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Release No. 0519.05

**Transcript of New Jersey Farm Bill Forum with Under Secretary for
Rural Development Tom Dorr and Moderator Christopher Ridenhour East
Brunswick, New Jersey**

**November 16, 2005**

THE MODERATOR: Great morning to you.

We\'re going to start off our program with the Pledge of

Allegiance. I\'d like to introduce to you Mohat Muta

\[phon,\] who is a 4-H member, local 4-H member, who will

lead us with the Pledge of allegiance. If we can all

rise, please.

(Pledge of Allegiance and the Star Spangled

Banner.)

MODERATOR: At this point I\'d like

to invite to the stage to address New Jersey

Secretary of Agriculture Charles Kuperus.

SECRETARY KUPERUS: Good morning,

everyone. We\'re very, very happy to have a good

turnout for a listening session that\'s important for us

in the Garden State. There\'s no question in my mind

that we have, probably we deal with every single issue

in our state that you could imagine, and hearing the

different perspectives whether it be on nutrition,

education, conservation, farmland preservation,

sustaining our individual farm enterprises, you know,

we\'re going to hear even some with disease and pest

control, we\'re going to hear a lot of different things

today, and I believe in many ways we\'re going to see

the different perspectives come together as part of

this listening forum.

I want to offer a little introduction for a

couple folks from USDA. Under Secretary Dorr is here

to listen. I\'m going to introduce him in a moment, but

we can\'t forget USDA\'s place here in the State of New

Jersey, and we have NRCS represented here and I don\'t

know if Tony Kramer here this morning but Tony, if you

could stand, anything related to conservation issues

Tony Kramer is our state conservationist. A very, very

good solid partner for us in New Jersey.

FSA director is led by Paul Hlubik, who is in

the audience here. I did see him earlier. And Paul

again a very important person, especially implementing

all the, a lot of farm bill programs but CREP is a

really wonderful program, conservation reserve

enhancement program that we work with NRCS and FSA.

Then we have Andy Law, who is standing in the back

there. Raise your hand, Andy. Andy is one of the most

precious assets USDA has, and most certainly we\'re so

welcome and pleased to have him represent USDA for

rural development in New Jersey. And Paul Hlubik

standing right next to him. Thanks, Paul, for coming

in the room.

But from our perspective, in the New Jersey

Department of Agriculture we have the Farm Bureau here,

we have the college here, we have members of the state

board of agriculture here, and we have people that are

leaders in nutrition, different industry leaders, and

we\'re going to hear a lot of with respect to their

perspectives of what the farm bill should look like

with their particular commodities and their particular

interests.

The focus here is for us at the state level as

well as at the federal level is to listen. We have all

kinds of challenges in our state and most certainly we

want to make sure that we welcome new people into

agriculture, and education is very critical to us. We

want to make sure that we feed with healthy nutritious

foods our school children, but making sure our hungry

have enough to eat as well.

We want to make sure that we preserve our soil,

health and water quality in this state, and that

partnership is going to be reflected in some of the

comments.

And we want to make sure that we preserve our

farmland and sustain our farmers. And we\'re going to

hear from some of the folks in the audience because we

just had a little event downstairs to talk about the

value added grant program, how important it is to allow

our growers to benefit from a grant program to adapt to

a changing marketplace.

But my job is going to be offer testimony a

little later on, and I\'m going to do that along with

you. But my job this morning is to introduce \-- I just

want to make sure that I do one thing. The dean of

Cook College is here, Dr. Goodman, if you could stand a

moment. Farm Bureau president Rich Nieuwenhuis, is in

the audience. If I could introduce him in the back of

the room. There\'s many other folks. We have members

of the state board of agriculture here, but I don\'t see

them right now. I have just want to make sure that

everybody is very important to us in this room, and our

job is to make sure that we have as much input as we

possibly can.

But I\'m really here to introduce Under

Secretary Dorr. USDA had a choice. They could do \--

they could continue the status quo when it came to

developing policy for the next farm bill. And they

chose, Secretary Johanns chose to go out in the country

in every single state to host these listening forums

and listen first and allow that dialogue to develop

policy. And we have to congratulate them for that,

because this is the first time I can remember this ever

happening. And then sending senior members of his

staff to go out and visit these different states to,

you know, conduct these listening sessions is very,

very important to show that it\'s a high level

management team that\'s going out to hear what you have

to say.

I have already had the opportunity to testify

about nutrition issues in Manhattan several weeks ago,

and it\'s very important for us as well, but hearing the

diversity of the comments that you\'re going to hear,

knowing people that we have in the audience is

important as well. But Under Secretary Tom Dorr is not

a stranger to us in New Jersey. He\'s been here many

times. He\'s been an advocate for making sure that we

have rural housing opportunities. In fact, we

announced three and-a-half million dollars for farm

labor housing in the city of Bridgeton. Rural

development with water and sewer infrastructure, all

those administered under him.

But the value added grant program, something

that we\'re going to hear a lot about today, is also

administered under rural development. Under Secretary

Dorr, we\'re so pleased to have you, and I hope you can

all join me in giving a warm Garden State welcome to

Undersecretary Dorr.

(Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY DORR: Thank you

very much, Charlie. That was a very kind

introduction. It is great to be back here again

and see you and so many of your colleagues. It

was fun last night to have been able to

participate briefly in the Farm Bureau\'s dinner,

banquet last evening, and it was good to see

Richard Nieuwenhuuis, who I had not met before but

I had heard of.

Dean Goodman, I\'ve got to reintroduce a number

of these folks, because they are significant to us.

Dean Goodman, and the work that he and his staff at

Rutgers cook College have done is really, really

significant.

But these listening sessions are far broader

than just USDA, and it\'s my pleasure to also

acknowledge the fact that Lisa Clemmons, state director

of Senator Lautenberg\'s office \-- Lisa, are you here?

I thought she was supposed to be here. How about

Jennifer Snead? They slept in this morning. How about

Carl Brammer? Carl, are you here? They\'re all

sleeping in. He\'s the congressman from \[inaudible\]

office and I understand that someone from Congressman

Smith\'s office was supposed to be here. I tell you

what. We\'re going to ask them to work on the farm

because they\'re going to have to hustle \[inaudible\] to

get up here early in the morning.

But anyway, I\'m glad to see all of you. I

really am. This is a terrific turnout in a state that

is, quite frankly, not typically associated with

production and agriculture and to have this much

interest and willingness to get involved and giving us

your insight is very, very helpful.

I would be remiss if I didn\'t point out that in

addition to Andy Law helping to put this together, Paul

Hlubik and Tony Kramer, who were introduced earlier,

were very instrumental in this as well. I think it\'s

important for all of you to know that one of the things

that Secretary Johanns is very adamant about is that we

work together across agency lines more effectively

perhaps than we have in the past, and I think that\'s

very, very important.

But making agriculture work for the next

generation is really the main reason that this

discussion is taking place. This is a great way to

kick things off, and we\'re here today to talk about the

next farm bill. That\'s going to involve some tough

choices. Those choices are going to be made first and

foremost in Congress, so it\'s important to have the

congressional representatives here that I hope will be

here joining with us.

But the new farm bill is going to involve any

number of specific issues. But in back of all of them

is one big unavoidable reality, and that simply is

change. Standing still is not an option, not with

globalization, relentless competition, truly incredible

scientific and technological advances in productivity

yields along with rising energy costs, the access to

broadband and diversification of the rural economy in

general. Changing just isn\'t an option. Excuse me.

Not changing isn\'t an option.

As the saying goes, "you can run but you can\'t

hide." There\'s another quote, it gets variously

attributed, but Google says it\'s by William Trotsky and

it expresses the same idea. "You may not be interested in

war, but war is interested in you." The same can be

said about the structural changes sweeping the economy.

If you\'re an auto worker, you may not be interested in

Japan, but there\'s no doubt Toyota is interested in

your market, not to mention your job.

If you make just about anything else, you may

not be interested in China or Indonesia or Italy

or India for that matter, but their companies are

interested in whatever you produce. Of course the

reverse is also true. The United States is still

world\'s largest exporter as well as importer. And

agriculture especially is a major export player.

