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Release No. 0378.05 Contact: USDA Press Office (202) 720-4623

**Transcript of Illinois Farm Bill Forum With Agriculture Secretary Mike
Johanns and Moderators Cyndi Young of Brownfield Network and Mike Adams
of AgriTalk Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois, on September 1,
2005**

MODERATOR: Well, good afternoon and welcome to the 2005 Farm Progress
Show and this USDA Farm Bill listening session. I am Cyndi Young with
Brownfield, America\'s ag news source. I will be co-moderating this
afternoon with Mike Adams from AgriTalk. And I want to thank all of you
for being here today. I also would like to introduce Dr. Laverle Carlson
(sp). He will be interpreting for the deaf today. So thank you for being
here, Dr. Carlson.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have an opportunity to make a difference today
in voicing your opinion. Thank you all so much for being here. And
without further ado, let\'s move on with the program. I know the
Secretary wants to hear from you. Will you all rise for the presentation
of the colors?

\[Colors are presented.\]

And now with the Pledge of Allegiance, Andy Freeland, 16 years old, from
Harristown; and Sabrina Ferril, 12, from Decatur.

\[Pledge is recited.\]

Please welcome Bethany Koga, 16, and Ashley Caldwell, 16, from Decatur,
for our National Anthem.

\[National Anthem is sung.\]

\[Applause.\]

Let\'s go ahead and get started. That\'s what we\'re here for. And
we\'re going to begin \-- I would like to introduce members of your
Illinois Congressional Delegation. And let\'s start with Congressman Tim
Johnson.

REP. TIM JOHNSON: On behalf of the people of our two legislative
districts as well as the whole agricultural sector, our appreciation for
your joining us here today. Let me apologize in advance after Mr. LaHood
and you and a couple questions \-- I have another commitment here in
Decatur and I\'m going to have to leave a bit early. So I hope everyone
will understand that.

I am a member of the Agriculture Committee. And I know that together
with the leadership of the Secretary and leaders from the appropriations
process like Congressman LaHood that we will be about the business very
soon of the 2007 Farm Bill.

But I\'m here to introduce you, Mr. Secretary. And I know that
Congressman LaHood is going to follow this. I know that you had a number
of years in your tenure as governor of one of the greatest agricultural
states, after Illinois, in the country, in Nebraska; and that you grew
up on a family farm in Iowa; and that you have done an extraordinary job
so far in your tenure as Secretary of Agriculture. We are very, very
proud to have you here in our district, very proud as American citizens,
and people who are particularly concerned with the agricultural sector
to have you as the leader on a national level.

So with those brief comments and looking forward to hearing yours, I
would introduce my senior colleague and my very, very good friend from
the district just north of here \-- actually we almost are on the very
borderline of our district \-- Congressman Ray LaHood.

REP. RAY LAHOOD: Welcome to all of you. Thank you all for being here. I
want to recognize Dr. Gayle Saunders, who is the president of this
outstanding community college. And thank her for her hospitality and the
hospitality of the entire \-- please stand to be recognized. Thank you.

\[Applause.\]

This is one of the finest community colleges in the state, and the
leadership that\'s been shown not only by the board but by the president
in terms of really being a magnet for making the progress show happen in
this community is just outstanding. These listening sessions are very
important. In the 11 years I\'ve been in Congress, I will say that I\'ve
been through two Farm Bills under the leadership of former Congressman
Pat Roberts from Kansas who\'s now a U.S. senator, and former
Congressman Larry Combest of Texas who no longer is in Congress. And
actually Larry and Charlie Stenholm who is from Texas, no longer in
Congress, went on the road before the last Farm Bill was written,
similarly to the way that the Secretary is doing it. But to have the
Secretary, the number one advocate for agriculture and the President\'s
number one team player for agriculture, traveling around the country and
picking this part of the country to come, I think speaks so well of the
fact that he does want to hear from all of you.

And so I look forward to whatever comments you all have on your mind
with respect to a new Farm Bill, a new farm policy. I know this
administration, I know President Bush, having come from Texas, is
committed to making sure we have a good farm policy for our country. And
I know Secretary Johanns is also interested in that too. So Mr.
Secretary, thank you very much for coming to Decatur, and we look
forward to participating in this open session today.

SEC. MIKE JOHANNS: Great. Congressmen, thank you very much to both of
you. Ladies and gentlemen, I think it just speaks volumes that you would
have these two gentlemen here with us to help us kick off this event.
That means they\'re very, very committed. Not only their districts but
the future of ag policy in this country. So I thank you. I was joking
with Congressman LaHood. You have one member here in Congressman Johnson
who is on the Ag Committee, you have another member in Congressman
LaHood. One is on the Ag Committee, one is on the Appropriations
Committee, and that\'s a really good combination. (laughs) A really good
combination.

It is great to be here. Mention was made that I grew up on a farm in
Iowa. I actually grew up on a dairy farm as a matter of fact, and
you\'re probably all sitting there thinking about, well where would that
be in Iowa? And so I don\'t want you thinking about that when we need to
have you talking about some very important issues. So I\'ll start out
and clear up any confusion about where that farm in Iowa was at. It was
in northeast of a community called Osage, Iowa. And I see you\'re still
confused about where Osage is at, so I better clear that up. Osage is
south of Stacyville and St. Ansgar, and it\'s straight east of Manly. So
now you know where Osage is at.

\[Laughter.\]

I joke that my father had three sons. And his idea of building character
in his sons was, you got a pitchfork or a scoop shovel and you went out
to the barn or you went out to the hog house in you-know-what. You stood
ankle-deep in you-know-what, and you just pitched away, and that was his
idea of building character. I been in politics all my life, and little
did he know that he was preparing me for my life in politics.

\[Laughter.\]

Well, it is good to be here. I\'ll also say thank you to Cyndi Young and
Mike Adams our moderators. We really appreciate their participation. The
color guard was great. Beth Koga and Ashley Caldwell, Decatur Lutheran
High School, did the National Anthem, and we appreciate that. Andy
Freeland from Mt. Zion FFA and Sabrina Ferril, Macon County 4-H did the
Pledge of Allegiance. No? Did they? I hope I have the right names there.

But we always have young people at these forums, and the 4-H and the FFA
mean a lot to me because I was in both programs when I was growing up.

Now let me also say thank you to the community college. I love community
colleges. All across this country the community colleges are doing such
great things. My son went to a community college \-- I\'m pleased to
share that with you \-- picked up some courses as did my daughter. She
graduated actually from a four-year school, but she picked up some hours
over at the community college there in Lincoln, Nebraska. And so I know
the President shares that zeal for community colleges. So thank you for
the invitation.

And the Farm Progress Show organizers \-- I just got a glimpse of the
Farm Progress Show, but I would love to go over there and spend a day or
two or three. I know it\'s not possible schedule-wise, but it looked
great. It looked like a great show.

Let me also, if I might, mention a couple of disasters, if you will. One
is of course the hurricane. What an unfortunate, terribly sad situation.
I do want you to know that yesterday the President called his Cabinet
together and just literally said, we need a full court response to this.
We need every federal agency involved to help these people, first to
protect life and limb, get them situated, and then to aid in the
recovery process. USDA will be involved in that; we are already. We\'re
sending Forest Service employees there, got about 700 either there or
headed there. They do just great instant managements. They can get into
the middle of a situation and really get things moving. So we\'re happy
to do that.

But nutrition programs, we do a lot of that at USDA. So we\'ll be ready
to move tons of food into that area, again when we get the signal.

So just a difficult situation. Our thoughts and prayers are with those
folks.

The other item I wanted to mention is the drought that you\'ve
experienced here in Illinois. I certainly am familiar with it. As you
know about a month or so ago I declared really all of Illinois a
disaster area from a drought standpoint. And what that does, it allows
me as the Secretary to make available to those who qualify certain
disaster programs. That might be low-interest loans, it might be tax
benefits that occur, but the first step is that drought process.

I did tour this morning with Speaker Hastert. We went into an area and
looked at some corn and we looked at some soybeans. The corn is about
what you would expect. You know, you peel back the husk on one ear and
there\'s four or five kernels there. You peel back the husk on another
ear and there\'s not really an ear there, never really formed an ear.
And then you peel back another one and maybe you\'ve got an ear and
you\'ve got some kernels on it, but it\'s about two-thirds of what you
would anticipate.

Looks to me like with warm, dry weather ahead of you, which I understand
is in the forecast, that you\'ll probably be out in the fields here
somewhere in the timeline of the last week of September, maybe first
week of October, and at that point we get an idea as to what the yields
look like. And then decisions will be made as to what the next step
would be here. But both terribly unfortunate circumstances.

Now I also wanted to tell you that I\'m out doing these forums because
there\'s a man in Washington that asked me to do them, to get across the
country. And so I\'ve brought greetings today from the President of the
United States, George W. Bush.

\[Playing of video-tape\]

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: "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.

"As we look to improve America\'s farm policy, we will 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 producers. And we
must promote cutting-edge agricultural products and research.

"Finally, we must ensure 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 toward meeting these goals. I
thank you for all you do for our country, and thank you for listening."

\[End of Video-tape.\]

SEC. JOHANNS: There\'s your President. Very good.

Today in the comments we hope that you will think about and focus on six
areas. Now having said that, we don\'t enforce that very strictly. If
you have something on your mind we want to hear about it. But these are
the six areas that are of interest to us as we think about the next Farm
Bill.

Challenges for new farmers. We will start today with an FFA member and a
4-H member. We\'ve done that at every forum. I really feel strongly that
we should be developing farm policy that allows for entry of the next
generation into agriculture. So I like to hear their ideas, and so
we\'ll have a 4-H member, an FFA member. We\'d like your thoughts on
that too.

Competitiveness. How do we compete in a global marketplace? I was citing
statistics in terms of your role here in Illinois relative to the global
marketplace. You are major exporters of farm products, huge exporters.
In fact by all accounts I think you\'re second in the United States in
terms of exports. This market is enormously important to your state, but
it is all across the country.

The third area relates to the farm program benefits. We have quite a
discussion and debate about this. Are we doing the right things in terms
of the distribution of the farm program benefits? In this area we\'ve
heard about everything from payment limitations\-- in Kentucky yesterday
we heard discussion about subsidies and moving that into environmental
approaches. It\'s probably been the area that has brought about the most
discussion as people have come to the microphone really across the
country.

The fourth area is conservation. We are a major investor if you will in
conservation programs at the USDA. What are we doing right? What do you
see that we should do differently?

Rural economic development is also a part of our portfolio. And so
that\'s the fifth area. Do you like what we\'re doing in rural economic
development? What would you like to see done differently?

And then the sixth area is expansion of ag products, which the President
mentioned.

I reference ethanol today. About 12 percent of our corn crop goes into
ethanol; 25 years ago had I come here and done a Farm Bill Forum and
said you know, 12 percent, 13 percent of our corn crop will go into
ethanol I think people would have been mystified, would never have
imagined that was going to be the case. But now it is the case.

