an open and free market of milk, and we do
not support the creation of state compacts.\
\
MODERATOR: Sharon, you\'re red.\
\
MS. LOMBARDI: Thank you, Dr. Gutierrez. We also support the federal milk
market orders and biofuels, and we\'re here to assist you in any way,
shape or form, Mr. Secretary. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. PAT WOODS: Mr. Secretary, my name is Pat Woods. I\'m from Eastern
New Mexico with the Ag Committee of 50 also. I\'m also a county Farm
Bill president and Secretary-treasurer of Farmers Electric Co-op. I have
three concerns, one being I\'m a big-time producer compared to the rest
of these people. I farm about eight thousand acres and run about 1,500
head of cattle. The big direct payments that I get from agriculture is
\$8.00 an acre, sir. That\'s not enough to farm any land to speak of, if
you know anything about the cost of fuel.\
\
My other concern is about food safety. As you know, the time just before
Christmas wrecked our beef market for a period of time. I would like to
see this food that\'s imported across the borders inspected \-- 100
percent inspection \-- make those importers pay that inspection. It
doesn\'t have to be a cost to the USDA.\
\
And my third concern in the U.S. is the fact that we\'re having troubles
with rail lines coming down from the north to the south carrying 100 car
coal \-- low sulfur coal \-- and also our Corn Belt corn \-- 100 car
Corn Belt corn coming in to feed our cattle. We have some major problems
with those railroad lines, and that sounds crazy to talk about in the
Farm Forum.\
\
And, sir, I want to thank you very much for your support with the Beef
Check Off. Thank you for the great thing that happened there.
(Applause.)\
\
MR. MARK MARLEY: Mr. Secretary, my name is Mark Marley. I\'m a sheep and
cattleman from Myers, New Mexico. In fact, this morning when you got
that acre of New Mexico sun, sir, you didn\'t realize it was going to be
quite such a warm acre. (Laughter.)\
\
I came today representing the American Wool Council and the sheep
industry of the United States. There are some 67,000 sheep producers \--
families raising lamb and wool covering the entire United States. We
raise lamb and wool throughout. Some of it we have been very \-- our
industry has been in decline, and for the first time 2004 marked an
increase in sheep numbers in the United States. And part of that is a
direct result of some of the farm programs and some of the USDA programs
that it\'s initiated, and we want to ask you to continue as you look for
the Farm Bill, to reauthorize the wool loan program, but put it at \--
authorize it at the best rate \$1.20, as the industry and research has
indicated was the appropriate level, not at the \$1.00 that legislation
had in the 2002 Farm Bill, at the dollar level that had a cost score of
\$20 million when in reality over the last three years that cost has not
exceeded \$8 million in any one of those three years. So we feel like
\$1.20 is more appropriate and will be in line with what the actual cost
estimates should be.\
\
On the other programs that the USDA has had that we would like to see
them considered in the Farm Bill this time is realignment retention
program. I think that is the single biggest reason that you saw sheep
numbers increase in 2004 was a direct result of that sheep industry
realignment retention program. Those are the two main issues, and also
risk management for the sheep industry. It\'s something that you\'ve
been asked about and has been declined, but the sheep industry is
looking at creating solutions for itself. And I want to thank you.