So it\'s the same if you\'re a farmer. You

may not be interested in Brazil or Canada or

Argentina or Australia, but they sure are

interested in you. The bottom line is we can\'t

hide. We can only pretend to and perhaps only for

a short time. But then we\'re going to have to pay

the price. So if standing still isn\'t an option,

we need to get ready. The next farm bill is in

fact that opportunity to do that. Change is a

double-edged sword. It did involves both

challenges but also opportunities.

To meet the challenges and seize the

opportunities, we need to be thinking ahead. So

about three months ago President Bush in

discussion with Secretary Johanns kicked off this

series of farm bill listening forums. The purpose

was, as Charlie\'s indicated earlier in his

introduction, simply to open up the debate to the

widest possible participation for people all

around the country. I can tell you I\'ve done any

number of these already, and it is marvelous and

remarkable what we\'re hearing, and I think we\'re

hearing a lot of things that people didn\'t think

we would.

For example, although we\'ve already held

close to 45 of these, it\'s a good sign that people

are ready to face up to serious questions.

They\'re asking things like how do we keep American

agriculture competitive and increase our exports.

How do we encourage the next generation of farmers

and the next generation of rural Americans and to

make it possible for them to live and prosper

while living in rural America. How do we best

support rural America, diversify the rural economy

and frankly to bring more when jobs back to rural

America? Another question is where is technology

taking us? What should we expect from the next

generation of productivity increases as well as

new products they bring, and what are those

products. And how should we balance production

regarding environmental responsibilities. These

are all issues that give get raised.

If these were easy questions, quite honestly

we wouldn\'t be here. We\'re here because they\'re

tough. And because none of us, absolutely none of

us I know in Washington because I moved there four

years ago and before that I spent my time on a

Iowa farm, none of us have a monopoly on good

ideas.

I\'m here primarily to listen. The next farm

bill of today is a blank sheet waiting to be

written. And if through these forums we develop

some consensus about the direction we have to

take, that\'s is terrific. But even if we don\'t

find a consensus, and frankly, I expect that on a

lot of issues we probably aren\'t going to be able

to, but we can at least come to understand the

other side\'s point of view and hopefully make the

tough choices with our eyes open.

So as I said earlier this morning, I am

thrilled to be here. I really mean that. I\'m

delighted at such a large crowd and looking

forward to the next couple hours to listening to

what you have to say to receiving your insight not

only into the issues and the difficulties but

importantly to what you view as the opportunities

for rural American production agriculture as they

impact your particular slice of evidence.

So thank you very, very much for taking the

time out of your busy schedules. Thank you again

to the New Jersey Farm Bureau for letting us

piggyback on to their conference, and at this

point I\'m going to turn it over to Christopher

Ridenhour who\'s graciously agreed to be our host,

and he\'s going to manage this thing so all I have

to sit and listen and take a lot of it in. Thank

you very, very much.

\[Applause.\]

MODERATOR: I had the pleasure of

honoring this morning, I host a show here in New

Jersey called New Jersey Works, and it\'s broadcast

on New Jersey Public Television, and among the

things that we do is all of the initiatives,

resources and partnerships that are, that come out

of the Department of Labor and Work Force

Development. We feature the stories, the

initiatives and all these things, and I had the

pleasure of recently spending time with Andy Law

on a recent show, and it was amazing to me. I

grew up in Philadelphia, and I think there is

something called centrism, you\'re really excited

about a place where you grew up, and I love

Fairmount Park and these kinds of things. And

probably about four or five years ago my family,

we moved to New Jersey and I showed the family

that in fact a show that we did on all the

initiatives on a food innovation center and the

farmers that we featured on our show, it was a

very interesting and informative and enervating

introduction to New Jersey in the way that I did

not associate with the state before.

And it was such a pleasure for me to be here

and see that my children will be growing up in a state

that is so concerned about conservation, about

agriculture, fresh foods and these kinds of matters, so

it is my pleasure to be here to moderate this session

today.

I\'d like to describe the guidelines of the

structure that we will be following today. First I\'d

like to be sharing the six questions that our speakers

were asked to comment on. The first is how should farm

policy address any unintended consequences and ensure

that such consequences do not discourage the farmers

and the next generation of farmers from entering

production agriculture.

The second question. How should farm policy

be designed to maximize U.S. competitiveness and our

country\'s ability to effectively compete in global

markets?

How should farm policy be designed to

effectively and fairly distribute assistance to

producers?

How can farm policy best achieve conservation

and environmental goals?

Fifth, how can federal, rural and farm

programs provide effective assistance in rural areas;

and lastly, how should agricultural product

development, marketing and research-related issues be

addressed in the next farm bill?

Now, to maintain organization, we\'re going to

ask that each of the speakers come up and know that

they have three minutes. There\'s a system that we are

using. If you see that cord as you approach the mic,

it will do four times, you will see a green light that

will let you know that everything is fine, keep going,

keep going. The minute you see the blinking red light,

it means that you have 30 seconds to wrap up your

statement. Now, the good news is that is that we will

get each individual three minutes so that we can get

the most comments in, and we\'re going to let you know

that you can come back and ask another question, but

we\'re going to try get through the first folks first,

all right?

We\'re going to ask that if there is a comment

out of the audience or a response, we ask that all

outbursts and side bar comments be kept to a minimum.

And if an audience member cannot physically

get to the two microphones here in the center of the

auditorium \-- I feel like a flight attendant as you see

down the path, there are two, hold up your hand and we

will get the microphone to you. All the rest we ask

you to come forward to the microphone.

We also want to make sure that you know that

there are comment boxes located on the outside as well

as you have the opportunity by way of mail and also

e-mail, and for those of you that have pens, the web

site is www.usda.gov/farm bill, and your comments and

suggestions will be equally valued as we hold the value

up here at the forum as well.

As you come forward, we\'re going to ask that

you clearly enunciate your name as well and tell us the

city and state that you come from and also your

involvement or connection to agriculture and the farm

bill. All right? And we also want to know which of

the questions you\'ll be addressing, okay.

Without further ado, I\'d like to call forward

four votes. I have Robert Goodman from Rutgers

University. I have Dale Cruzan from FFA, Stephen Dey

from the Monmouth County Board of Agriculture, and

Santo Maccherone from Circle M Fruit Farms.

MR. ROBERT GOODMAN: Thanks very much,

Under Secretary Tom Dorr. I welcome you on behalf of

Rutgers University and Cook College and the

Agricultural Experiment Station. I\'m delighted to have

you here.

I\'d like to focus on the Critical Nature of

Partnerships. We\'re a fundamental partnership across

the scope, USDA, New Jersey Department of Agriculture,

the New Jersey Department of Health, the New Jersey

Department of Environmental Protection, Cook, the New

Jersey Agricultural Experimental Station and all of the

other units at Rutgers that try to work together to

advance the interests of economic sectors including

agriculture and agribusiness in the state.

There\'s lot in the farm bill that\'s very

important of us. Of course, fundamentally a

significant amount of resources come to Rutgers and the

experiment station, the food and nutrition program,

conservation programs, farm-related programs and rural

government, international educational programs and

particularly with us land and food, land and safety

issues, and fundamentally at some levels the most

important the components of research, corporate

research is very, very important.

I would hope for the new farm bill to include

national policy, one that recognizes the diversity of

agriculture across the country, the diversity of rural

communities and their needs across the country. Here

in New Jersey, as you know, the most densely populated

state and also one of the states richest in rural

tradition and still a very vibrant and active rural

sector. We\'d like to see a policy in the farm bill

that meets needs of our special situations here in New

Jersey.

Fundamentally I believe politics, I believe in

diversity to yield resilience and to yield

sustainability. To me the diversity of farm projects

is the diversity of business enterprises that surround

the diversity and quality of life and growth of

communities, all of that is fundamentally important to

the health and the future of keeping us safe.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to be here

and thank you for coming.

MODERATOR: Thank you.

MR. DALE CRUZAN: Good morning. I\'m

Dale Cruzan. I proudly represent New Jersey\'s 1,742

FFA members as the state president. I am currently

enrolled as a freshman at Cook College Rutgers

University, and I\'m originally from Christian

\[inaudible\] in Cumberland County.