The other thing I\'ll share with you is Congress I believe with great
leadership passed an Energy Bill with Renewable Fuel Standard of 7.5
billion gallons. Today we produce under 4 billion gallons, so you can
see the impact this is going to have, whether it\'s biodiesel, ethanol,
biomass products that are converted into energy.

But ladies and gentlemen, with that here\'s kind of the drill. I put the
microphone down, and I listen to you. I probably won\'t comment a lot
during the time of your testimony. Really it\'s your opportunity. I\'ll
be here the next three hours if all that time is necessary to hear all
your comments. Then at the end I\'ll take a few minutes just to wrap it
up, but between now and then I\'m going to be a silent partner in this
effort. I\'ll be taking some notes and very, very anxious to hear.
Again, thank you for the very warm welcome to your great state. Thank
you.

\[Applause.\]

MODERATOR: And thank you, Secretary. I\'m co-moderator today, and I
guess also co-sheriff today because I\'m supposed to make sure we all
follow the rules here. We won\'t be too strict except for on one thing.
We really would like for you to limit your comments to two minutes.

Now we\'re utilizing a green, yellow, red color system here, and I\'m
going to ask the guys in the room back here to show us. This green light
will be on when you begin making your comments. After you\'ve commented
for a minute and a half the light will turn yellow. When you are
finished with your two minutes or your two minutes is up, the red light
will come on. So that should help us all in keeping track of the two
minutes.

And if you need to go an extra 10 seconds or so I promise that\'s all
right, but please do try to keep it to two minutes so everyone has the
opportunity to speak.

Please, no inappropriate outbursts. I\'m sure that\'s not a concern here
in the great state of Illinois.

This forum in its entirety is being recorded and will be transcribed to
make sure that all of the comments are considered, that the Secretary
does have those documented.

Also, when you comment if you could please give your name, where you are
from and your involvement in agriculture or your interest in the Farm
Bill, we would appreciate that.

There are several microphones throughout the area. What we\'d like for
you to do, we have a couple guys here, Kyle and Tim and Ivan back there,
have microphones. If you\'d like to make a comment you just raise your
hand, get their attention. We have plenty of time, so they will make
sure you get the microphone. And then if we have people in the outside
areas that need to come in and comment we have side microphones for
that.

So I guess to begin with, without any further ado, let\'s roll on this
because I know the Secretary and the Congressmen are anxious to hear
what you have to say.

Let me introduce the first two young people that will be commenting.
Andy Freeland is 17 years old. And Joe Septin (sp) is 17 years old. Both
are from Mt. Zion.

MR. ANDY FREELAND: Hi. I\'m Andy. I\'d just like to say, thanks for
coming, for one thing. And I just want to talk about, my dad\'s a farmer
here south of town, and I help him out a lot, and eventually I\'d like
to take over the farm. And so I just want to know, you know what do I
have to look forward to as far as pricings go and stuff because you know
anhydrous, \$500 anhydrous, and corn\'s under \$2 and doesn\'t seem like
it\'s going \-- seems like it\'s going down. Beans are under \$6, seems
like they\'re going down. And you know, fuel\'s going up. All the cost
is going up, and our prices are going down, what we\'re making.

So you know, is there going to be stuff passed that we get better prices
out of what we do? But eventually, you know, we\'re not going to be able
to afford what we need to do if prices don\'t get any better. So that\'s
just what I \-- you know, what do I have to look forward to in the
future come 15, 20 years, however long, whenever I decide to take over
or whenever that opportunity arises?

MR. JOE SEPTIN: Hi. I\'m Joe. I\'m also a son of a farmer out south of
town just right by where Andy is. I\'m worried about the future too. But
right now I\'m more worried about the crisis down south. And if we could
have alternate ports or places to get other exports out of here. And
I\'m just concerned about prices with gas going up; and get ethanol in
here and hope we lower prices with that. And that\'s about it for me
too.

MODERATOR: Okay. If you would like to make a comment, please let Tim or
Kyle know. We have our first person up to the microphone. Please
introduce yourself and where you\'re from.

MR. PAT MOHAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you for hosting this forum on the
2007 Farm Bill. I\'m Pat Mohan, president of Support Services at Tate &
Lyle here in Decatur. And I\'m a longstanding board member of the Corn
Refiners Association.

My remarks today will be made on behalf of the CRA, the Corn Refiners
Association, which has formulated a position on the Farm Bill which we
hope you\'ll take a look at and view favorably.

I\'m here to discuss an issue which is costing Illinois corn growers 10
cents a bushel. We need to resolve the now eight-year-long high fructose
corn syrup dispute with Mexico. Farm Bill policy plays an important role
in the resolution of that dispute. The sugar program, and in particular
the marketing allotments for sugar contained in that program, has been a
significant barrier to resolving our dispute and opening sweetener trade
with Mexico as promised by NAFTA.

As a result, we question the need for marketing allotments for sugar in
the upcoming Farm Bill. But if marketing allotments are maintained,
imports of sugar from Mexico should be exempt from those allotments.
Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Our next?

MR. MARK HARRIS: I am Mark Harris. I\'m from Clark County, Illinois. I
was a farm operator and a landowner, and I have used the Farm Service
Agency programs ever since I farmed, when I did farm. My wife was a CED
for the Farm Service Agency. And I also teach agriculture and also am an
FFA advisor, so I appreciate what the young men from 4-H and FFA have
said today.

To address the issues of what can be done to ensure youth become engaged
in agriculture and to be the next generation of farmers is an important
issue. It\'s a very concerned issue and should be at very utmost at this
day that we are seeking answers for this situation.

There are several things that the farm policy, the next Farm Bill, could
address to make sure that we will be beneficial to the youth in FFA and
in 4-H and to assist them in keeping the farming situation that they
want to do so much in their life.

Here are some issues that I feel need to be addressed. It would be
necessary to implement and educate you and also the leaders to listen
and that they implement and promote a way of life that will sustain the
future of the family farm.

There are several things that the farm policy could do that would be
beneficial to the youth in FFA and 4-H to assist in farming. One, to
make the youth farm program through the Farm Service Agency available in
the next Farm Bill, and to have an adequate staff to make sure and to
oversee that the program is run right and to monitor it and the
activities of that program. To see that the family farm stays secure and
solvent and that the death tax needs to be eliminated and education to
family members on setting up wills and to make sure that the family farm
stays in the family.

To put a ceiling on farm input cost or implement processes that ensure
profitability in the agricultural industry. An example of this would be
promoting ethanol to a larger extent than what it is used today, which
keeps fuel prices down and raises farm income.

We need to have programs to be established in agriculture to point out
to our youth that agriculture is just as rewarding as other fields such
as technology, nursing, engineering, politics or any other field that
separates and takes our farm youth away from the farm, and to make them
recognize that their life is important as an industry and that we should
teach this.

MODERATOR: Sir, we need you to wrap it up.

MR. HARRIS: I am going to, and I thank you for the opportunity for being
here today and hope these are implemented.

MODERATOR: We have someone from the middle here.

MR. PHILIP NELSON: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary, and welcome to the
Land of Lincoln. I\'m Philip Nelson, president of the Illinois Farm
Bureau. For the last year and a half Illinois Farm Bureau has been
meeting to put forward some recommendations on our Farm Policy Task
Force. You know, a recipe it seems for farm programs in the past is,
Keep stirring the same old stew; a little bit of paid diversion here, a
little bit of LDP there, and mix it with conservation practices, and
hopefully it tastes good.

I can tell you, Illinois Farm Bureau leaders have looked and been
creative in putting forward some recommendations that we think are
necessary as we write a new Farm Bill.

First and foremost, we believe that we need to enhance the crop
insurance and risk management programs. Illinois farmers know full and
well what we are experiencing this year; even with crop insurance it
doesn\'t protect the farmer to the fullest degree necessary.

Secondly, we\'d like to make sure that we implement the conservation
practices that were put out in the 2002 Farm Bill. Farmers in Illinois
do like the conservation measures that we\'re presently operating under.

Thirdly, we feel we need to focus on rural development in this state and
in this country. Improving our infrastructure as well as our
communications technology is a must to revitalize rural America.

Fourthly, we believe in free trade, fair trade and more trade. Mr.
Secretary, you know as well as anyone, almost 3 billion people in our
world today make less than \$2 a day. We need to have access to
providing our commodities to those people and utilizing that trade.

Last but not least, we need to have regulatory framework reform in this
country. We complete on the global stage, and it\'s very important that
we don\'t hinder agriculture production because of some of the onerous
regulations that are coming down the pike.

Those are the five common themes that we put forward, and we\'d like to
provide you further details on each and every one of them as we write
the upcoming Farm Bill. You know, your predecessor Earl Butz once said
that if we\'re going to be successful in production agriculture, we need
to start acting more like thermostats which control our environment
rather than thermometers which react to it. I believe in those words as
we write a new Farm Bill. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Okay, let\'s go to this side of the room.

MR. ANDY WUJEK: Mr. Secretary, Congressmen, other fellow leaders in
agriculture here in Illinois. My name\'s Andy Wujek, and I represent the
Del Monte Foods Farm Department in Mendota, Illinois. I\'m speaking on
behalf of over 200 contract growers in a nine-county area in North
Central Illinois who raise green peas, sweet corn, and lima beans.

The facts are, the 2002 Farm Bill placed restrictions on farmers who
plant fruits and vegetables. The next Farm Bill should accomplish the
following.

Number one, allow farmers the flexibility they need to choose the crops
they grow, specifically in planting fruits and vegetables.

Number two, remedy the restrictions of the 2002 Farm Bill by allowing
farmers to opt out of the federal farm program on a yearly basis to
raise fruits and vegetables for processing without penalizing them on
other acres.

Number three, save taxpayer dollars by reducing the amount of money the
government directs to farmers as a means of supporting the oilseed
acres.

And number four, remember that no group will experience any negative
effects from this change.

This change would correct the unforeseen problems that occurred in the
2002 Farm Bill, that discouraged producers from diversifying their
farming operations and encouraging any unnecessary cycle of reliance on
federal farm programs. The 2002 Farm Bill unfairly discourages farmers
from growing these fruits and vegetables which are canned and sent
overseas throughout the world in a world market.

Additionally, farmers without a history of growing fruits and vegetables
face stiff penalties if they choose to grow, and this results in an
unfair ability for them to rely on their own profits from other options
besides corn and soybeans.

Thank you for your considerations on this matter.

MODERATOR: Ivan, you have someone up there?

MR. FRANK DUNMIRE: Welcome to Central Illinois. I\'m Frank Dunmire,
executive director for Illinois Rural Water Association. And on behalf
of our 700 small and rural community members, we join with the National
Rural Water Association\'s 23,000 members in urging the Secretary to
consider the following four water priorities.

Number one being to expand the country\'s most successful rural
development initiative, that being the Rural Utilities Service's Water
and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program. Over 93 percent of the
country\'s 54,000 community water systems serve less than 10,000
population. And it is these communities that have the greatest
difficulty providing water and sewer services because of their limited
economies of scale and lack of technical expertise.