(Applause.)\
\
MR. LARRY SPOMAYIS (sp): Hello, my name is Larry Spomayis (sp), and I\'m
from 70 miles east of Lubbock, Texas, and actually I\'m from Dickens
County nonetheless not a minority farmer left in that county.\
\
And the reason I\'m here is that back in \'81, \'82, \'83, my dad had
4,000 acres and he went to FSA, got a loan, but the loan was always late
\-- six months later they would give us this loan \-- I mean, they\'d
tell you where to get it. So they go into bankruptcy, at no fault of my
dad\'s. And at that time they leased seven tracts, and FSA told my dad
if they were there to lease \-- that those tracts were used to keep \--
(inaudible) \-- didn\'t want them. So I took over and I paid for them. I
paid over \$500,000 over 15 years. And then they come back in 2000 and
reinstated \-- said, Oh, by the way, we want those tracts back. And I
was reading the code. (Inaudible) \-- it\'s in that FSA handbook. It
says that when a compliant has been filed all adverse action must be
stopped \-- foreclosing, liquidation, all of that. Well, while this is
pending, the FSA still came and sold some of my best parts of land. In
that time I made my living \-- only had seven tracts \-- (inaudible) \--
recommendation to the Secretary in the Farm Bill \--\
\
MODERATOR: Your time is \--\
\
MR. SPOMAYIS (sp): Okay. Well, he needs to do something about it. I want
him to check, and I want those four tracts back because it is in the
civil lawsuit, and I\'m \-- (inaudible) \-- want them back or I will \--
(inaudible) \-- FSA and the government, because you know it\'s \-- I
paid a lot of money and I\'m not going to sit back, and you know half a
million dollars is a lot of money for me, and I\'m not just going to
give it away. They gave it \-- it was released \-- and then they came
back.\
\
MODERATOR: As the Secretary said earlier when he opened this session
this morning, there are specialists here from USDA that I would
encourage you to speak directly to regarding this issue.\
\
MR. SPOMAYIS (sp): I just don\'t know what they\'re doing there.\
\
SPEAKER: Buenos dias, Mr. Secretary. I had the honor to meet you earlier
this year in Washington, D.C. during our roundtable meeting organized by
the Rural Coalition, and I thank you for your willingness to listen.\
\
It\'s very important, Mr. Secretary, that any new Farm Bill or any new
farm policy include all elements that are part of agriculture for
agriculture workers. And these are questions of justice. As you know,
Mr. Secretary, from 1942 to 1964 farming and Mexicans came to this
country to work on the Braseros program to produce \-- (inaudible) \--
America to win the war.\
\
(Inaudible) \-- in the region, in southern New Mexico region and out to
west Texas a labor force that works every day producing the food that
helps us live in the very prosperous communities. In this region the
labor force is about 5,000 to 12,000 agricultural workers. They provide
a very important benefit for our economy, especially for the border
economy. But they don\'t benefit from their labor. They receive low
wages, work in dangerous working conditions and suffer all types of
abuses. And I can talk all day about the suffering of farm workers, but
let me call your attention to one very important problem: unemployment
in the fields is growing. Today, as a result of NAFTA, more and more
farm workers are working less or are even unable to work at all. In
order to be competitive, NAFTA has forced agricultural employers,
especially large agribusiness, either to move their production south of
the border or to mechanize production and introduce more technology to
make the \-- (inaudible) \-- cheaper. Fewer workers \--\
\
MODERATOR: Make your recommendation.\
\
SPEAKER: Yes, few workers produce more than 10 years go. The
mechanization in agriculture is a serious problem for farm workers, a
serious threat for farm workers. So today I\'m here to request that you
help us deal with this serious problem. Our recommendation is that we
would like to make \-- we would like to be able to engage in a dialogue
with small farmers, especially with Hispanic farmers of the region,
under the auspices of your department. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. JOE BENICE (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary. My name is Joe Benice
(ph). I\'m \-- (inaudible) \-- work as a resource director for the
nation. And what I\'m concerned about is called extension reservation
program. And what that does is it concerns the same capacity as the
extension program services that are provided throughout the state. But
these programs are established on reservations, and within the state of
New Mexico there\'s only two \-- but for the Western United States
there\'s only 26 \-- and that\'s a component of the Farm Bill, to my
understanding.\
\