I want to thank Under Secretary Dorr, Secretary

Johanns and the United States Department of Agriculture

for allowing me to address the importance of the 2007

farm bill. As a former Iowa FFA member, Secretary

Johanns knows the importance of agriculture education,

and we are grateful for his support.

Farm policy \-- I\'ll address question number 1,

I see two negative consequences of the farm bill that

they must address. The negative perception \-- excuse

me \-- that young people hold of agriculture and

increasing \[inaudible\] prices. Farm policy must

support the expansion of agricultural education and

address the misconceptions young people hold about

production agriculture.

A modern farmer is more than just a farmer.

He\'s a soil scientist, a meteorologist, a chemist and a

business leader. Farm policy must support this

expansion and help meet the goal of the national

organization of 10,000 chapters by 2015. And farm

policy must create an aggressive outreach program to

inform students of the science, business and technology

of agriculture.

Along with education, the farm bill must

address the importance of preservation of the family

farm, increase urbanization in \[inaudible\] of land

prices and discouraging young people from entering the

agricultural industry.

I began my supervised agricultural experience

on a family farm in Salem County, where I worked in a

farm marketing and garden center. Here I learned the

importance of agriculture, learned the value of quality

to the customer, the benefits of being in production

agriculture and the importance of having a love for

what you do.

The farm bill must support young people as they

enter our industry through initiatives and other

sources to help curb the costs of the increasing \-- the

increases in our industry. I hope the 2007 farm bill

will address the need for increased agricultural

education and to prepare our students for the broad

industry, encourage a seamless transition from high

school to post-secondary education and to preserve the

importance of the family farm.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity and

FFA members around the nation to take part in this

tremendous event. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Dale, thank you. I

have to say for a student you sounded more like a

faculty person. Rebecca Potosky.

MS. REBECCA POTOSKY: Good morning. My

name is Rebecca Potosky. I\'m a junior here at Cook

College majoring in animal science with my

concentration being livestock production and

management. I also raise dairy goats and have been

involved with livestock and 4-H for much of my life.

When I was asked to talk at this listening

session, I was very excited, especially to find out who

will be speaking on how farm policy can help the next

generation of producers entering agriculture.

Agriculture in this day is an incredibly involved issue

dealing with issues such as rising costs and

encroaching development. Agriculture manages

essentially the experts not only in areas of plant,

soil and animals, but also in economics, politics and

marketing.

Balancing all these vast and disparate issues

can be daunting, especially for the young people who

will be the next generation of producers. How can we

assure the future of agriculture and help the parent

producers to handle this task? I believe the answer is

to this question is education, significantly continued

support of programs like the 4-H program that gives you

knowledge in project areas like agriculture and animal

farms.

Equally as important, 4-H provides youth with

substantial life skills that are necessary no matter

what career path you would choose to pursue. Data

gathered from over 50,000 New Jersey 4-H members showed

that the education provided by 4-H has helped prepare

them for their futures. 72 percent feel comfortable

with public speaking, 81 percent have gained knowledge

in project area, and 71 percent have learned the

importance of recordkeeping skills as a result of 4-H.

4-H, however, doesn\'t stop at educating future

producers. Certainly 4-H hasn\'t forgotten its

agricultural roots but has worked to expand its

education of essential life skills to include all of

you. Programs in addition to the traditional club

includes school enrichment, short-term and after-school

programs. These can also be essential to the

agriculture producer and can serve to educate the

greater public in all aspects of the industry.

One such program that links agriculture and

others here in New Jersey with the RCRE Youth Pharmacia

Project. This project expands the markets for New

Jersey agricultural communities while providing work

force preparation tools that are essential and are

helping a critical need.

4-H has been so instrumental in my life and the

lives of others that I continue to be active in the

program, not only as a collegiate member but also as a

4-H club leader and volunteer.

In closing, the future of agriculture will need

to be educated and determined to face the mounting

issues in this industry. As an experience I can say

4-H has taught me many things, among them to be

determined, to never give up and to strive

continuously, as our motto states, to make the best

better. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Rebecca, thank you, and

as Stephen Dey is coming forward I\'d like to

announce Santo Maccherone, Larry Leung, Robert

Frey and James Quarella, please.

DR. STEPHEN DEY: Good morning,

Under Secretary Dorr. Thank you for the

opportunity to speak. My name is Dr. Stephen Dey,

a veterinarian, but I\'m also a horse breeder, farm

owner and on the executive board of Monmouth

County Ag.

What I want to talk about is keeping New

Jersey green. As a result of the EPA\'s decision

for the Clean Water Act in 1995, which is now

beginning to show the areas that are going to be

stressed, New Jersey has developed rules, which are

in the proposal stage or close to the proposal

stage affecting all of the livestock in the State

of New Jersey. In order to keep our waterways

clean, water needs to be cleaned up in our

waterways.

There are many, many best management

practices that are going to have to be instituted

by our livestock owners. I am a horse breeder.

We have 7500 horse farms in the State of New

Jersey. They are all going to come under the soon

to be developed livestock waste management rule,

and this is going to require not only the funding

and the conservation areas, which has been coming

to the State of New Jersey but even more money in

order to do these projects.

Farmers are not wealthy these days. A lot of

them are just getting by. And the extra expense

that is going to be needed in order to do these

projects, they need help, they need help from the

federal government, they need help from the USDA.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you

about it tonight.

UNDER SECRETARY DORR: Did you say

7,500 horse farms?

DR. STEPHEN DEY: Yes, sir.

MR. SANTO MACCHERONE: I\'m Santo

Maccherone from the Circle M Farms. I\'m here to speak

about the value added grant and the importance of it.

I\'m a success story, this would be my second

grant. My idea was to take the peaches that I would

normally throw away and make them productive, and what

I did is I turned out a new peach cycle and it\'s been

very successful.

There was a lot of benefits from that. Not

only the profit for my farm, but there was other

aspects where it helped my whole farm out greatly and

enhanced the sale of my peaches to begin with. Opened

up more markets, more clients for me, and my particular

farm now is the strongest condition it\'s ever been in

the terms of sales. So there have been a lot of

reciprocal things that were a benefit for me.

The grant, the grant, what it did, it allowed

me to start off the right way. I went out and I hired

the same people that worked for the State of New Jersey

for the, that did some work for the State of New Jersey

on the Jersey Fresh program. They designed my labels,

they helped market my product, which was invaluable to

the success of it. Without the grant, I never would

have spent money like that. Or I never would have

started. And it did a lot more, and that was what

escalated everything.

I think that the value added \-- the American

public I think is yearning for these new products.

They\'re yearning for it. I think there\'s a wide open

market out there, all types of ideas, and I think

farmers are entrepreneurs. I think they have all these

ideas. They just need the help to get the ideas out,

and this grant does it.

In the farm bill, there\'s a lot of you come out

of Washington and probably the majority of it is there

to keep farmers alive from one year to the next. The

value of that is to invest in the future. It\'s

investment in the resource and that\'s what is

important.

I\'m a third generation farmer, the son of an

immigrant, and the fourth generation is in college, and

I think that\'s the resource that this grant is really

going to capture, because he\'s a talented kid. When he

comes out of college he can do anything and be

successful working without the farm. And you have to

seize the opportunity, and I think that\'s resource that

is the most important. That is what\'s going to keep

the agriculture industry viable in the future.

That\'s it. That\'s the end of the speech.

That\'s it.

MODERATOR: Thanks so much.

MR. LEONARD POLLARA: My name is Leonard

Pollara. I reside in Montague Township in Sussex

County. I\'m a certified organic grower, and I suppose

I\'m interested in what happens in the farm bill, which

is why I\'m here. I think you asked us to state what

our connection is and why we\'re here.

Looking at your questions at a certain level,

there\'s no definitive answer. These questions are

questions where the answers will evolve as agriculture

evolves and as our population and nation evolves, so

it\'s not a static answer, and to see a static question

I believe to be an error. So I\'m going to speak more

generally and only in one case be specific, so I\'ll get

the specific out of the way.