According to USDA, many rural communities can\'t afford to provide water
to all residents, leaving thousands of families to haul water, rely on
shallow wells, or use unsafe supplies. These rural areas and communities
have turned to the USDA time and time again for their Loan and Grant
Program to build or extend water systems and repay their loans at
reasonable rates and terms.

Secondly, recognize the success of the on-site technical assistance
circuit rider initiative and a local grassroots-based sourcewater
protection effort. Rural water circuit riders and technicians are in the
field every day helping systems with compliance, operations,
maintenance, management, rates and training. Small communities have come
to depend on these programs; they are the backbone of compliance and
support for the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Thirdly, retain protection for small utilities serving rural residents
from unfair takeovers to ensure that small and rural communities would
be able to repay loans. Congress included a provision, 7 USC-1926(b) in
the Consolidated Farm Bill and Rural Development Act to protect systems
from being forcibly annexed or cherry-picked, if you will, by another
system or a municipality.

And finally, to authorize a new enterprise to allow for additional
private capital to be made available to rural water and wastewater
supplies that would permit USDA to guarantee tax-exempt financing
instruments.

Thank you for your attention.

MODERATOR: Let\'s go to this side of the room.

MR. RICH GIEBERT (sp): Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I\'m Rich Giebert,
a grain farmer from Ellis Grove in Randolph County, Illinois. I farm
near the Mississippi River south of St. Louis, and I\'d like to take a
moment to extend my thoughts and prayers to the people downstream in
Louisiana and Mississippi who are faced with incredible devastation
caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Farmers understand weather concerns and extremes, and we\'ve experienced
one of our worst droughts in latest history. This experience has clearly
shaped the thinking of many farmers in our state with respect to the
upcoming Farm Bill debate. It\'s time for us to build on the strengths
of the current Farm Bill and to move more closely to more risk
management.

I believe we need to provide a stronger safety net that helps producers
stay in business during times of low prices, escalating energy costs,
and related weather production losses. Because I farm near the river, I
recognize the value of fully funded conservation programs as well as the
need to expand export markets. Illinois agriculture is heavily dependent
on the trade.

We also need a farm policy that addresses the challenges faced by rural
communities. To remain competitive and productive, farmers and our rural
neighbors need access to 21st Century broadband communications.

We need to stimulate commerce in rural areas by increasing USDA Rural
Development funding for technical and marketing assistance to provide
value-added opportunities for agriculture producers, like energy.

Our fields of energy, the corn and soybeans we grow in abundance, can
help address our growing need for domestically produced motor fuel like
ethanol and biodiesel. New production facilities provide markets for
farmers, feed for livestock, and create jobs. Illinois will become home
to the largest wind farm in the United States. Incentives for wind
energy and biomass must be continued and enhanced.

Finally, rural communities face challenges to hold on to the businesses
and services that they have for the next generation. We need to find
ways to assist small business owners in rural communities to identify
and train the successors who can purchase these businesses and keep them
in rural areas. A healthy farm sector is the bedrock for prosperous
rural communities. We cannot have one without the other.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak, Mr. Secretary, and thank you for
your time.

MR. STEVE WENTWORTH: Mr. Secretary, Mr. Congressman, welcome to Decatur,
Macon County. My name is Steve Wentworth. I\'m a corn, soybean farmer
just three miles up the road straight north of here. But what I wanted
to talk to you about today is something that\'s gone very, very well in
the previous Farm Bill\--is your program on Rural Development. I went
together with 20 other corn, soybean farmers in the community and 10 or
12 local businessmen, and we put together utilizing the Rural
Development within USDA and their guaranteed loan program \-- we built a
10-acre greenhouse where we grow red, yellow and orange peppers
hydroponically. We took some of the leading technologies and are doing
some cutting-edge work that we think is a real exciting aspect of the
future.

What I want to talk to you about \-- and we\'ve created 35 new jobs in
DeWitt County. And Congressman LaHood knows how depressed and needy that
area is for jobs.

But we\'re under real stress now because the Dutch through predatory
pricing activities halve our cost of production, which is about \$16,
\$17 per 11-pound box. They\'ve been flying them in since early May into
O\'Hare for \$11 a box, absorbing about \$6 transportation cost. If we
face that in the coming year and we\'re going to have real trouble
putting the \'06 crop in. So we would, I\'ve prepared a letter to you,
Mr. Secretary, that would warrant your consideration. Thank you very
much.

MR. RON COULTAS: Mr. Secretary, I\'d like to thank you for this
opportunity to be with you in this forum today. My name is Ron Coultas.
I\'m from Winchester, Illinois. I\'m associated with Scott County Rural
Water Cooperative and also Illinois Rural Electric.

There\'s still a large area of Illinois that needs rural water. All you
have to do is see some of the well tests we\'ve taken, the dry weather,
recent cut in funding, and the higher project costs we\'re seeing, and
you know that we could stand more money in that area.

Also, we\'ve had some problems with getting existing water suppliers to
provide us water at a reasonable cost. It would be nice to maybe look at
some regional water treatment facilities also.

Many of the rural electric co-ops are also seeing low growth and
increased operating costs, which makes it difficult for them to continue
to operate. If the muni rate loan portions and the overall program could
be increased, I think that would be very beneficial also to rural
electric co-ops.

Also, we\'re going to be seeing the need for new generation facilities
and that\'s another area we\'d like to see monies put into to provide
that to supply the rural areas. Of course water and electricity are
very, very important to economic development in the rural areas.

I\'d like to thank USDA; our co-op received a 9006 grant and we now have
a turbine that\'s operating on the west side of Illinois. Get a lot of
comments about that. We do appreciate that.

\` And I think more people would do that if we had something equivalent
to the production tax credits for nonprofits.

Our co-op couldn\'t have done that a couple, three years from now
because we\'re going to exceed the \$20 million revenue limit for small
businesses, so we would like to see you look at increasing that limit
also.

And finally, a big thank you to all the state and local USDA staff. They
work real hard and helped us a lot in getting these grants and these
loans for the turbine and for the water district. And also I\'d like to
thank President Bush for his nomination of Mr. Jim Andrew from Georgia
as our RUS administrator. We think he\'s going to do a great job at it.
He was president of our NRECA national association. And thank you very
much again.

MS. MISTY BUSKING (sp): Thank you for letting me speak today, Mr.
Secretary. My name is Misty Busking, and by this time next year I will
be building my own home, and I get to watch it built from ground up. The
self-help program from the Rural Development is a gift from God. I have
tried many programs to find a place for me and my two children, but
nothing was working. I decided to apply for a rural house loan and was
introduced to the Self-Help Housing through Rural Development and
Youth-Build. We are going to build our own home which is like a dream
come true. I get to watch my house be built from ground up, and get to
have input on what goes on and how the house is going to be built and
other, like little areas.

I will be working along with five other families to be building a safe
environment and a good neighborhood for our children to grow up in and a
place that we can finally call home for the first time. I just want to
thank Rural Development and Youth Build for making this possible, and
I\'d really like to encourage you to make sure the Rural Development
programs, that you still support those that help with the self-housing.

MR. JEREMY PAINTER: Mr. Secretary, thank you for the opportunity to
speak before you today. My name is Jeremy Painter. I\'m from Divernon,
Illinois. And I current work for a large ag company called Syngenta.
(audio break)

MR. DANA MORGAN (sp): My name is Dana Morgan. I live here in Decatur,
Illinois. Mr. Secretary and members of Congress, as the face of rural
America and production agriculture continues to change, it\'s critical
that the bond between these two remain strong. Agriculture has and will
continue to support rural America. I believe the 2007 Farm Bill should
(audio break) our local communities. I\'ve had the wonderful opportunity
to be a part of an organization called the Agriculture Future of
America, or the AFA. AFA identifies, encourages and supports college-age
youth preparing for careers in agriculture and the food industry.

Since 1997 AFA has, with the support from hundreds of sponsoring
partners, invested in more than 3,500 college students\' career
preparation and has awarded more than 900 scholarships totaling almost
\$3 million. These scholarships have been funded by hundreds of
individuals and rural businesses. In the 2002 Farm Bill, Section 74-12
provides for youth grants administered by CSREES for the National 4-H,
National FFA, Girl and Boy Scouts of America. Agriculture Future of
America seeks your support to participate in this grant process. We
strongly encourage the Department and Congress to include Agriculture
Future of America as a grant recipient within Section 74-12 of the 2007
Farm Bill.

Mr. Secretary and members of Congress, other members on the panel, thank
you for the opportunity to speak today, and thank you for providing
support to the Agriculture Future of America.

MS. KAY GREGG: Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing us input. My name
is Kay Gregg. I\'m the chief executive officer for Rural Partners; that
is your state Rural Development Council for Illinois. We are as you know
a nonprofit organization that aggressively advocates, assists and seeks
collaborative partners for rural issues in the state of Illinois.

Rural America faces many challenges, challenges resulting from economic,
demographic and social elements such as low population density,
out-migration, poverty, and lack of community capacity and advocacy. The
rural population is deeply impacted by the change in agriculture and the
loss of industry and manufacturing. Additionally, rural communities are
geographically separated, rendering uncoordinated programs and services
ineffective.

The National Rural Development Partnership through individual state
councils was recognized in the 2002 Farm Bill as an organization with
strong linkages at both government policy levels and with our rural
communities. In enacting the NRDP provision in the 2002 Farm Bill,
Congress did not intend to create a new delivery system but to empower a
state and federal network to help public officials and local rural
leaders as they addressed their local needs.

NRDP is a natural vehicle through which rural challenges could be
addressed. The State Rural Development Council, by working with the
National Rural Development Coordinating Committee, provides an important
and unique means through which the federal government can constructively
serve rural America.

The key to this success has three elements:

Collaboration\-- which is defined by bringing to the table both public
and private partners with dollars, talent, knowledge and innovative
ideas to help rural communities.

Coordination\-- assuring that public and private entities work together
to efficiently and effectively use their resources to positively impact
challenges to the rural community and their residents.

Facilitation\-- providing a neutral forum within which the public and
private sectors can work together on positive remedies to rural issues.

The 2002 Farm Bill had funds authorized to support the State Rural
Development Councils which helped facilitate the ongoing operations of
these councils, thereby allowing the combined efforts of collaborative
partners both public and private to assist rural Americans on issues
that were vital to their sustainability.

It now appears there is no further funding authorization for these
organizations which bring rural voices to a level where they can be
heard. Having just returned from the National Rural Development
Partnership Conference I had the opportunity to hear Under Secretary
Dorr and appreciate his comments and continued support. As part of that
support I would ask that funds be reauthorized for the SRDCs so the
rural communities can realize the collaborative partnerships to help
them achieve sustainability. Thank you.

MR. HENRY KALLAL: Good afternoon. I\'m Henry Kallal, a grain farmer from
(unclear), Illinois, and also chair of the Illinois Farm Bureau Farm
Policy Task Force. I want to begin, Secretary Johanns, by thanking you
for holding a Farm Bill listening session here in Illinois. I really
appreciate it.