What we\'re doing here in the state of New Mexico is we formed a small
task force in collaboration with the New Mexico State University to
address that issue. So if there is any way that you can throw us some
support for that kind of concept to enhance the education process for
Native Americans, they would sure appreciate that.\
\
And the other side of the coin is some of these resource programs that
we have been working with as a nation, we would like to see you keep
that on as a line item, and although there are budget cuts, there\'s
some way to enhance the line item. Thank you very much. (Applause.)\
\
MS. IRENE GALVAN: My name is Irene Galvan. I represent the city of
Lordsburg. We\'d like to thank you for your support in awarding our
community with an RUS grant. We have been fortunate in receiving funds
to construct a new waste water facility, and now a grant to improve and
reduce the high fluoride levels in our water system.\
\
We are fortunate to have help and support of the Las Cruces office,
Sandra Alarcon and Clyde Hudson, in providing technical support and
opportunity and avenues to assist our community in providing a better
quality of life for our children, who represent the future generation.\
\
We urge and encourage you to continue funding the rural communities to
improve our infrastructure. (Applause.)\
\
ACHINA ZONG (sp): Hi, Mr. Secretary, it is an honor and a privilege to
be in front of you, to talk with you. Thank you for the opportunity. My
name is Achina Zong (sp). I am the executive director for the New
American Farming Association in Portland, Oregon, and a member of the
National Hmong American Farmers. Hmong farmers have many challenges that
face them on a daily basis. For instance, lack of land \-- and many of
them do not own land, rather lease land year to year, because they
cannot afford to purchase. This creates a lot of uncertainties for their
futures, as well as other farmers.\
\
The other thing is there\'s a lack of markets to sell their Asian
specialty crops. Many grow Asian specialty crops, because they can use
them for home consumption in case they cannot be sold. And also there is
a lack of finance. A lot of them do not qualify for traditional credits,
so they use the short-term finance, which is money borrowed one year and
paid back.\
\
We ask that you consider these and other programs that can help keep
small farmers like Hmong farmers and allow them to farm into the future
for the younger generation. And let the Farm Bill be a bill that will
improve the lives of other farmers and ranchers. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
RUDOLFO MARTINEZ (sp): Mr. Secretary, Rudolfo Martinez (sp), mayor from
city of \-- (inaudible) \-- I\'d like to speak on behalf of the colonias
program, a program that is very crucial for the rural communities of
Southwest New Mexico. And I\'d like to take the opportunity to commend
your staff here at the local level, Mr. Clyde Hudson, Sandra Alarcon,
Slyvia Sauceda. They have done a tremendous job not only for my
community but for every other community in this area. We have been
afforded the opportunity to receive funding for waste water treatment
plant, improvements of our antiquated infrastructure. Again, I strongly
urge you to continue supporting the colonias program, as well as having
the mechanism to support our farmers and ranchers of not only New Mexico
but the surrounding states. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. SAM ZUNA (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary. It\'s an honor to be
here with you. I want to thank you for listening to us. My name is Sam
Zuna (sp). I\'m from Cochiti Pueblo, where I do farming on my
reservation. I\'m also serving as the director of the New Mexico Travel
Extension Task Force, and am an employee of New Mexico State University,
and I want to thank the university for taking the leadership to help us
improve extension services on the reservation.\
\
New Mexico is home to over 150,000 Indian people, and there\'s 22 tribal
nations here. And you heard President Shirley, Joe Muniz (sp) from
Jicarilla \-- many of these individuals serve on our task force. And in
2002 USDA did a count of Indian farmers and ranchers in New Mexico. Only
401 farmers were identified as Indian farmers on reservations. We know
that\'s not true, because we come from a long tradition of being farmers
and ranchers here in New Mexico. So New Mexico State took the lead to
establish this task force, and we\'ve started some 4-H intercartra (sp)
programs. Joe mentioned the Indian reservation programs \-- there\'s
only two \-- one in Zuni Pueblo and one on the Jicarilla Reservation \--
more than 20 tribes do not have Indian reservation programs, extension
reservation programs. So we ask you for your support. We ask that all 22
tribes on board supporting our initiative and all of our three tribal