The Organic Food Production Act specifically,

and our state board called the national organic

standards board to have an advisory capacity to be the

only body that is authorized to determine the

suitability of materials and the practices in organic

production. It\'s absolutely critical that that board

is funded at a level that they can function and that

their role is fully recognized and not in any way

subverted, and it is critical that the Department of

Agriculture develop a worker culture supporting that.

I don\'t believe that exists at this point in time

because the function of that board is actually being \--

the question that I find rather intriguing about how do

we make, what do we do to encourage the next generation

of farmers.

One of our tools that has been existing for

over a hundred years is the agricultural experiment

stations and development through research supportive

information technologies and practices that help create

a foundation for the underpinning of the future in

agriculture as agriculture evolves. If that isn\'t

fully supported, they are literally pulling apart the

underpinning of our future. And the single thing that

we can do that will make farming attractive for the

next generation, I believe, is to demonstrate that

there is a capacity for farming to be something that

provides you a living, more than simply a lifestyle.

If we are successful at farming, that in and of itself

will create an inducement for others to follow, and so

we need to support policies that contribute to the

success of growers.

Labor is a very market issue, and labor, I

think, resolving that critical issue of guest labor is

one of the things that can give the United States a

more tangible asset in terms of international

competition, and I\'ll stop there since my time is up.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Robert Frey, please.

MR. ROBERT FREY: My name Robert Frey,

and I\'m a farmer in the Delaware watershed. My family

has had a farm for generations. I\'m a retired dairy

farmer. I\'d like to address the Clean Water Act. I

agree with what has been said about the need for the

Clean Water Act and the need for additional

privatization. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Jim

Quarella.

MR. JIM QUARELLA: Good morning. My

name is Jim Quarella. I\'m a fourth generation

farmer of Bellview Farms. It\'s a 150-acre

vegetable farm, or it was a vegetable farm in

Atlantic County in Sykesville, New Jersey. In

2000 we started planting grapes and we opened a

winery, and \'02 was the last year we planted

vegetables, so from \'03 on all income was captured

off the grapes and the winery.

We made that transition because the

vegetable industry we felt was not being grown

like we wanted to see it grow. But probably even

more important to that was none of my family, my

three sons and my wife had much interest in

vegetables. Now with the winery my wife, my

oldest son has come with us now the farm will stay

viable.

Coming from production, staying in

production was fairly easy. We could grow the

crops, we could grow the grapes, we could

manufacture the wine, we could produce a bottle of

wine, but the key is to market it. This is why we

applied for the value added grant. We received

it, we hired professional help, we designed a

label, professionalized our logo and brochures.

This is what\'s going to keep us viable. All the

lines, all the production, quality, is very

important, you need that, but if the farm is to

stay sustainable and productive and continue into

generations we need to sell at a profit. And this

grant is very, very available to us but it\'s only

a start. We need to continue with this so we can

have a share of the market so our New Jersey

produce or products can be turned into value added

products and receive more capital to make it more

profitable for the farm.

So I\'m going to keep it very to that

point, the value added grants are very important

to us small producers. We are overextended

financially in trying to make the operation work,

get all the EQIPment we need, to have the labor

force we need that this extra brings us to the

next level. Thank you for the opportunity to

speak.

MODERATOR: As Chan Leung, Jocelyn

Leung and Denny Doyle and Philip Neary come to the

next floor, I\'ll just remind everybody to silence

their technology.

MR. CHAN LEUNG: Good morning. My name

is Chan Leung. I\'m from Ringoes, New Jersey and I\'m

currently a vice-president of the state growers

association. I\'ll address the second question about

investment in human capital that will benefit the

competitiveness of our agriculture and our country as a

whole.

The Cooperative Extension Service of the U.S.

Department of Agriculture and the cooperative extension

system in our nation\'s 100 land grant universities,

they support research and programs to improve

agriculture, technology, nutrition, health, ecology,

youth development and many other areas, but today I

want to concentrate on one aspect, the cooperative

extension systems collaboration in support of 4-H in

promoting youth development.

4-H began over a century ago as a dynamic,

progressive educational program to better offer

agriculture people among people to learn about

\[inaudible\] principle and to fortify the cooperative

system at the USDA established by Congress in 1914.

They are a nationwide network designed to meet the need

of research, knowledge and education of the nation\'s

agricultural, environmental and youth communities.

With support from the cooperative extension systems and

USDA and the land grant universities, today\'s 4-H group

development programs span over 7 million young people

aged from five to 19 in all 50 states, Guam, Puerto

Rico and all U.S. armed forces installations throughout

world.

35 percent of the youth reached by 4-H are from

rural areas and 55 percent are from major metropolitan

areas, suburbs and inner cities. As of 100 years ago

4-H remains a community of young people across America

united to learn leadership, citizenship and other

useful life skills. By promoting the growth of young

people into productive, responsible citizens, and here

is 4-H\'s profound impact that extends far beyond the

farm sector. It can affect not just the future and the

global competitiveness of agriculture but also our

nation as a whole.

Now, how 4-H through our school programs

benefits our youth are better told by those who have

personal experience with the programs. I\'m here to

call attention to the important and often overlooked

abstract, their benefits and cost effectiveness of 4-H

youth development. Most state-organized 4-H clubs

outside of school time with parents serving as

volunteer leaders have come to expect the aid provided

by professional support.

There are many devoted parents working

tirelessly. They are devoting countless hours to make

4-H programs possible. Indeed, it\'s been estimated

that every year over 640,000 annual volunteers for 4-H

across the country with an annual contribution in terms

of mileage, out-of-pocket expenses exceeds two billion

dollars, and for every dollar provided the farming

sectors the 4-H generally receives \[inaudible\] for

participation.

So I\'m saying that it is first cost effective

and have many profound effects upon society, and I

would urge the secretary to take this into

consideration and continue to support the cooperative

systems and let 4-H to continue with this mission.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you so much.

Jocelyn.

MS. JOCELYN LEUNG: My name is Jocelyn,

and I\'m currently vice-president of the New Jersey

state advisory council. I\'m also a freshman currently

attending Cokesbury College in Maryland on a

scholarship.

I would like to take a moment of your time to

share with you my personal story of how 4-H helped me

succeed both in life, in school and beyond. I\'m only

child so normally I\'m very shy and introverted. I had

a lot of trouble relating to my peers and I had even

more trouble speaking in public like I\'m doing right

now, so excuse me if I start stumbling.

I thank my turn-around to my joining the

Somerset 4-H County Association, initially the Chinese

Culture Club, to keep more in touch with my ethnic

background. I soon discovered that 4-H offers much

more. Besides having a large section of clubs,

everything having from raising animals to science and

rocketry, it also provides the younger generation with

a valuable skill and character conditioning otherwise

\[inaudible\]. This got me interested, and soon I became

involved in many other interests. I learned the 4-H

principle of learning by doing. I joined the Somerset

4-H Club, Somerset Association Club Outreach, a club of

teens participating in the United Way, in the

administration and other public office issues, do

volunteer work at school and was elected as president

in 2005. In Somerset County I was also selected as

2004\'s outstanding 4-Her, and in 2005 I was a

scholarship recipient. In March of this year I

received a presidential volunteer service award at the

White House.

Through 4-H\'s \[inaudible\] youth throughout the

country. Just inside the state of New Jersey are two

of the largest farms are run and ruled by 4-H alumni,

one is currently the present of the 4-H Association,

and the other one is a former vice-president.

I therefore urge you at the USDA to take this

carefully into account when preparing the next farm

bill. I sincerely hope you will continue to give 4-H

through the cooperative extension the necessary support

so that many youth can also share the same

opportunities that I was given.

I\'d also to take this opportunity to submit

some farm petitions I collected this summer among

parents and four fellow 4-Hers in Somerset County.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Jocelyn.

Denny Doyle.

MR. DENNY DOYLE: Good morning, I\'m

Denny Doyle, general manager of the Atlantic Blueberry

Company, also past president of the blueberry action

council and current vice chairman of the New Jersey

blueberry council.