Last summer Illinois Farm Bureau put together a task force of producers
to face the challenge of developing farm policy. We listened to a number
of policy experts with a variety of perspectives; examined our own
personal experiences, the changing global market; and developed several
recommendations for our delegates to consider this December.

The drought of 2005 reinforces for all of us that farming is a cyclical
business. With the current Farm Bill, if you don\'t produce any bushels
you don\'t receive any income. And that\'s one of the reasons many
Illinois Farm Bureau leaders believe we need to begin thinking about an
improved approach to farm programs.

In a nutshell, Illinois Farm Bureau members are considering changes in
our federal farm policy that would build off the market already and the
strengths of the current Farm Bill and provide for a stronger safety net
during times of low prices and low production.

Our task force\'s primary recommendation calls for a transition away
from the loan deficiency and countercyclical payments toward a
subsidized insurance-based safety net. Instead of a program triggered by
price of production, it would be triggered by how much revenue a farmer
receives in a given year compared to a recent past.

To give you an idea of the depth of the task force study, our members
examined two specific risk management programs. Adjusted gross revenue,
or AGR, is a crop insurance policy that covers all crops and livestock.
We also studied a modified version of the group risk income protection,
or GRIP, which is designed to protect against widespread losses in
revenue.

Now we admit we don\'t have all the answers, but many of us believe
innovative management tools are either in place now or can be developed
to help farmers assure a certain portion of their annual revenue
regardless of adverse market or weather conditions. And with that, Mr.
Secretary, thank you for your time, and thank you for listening.

SEC. JOHANNS: If I might just ask, some of the ideas you put out I have
heard in other locations. Your point about this Farm Bill if you don\'t
produce you don\'t benefit is a very good point, and that really comes
home in states like Illinois where you\'re experiencing drought. We
experienced the same thing. I came from, the state of Nebraska, where we
had a lot of drought the last four or five years.

Were your recommendations reduced to writing? Have you put together any
kind of paperwork with your Farm Bureau Task Force?

MR. KALLAL: Yes, we have, Mr. Secretary. But we have to go through the
policy process of Illinois Farm Bureau where we go, and our policy will
go to American Farm Bureau and then they have to approve it before we
put too much out.

SEC. JOHANNS: If you could keep me posted on that, and I appreciate
you\'ve got some process ahead of you just like we do. But as that\'s
making its way through the process, if your Illinois Farm Bureau could
stay in touch I would appreciate it. Oh, there\'s the book right there.
Is it a top secret book? (laughs)

MODERATOR: I think he\'s willing to share.

SEC. JOHANNS: If a copy would happen to end up in my hands, that would
be really good. So. (laughs)

MR. KALLAL: I guess I was overruled.

\[Laughter.\]

MODERATOR: Ask and ye shall receive.

\[Applause.\]

MODERATOR: I see some people standing along the sides of the auditorium
here. We have plenty of seats if you would like to come in and take one.
That would be great. Let\'s move along.

MR. JOHN CAVENY: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I\'m John Caveny, a
grass farmer from Monticello, Illinois, which is about 30 miles east of
here. I grow grass for animal feed and base load renewable energy. I am
also president of Environmentally Correct Concepts, a company that
develops biomass energy projects, has patented practical climate change
research mitigation technology and other things.

I believe that farm and ranchland should be working land instead of
retired land, and manage to make money from core agricultural activities
and ecosystem services. My comments address questions 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Environmentally Correct Concepts believes that the United States can be
a leader in reducing the amounts and rates of greenhouse gases going in
the atmosphere by using plant-based renewable fuels, market forces, and
voluntary programs as well as through creating and expanding carbon
sinks on public and private land. Green power from biomass crops
provides an opportunity for agriculture and the energy sectors to work
together to find profitable and sustainable new crops for producing base
load electricity, liquid transportation fuel and synthetic natural gas.

The new Farm Bill needs to encourage the use and production of biomass
energy crops through federal crop insurance risk management products.

It\'s my understanding that on August 29 you announced the formation of
a Market-based Environmental Stewardship Coordination Council. We
applaud you on this. This is an innovative step towards enabling farmers
and ranchers to realize a new recurring source of income from
environmental stewardship. ECCI, Environmentally Correct Concepts, owns
and has licensed certain key intellectual property needed to accelerate
this financial opportunity. We want to work with you on this project.

Producing cellulistic biomass for base load renewable energy and other
uses will provide farmers and ranchers with a new crop and many rural
communities with new processing opportunities and allied agricultural
service opportunities. All of us will benefit from blue sky, green grass
and fresh air.

Thank you for listening.

SEC. JOHANNS: You\'ll want to follow up on those comments and if you
have an interest in interfacing with that group or even have a
nomination, we haven\'t selected people yet. I would strongly encourage
you to get in touch with me. Okay? Great. Thanks.

MODERATOR: Ivan?

TERRY DAVIS: Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I too applaud and appreciate
your coming to Illinois. It is a bit of a dry year. I wish we had the
crops from last year to show you, but we\'re doing the best we can under
the conditions we have. I might just take a moment, too, to think of the
folks in Louisiana. I\'m here to speak on conservation today as the
president of the Illinois Association of Conservation Districts and a
member of the NACD board. But to think about those folks down there and
the hardships they\'re enduring and that the future of agriculture I
think is just one moment away from that. Any natural disaster could put
us in the same position as what the city of New Orleans is today.

Looking from a conservation perspective, if the levee had been built
five feet higher, maybe if the lake wouldn\'t have breached, if maybe
the city of New Orleans hadn\'t been placed on a flood plain things
might have been quite different today. But things are the way they are.
We can\'t change that. We want to move forward.

The new Farm Bill is going to allow us that opportunity to look at
things differently than we have before. I applaud you and the
administration for what you\'ve done in that regard.

You just came back from St. Louis and the White House Conservation
Conference. I know there will be good things come from that as the
conservation movement begins forward, but I am also a rural resident of
Illinois and of America and a proud resident of that. I appreciate my
rural heritage and I want to keep that. I want to keep the youth that
are in my area in farming. We need to come up with solutions to do that.

I think part of the Conservation Bill that\'s before us here may allow
some of those opportunities. We\'ve got ways to protect income; we\'re
working hard towards that. I\'m involved personally in an ethanol plant,
so I understand that energy production becomes a major component in how
we can assist ourselves as farmers.

But looking at conservation as the sustainability of America to feed
itself into the future, right now the ports in New Orleans are closed
because of a natural disaster. It has cut off Illinois from being able
to get to the rest of the world with its supplies. We need to come up
with solutions to get around that, but the conservation bill, I think,
as it moves forward allows an opportunity for not only to address issues
of today but to address those issues as they go into the future that
will not only feed this generation, but the next generation will have
that same ability to feed itself.

Organic levels today are half of what they were in the 1930s. We have
opportunities to maybe do carbon trading on watershed bases nationwide
through the new program. I\'d also like to see maybe considered
expanding that to maybe nutrient trading, that within a watershed of a
TMDL that there might be the ability to maybe move nutrients from an
impaired watershed, allow those credits to be traded to someone that\'s
not in an impaired watershed, and allow that producer that\'s in that
area that\'s impaired to maintain their position and stay in production
but just have to cut back their inputs.

So I look for that to be a big move forward but \--

MODERATOR: Sir, we need you to wrap it up.

TERRY DAVIS: But the time of what was going on \-- but I think even more
important is what has happened in this last week that we\'re just one
natural disaster away from the future. We spend a lot of time talking
about little things but I think we have an opportunity. And your
foresight, sir, that the ability of you to come out here as you said to
just sit and listen, that\'s refreshing. I think that\'s what America
wants to hear, and I think we\'re going to be very proud of this next
Farm Bill. Thank you.

MR. JIM OBERWEIS: Mr. Secretary, Congressman LaHood, I\'m Jim Oberweis,
Republican candidate for governor and chairman of Oberweis Dairy in
North Aurora, Illinois, a small family business that has grown from 50
employees to well over 1,000 employees over the last 12 years. We still
put milk in environmentally friendly glass bottles and deliver it to
homes throughout Illinois and the St. Louis area.

My request of you today I think is fairly basic and fairly simple. And
that is, please let the free market determine the price for milk, not
our government. I believe if you would do this it would be a win for our
producers, it would be a win for processors, it would be a win certainly
for consumers, and it would be a win for government and taxpayers. I
like those situations where it\'s win/win/win/win. That to me is the
best situation.

Today for example we would like to be able to sit down with our
producers. We have 40 family farms in Northern Illinois and Southern
Wisconsin. We\'d like to be able to say to them, today the price of milk
is whatever it is, \$17 or \$18 per hundred; we\'d like to pay you that
for the next 12 months for your production. The farmers would love to be
able to have that opportunity because they would know what their revenue
stream would look like. They could then contract for their pay or their
other feed, have an idea of what their expenses are going to be, and
have some idea of what their profit is going to be.

Similarly, from our standpoint we would know what our costs for our main
ingredient are. We could have stability in pricing of our product for
the next year for our consumers. The consumers would like that as well.
And there would be no government expense in terms of the cost of
regulation, there\'d be no disruption of markets in terms of the
artificial factors that are present when the government tries to set the
price per milk.

So the request is pretty straightforward. Please get the government out
of the pricing business. Thank you.

MODERATOR: We\'re going to take a couple of more questions and then take
about a 10-minute break. Don\'t forget, you can comment again after you
have made one comment. Also we\'ll have an open comment period at the
end for about 20 minutes. So let\'s go ahead and \--

MR. STEVE BAKER: Mr. Secretary, my name is Steve Baker. I\'m the
president of Springfield Plastics Drainage Pipe Company located just
south of Springfield here in Central Illinois. Thank you for taking time
out to come and listen to us. Thank you also, Congressmen, for being
here with us.

I represent today an agricultural drainage management coalition. I would
like to first thank you for your reaction or the USDA\'s reaction to the
letter of support from the congressional leaders on drainage management.
This is a technology that by your reaction to the Midwest states that
has furthered the technology and allowed your individual state cons to
further put this out and to be tested and get the practice to the
ground.

The second thing I\'d like to address is really what President Bush said
in his introduction, in item 3, I believe, was his conservation and in
item 4 of our little brochure here, How can we address conservation and
environmental goals? \-- through your use of drainage management and
water drainage management as it\'s commonly referred to, item 4 on this
sheet can be achieved very easily. We would like to see this in the new
Farm Bill as we go forward. There\'s not many practices that we don\'t
have a sacrifice where we have to trade one thing for another. This is
truly a practice, a technology where the farmer wins and the environment
wins, so that both parties are not in any kind of conflict with each
other.

So we\'d like as you go forward your consideration of this most
important technology in the future Farm Bill. Thank you.