college land-grant institutions are also on board, and we\'re doing some
wonderful work collaborating with many of the extension programs here in
the state. Thank you so much for our support. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. KAREN COWEN: Mr. Secretary, my name is Karen Cowen. I\'m here today
on behalf of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, with members in
all 33 of our state\'s counties. We appreciate you coming today. But the
six questions you gave us can\'t be discussed in two minutes let alone
and probably can\'t be done in two years. So I\'m going to try to
briefly cover some things, and I have a written statement for you.\
\
Americans have lost their competitive edge in the world market largely
because of other federal mandates, and somehow we need to take account
of that in our farm policy. Telling farmers and ranchers today that they
must be more competitive to do better is simply not going to do it
anymore when there\'s only 2 percent of us left, and we\'ve about farmed
ourselves or ranched ourselves out of business, because we have become
efficient.\
\
We have been the bargaining chip for world trade agreements. When you
can deliver live cattle to Houston, Texas from Australia cheaper than
you can produce them in New Mexico, something is vastly wrong with our
system, and we need to look at it. In the last Farm Bill we saw a shift
in commodity programs to conservation. I\'m here to tell you the best
conservation is to keep our farmers and ranchers on the ground and to
assist them. Giving money to non-governmental organizations to erode
private property rights is going to do nothing but drive the kids to
town \-- and in a really big hurry.\
\
Protection of open space comes from a healthy agricultural economy where
people are paid for what they produce, not what they don\'t produce. We
need to go back and educate the public on who\'s really being subsidized
here as we look at our farm policy, and we\'ve all failed in that
degree.\
\
On a more positive note, we appreciate that federal lands were included
in the EQIP program in Arizona and New Mexico in the last couple of
years. A lot of Farm Bill programs are one-size-fits-all, and in the
Western states where we have checker boarded and commingled lands those
programs don\'t work because we have very little private land tied to
state land and federal land, and we\'ve got to be able to address the
ranching unit as a whole.\
\
We appreciate you being here today. We look forward to working with you
and creating a Farm Bill that will save New Mexico\'s farmers and
ranchers. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. MAURICE KEANE: Good morning. My name is Maurice Keane. Thank you for
holding the forum. I\'m the president and CEO of Southwest Cheese,
obviously not a native New Mexican, but have led a fantastic life here,
and I would like to thank all my people in New Mexico for welcoming in
\-- originally from Ireland. We have an exciting new venture in Clovis,
New Mexico, which is in the news today, with the air force base. And
Southwest Cheese has a new dairy plant in Clovis. It\'s a pretty unique
one. It\'s a partnership between Glanbia, an international food company
which is in Idaho, and all of these local farmers represented by Dairy
Farmers of America \-- (inaudible) \-- It will produce when it\'s open
and running fully, consume about 7 million pounds of milk a day, produce
about 250 million pounds of cheese and 16 million pounds of whey. And in
that way we\'re talking about \$300 million every year to local
community \-- farmers, employees and suppliers.\
\
I\'d like to make four points today I think in relations to the dairy
industry. One, as somebody who is not from here but who is now very much
living here with my wife and family, I see an efficient industry that
can compete globally. We will circulate globally from this business. So
therefore I think one challenge of this is to simplify regulations,
bureaucracy, and this has got the industry focused on the market, too
much bureaucracy has to focus on the schemes and regulations rather than
to focus on the market, and that\'s the first piece.\
\
The second piece, an example of that, is of course the federal milk
order, and it just needs to be simplified. Again, it\'s excessively
complex. In general probably the free market should be allowed to
operate and have less government involvement, particularly in the ag
industry I think it\'s important.\
\
And finally, just as an example, farm surplus cheese, we will export our
product to Asia, to South America and it\'s important that we will
export this free of subsidy and onto the free market. It\'s important
that we don\'t get impeded by any tariffs that those countries might put
in front of us in retaliation to any of the TRQ tariffs that the U.S.