And two points I\'d choose to bring up. One,

I\'m also very shy. (Laughter.) Most of the people in

the room know that I\'m far from shy. But I would like

to bring up two points near and dear to my heart.

Just as you folks were doing outreaching into

the grower community, I think we need to do that here

in this state. It\'s generally very difficult for our

growers and farmers in this state or most any other

state to come to forums like this to speak, because

generally age our farmers don\'t like the larger crowds.

I mean it\'s very important for this farm bill to

preserve the land. But an important point is that in

this state you have two issues that negatively affect

farmers by the preservation of land. One is the

Highlands Act, and two is the Highlands Act that\'s just

been enacted.

Now, from a perspective of just reading the

bills we have seen, it certainly seems that it\'s the

right thing to do. But there has to be wordage, strong

wordage to be in these type of preservation bills that

will protect the farmer. We\'re under a situation here

where our \-- I am fourth-generation blueberry, there

could possibly be, there could possibly be a fifth but

in my particular case in my farm it\'s in the Pinelands.

It won\'t happen. The expansion on our farm is limited.

We can\'t do it because of the preservation of the

ground. I cannot expand my farm. There needs to be an

understanding about the preservation of land connected

to the same people that have been preserving the land

for generations. That has not been done. You can\'t

restrict the land owners, the farmers of this state or

any other state in the ability to expand. It\'s very,

very important.

The other point very quickly, I see the

little \-- I told you I\'m shy \-- the other important

part, we need to make sure that the universities, in

this case Rutgers, excellent facility, the Department

of Agriculture, we\'re very, very fortunate in the state

to have people, the leadership of the college, the USDA

and the Department of Agriculture, but we need a

connection with those folks to our farmers. They need

to outreach, as you folks rightly touched on, the

outreach to the farmers in all the United States.

MODERATOR: Thank you so much.

Philip Neary, Alex Tonetta and Gordon Dahl and

Charles Kuperus.

MR. PHILIP NEARY: Yes, good morning.

My name is Philip Neary. I work for Sunny Valley

International, which is the marketing agent which is a

group cooperative, fairly large cooperative here in New

Jersey made up of blueberry and peach growers,

chapters.

Jersey Fruit working along with our company

received the value added grant. We were requested to

come and speak on it. I\'m thrilled to do so because of

the success of the project, but also it involves, rural

development, fire and all the people involved really

went out of their way to help us and so I should at

least try to do well to come on behalf of them.

Jersey Fruit, you might think it\'s a large

entity in this state, you know, the small farmers, but

really I think some of the things we experienced might

help to cement the success of the program. Jersey

Fruit and our company, although large in the context

fruit growers in the state, still lacks the resources,

the staff and the time to do feasibility studies and

research and development-type activities. We have good

industry expertise, but it tended to be too provincial

and too narrow, and these types of projects open your

mind to what\'s out there in this global world

marketplace.

What did the value added grant allow us to do?

I think one of the best things that happened is we had

full access to the fire and experiment station, their

resources, their personnel, a tremendous benefit. The

affordability to hire a consultant to have that broad

experience that we lacked. It also gave a very

in-depth and detailed analysis of our situation and the

broader market out there, and I think one of the most

important things is it gave us an objective

perspective; again, in addition to being somewhat

provincial, we tend to be very biased in our views.

What were some of the key aspects of the

study? Key market trends, again you think you know it

all but we got an expert in, a consultant in fire

support who really knows what\'s out there and what the

trends are.

Analyzing the competition. Again, you think

you know it, but when you get a really professional

in-depth study done, you really, it opens your eyes to

what the competition is, what is their costs, what are

their product development trends.

The strengths and weaknesses of our company, of

Jersey Fruit and the New Jersey industry as a whole.

Again, you think you know it, but when you have

expertise coming it really opens your mind as to what

your strengths are as well as your weaknesses and your

profit analysis. Again, an in-depth study of that.

What is the implementation. We differentiated

with the fresh peach products, we\'ve improved the

product quality based on the study. We\'ve increased

our partnerships in strategic alliances, all for very

documentable returns, increased returns per account on

the peaches as well as a much stronger position in the

market, all ramifications of the study. So we know

that this type of work can continue for all the

conditions that have been stated. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Alex Tonetta, please.

MR. ALEX TONETTA: Good morning,

Mr. Under Secretary, I appreciate this opportunity. My

name is Alex Tonetta. I\'m a third generation grower in

south Jersey and there are a couple of points that I\'d

like to talk about this morning.

First of all, last night at the farm growing

banquet there was an inspirational speaker who talked

about complaining, and in my home, if you looked up the

word \"complaining\" in the dictionary there is a picture

of a farmer there. So I really didn\'t understand too

much about how complaining was wrong, so obviously he

made some really good points; and I listened to my dad

throughout years talking about marketing issues and

weather issues, and that seems to be the way things

were in my home.

When I started to become of age to take over

the business, I found myself being a single parent and

didn\'t have a wife at home to complain to so in my

house a lot of times complaints turned into an argument

and I was the only one in the room. At that point I

realized something need to be done and I needed to take

a look at what I was complaining about and what were

the reasons for it.

Major thing that kept coming up in my business

was opportunity for marketing. Small vegetable growers

in south Jersey have very minimal opportunity to market

their product. We expanded the consulting efforts to

try to find out what was going on in the northeast. If

there were a lot of growers facing the same issues, and

we found that there were. Corporate farms, trade

policies, consolidation in the industry have made it

increasingly difficult, practically impossible for

fresh market fruit and vegetable growers to compete.

We\'ve made an attempt to look forward to USDA

for some grant opportunities to put together some

marking cooperative initials and couldn\'t find anything

that fit. We were real close on several occasions to

find something like that, but we just couldn\'t find

anything.

My question to you if it\'s something that it\'s

to your interest in preserving small farms not only in

New Jersey but actually in the region, east coast,

northeast, what we need to do is try to find some way

to collaborate as small growers. A regional

distribution center is something that keeps coming up

with all the consulting work, the research and studies

that were done. That seems to be the way that we might

be able to find a solution to compete.

The other issue that I want to talk about

briefly is the profit issue. Very, very key to our

existence. The one constant in our business is whether

we make a profit. That\'s something that can be

addressed in the farm bill. It\'s imperative, the

cooperation between labor and university growers and

governing agencies I think is key and something we need

to bridge.

I think growers and labor and university and

governing support have to provide some kind of profit

assurance that works for small, medium-sized fruit and

vegetable growers.

Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Gordon

Dahl, please step forward.

MR. GORDON DAHL: Good morning, my name

is Gordon Dahl. I represent the South Jersey Economic

Development district.

Firstly I\'d like to welcome back Under

Secretary Dorr to New Jersey. He\'s familiar with New

Jersey and also south Jersey, and we appreciate you

coming down and doing the grass roots approach in

getting input in this important legislation.

The second thing I would like to do and I\'d be

remiss if I didn\'t mention Andy Law and his

professional staff who have been providing all the

programmatic resources at USDA and all the development

we have for our state.

I\'ll give you a little bit of background from

our agency. We were formulated in 1979. We cover

Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem Counties. We

were formulated under the federal Department of

Commerce and Economic Development Administration and

our mission in charge in southern New Jersey is to

promote and coordinate orderly economic development.

And as you know, in southern New Jersey we\'re

one of the most rural parts of the state. 70 percent

of our population is, a half a million, 565,000

population live outside of the community, 25,000 people

or more; and 51 of our 68 municipalities, the

populations under 10,000.

We work well with farmers and district board of

directors feels that they are an integral part of the

economy, and they formulated a policy years ago that

said that\'s where the farmland preservation is making

farming economically viable and is making investments

in the co-op, the Vineland Co-op, the Landesville

co-op, and most recently the board has addressed that.

\[Inaudible\].

We appreciate the resources and both the

magnitude and diversity of resources that USDA brings

to the table in our region. In the talks that I\'ve

given over the years one of the things, we have two

analogies, the first is you don\'t build a house on a

sagging foundation or a low foundation. It doesn\'t

make sense to make that investment. You make a strong

foundation, an infrastructure and support for the

economy and development. The second thing is don\'t ask

to build a house with only one tool in your tool box.