MR. ROD SHARKEY (sp): Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. I don\'t have a
letter or a book to hand you, but I was thinking here that maybe I could
hand you my notes, and if you can read this writing the Farm Bill would
be no problem.

\[Laughter.\]

MR. SHARKEY: My name is Rod Sharkey. I\'m a grain and livestock farmer
from Bradford, Illinois. And I\'d like to thank you for the opportunity
to speak here today.

Generations before us have diversified their operations by raising
livestock and traditionally farming has been thought of as the perfect
model of economics with the clause of entry and exit of the business.
They diversified their operations with livestock, and they did that and
they gained money from it. And they gained value-added to their crops.

I\'d also helped them get started on their farms. However, today with
regulations and economics, it\'s very hard for a young farmer to get
involved in not just grain farming but also livestock farming. It is
imperative that the \'07 Farm Bill have funding for the mandated changes
brought forth in the CAFO regulations. Adequate funding for programs
like EQIP will help the next generation of farmers get started by
diversifying their own operations on their own farm without having to
rely on off-farm income. And that\'s a problem that we\'re seeing more
and more of\--farmers have to rely on off-farm income to make the ends
meet. When you do that, you create a wedge in between that farmer and
his operation.

Having a farmer directly involved with his operation has been the
cornerstone of what\'s made agriculture so great.

Along with that, the \'07 Farm Bill has to become more compliant with
the WTO and the green box. Along with EQIP programs like CREP and CRP
will also be green-boxed according to the WTO. I think we can begin by
re-enrolling all 22 million acres of CRP ground that come up in 2008.
Thank you.

MODERATOR: That\'s all of the questions we\'re going to take for right
now. We appreciate the momentum; we\'ve had some awesome comments.
We\'re going to take a 10-minute break here. And before we do, I would
like to recognize, I didn\'t see him in the crowd with the lights
here\-- your Illinois director of agriculture, Chuck Hartke is here in
the crowd. Director, if you would, stand up and be recognized?

\[Applause.\]

MODERATOR: Thank you. Well, let\'s take a break, and everyone come back
refreshed and ready to make more comments. Thank you.

\[Recess. Off and on the record.\]

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we\'re going to get started. I know
some folks are still in the lobby enjoying ice cream. I know the sign
says you can\'t bring food or drink in, so you either eat fast or sneak
it in, one or the other. I\'m not sure.

We appreciate you staying through the break and being here this
afternoon. My name is Mike Adams, host of the AgriTalk Radio Program
heard across the country.

Obviously, I know many of you and I want to congratulate you for keeping
your comments within, for the most part within the two minutes. Mr.
Secretary, I know a lot of these people, and I didn\'t think there was
any way they could keep it within two minutes. So they have done a great
job of doing that.

I think we should again before we get started with the second half, show
our appreciation to Secretary Johanns for coming to Illinois and holding
this listening session.

\[Applause.\]

I can tell you as a person from the media how accessible Secretary
Johanns has been. We don\'t always enjoy that from the Ag secretary.
This is a rare privilege to have someone who wants to communicate to
people across the country and is very willing to do that with us so we
can get the message out. And thank you, Secretary Johanns, for being so
accessible.

All right. Let\'s get right to it. We have more comments, and I think
we\'re going to start over here with Harold, so let\'s get things going
for Secretary Johanns.

MR. HAROLD REETZ: Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for coming
and joining us today, or opening up and listening to us. I\'m Harold
Reetz. I\'m president of the Foundation for Agronomic Research located
in Monticello, Illinois, here. But my work is nationwide. We have
programs in literally every state in the union and working on production
systems research really, and supporting research at the universities
across the country, especially cooperative research among universities,
between universities and industry, and on-farm research type work. So
it\'s more on the applied side of research.

And that\'s what I\'d like to talk to you about briefly is the new Farm
Bill is an opportunity to upgrade the support for the applied side of
research. We\'ve done a good job in recent years in supporting the
development of technology, new genetics and the kind of technology
that\'s going to move us forward. But we need a parallel program in
production research and the extension phase that goes with that in order
to make sure we take advantage of the best technology that we develop.

And you walk around the grounds out here at the Farm Progress Show you
see the kinds of developments we have. We need\-- our universities are
not very well equipped anymore to do the research that\'s needed to put
that technology to work on the farm. And we need to support them in that
process. So I\'d encourage you to put a strong portion in the Farm Bill.

Under CSREES, under NRCS there\'s a number of places where this could be
done to be sure that we take advantage of the technology just as well as
our competitors in other countries because countries in South America
are taking advantage of our technology because they have the production
research system in place to use the technology we\'re developing here
even.

So I think that\'s a real strong thing. We\'ve had good programs in the
past. The IFAFS program, the Conservation Innovation Grants going
through NRCS, there\'s a number of different things the vehicle is
already in place to do that.

So I\'d just encourage you to keep that thing alive and put more support
in if we can.

MODERATOR: Thanks, Harold. I want to clear up something. There\'s a
question out there, Mr. Secretary\-- are you really taking notes up here
and paying attention? He is, folks. He\'s taking notes about what
you\'re saying.

\[Applause.\]

And he\'s going to take this back and helps formulate your input to
Congress on the next Farm Bill. Isn\'t that right?

SEC. JOHANNS: You know, I\'ll share this with you. When I get back we
take these notes and we put them into a typed form because we have the
same problem as this gentleman here. If I go back and read my own
writing a month from now I may not understand it. But just as recently
as yesterday before I left the office we spent an hour, hour and a half
with some of the people that are starting to do some discussion and
thinking at the USDA about farm policy relative to the Farm Bill. We
spent about an hour and a half, and I went through some of the things
that I was hearing out there in these Farm Bill sessions.

So it is helpful. It gets us thinking about things differently. So not
only do we take notes, but we actually go back and try to incorporate
them in what we\'re thinking about.

MODERATOR: All right. I just encourage you, when you come to the
microphone say your name slowly, who you represent, where you\'re from,
especially the prep people are writing these things down. Those of us in
the broadcast side of things, we don\'t worry about spelling as much as
the front people do. So if you would do that, they\'d appreciate it.
Let\'s go over here.

MR. DENNIS MCMILLIN: My name is Dennis McMillin. I\'m from
Champaign-Urbana, home of the fighting line. Hopefully our football team
is going to be that good too.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. I work
for Buse (sp) Bank in Urbana, Illinois. We have offices between Peoria
and Champaign. The Rural Development program, both housing and business
and industry, have been two great programs for us. Thanks to Doug
Wilson, Jerry Townsend and Bob Clark and their staff, we have been very
successful in selling this program.

In the housing arena, I know that our bank made over \$2 million in
loans last year just for housing. As far as business and development
goes, I\'m a commercial lender, I work with that program, and we were
the first bank in the state of Illinois to be approved as an approved
lender. And I can tell you this program has been very successful.

I think success is judged by during the good times and the bad times.
After 9/11 one of our manufacturers had some tough times\-- 18 months.
They started out with 75 employees some 10 years ago; they had to cut
back to 58, and I thought the company was going to close its doors.
Orders started coming in. Today there are 58 employees. Net income
through July was \$1.4 million, and yes we have positive net worth.

Thanks to the Rural Development program and those folks hanging in there
with us, Doug Wilson, Jerry Townsend and Bob Clark and their staff, this
company is very viable, very successful. We appreciate the program. And
we thank you for your input for it.

MODERATOR: Let\'s go back up in the upper section there. Mike?

MR. MICHAEL WILLIAMS: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, we appreciate you being
here today. I am Michael Williams. I represent the North American
Equipment Dealers Association in Trenton, Missouri. We\'re one of the ag
employers in the rural area, so I\'ll be addressing point number 5 in
particular.

As our dealers move forward and with the technology change that
everybody has mentioned here, we find a real need for shortage of
technicians, even sales staff of some of the equipment we\'re moving
into the ag sector. We represent about 85 percent of the agriculture
dealers in the U.S. and Canada. From Canadian dealers we\'d like to
thank you for your work on your BSE efforts, and obviously with the
CAFTA passage, and meeting with my group when we were there in April.

So as we look forward to the future, our dealers are very concerned
about where their employees are going to come from. I\'m encouraged
about the youth coming to us, but I think we can do some more job
training programs.

Let me give you an example. In a survey we did in four states \--
Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky \-- the dealers there all agreed
they\'d like to hire at least one new technician in the next year. They
have plans to hire two or three new technicians in the next three to
five years. If we correlate that to our entire membership based on about
4,000 dealers, we\'re looking somewhere in the need right now today of
4,800 new technicians in the next three to five years, somewhere between
9,000 and 12,000 technicians to work on equipment in the rural areas.

Obviously we\'re one of the large employers in the rural areas, but we
are looking for some assistance along that line.

Just to caveat this little story here, it\'s a little scenario a little
bit different\-- our Canadian dealers in Western Canada have the same
issue. The have now taken the lead of going to job fairs in East Germany
trying to recruit technicians from the European market to come in and
fill those voids. We see this with a little bit joke coming out of St.
Louis when you talk to our dealers in the South they say, we need a new
technician we just go to North Dakota or Montana or Oregon \-- when
it\'s warm down here, it\'s snowing like hell up in that country \-- to
come back and come to work for them.

So we\'re interested about the rural development area.

MODERATOR: Thank you. I should have known, Mike, you\'d be the one to go
over on that. All right. Let\'s go over here.

MR. PAUL CLARK: Thank you, Secretary Johanns, for coming today to our
state. I appreciate the fact that you want to get Farm Bill ideas from
the farmers and ranchers across this great nation. Who would you get
better ideas from than farmers and ranchers?

I am Paul Clark, a grain and cattle farmer from Knox County, Illinois. I
am also the former president and current secretary/treasurer of the
National Association of Farm Elected Committees. I would like to address
the question, "How can federal farm programs provide effective
assistance to rural America?"

One such program would be a viability program that assists farmers,
especially young farmers, that are under stress to improve their farms\'
ability to provide a positive cashflow and to allow the continued
operation of the family farm. This program could help farms diversify by
assisting in capital costs of buildings, equipment and other items.

FSA has the data to help coordinate this program. And this program is
being experimented with in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and maybe another
northeastern state. But this program could be a combination program
between the state and the federal funds, so that would help
considerably.

We should continue farm programs that will benefit the farmers and
ranchers of this nation. These programs need to be designed to bolster
our income in years of low yield and low prices so that the ag sector
can stay on an even basis with the rest of the economy. Our rural
communities rely on a stable economy to keep employment strong, and this
will in turn keep our national economy strong.

The Farm Service Agency or FSA as we know it is one of the most
efficient-run agencies in the USDA. They administer programs at a very
low cost. FSA has provided a great service to the producers across this
great nation, and that is how it has become known as the \"agency of
choice\" to most producers.

We understand that USDA will have less money for the Farm Bill due to
budget cuts, but the ag sector should not have to shoulder more than our
fair share of budget cuts. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Let\'s go down here.

MR. JOHN CABOT (sp): Hello. I\'m John Cabot. I\'m an ag teacher at Mt.
Vernon High School, past president of the Illinois Ag Teachers. I\'m
also a grain and livestock farmer for about 34 years.