might consider on NPC or similar tariffs. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)\
\
MS. DEBBIE HUGHES: Mr. Secretary, my name is Debbie Hughes. I\'m the
executive director of the New Mexico Association of conservation
Districts. I work with the 47 Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
First of all, I\'d like to thank you for coming here. And I also want to
let you know that we have a great working relationship with the USDA
agencies here in New Mexico \-- NRCS, FSA, Rural Development \-- not
only the folks here today, but all over the state they\'re doing a great
job.\
\
One of the things I want to let you know is the Technical Service
Provider Program is working great here in New Mexico. We have a
contribution agreement. The chief of NRCS worked with us, and we went
and got state funds from our state legislature to contribute to paying
for additional technical staff. What\'s great about it is we are
creating jobs all over the state. We\'re in rural communities for
additional technical support for the Farm Bill. We\'re also keeping our
kids at home, keeping them in New Mexico and giving them jobs. So it\'s
great.\
\
As far as the Farm Bill program, I\'d like to recommend a way that the
EQIP is paid, the payments are made. We\'d like to see the same method
as WIP. Currently the EQIP payments are made on class docket that\'s in
place at the time of the signing. Some of these contracts are 10 years.
And what happens is that means that the cost of doing business in the
practice in most cases increases over that time, but those payments
don\'t increase. We can do this like we did the Great Plains program or
like we\'re doing with the WIP program.\
\
Also, I think it\'d be great \-- we\'ve got seven conservation programs,
if we could combine some of those \-- EQIP, the premiere one is working
great \-- and just like to not have quite so many programs. It\'s a lot
more work for our technical staff and for our producers to have to go in
for different sign-ups and everything.\
\
But, overall, thank you for spending time to get more tan here in our
great state, and really appreciate you being here and thank you for all
you do. Thanks. (Applause.)\
\
MR. JEREMY BARNES (sp): Hello, Mr. Secretary. My name is Jeremy Barnes
(sp). I\'m a young irrigated farmer from a drought-stricken region known
as the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, where our water has been
allowed to be stolen in direct violation of the 1944 treaty. And that\'s
what I\'m here to talk about. I don\'t believe it is fair that we work
so hard to stay out of the pocket of our insurance companies, and
consequently we do not qualify for disaster programs. But due to the
high cost of production, we still cannot cover our costs, whereas dry
land farmers have significantly less production costs and reap the full
benefit of disaster programs.\
\
On a separate note, I might soon need a guarantee from the Farm Service
Agency, and I have no confidence in my local FSA directors for their
willingness or their interest in helping farmers, regardless of age or
ethnicity. This lack of confidence is due to experiences suffered by my
family and others in my area. Thank you for your time. (Applause.)\
\
MR. MARTIN LOPEZ: Mr. Secretary, my name is Martin Lopez, and I
represent the Mesquite Water and Sewer Association just south of town
here. Just a little brief history: We serve roughly about 2,000
customers. The bulk of our customers are colonias residents, but we also
provide service to various delis and farms and other agribusiness in the
area, and we just would like to urge that you continue to fund the
colonias program primarily. The infrastructure there has \-- some of it
resulted back in 1968 when the association began. I\'d like to thank the
staff here locally that we work with \-- Mr. Hudson, Ms. Alarcon, Ms.
Asile (sp), and I would again urge you to support the program. It really
does impact a love of lives. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MS. YOLANDA GIYA (sp): Good morning, Secretary Johanns, and Bienvenidos
to the Land of Enchantment. My name is Yolanda Giya (sp), and I am the
president on the board of directors for Belen Mutual Water Consumers and
Mutual Sewage Water Association, and it was established in 1969. We are
a small rural community, and I am here to ask you to keep supporting Mr.
Clyde Hudson and Sandra and Sylvia for the continued support for us. We
have just recently built a half a million dollar building with your
help, and I would appreciate you just keeping in touch. Thank you.
(Applause.)\
\
MR. MARINO MARTINEZ (sp): I\'d like to welcome you here, Mr. Secretary.