The university programs helps communities with

diversity of needs and diversity of services that they

have to deliver to be successful. So we support that

at USDA, we support the programs, the rural business

enterprise grant, the facilities, the rural waste

program, all those programs become an integral part of

the makeup of the rural communities, and we hope that

that would continue in the years to come. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Charles

Kuperus, please.

MR. CHARLES KUPERUS: Thank you. First

of all, I want to make sure I did knowledge the

comments that Cook College did a wonderful job making

the stage, and we really, I want to say thank you

personally for it.

\[Applause.\]

MR. CHARLES KUPERUS: You can see

southern New Jersey\'s finest fresh fruits and

vegetables here as well, Under Secretary Dorr.

I want to start with a couple of things. First

nutrition. You know, most certainly nutrition is an

important part of the farm bill, and when I testified

recently I think we need to take a new look at how some

of those commodity food buys happen, and I suggested

that we take a different approach. Rather than buying

food, you know, nationally or internationally and

distributing food at the diversity feeding programs,

start local, then regional and then national or

international if necessary so it influences the local

marketplace by taking some of those products out of the

marketplace and adding value to that local marketplace.

The savings can be just, just protect the nation\'s

savings alone can help make that self-sufficient.

The Department of Defense does it with our

Farmers in Schools program, and we see a lot of it

happening elsewhere across State of New Jersey and most

certainly we want to see our fresh nutritious products

being distributed through the federal program.

But I want to talk a little bit about the

changing nature of agriculture. Often, you know, you

think agriculture is static, and it\'s perceived as

static by the public in some ways, but in New Jersey we

have a very rapidly changing agriculture. We know

there\'s been some years when poultry was the number 1

sector of New Jersey agriculture. Dairy was the

number 1 sector for a period of time, and now what we

have is this wonderful array of diverse farmers across

the state, from farming in our bays to growing soft

shellfish to milking sheep and making cheese from that

sheep. We have it all in our state.

The farm bill needs to recognize that changing

landscape, and it\'s changing much more rapidly than it

has in the past. We\'re close to this wonderful

marketplace, and I don\'t have to repeat some of the

testimony you heard earlier about farmers adapting to

that changing marketplace. But in many ways what we

need to do is understand, just like other businesses

have to deal with the changing \-- the technology

industry, for example, they have to deal with changing

marketplace, so do we. And so we welcome the dialogue

that\'s going to happen.

I really appreciate the audience that\'s here

today, because you can see that the Garden State is

really engaged in the issues that are part of the farm

bill. Thanks again for coming to us, Secretary.

MODERATOR: Michael Rassweiler,

Carl Schulze, Christina Harrigan, Thomas Gerber

will be the next four.

MR. MICHAEL RASSWEILER: Michael

Rassweiler, West Amwell, Hunterdon County, production

and direct marketing of Certified Organic Produce

farmers and stewards of training opportunities.

To ensure the future of farmers, we must foster

a vigilant stewardship that includes farmers in our

efforts to maintain and achieve healthy communities.

In every community there must be housing and work

opportunities for the individuals who are drawn to the

trade of agriculture. Independence and sustainability

come not from global markets but from regional

production of regionally valuable products and

services. Allow a free market to set the competitors.

Government should stay focused on protecting the rights

of individuals to find their own paths.

The Natural Resource Conservation Service must

bridge the cultural gap between agricultural and trades

people and increasing the clout environmental and

legislative lobbies. The government can best serve

farmers by providing high quality consulting,

engineering and planning services at low or no cost.

Such existing operations can keep up to date on the

constantly evolving best management practices.

Conservation and environmental goals are

community assets that agricultural operations should be

compensated for, either directly or through related

incentives such as protection from land grabbing

legislation. As communities declare themselves

anti-development, there must be a foot left in the door

to provide housing, industry infrastructure and build

up transportation fundings for the workers required for

agriculture.

Large lot zoning without provisions for cluster

development will be the death knoll for what is left in

agriculture in New Jersey. We must develop and promote

systems where the waste of human activity is captured

and re-utilized by agricultural interests. Properly

managed agricultural operations can recycle energy that

we currently discard as waste.

Agricultural operations should be empowered to

reuse waste water from primary users. Agricultural

operations should also be empowered to be a source of

future energy needs to the integration of community

solar arrays, harvesting of biogases and the

regenerative production of energy rich crops. Thank

you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Carl?

MR. CARL SCHULZE: Good morning,

Mr. Under Secretary, welcome to New Jersey. My name is

Carl Schulze. I\'m the director of New Jersey\'s

Division of \[inaudible\]. I\'d like to direct questions

two, three and four.

New Jersey is a unique Gateway and

transportation corridor as well as moving trade through

the United States. With two seaports and a major

airport, the risk of harm and pests threats is a

constant threat to the agricultural mainstream products

and services.

Globalization is linked to the increased

importation of foreign pests and diseases. When new

pests and diseases enter our production system, our

competitiveness and our ability to compete in global

markets are affected by crop damage or loss and the end

costs are controlled although the loss of export

markets due to crops damage is (inaudible).

New Jersey is largely seen as a crop state.

These crops include nurseries, green house, vegetables,

fruits and beverages. Low energy and labor costs in

developing countries have led to tremendous increases

in propagative stock imported from abroad, which can

harbor foreign pests and diseases.

Peaches, as you heard earlier, are a major crop

in New Jersey. Nearly 25 percent of peach production

is exported to Pennsylvania has been eliminated in an

effort to eradicate \[inaudible\] virus. We carried out

extensive surveys in all orchards in New Jersey to make

sure we were free here. However, here in Middlesex

County where we are today and the neighboring Union

County 10,000 shade trees have been cut down and

destroyed in an ongoing cooperative effort with USDA to

eradicate \[inaudible\].

These control efforts and others such as done

last year \[inaudible\] are from a USDA emergency land

use grant budget item. The lack of adequate funding

hampers the ability the USDA gave us to safeguard

American family sources and protecting the nation\'s

competitiveness \[inaudible\].

USDA should be funded at \$100 million and the

emergent pest funding be funded at least \$175 million.

The cost of pest control represents about 34 percent of

the farmers\' variable production costs, especially the

crop producers in New Jersey and in the northeast have

benefited greatly from the NRCS\'s EQIP cost share

funds, supporting integrated pest management and

integrated profit.

Growers participating in the Rutgers

Cooperative Extension fruit program have reduced

pesticide use by 40 percent over the past few years

that provided new marketing opportunity to maintain

export markets while all along benefiting.

We must work to increase the state experiment

stations for crop damage research and extension and

EQIP cost share should be available to all growers who

wish to participate in the ICM programs and not limited

solely to the new participants in three to five years.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Mr. Schultz.

Christina Harrigan, please.

MS. CHRISTINA HARRIGAN: Good morning.

I\'m Christina Harrigan. I\'m a consulting forester in

New Jersey. I would like to address question four, how

can farm policy best achieve conservation and

environmental goals.

One of the best ways that that can be done is

to fund a forestry title in a farm bill. Approximately

42 percent of the nation\'s forests are owned by farm

families, and that accounts for about 10 million

owners. Approximately two-thirds of the country\'s

water is supplied through these forests, and

encouraging these private forest land owners to

effectively manage those properties for improve

vitality of the forests, clean air or wildlife habitat

and watershed benefits as well as many other benefits

is extremely important.

Here in New Jersey approximately 45 percent of

the state is forested, and 65 percent of that is owned

by forest land owners. Forest land owners have

benefited from the previous farm bill, forest land

enhancement program and the forest stewardship program

that has helped people to fund management plans,

reforestation projects, wildlife habitat enhancement,

control of exotic and endangered species, so all of

that is very important to the forest family owners of

New Jersey, and so I would encourage you to continue to

fund the forestry title in the farm bill. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Just FYI, we will be

breaking at 11:00, so we may cut a foursome off in

half. Thomas Gerber, please.

MR. THOMAS GERBER: Good morning, Under

Secretary Dorr. Tom Gerber. I\'m a fourth generation

cranberry farmer, Burlington County, the state\'s

largest county, also the president of the Burlington

County Board of Agriculture. In the county we pretty

much have all the diverse forms of agriculture, from

fishing and shellfish in the southeastern corner to

dairy and fruits and vegetables throughout the county.