First of all, I want to thank you for coming out. Communication is
everything, and to see somebody you can talk to \-- and I want to thank
you for coming to Illinois FFA Convention, hope to see you at the
National FFA Convention. We really appreciate that.

I was going to talk a little about education, a little about LDP
payments. Those are the two things I\'d like to talk about. First of
all, I\'m with the state officers. I like to claim these are my own
students, but they\'re running around out there somewhere. But these
kids, I mean I know with the education, testing, we penalize schools for
not meeting the test scores. And I about quit teaching after four years,
went to see my uncle two years before he died over at St. Francis
Hospital in Peoria. I asked Uncle this; I said I can\'t motivate all
these kids to get As. What am I doing wrong? He said, John \-- he was
about to die there \-- and he said, You don\'t want them all to get As;
you want to have some A students, B students, C, D and so on so we can
cover all the jobs in America.

I wish we had more than one just college entrance test for these kids so
we can help these kids out instead of saying they\'re all college bound,
four-year-university students, because we do have jobs for everybody out
there. The worst thing we can do to these children is make them drop out
of high school. We\'ve got to address this because I\'ve seen it for 21
years now\-- kids dropping out of school. So we\'ve got to help the
rural areas by doing that. If we could just pay somebody.

I do 280 FFA activities a year, and 184 schooldays. We do it all year
long. And there\'s nothing better than what FFA and 4-H do to give these
kids \-- and I have more city kids than I do farm kids anymore \-- but
to help them to be leaders in their community and to keep them in
school. And I motivate kids to stay in school, and I say school\'s going
to be fun, go with me, do things. And thank God our administration let
us come up here with the gas prices\-- to come up here to talk.

So I appreciate all that you do. But one thing as a farmer \--

MODERATOR: Real quick, sir. You\'re out of time.

MR. CABOT: One thing I want to say is the LDP payments \-- if we got 250
bushel times 20 cents for LDP, that\'s \$50 per acre. But many times in
Southern Illinois we have what Central and Northern Illinois has, 40
bushel per acre. That\'s \$8 per acre. It just doesn\'t make sense to
me. A state average or something to pay LDPs off would make sense. When
you have a disaster you get something for your loss that you have. And
thank you very much.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much. Let\'s go over here on the
side.

MR. KEITH BOLIN: Thank you. I\'d almost ask for unanimous consent for an
extra minute, Mr. Johanns. But I\'m Keith Bolin from Manlius, Illinois.
I\'m a fourth-generation hog farmer. The two generations before us went
to Nebraska and the droughts in Nebraska ran us back to Illinois back in
the 1800s.

Again, we have a hog operation, corn, cattle, from Bureau County located
near Manlius, Illinois. I\'ll give you my pedigree here, but the one
I\'m proudest of is I\'m a dirt hog farmer from Illinois, but the
pedigree is I\'m a past Lutheran Church Council President. Presently
I\'m on the Bureau Valley School Board in Manlius and president of the
American Corn Growers Association. I am on the school board of the fifth
largest school district in land mass in the state of Illinois. In other
words, we\'re very, very rural.

In January we completed the first wind turbine in Illinois owned and
operated by a school district. American Corn Growers Association and
others were very instrumental in the first-ever Illinois project. We
were not able to receive USDA 9006 money, as schools are not farmers.

This adoption to schools for that money, Title 9, would help farm
communities and therefore heavily rely on property tax would indirectly
help farmers. That\'s something to keep in mind, Mr. Secretary. This
project is presenting saving Bureau Valley and our taxpayers \$100,000.

You asked in your paper, sir, on question 9, How can federal, rural and
farm programs provide effective assistance for rural areas? Our answer
on June 17 to that question is still today, price supports, not
subsidies. Who wants to be content with welfare checks or subsidies? We
are not proud of it, we do not desire it as American farmers. We demand
a targeted support price of our grain that support farmers and rural
wages communities much like a minimum wage.

The end user of the corn is the real beneficiary of these subsidies or
of cheap grain, not the farmer. To accomplish this we also need a
competition title in the next Farm Bill \-- very critical. It was passed
in \'02 but removed in conference.

Cheap corn prices destroy our schools, churches and drive people to the
city for a job that may or may not be there. The \'96 and 2002 Farm
Bills did not reduce production as was needed; it reduced producers,
code name that\'s \"farmers.\"

MODERATOR: Sir, you need to wrap it up.

MR. BOLIN: Okay, thanks, Mike. If subsidies are reduced or eliminated
which we agree with, over time, without price supports you will
knowingly deliver us, the American corn farmer, into the hands of ADM,
Cargill, and other grain processors. We need to have a working market, a
competition title. If you deliver us to them, we will be under contract
production very quickly, not different than the chicken and hog guys. I
thank you.

MODERATOR: Let\'s go up here to the top.

MS. DEBORAH CAVENAUGH GRANT (sp): Hello. Thanks for this opportunity to
present my comments. My name is Deborah Cavenaugh Grant. And I\'m here
on behalf of the Illinois Association of Resource Conservation and
Development Councils. I represent over 250 volunteer council members in
our 10 authorized councils in three applicant areas. It\'s our hope that
the new Farm Bill will recognize the work we do and include full
programming for the 375 councils nationwide.

Illinois is a diverse state with a diversity of needs in different
areas. One of the best things about RC&D is that it is local people
dealing with local needs in conservation and economic development. It is
truly democracy in action. Through local RC&D councils local areas meet
the needs of the citizens as defined by the citizens themselves.

The variety of programming is great. It would be impossible to find any
county in our 13 council districts that has not felt the positive impact
of RC&D. Councils across the country have been very effective in
obtaining external funds bringing in over \$333 million to implement
projects in their respective communities.

I would like especially to note the need for full funding of all
applicant areas. I represent one of these applicant areas. We were able
to gain support for our six-county area formation and have completed all
the necessary paperwork for our application. As we are all volunteers,
we are limited in the scope of the projects we can accept. We need to be
fully authorized so we may begin to use a coordinator to meet more of
the needs of citizens.

Thank you for this opportunity.

MODERATOR: Thanks, Deborah. Let\'s come back over here to the side.

MR. ED MILLER: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you coming to
Illinois to get comments this afternoon. My name is Ed Miller. I work
with Illinois Clean Energy Foundation. We\'re a statewide nonprofit that
over the last four years has supported more than 1,000 energy efficiency
and renewable energy projects in 90 of Illinois\' 102 counties. And
we\'re very interested in continuing to partner as we have over the last
four years with especially the Rural Development Service within USDA on
the Title 9, the Energy title programs and in particular the Section
9006 funding.

We found that our nonprofit dollars can be leveraged with the 9006
funding and help projects, some of which you\'ve heard about here today
like the Illinois Rural Electric Cooperatives Wind Turbine, really help
those get in the ground and benefit rural communities. So we\'d strongly
encourage you to do what you can to maintain and increase the funding
available through the Title 9 energy programs. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Back over to this side.

MR. DENNIS COOLINGO (sp): Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for coming
to Illinois today and allowing us to speak to you. I\'m Dennis Coolingo
(sp). I\'m a grain producer from Southern Illinois, Washington County.
I\'m on the county committee in our county, and I\'m also president of
the Illinois Association of Farmer Elected Committeemen.

In regards to the Farm Bill, I think the existing Farm Bill has been
very good in many areas. I hope you do not throw the whole thing out,
hoping to find something better. As noted earlier today, the one area of
weakness is in the area where there\'s little or no production in a
drought or some other type of disaster. And that can be addressed
through crop insurance.

What I\'d like to address briefly is the family farm. We always talk
about keeping the family farm in operation and trying to encourage it,
but I find in most cases the farm programs do not do that.

One area that\'s not been talked about today is caps in payments to the
farmers, whether through crop insurance or through farm program
payments. If you do not establish a reasonable cap, you will
systematically destroy all family farms. Anytime you give 10 to 15 times
more money to one farmer as what is required for a family to make (audio
break) \--

So in the wind energy and so forth, I find that to be very beneficial to
the family farm. I\'m also a no-tiller, been no-tilling for 20 years and
find it\'s a very profitable way to farm and it keeps my energy costs
down considerably. If there can be some encouragement of a farm program
for going towards no-till, saving energy in that category, it would be
very beneficial. Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Down here?

MR. JAKE BENNELL (sp): Thank you. I\'d like to welcome you back again to
Illinois, as you spoke at our state convention this year. I\'m Jake
Bennell. I\'m serving this year as the Illinois State FFA president. I
have two other people with the state officer team with me here I\'d like
to introduce. On my left is Ashley Handel (sp). She\'s serving this year
as our state treasurer. She\'s from Brighton. And on our right is Kayla
King. She\'s serving this year as our state reporter, and she\'s from
Nokomis.

Us being involved in FFA, I\'ve met you before and heard the story about
you coming back to a hometown and reading the newspaper and seeing your
name in there for being a former FFA member and winning a public
speaking contest. We\'d never tell that today after listening to you
speak. However, sorry.

\[Laughter.\]

MODERATOR: Time\'s up. Okay. We\'ll move on.

\[Laughter.\]

MR. BENNELL: I don\'t want to get too much into our organization but in
our organization we have supervised agriculture experience programs
which award students for on-the-job or hands-on learning. We have 54
different areas, and one of these is diversified crop production. I\'d
like to go back on a personal level as to what the man said from Del
Monte earlier. I come from a family farm in Northern Illinois where we
grow corn, soybeans and vegetables. And our family farm has seen a lot
of this punishment as what he called it earlier from growing vegetables
on ground that\'s based for corn.

I have no idea what you should do or what could be done to correct this,
but as a family farmer I see this could be one of the problems that\'s
causing future farmers or younger farmers to join into the agriculture
industry. I think a lot of these punishments are scaring off younger
farmers and think this could probably solve some or give you answers to
some of the questions for question one in the booklet.

Thank you again for returning to Illinois, and thank you for the
opportunity to speak, and welcome back. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Nothing like that FFA humor, right, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. JOHANNS: Yeah. No. I enjoyed that FFA humor. I might mention though
that it was in Illinois at your state convention that we decided to kick
off the Farm Bill Forums, and that was the day we released the six
topics we were interested in. So it is good to be back in Illinois.
It\'s always great to see those blue jackets.

\[Applause.\]

MODERATOR: Over here to the side, Mike? On the left?

MR. BILL TITEMILLER (sp): Thank you for coming to Illinois, Mr.
Secretary. My name is Bill Titemiller, and I represent E.J. Water which
is about the state\'s largest rural water cooperative. We serve about
2,000 square miles, so it\'s a very large area in seven counties.
There\'s three things I want to really talk to about. First I want to
pass some accolades to Rural Development, specifically Doug Wilson and
Jerry Townsend, the staff. They do an excellent job. I think we stole
\-- I mean we\'re paying back about \$25 million in loans and grants
through the program which has been an incredible opportunity for us.