My name is Martino Martinez (sp). I\'m with the Dona Ana Mutual Domestic
Water Consumers Association, and I just want to show that we would like
support for future funding for the colonias, with staff here, local
staff, with Mr. Hudson, Sandra and Sylvia. They\'ve been very helpful in
helping our community obtain this funding. It has affected several
colonias in our service areas. As has been mentioned before, Dona Ana
County has about approximately 30, a little over 35 colonias. Our
service area encompasses three of those colonias. We are working on a
regional project that is going to encompass 8 colonias out of the 35. It
is going to be a regional project, and we are going to be needing future
support. We are working on future water and waste water treatment
facilities for the area, unincorporated area, and it will affect
eventually colonias, affecting about 10,000 population. When we do this
regional project, it\'s going to take in about 20,000 population
residents in the northern end of the county. So I urge you to please
support the colonias funding, and it will be very useful and impact
quite a bit of residents. Thank you. (Applause.)\
\
MR. HARVEY CHATFIELD (sp): I\'m Harvey Chatfield. I\'m a rancher about
75 miles north of here, and I\'m also on the Sierra County FSA Board. I
would just like to express I guess some gratitude for all the FSA
people. If it wasn\'t for them, why, I wouldn\'t be in business today,
and I heard a lot of criticism here this morning, but I\'ve been pretty
lucky in most of my dealings here in Las Cruces, because most likely if
it wasn\'t for them I wouldn\'t be here \-- you know, be where I am
today.\
\
I think I hear that they might discontinue some of the loan programs,
which I think might be a mistake for the young farmers and ranchers
trying to get started out. And one of the things I was thinking about
over this loan program bill \-- see possibly maybe we could put into it
an insurance. When you buy a home you have to insure it and everything,
and if you buy a ranch or farm, maybe there would be some type of
insurance to go along with the payment that you made every year that is
a crop insurance that would \-- against catastrophe, a flood disaster, a
long-term drought or something, would pay your crop pay, if you were
short \-- help pay your annual FSA payments.\
\
And another \-- I\'ll try to cut it as short as I can \-- but number two
I think it\'s probably nothing to do with what you\'ve done, but we\'ve
got NAFTA and CAFTA and SHAFTA and all kind of them good things now and
what you\'re going to have to put up with. And if somebody would tell me
how that we\'re going to compete with countries that have got the per
capita income of a farm worker \-- \$7 to \$15 a day \-- I think that\'s
going to be a bigger challenge than a lot of the \-- other thing, to
create a program that will keep all of us in business.\
\
And on number four, on the conservation environmental things, the NRCS
had a program they called \--\
\
MODERATOR: You need to wrap it up.\
\
MR. CHATFIELD (sp): \-- Grasslands Reserve program, which is for some of
these sensitive areas I think is a great program, that we could put it
in, but it is going to have to have the funding. We have to compete
against the whole Southwest or the whole state or something like that,
and it usually goes to the bigger places. If we could narrow that down
to where each county had a little bit of funding, we would appreciate
it. Thank you, sir. (Applause.)\
\
SPEAKER: Mr. Secretary, you don\'t have that either in Iowa nor D.C. \--
I hope you enjoy it, so thank you for coming. I\'m an irrigated
cotton-corn-vegetable producer from Deming. I\'m also a livestock
producer. I want to make two quick points. One is the unintended
consequences of policy changes concerning rotational crops. Vegetable
farming in this area is a three-year or four-year rotation between
plantings of chili peppers or other vegetables. So cotton and small
grains serve as rotational crops. Lowering the supports on loans will
have an effect on other industries, the vegetable industry. We have a
vegetable packing plant in our community that could suffer from
reductions in the cotton supports as an unintended consequence.\
\
I\'ve also been a county committee member for over five years. In that
time I\'ve seen a drastic decrease in the amount of input the county
committees and the local producers have on the administration of USDA
programs. One exception is, as we mentioned, or heard from other
producers, is the EQIP program works very well, other than the fact that
cost of supplies outruns \-- grow a lot faster than we can put the
systems in, and then we don\'t get paid what we needed to get paid for
it.\
\
The EQIP program utilizes local work groups to make suggestions on how
best to use those technical resources in an area. And the local