My wife and I operate a 60-acre cranberry farm

near the village of Medford, and we maintain and

support about a thousand acres of forested land and

watershed areas. Two-thirds of my county is in the

Pineland National Reserve, a globally-recognized

environmentally sensitive area.

The farm bill in its entirety as the law in

Burlington County, I\'d like to speak primarily on

question four, the support, the continued and expanded

funding for the cost share program.

A lot of the stuff comes down to money. Money

and the prices that they fall, particularly in the

cranberry industry, in order to carry out these

practices the 75 and hundred percent cost shares have

really been helpful in doing a lot of the water

retention projects, irrigation, just maintaining the

land and water areas. The office is in Hainesport, the

FSA and the NRCS programs and the people that work

there have been outstanding in helping us to move

forward on a lot of these very costly projects.

I would encourage the powers to be to keep the

funding expanded. The work is being done and the

farmers of Burlington County support it. Thank you

very much.

MODERATOR: Tom Gilbert.

MR. TOM GILBERT: Good morning. My name

is Tom Gilbert. I\'m director of Conversation with the

Wilderness Society and I\'m right here in Bucks County,

Pennsylvania, and I\'d like address question number 4,

achieving the conservation and environmental goals.

I\'m also on the board of the Highlands

Coalition and I\'d like to talk a little bit about the

need for increased funding for conservation

enhancement programs in the context of the Highlands.

The Highlands region has been recognized as

nationally sensitive by the national forest service and

Congress has enacted the Highlands Conservation Act,

late last year when it was signed by President Bush in

November. The forest service documented the loss of

over 5,000 acres of forest and farmland each year in

the New York and New Jersey Highlands alone. Funding

for the USDA conservation enforcement programs we feel

should be doubled to help conserve threatened forests

and farmlands and to assist private land owners in the

Highlands and beyond.

The forest \[inaudible\] program has been

important to help conserve water levels in the

Highlands, but funding levels are not keeping pace with

demand, which is at least \$300 million annually as

identified by the participating agency.

The proposed suburban and community forestry

program would provide another valuable tool to help

state and local governments and private land trusts

conserve suburban and community forests recognized for

all, which would be especially helpful in the State of

New Jersey and in the Highlands region in general.

The Highlands region is a microcosm and perhaps

a front line in the struggle over the future of our

forests \[inaudible\]. The recent forest service report,

Forests on the Edge projected over 40 million acres of

private forests, primarily in the east were mostly

forests that were privately owned, are likely to see a

significant increased development in the next three

decades, with significant impacts to waterfall and

other ecological, economic and social services that

these forests provide.

The next part of the law to respond to this

crisis by including a comprehensive forestry title with

more tools and funding to conserve private forests and

by better targeting existing forestry conservation

programs to protect critical and threatened watershed

and landscapes such as those in the Highlands. Thank

you.

MODERATOR: Kristen Sykes, George

Adams.

MS. KRISTEN SYKES: Good morning. Thank

you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Kristen Sykes. I\'m a Highlands

advocate with the Appalachian mountain club, the

country\'s oldest conservation and recreational

organization. I\'m also on the board of the Highlands

Coalition. \[Inaudible.\] I\'ll be addressing question

number 4 and also get into one of the comments my

predecessor just made.

Today I\'d like to speak to you about the

importance of the farm bill in protecting the

Highlands. I\'m essentially asking for the Highlands

region, the forest fires, a land of 3.5 million acres

and protecting trees that populate the areas from

Northwest Connecticut through New York, New Jersey and

central Pennsylvania. As Tom Gilbert mentioned, the

Highlands region has been recognized as a national

region by the USDA Forest Service and Congress through

two studies they did of the New York-New Jersey

Highlands when they enacted the Highlands Conservation

Act signed last November by President Bush.

Currently the USDA Forest Service is studying

the Connecticut Highlands, and that process is going

very well. I\'d also like to mention interestingly

enough that it was through the 1990 farm bill that the

first New York-New Jersey Highlands study came. The

Appalachian Mountain Club believes that the USDA should

give the farm bill the authorization to help preserve

threatened forest and farming through Highlands and to

assist private land owners through stewardship

programs. There was at least 100,000 acres of farm

land lost to development in the New York-New Jersey

Highlands and 7,000 acres of farm land in Connecticut

lost. This cannot come soon enough.

Programs such as the CRP programs and other

conservation programs should continue \[inaudible\].

However, equally important are our forests.

Forestry-provided community services like clean air,

clean water, vital habitat can serve as goals today for

our Highlands resources.

The farm bill can put a major role to protect

for the forests of the Highlands. The next farm bill

should put a major emphasis on forests as well as farm

land including the separate forestry title in order to

achieve adequate potential.

The forest legacy program is a critical tool

that helps save and conserve plant forests.

\[Inaudible.\] The forest legacy program needs to be

authorized for at least \$300 million just to simply

cover the existing needs, and as Tom mentioned before

our private forestry needs are vanishing quickly.

I would also like to mention that the forest

program show more flexibility regarding \[inaudible\].

There should be more funding and flexibility to assist

communities in reaching their conservation and

stewardship goals regarding forests.

I\'ll close my remarks because I\'m running out

of time here. In closing, the AMC believes the USDA

should make the priority to protect the Highland

forests of the Highlands by funding the interests in

farmlands as well as it should prioritize the

conservation and stewardship of forests, soils and

wildlife habitat. Thank you.

(Recess was taken.)

MODERATOR: Thank you, George, please.

MR. GEORGE ADAMS: Good morning. My

name is George Adams, I\'m a first generation cranberry

farmer from Shamong Township. Along with my son we

operate Green Gables Cranberry Farm where he would be

second generation.

Just real quickly I\'m going to address the

question one. That\'s the unforeseen things that happen

that kind of put new farming, the young farmers off

from farming. Andy Jamison talks about how God sent

the flood and after the flood he looked at the earth

and said I won\'t curse the earth anymore. Well,

sometimes I wonder about that, because as a farmer, boy

you just feel like your earth is cursed. You run into

droughts and flooding, long periods of rain. This year

we come from a drought to long periods of rain, and for

cranberries sometimes that\'s devastating, I know for

other farmers.

I served on the Burlington County FSA Committee

and I also served on the cranberry marketing committee

as well as on the number of township committee where I

live that we\'re addressing these things all the time

with different disasters that we face, so as any young

farmer that\'s entering farming if you\'re on the farm

for a couple of years you know you\'re probably going to

be experiencing things such as droughts and flood and

whatnot. The year before this we experienced a

tremendous amount of rainfall in a short period of

time, 12 to 14 inches of rain in our locale in just

three or four hours that caused a lot of severe damage

to cranberry operations.

Fortunately, the government had the ECP program,

which helped cranberry farmers put their property back

in operating condition and had dams washed out, flood

gates washed out, bogs that were covered in sand, vines

that were destroyed, you know. Five, six, seven years

before you can get back into production. Actually

that\'s by a new plan and that program also helped with

that. So my son Daniel in business with me was at

times very, very disappointed and not knowing what

we\'re going to do, how we\'re going to survive, these

programs really help. And I understand that the ECP

program was the first time I guess in over 30 years

that that program was thought to benefit New Jersey.

They\'re in our locale and up in north Jersey.

So I just want to stress again that you

continue with these programs, you just don\'t know how

vital it is to the farmers and especially young farmers

to know that they have this protection. Thank you so

much.

MODERATOR: Okay. Milton Eachus.

MR. MILTON EACHUS: Yes, I\'m Milton

Eachus. I\'m a dairy farmer in Salem County, New

Jersey, and I farm with my wife and I have two children

who went to college to learn how to farm. And have

another son.

I want to talk about question number 3 and 4.