But specifically what I\'m most concerned about is the recent drop in
funding to Illinois in the last three or four years. We\'ve gone from a
level of \$19 to \$20 million a year in the water and waste program down
to in the \$5 to \$6 million a year in the last four years. That\'s very
concerning to me.

This is just an off-the-wall idea. What I understand is that the money
that goes into the program runs through an appropriations process, and
what I would like to propose is a concept that the money that all the RD
borrowers pay back on a monthly basis and in the case of municipalities
it\'s twice a year, with the principal and interest would go into like a
budget that would just turn around and roll back out into the program.

This would make the program self-sufficient from an economic
perspective. There may need to be some additional monies pumped in every
year to make the grant relationships work, but it would be something
that would be worth considering.

The last thing is, we know all about universal telephone access, we know
about the Electrification Act of 1938. What I\'d like addressed and
it\'s been noted before is, we\'ve got people hauling water in Illinois,
and we still have 1,000 members that want, need water. And what I\'m
asking is a way to create a new electrification act if you will of 2007
where we can put some serious dollars towards this effort of getting
potable and drinking water to the American rural areas. Thank you for
your time.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. We got one up in the back.

MR. RON KINDRED: I\'m Ron Kindred. I\'m soybean and corn farmer from
Atlanta, Illinois, about 40 miles northwest of here. And I\'m an
Illinois director for the American Soybean Association.

I believe the goal of farm policy should be to provide an equitable farm
income safety net while allowing market conditions to determine cropping
decisions. 2002 Farm Bill does not provide this balance, and producers
of crops are receiving comparatively lower benefits, not fully
responding to sharp increases in world demand for these commodities.

In addition, certain farm program benefits including direct payments are
factored directly into land rents, raising production costs and making
it difficult for new producers to enter farming.

The ASA is exploring the idea at the present time of a revenue-based
income support program for farmers as opposed to the production program
just as Farm Bureau is exploring.

We believe the WTO allows revenue protection up to 70 percent of income
to be included in the green box. We think this could be negotiated
upward to 80 to 85 percent, and the balance of income protection could
be provided by a limited marketing loan and/or single peril or buy-up
coverage under crop insurance.

One seed I would like to plant today on the energy portion, the energy
title of the next Farm Bill\-- I believe that European Union pays
farmers to grow crops for energy. I think that\'s definitely a
possibility here in the United States, especially as renewable fuels are
expanding here in the United States. We\'re going to need them. The
crude oil is not going to be the answer. Petroleum based products will
not be the answer for the future.

So if we could provide payments to farmers for growing crops for energy
it might be worth exploring. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Down front here?

SEC. JOHANNS: If I might just jump in here. The discussion in this area
as I said, this is not the first time we\'ve heard of this as we\'ve
done these listening sessions around the country. So my offer to the
folks in the Soybean Association is the same as the Farm Bureau folks.
It\'s a fascinating idea that you\'re putting out.

I don\'t know a lot about it at this point to be very honest with you.
But I would like to learn more, and I hope your state or national
association will either come to the USDA and spend some time with us or
in the alternative get us information as you\'re thinking about this
process. It is a \-- your idea is a very interesting idea. Like I said,
I\'m just anxious to learn more at this point. Okay.

Great. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Rebecca, and I see John and Steve, the Corn and Soybean folks
out there will make sure you get that information, Mr. Secretary. Down
here. Gordon?

MR. GORDON STINE: Good afternoon, Secretary Johanns. Thank you for
hosting these listening forums and for coming to Illinois. My name is
Gordon Stine, president of the Illinois Farmers Union. Also a corn and
soybean farmer from St. Elmo. I also grew up on a dairy farm, so I stood
in that and shoveled and forked many tons of it also.

For the most part the Farm Bill we have now has worked, and it\'s
provided a safety net for farmers. And that\'s what we needed. However,
we the Farmers Union would like to see a permanent disaster ag
assistance section in the new Farm Bill. We the Farmers Union have asked
for a disaster assistance for different parts of the country many times
in the last few years. This time is our time. Illinois needs disaster
assistance now.

Wouldn\'t it make sense to incorporate a disaster assistance section
into the new Farm Bill unlike now when we have to go and ask Congress
every time we have a disaster? Where do we find money? We take the money
out of other programs and stuff like that, or we have to come up with
new monies to build a disaster assistance program into a Farm Bill so it
would always be there available for farmers, whether it\'s frosts, a
storm, or drought or too much rain, to have it there available for their
assistance. Thank you.

MODERATOR: All right. Up here?

MR. DICK LITTLE: Mr. Secretary, my name is Dick Little. I\'m with the
Illinois Forestry Development Council here in Illinois. I\'m also a
landowner both in Missouri and Illinois, a forestland owner.

I\'d like to speak on \-- I\'ve over the years had the privilege of
working with several of your agencies, FSA, RD, NRCS, NFSA, and they\'ve
been great agencies. But you got some programs out there in both the
last two Farm Bills that have been great for the Illinois landowner and
landowners across the state or the country regarding the environmental
side, the forest stewardship program, the FLEP program, the Forest Land
Enhancement Program, the CRP, EQIP and some of those other programs have
all been great and they\'ve all of course, the biggest thing been
underfunded.

I definitely encourage you to keep those programs, programs like them,
in the system, and adequate funding, because the landowners talk about
their back 40 needs that technical assistance the states provide through
those funds and also the cost sharing. Those are very critical to the
resources across this country as we become more dependent on them. So
thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Okay. Over here on the side?

MR. BILL FUEGET (sp): Thank you. Mr. Secretary, I\'m Bill Fueget from
Fairberry, Illinois. I am a farmer there. I\'m also involved in the seed
industry with a small, family-owned seed company in Central Illinois
called Burrow (sp) Seeds. But I guess as I sat down this afternoon,
picked up one of the small folders about the Farm Bureau Forums, and on
the back it mentions in 1862 President Lincoln signing the act which
created the USDA. And it set my mind in motion that I think also then he
created the act which created the Land Grant Universities. He also
created the act, which created the Extension Service.

It\'s my philosophy that probably those three acts have made a stronger
American agriculture, thus a strong American economy, and probably has
made us the world power we are. I also sense that the new Farm Bill that
you\'re currently going to be working on is another opportunity for us
to become and maintain our strength in the world series of events. I
really truly believe this.

And one of the things and my purpose for being here today is, to
encourage the Farm Bill to have some language that strongly encourages
the use of and maximizes the use of as we\'ve already heard a little bit
here this afternoon of the biodiesels, the ethanols, the renewable
fuels. I think if we continue to do this, we will continue to be that
star in American agriculture and in the world. Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Over here on the left?

MR. DAVE GILLESPIE: Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here this
afternoon. My name\'s Dave Gillespie. I\'m a retired forester from
Chatham, Illinois, worked for the Department of Natural Resources.
Currently on contract with the DNR working on the Forest Legacy program
which is part of the previous Farm Bill. And I'm here representing the
Illinois chapter of the Society of American Foresters.

I\'d like to first echo everything that Dick said about the forestry
programs that the Farm Bill contains and how vital those programs are
and to assist Illinois forest landowners. But family forests are facing
incredible risks nowadays. Nationwide about 42 percent of the forestland
is owned by private landowners. Here in Illinois about 90 percent is
owned by private landowners. And what we recommend is targeted
educational, technical and financial assistance that address priorities
that have to do with landowner assistance programs.

We favor the implementation of a landscape approach with assistance
programs so investments in family forestland can make a difference on a
landscape scale. Integration of assistance programs. Monitoring and
evaluation of these programs to show where things are working.

We favor a market-based approach to forest conservation that allows both
public and private investment in family forests and continued scientific
advancement through our universities and other agencies and partners
that we can help continue to provide good stewardship to our nation\'s
forests. Thank you.

MODERATOR: As we\'re starting to wind down a little bit, I just want to
say again we\'re going to have open mike here right at the end. If
you\'ve already made a comment and would like to make a quick followup
comment, we\'ll let you do that as well. So even if you\'ve already had
a time at the microphone and you want to make a followup comment, we\'ll
allow that too.

Let\'s go over here on this side.

MR. JOE STEVENSON: Mr. Secretary, I do want to thank you for being here.
And I think looking ahead to the new Farm Bill probably the one thing
that all farmers would most like would be a level field whether we\'re
out there in the sector or the FSA office. My name is Joe Stevenson, and
I\'m from Alhambra, Illinois, in Madison County. And I am a farmer. My
farm number is 698. Now.

\[Laughter.\]

I think the current Farm Bill has done many very, very good things for
production agriculture and risk management is certainly an example of
that. I think there have been some abuses of the current Farm Bill which
I would hope could be avoided in the future. And I think that the
suggestions from two of the organizations today about a more level
playing field when it comes to risk management might also be applied to
the direct payment.

It seems to me that as we look at research the very largest farmers are
profitable and the very smallest farmers are profitable. Unfortunately I
seem to be in the middle, and many of us in Illinois are.

We\'re too small to get big, and we have too much invested to get small.
And so we would like to see a level playing field if at all possible.
And I think that also applies to the Conservation Security Program
because therein lies I think the future that\'s designed by watersheds.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Here in the middle?

MR. KEN BLANK (sp): I\'m Ken Blank from Iroquois County. And thank you,
Secretary, for coming to Illinois. We just realized that in the last
month or so that an outfit from Texas is coming to Gilman, Illinois, and
they\'re going to put in an ethanol plant, which will require 100 loads,
semi loads of corn per day. And we\'re grateful for that. Didn\'t even
ask for anything; they just came in.

I also drive a Dodge E85. And I\'m proud to drive that. My wife is also
driving one. One of the things that I agree with the last two gentlemen,
several back here, that we\'re not playing on the same level. The family
farm is almost something that the kids today will say, Well, that was.
Well, I don\'t know where we can go from where we\'re at. But we are not
on the same level as we should be.

I look at these young people around, and I wonder, how many of those are
going to move to the city and never come back? I have brother-in-laws
that come out to visit, one from Florida and one from Kansas City, and
we get in that E85 and we drive around. And their comments are, Well, I
remember this family lived there and they had about four or five kids.
And we\'d go a little further and \-- but there\'s no buildings there.
We go a little further and, Well that was another family and they had
six kids. So on we go around the country.

Well, the family farms are basically gone. What can you do to help the
young people and us old fogies \-- I\'m not retired but I\'m tired \--
what can we do to get on the same level with the big operators?

Now I drive around, my brother-in-laws\' comment was, my God, they got
their houses all fixed, see a brand new John Deere combine sitting out
there, new tractors. How can that be? I says, Well it\'s the farm
program.

I think sometimes the farm program is killing us average farmers. We\'re
competing with the program.

MODERATOR: Need to wrap it up.

MR. BLANK: Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, and thanks for using E85. And sometimes you want
the mother-in-law to move to town and stay, right? The others you want
to come back to the country? You didn\'t say that. Okay.

Got one over here?