producers get to help technicians and technical people figure out how to
best utilize resources. That doesn\'t hold true in the other \--\
\
MODERATOR: You have to wrap up.\
\
SPEAKER: \-- USDA administered policies. One would be the RMA. We\'ve
got green chili crop insurance. There\'s no inputs from the local level,
and we have a policy that doesn\'t help anybody. Thank you.\
\
MR. EDDIE VIGIL: Mr. Secretary, my name is Eddie Vigil. I serve on the
New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts. I also serve on the
National Association of Conservation Districts, representing the
Southwest region, which is Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.\
\
I\'d like to speak to you about the conservation security program, which
is doing very well here in New Mexico. We believe that the program will
provide more equity of payments to ranchers and farmers. The farmers and
ranchers are the true stewards of the land and have been for generations
and generations to come. This funding will help provide these farmers
and ranchers \-- it recognizes the good environmental work that they\'re
doing, and it rewards them for the actions that they\'ve taken to take
care of the land. If they don\'t take care of the land, it\'s not going
to take care of them.\
\
Due to the limited funding this year, some of the producers who were
eligible, but were ranked in the lower categories, were not funded. We
believe this needs to be changed to allow these producers into the
program. It is important to maintain the program as an entitlement
program, and we look forward to working with you on the 2007 Farm Bill.
And, like I said, the conservation districts across the United States
are willing and they want to be there at the table the whole time. Thank
you, Mr. Secretary.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you. We have four more people standing there, so these
are going to be the last four recommendations to the Secretary, and the
Secretary will make a couple of remarks, and then we\'ll probably call
it a day. So, sir?\
\
MR. MANNY CASARA: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. I represent a very small
community in southern Dona Ana County. My name is Manny Casara and I\'m
the president of a board. The water table in this community is about 500
feet. The crops from the residents have to haul water from about 4 or 5
miles away in unsanitary containers comes in the Department of
Agriculture, Mr. Clyde Hudson and Sandra and they help us establish a
small system. And now we are serving about 174 customers, and the
quality of life has come up considerably, and we urge you to continue
with these programs so that you can help other communities in the same
situation to obtain safe drinking water. Thank you so much. (Applause.)\
\
SPEAKERS: Thank you so much. Good morning. Forgive my English. I\'m from
Mexico, from the Franco Democratico Campesino in Chihuahua, Mexico.\
\
NAFTA is rated only from the perspective of the big actors \-- the
agribusiness, the corporations \-- from the perspective from above, from
a fistful of winners on agriculture. You must take into account that
NAFTA, but also the Farm Bill affects not only American agriculture but
also Mexican agriculture, and maybe your government are engaged with
Mexico\'s and Canada\'s governments in an alliance for prosperity and
security. You must have in mind that many times the policies you adopt
here harm badly family farmers in the three countries.\
\
The question is not only about exporting, about free trade; it\'s
basically about the decent way of life for family farmers in the three
countries. In 2008, NAFTA will arrive to its final stage on agriculture.
Corn, beans \-- we have no ties, no barriers to enter into Mexico. This
is going to be completely harmful for three million poor campesinos in
Mexico. They absolutely cannot compete with your corn and bean producers
\-- not only families, but communities are going to be destroyed. You
must recognize that for every 30-ton container of corn you send into
Mexico we send you back more undocumented million people.\
\
MODERATOR: Sir, wrap it up.\
\
SEC. JOHANNS: Great job. How about a round of applause? (Applause.) You
know, it got so warm out here, this microphone is even a little bit
touchy here. So, let me say to each and every one of you how much I
appreciate your participation in this Farm Bill forum. I think this is
now the twelfth one we have done. Every one is a little bit different
and a little bit unique.\
\
I also want to express my appreciation for hanging in there. It is warm,
and it is summer, and it\'s just kind of the nature of the beast if you
will.\
\
Coming from D.C., where I\'ve only lived for six months in my life,
I\'ll tell you something that you\'ve probably heard over and over again
and are probably sick of hearing, and that is take some solace in this.
This is actually dry heat. So \-- (laughter) \-- hot is hot in my
opinion.\
\
But let me offer some thoughts on kind of where this rolls from here.
When we kicked off these forums, a few people said to me, Gosh, it seems
awful early \-- you know, you\'re talking about a Farm Bill that goes
through 2007. Why would you be starting at this point? Well, if you
think about it, it\'s not really that early. We did want to get across
the country. And that takes some time. It\'s a big country out there.
And it especially takes some time if I wanted to be involved in it, just
simply because there\'s one of me and there\'s a lot of states out
there.\
\
So we anticipate that these forums are probably going to take through
the remainder of this year \-- maybe even a forum or two after the first
of the year.\
\
You then start working on a Farm Bill with the House and the Senate in
2006. And somewhere in their schedule you have to start fitting in any
hearings that they want to do. They\'ll probably do field hearings out
in the country, and they\'ll probably do some hearings in Washington \--
also got 10 dozen other things going on in their lives that they have to
fit into that hearing schedule.\
\
So what I\'m saying to you is I would not be at all surprised if the
actual work on the Farm Bill extends through the better part of 2006
,just simply because the schedule tends to work that way. But it does
have to fit in.\
\
Well then we get into 2007. And it\'s my judgment that pretty soon after
the first of the year we need to have a Farm Bill pretty well in place
so the House and Senate can grab a hold of it and hopefully pass it and
then send it on to the president for signature.\
\
The reason why I feel we need to do that is that somewhere in the early
part of 2007 \-- hopefully as soon as possible \-- we send a signal to
the ag community as to what this Farm Bill is going to look like.

Now you heard all of the criticism. Of course we just went through an
election year about the President\'s tax cuts and this and that. Well,
I\'ll share some numbers with you. Those tax cuts for 2004 left \$4
billion in the pockets of farmers and ranchers in the United States, \$4
billion. Those tax cuts will do the same in 2005. And what has happened
to our revenue? The economy has lifted, and our revenue picture is
improving in Washington. We are actually on-goal to cut the federal
deficit in half over the next five years, which is what the President
promised, because we\'re holding the line on spending, but also we\'re
doing everything we can to improve the economy.

Well, my role here is to do everything I can to improve the ag economy
all across the board, every state and hopefully with every producer. And
so that\'s what we\'re trying to do here in terms of the overall
picture.

I made this point at a Farm Bill Forum in Iowa, and I\'ve made it a
number of times since then. Farm policy is about much, much more than
just passing a Farm Bill. It\'s about the Energy Bill where we had a
strong renewable fuel standard put into that Energy Bill. It\'s about
tax policy, it\'s about what this gentleman said here at the mike a
little while ago when he said, "We really need to repeal the Estate
Tax." We agree with that. It is about leveling the playing field in
terms of trade agreements because there are many parts of the world
where we still face very high tariffs to our products that makes it very
difficult to sell those products into that marketplace and be
competitive.

It is about all of those issues and paying attention to that.

Last comment I wanted to offer on trade \-- I did hear a comment about,
You know we feel that agriculture\'s not always been at the table. I
made that point in my Senate confirmation hearing, and I said my goal is
to move agriculture front and center. So I am personally participating
in all of the White House meetings on these trade issues, and I will be
personally participating in the meetings where the actual negotiation
goes on with other countries to make sure that we\'re paying attention
to the agricultural issues.

With that, let me just wrap up here. I\'m seeing it on your face\--
you\'re hoping that Mike wraps this up here pretty quick. I just want to
wrap up and say, Man, it\'s just been a pleasure to be in New Mexico.
The hospitality has been great, what a tremendous Farm Bill Forum, you
all deserve a great round of applause for that. Thank you, God bless
you.

\[Applause.\]