MS. MINDY WILLIAMSON: My comments today are going to be brief. My name
is Mindy Williamson, and I work for an organization called Farm Safety
for Just Kids. And I don\'t need to convince you or anybody else in this
room how important and wonderful agriculture is. Just remember outreach
education for younger people in the next Farm Bill. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Has everyone who has not yet spoken that would like to \--
you want to? If not, we\'re going to have some followup comments. So
this is your chance. All right. Follow up, quick comments.

MR. KEITH BOLIN: Thank you, Mike. Mr. Secretary, Keith Bolin again. I
just want to thank you for coming, and any time you want to come down to
the farm in Bureau County and break bread with our family, you\'re more
than welcome. And I\'d appreciate it, as Bill O\'Reilly would say, on
our barnyard it would be the No Spin Zone there. I very much mean that.

I do want to make a comment. Mr. Oberweis is running for governor. I\'m
Republican, Conservative, and I think I\'m Republican. And he was
mentioning he\'s for the marketplace, get the government out of the
pricing. The last thing he mentioned was, oh by the way, I want my
producers under contract. That bothers me as a Conservative. You talked
about Lincoln here a moment ago, and we think of Teddy Roosevelt, the
trust buster, and he was also an environmentalist. Good business and
environmentalists can go hand in hand. They don\'t have to be opposed.

And I think the family farmer is the best steward you can have. I think
he\'s the best animal husbander. And I think we better think long and
hard before we turn our backs completely on the family farm. I believe
he\'s the most efficient within the borders of this country. I think we
have a hard time competing at a dollar a day with the Chinese farmer.
But that\'s another issue.

But I do want to say to you, you\'re more than welcome to come to our
farm, Mr. Secretary. Enjoyed having you in Illinois. And I think the
Conservatives \-- and I\'m one of them \-- better rethink when what they
want is captive supplies for themselves as the processor, but they want
us the producer to compete in the marketplace with everybody in the
world. I find that a little bit hypocritical. I thank you, sir.

MODERATOR: All right. Any other comments? Got one over here?

MR. JOHN CABOT: Again thank you. I\'m going back to a vacation 2002 to
Virginia. I went to Constitutional Drive, went to James Madison\'s home,
John Monroe and Thomas Jefferson. And I think we need to have everybody
in Washington take a one-hour field trip like I did today, a two-hour,
come up here and read what they put on the walls, why they came to this
country, so we can have free independent farmers and family members to
have shoe stores and family farms and all that, everything that\'s on
the wall there.

I said, man, if we get our senators and representatives to come to this
Constitutional Drive in Virginia, man we can get America back to the way
we want it to be again, where we can have these young people, myself \--

I always tell my students, I\'m 43 years old, still dream of being a
farmer. I farm with my dad who\'s 65, and he tells me he\'s wore out.
And my cousin just died in a grain bin, so I could have did it this
year. He\'s got 750 acres too. I still think God\'s calling me to be
with these FFA members, so I\'m still trying to do both. So I just hope
everybody goes and sees what they said in Constitutional Drive in
Virginia. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. I just want to make a comment
before we have closing remarks from the Secretary.

Several days ago, several weeks ago now, on Agritalk I asked Secretary
Johanns\-- I said, What will your role be in this Farm Bill? Are you
going to be behind the scenes, are you going to be passive, are you
going to be active? And he just jumped. He said, Proactive. I\'m going
to be very, very involved in this Farm Bill process. We\'ve not seen all
past secretaries be that way. He has taken that proactive stance by
going around the country and hearing what people like you have to say. I
think we should give him a round of applause for doing that.

\[Applause.\]

SEC. JOHANNS: Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much. I\'ll
offer a few thoughts to kind of wrap us up today.

First thought is, I really appreciate you being here. The comments were,
I thought, excellent. Every Farm Bill Forum that we have had, I\'ve
walked away with many notecards filled with notes. But most importantly
I\'ve walked away with ideas. That happened again today. You know, you
say something and it makes me think about another aspect of farm policy.
So I make a note, and then we go back and we sit down and we start
talking about that and how that might fit in.

Somebody said when we started this process, "Gosh, it seems awfully
early to be talking about the 2007 Farm Bill. So I thought maybe if I
could just take a moment to tell you what we\'re going to do with all
these notes, with these ideas, and maybe spend just a moment on process.

The 2007 Farm Bill is not that far away when you think about it in this
respect. We really wanted to do a national tour if you will. We could
have kicked this off here in Illinois and gone out and done four or five
of these across the country and called it good. But agriculture in this
country is very, very diverse. From the Plains States, down into the
South, the Western United States, you get up into the Northeast part of
the country, it\'s just very, very diverse.

So I felt very strongly that if we were going to commit to doing this we
needed to get across the country. And I\'m doing a lot of these myself.
I have under secretaries, my deputy, that are also doing some. But in
order to do that, we needed some time. It\'s a big country out there,
and we have other things that impact our schedule.

So we needed about the remainder of this year \-- not that we will take
all the remainder of the year to do the forums, but by the time you work
schedules it\'s going to be fairly late in the year before we call it
good and say that we have done the forums that we wanted to do.

Plus, we\'ve got some specialty forums out there. We do it a lot in the
nutrition areas, so those folks wanted the opportunity to offer some
thoughts. And so we\'re going to do some of those specialty type forums
also.

Well, that takes us pretty much through the end of the year. We then
start 2006 working with the House and Senate on ideas. And my
expectation is that they\'ll do some field hearings out there also
across the country and invite people in to offer their thoughts just
like I did here today.

Well, once you start doing that, you start moving through 2006 and maybe
even the better part of 2006. That\'s going to bring you to a point
where somewhere out there you sit down and start literally working the
legislation. By the time you get that done, you\'re really nearing the
end of 2006, if not the first part of 2007.

Now somewhere in the first part of 2007 I believe we\'ve got to be
getting a Farm Bill in place. We\'ve got to have the hearings and the
debate and the discussion and the vote and all of that process because
in the early part of 2007 we need to send a signal to the ag community
as to what this Farm Bill is going to be about so they can make
decisions that they have to make that are based upon farm policy.

So when you think about the process, actually we\'re probably about
right on schedule. We certainly don\'t have a lot of extra time as we
start to build this Farm Bill.

Now, the other thing I wanted to visit with you about very briefly, some
of the themes we\'re hearing around the country. And we have been pretty
much around the country already. We\'ve been out West, we\'ve been in
the South, we\'ve been in the Midwest \-- to a lesser extent up in the
Northeast although we have done some of that also.

Here are some of the thoughts. Rural economic development, pretty
unanimously approved across the country. Not that people don\'t have
some suggestions and ideas and hopes for funding and that sort of thing.
But by and large, people after five years with this President are
looking around and saying, You know that project has made a difference
in this community. It\'s like the gentleman who got up and spoke about
the program that kept that business in town and therefore kept jobs. The
infrastructure improvements\-- water, sewer etcetera. So we get pretty
universal support for the rural economic development programs, but still
have some good ideas there.

The second area is conservation. The testimony today would be pretty
indicative of what we\'re hearing across the country. Pretty good
support for conservation. Not unanimous. There are some parts of the
country, especially where ranchers are competing for grassland, that we
heard from some ranchers saying, you know your conservation programs
take that land out of production if you will, grassland production, and
that competes with me because I need land to grow my cattle on, my
cow-calf operation.

So that\'s something to factor in. We\'ve heard some discussion about
kind of a working lands proposal to conservation, and again that\'s an
interesting thing to think about.

Yesterday in Kentucky I heard something, maybe not for the first time
but the gentleman spoke with real clarity when he said, You know as we
think about our next farm program I would advocate that we remove our
support programs for agriculture into more conservation oriented
programs. Now why would he say that? One is, it has a pretty broad
sweep. You know if you\'re involved in conservation you could apply for
and hopefully receive the benefits of the program.

The other thing is, it does have some implications relative to trade
issues out there. The green box. You know you hear about the green box.
All I can tell you is this. It\'s not so much what box; it\'s the fact
that conservation programs generally don\'t have a problem when it comes
to trade issues. So that\'s why that discussion pops up. But again,
pretty good support for the conservation programs.

We do hear a lot relative to this theme about young people getting into
agriculture. I was the governor of a very large ag-producing state, just
about in every major category we produced a lot and exported a lot.

I would travel all over that state as governor. I would speak at the
annual Chamber dinner, volunteer recognition dinner, whatever it was.
When I got into the rural areas, there was one thing that was pretty
consistent. As I looked out across the crowd, the majority of people in
the audience by quite a bit actually, were people my age or older, 55 or
older. We are due for a pretty significant generational shift here in
agriculture, and it\'s not that far off.

This gentleman said, I\'m not retired but I\'m tired. Well, maybe we all
feel that way some days. But the reality is that our generation is about
ready to look to this generation in the blue jackets and say, it\'s your
turn. How do we facilitate them entering into agriculture? And so we
always start these forums with 4-H and FFA kicking them off, but it\'s a
very important theme. I really feel strongly that our farm policy should
encourage that or we\'re going to face some challenges out there over
the next 15 to 20 years just in terms of how that land passes to the
next generation and they get involved in agriculture.

Well, those are some general thoughts at this point. The input has been
excellent. This was a really, really good Farm Bill Forum. You came
prepared. You had some really thoughtful ideas. That\'s why I did kind
of jump in at a couple of points there to say, I want to understand more
about that and learn about what you\'re saying.

Final thought. We do have some time here before a final Farm Bill is
submitted, discussed, debated, voted on, all of that A lot of things can
happen in that period of time. We\'ve got a WTO process out there,
we\'ve got the trade issues out there, all of those things. What I would
encourage you to do is this. We have an excellent website, USDA.GOV,
very easy to remember. You go on that website, you\'ll see our Farm Bill
Forum place where you can click on. Please stay in touch with us. We
want to hear from you. We want to hear from these young people.

My hope is that in every FFA program in the United States young people
are talking about this and sending us ideas, e-mailing us, getting on
our website. But I say that also to our farmers and our ranchers across
the United States. If you don\'t like to mess around with the computer,
that\'s fine. Send us a letter. Somehow let us know what you\'re
thinking about.

We really appreciate that input, and we believe it will be very helpful
as we start to formulate our thinking about the next Farm Bill.

Then finally, the role of the administration. You\'re absolutely
right\-- it\'s been about 20 years since the administration actually
submitted a specific proposal on a Farm Bill, specific legislation.
We\'re going to a lot of effort here. I have some pretty strong feelings
and passion for agriculture. That\'s where I grew up. I do intend to do
everything I can to be directly involved in the Farm Bill.

Still a few months away from us deciding whether we will submit an
actual piece of legislation, but that\'s possible. Under any
circumstances though, with the support of the President we do intend to
be very actively involved, not only in approaches but in the discussion
and the debate about what this farm policy should look like.

So very important, we ask you to stay in touch with us. Let us know
what\'s on your mind.

And then finally to our moderators, I thought they did a great job, kept
us on track. Thank you very much.

\[Applause.\]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.