I want to talk about the dairy MILC, and we qualified

for three months on a couple years ago and my question

is what\'s their definition of a family farm. We work

together as a family. We all got resources together

and it put a strenuous strain on our operating budget

over the time, the three months we got the extra money

from the government, and your definition is that 150 cows,

125,000 gallons \[inaudible\] on a family farm. We got

pretty good management, we were making lot more milk,

and we just had to go to the bank and borrowed a lot of

money to stay in business to try and keep up with and

justify it. We want to have a program, you need to

(unintelligible). Also analyzed crop insurance and

analyze dairy farmers. We\'re not available for that

because you have a dairy farm.

And one of the other problems as we see it is

we have, if you have a large farm. We don\'t consider

us as a large farm. We just consider us say farm

operating in New Jersey, but if you have a large farm

that\'s over a thousand cows and are grossing over

\$2.5 million, then that doesn\'t go for EQIP programs.

I just recently learned about a large farm in

New York, they had to put in a lagoon and it broke and

they had a tremendous problem with the waste water

running down, you know, so I think we need to work

together to help so that the large farmer could get

just as much help as some of the smaller farmers maybe

with the EQIP program.

And the other problem we have is that there\'s a

lot of exports coming into the country that are cutting

into our low price, we need to work on that a little

bit too.

And we also would like to see the USDA continue

in the \[inaudible\] program as a health matter for our

farm for dairy and cattle, and I\'ll give you a little

sample. I went to Salem one day, bought a nice animal.

Brought her home, it was a national sale, paid almost

\$5,000 and as soon as we got her home she had

\[inaudible\], that wasn\'t a very nice place to be

in. And I think we need more in control with our

program and monitoring the cows. They come and go,

bill of sale and stuff and also \--

MODERATOR: Thank you.

MR. PHILLIP PRICKET: Phillip Pricket,

Burlington County, Burlington Township, state board of

agriculture. I\'d like to speak to the positive program

that we have involved in the soybean checkoff program.

I was involved nine years. I think farmers have a big

stake in this. Agriculture in general, and by having a

checkoff program, you\'re taking some of the farmers\'

money, which is true, some of them say it\'s just a tax,

a new tax, but we do have a say. And we have a

tendency to pay more attention when you\'re taking money

out of our pocket how it\'s spent. And I think by

bringing in monies from the checkoff, we match to the

USDA, we work on world trade, we work on the local

areas, we help the extension service by funding some of

their projects and so forth, it just makes the whole

system work a lot better if the farmers\' eye and hand

is in it.

When it\'s your money, you pay attention. If

somebody else\'s money involved, the taxpayers\' money,

whatever, they\'re helping us, it\'s all well and good.

But it\'s lot better spent when the farmer\'s hand and

eye is there.

The other thing I want to speak on is crop

insurance program. I think it\'s an excellent thing. I

think it can be a lot simpler. I think it should be

maybe done by a per, value per acre so all people can

be insured, not limited to certain products and this

and that. If you insure per value per acre, the farmer

can choose, you know, if he wants to insure for a

hundred an acre, if he wants to insure for \$200 an

acre, you got a high value crop, you would go to a

thousand dollars an acre. You can step up and you pay

your way. Naturally the USDA funding of the crop

insurance helps keep the premiums low, which we need.

You know, the extremes of farming can

devastate you. And as far as helping the young farmer,

I think with the crop insurance program I\'m involved

with other programs where you try and touch business

into your area and so on. But by letting the young

farmers have \[inaudible\] crop insurance, it would

greatly help the young farmer get a start. Thank you.

MODERATOR: As Karen Ensle is

coming, I\'d like to have Tom Byrne, Nancy Bilyk,

Karen Anderson and Douglas Ricker, please line up

at the other mikes. Thank you.

MS. KAREN ENSLE: Good morning. I\'m

Dr. Karen Ensle of Family and Community Health Science,

an educator for Rutgers Cooperative Research and

Extension of Union County, New Jersey. I want to thank

Under Secretary Tom Dorr for the opportunity to offer

comments on the farm bill today and also the F and S

Food and Nutrition Services of Robbinsville for

approaching me to participate in this important

nutrition session and farm bill session today.

I represent Cooperative Extension Family and

Community Health Sciences Educators in New Jersey who

are dedicated to promoting healthy, sustainable food

choices with a vision of helping people living in

healthy communities, which is part of our New Jersey

Living Well Cooperative Extension Initiative here in

New Jersey as well as across the country.

I encourage changes in the 2007 farm bill that

will support the living well goals of health and

sustainability. My colleagues and I educate consumers

and conduct applied research with the goal of changing

and improving nutrition, food and health behaviors.

Our goal is to improve the health of New Jersey

residents so they can enjoy life, stay active and

reduce health care costs.

Our programs help today\'s busy individuals and

families make choices to enhance their health through a

variety of publications, seminars and on-line learning.

Perfect examples include seminars on portion sizes,

food safety, child obesity conferences and from our

farms learning boxes. Two of our major nutrition

programs here in New Jersey are the Food Stamp

Nutrition Education Program and also the expanded Food

Nutrition Education Program.

We thank the USDA for the money, over

\$3.6 million supporting nutrition education through the

food stamp legislation. This gives us \$3.6 million,

and it gives me over \$700,000 \-- \$700,000 in Union

County to hire seven staff to promote nutrition

education with some of our poorest residents in New

Jersey.

The expanded food and nutrition education

expanded in this country. This program also addresses

the nutrition needs of our poorest populations in the

United States.

Looking at the 2005 dietary guidelines, it\'s

very important that food stamp recipients are choosing

healthy foods. So I would recommend some standards

that require a percentage of the food stamp dollar

being allocated to foods that recommend that meet the

2005 dietary guidelines including a focus on fruits,

vegetables, whole grain and multi-dairy products.

And to close, I thank you very much for the

funding for nutrition education in New Jersey and

across the country, and we are hopeful that the funding

will continue in the future. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Tom Byrne.

MR. TOM BYRNE: Tom Byrne,

Vice-president of New Jersey Farm Bureau, and welcome

to my home county here of Middlesex County.

20,000 acres is still here in agriculture, even though

it is quite urbanized as you see.

In light of today\'s economic conditions, the

rapidly rising input costs and flat commodity prices,

that any reduction to the farm program would be

devastating to agriculture, which in turn would have a

negative impact on the U.S. economy.

Our traditional plan was to provide a safety

net for producers, and we should revisit the level of

support based on increased costs and production. A

switch from a traditional to new program must be phased

in maybe by increasing the funds for conservation by

reason where traditional plans were less utilized.

All of this cannot be done without increased

funding, both for staffing to implement new and

expanded programs and for the actual costs of the

program. Even though we have a dedicated and

hard-working staff providing these programs in New

Jersey, they are limited as to what they can provide.

We can\'t forget the diversity of agriculture

and the need to address each of these areas equally

while providing funding. Here in New Jersey

conservation programs are underutilized due to the lack

of funding, not due to the lack of farmer interest.

One such very important program is integrated pest

management.

Above all, the farm bill must promote a viable

and profitable agriculture. By achieving this goal, we

will have young people searching out a future in

agriculture. This is our most valuable resource, our

young ag producers, because without them all other

concerns are mute. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Nancy Bilyk, please.

MS. NANCY BILYK: Hi, I\'m Nancy Bilyk,

Warren County, New Jersey. Five generations on farms.

I just want to make this very short and sweet.

We do need farm subsidies and we do need cost share

programs. As Bilyk Farms uses both, we are very happy

the government is working with us, and we would love to

continue to work with you and be farmers. Thank you.

MODERATOR: As Karen Anderson is

coming forward, Jenny Carleo, Bob Williams, Jim

Etsch, Cliff Lundin if you can please line up

behind her.

MS. KAREN ANDERSON: Karen Anderson,

Burlington, New Jersey. I\'m here representing the

Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey, a

membership-based nonprofit organization that supports

organic and sustainable agriculture.

It\'s been said that wherever the country is

going New Jersey is going to get there first. There

are some down sides to that. We\'re already the most

densely populated state in the union, we\'re projected

to be the first state to reach full build caps. We

have the most expensive agricultural land in the

country.

But there\'s also an upside. We have one of the

oldest and most aggressive farmland preservation

programs in the country with almost 120,000 acres

preserved permanently. We have one of the most

diversified agricultures in the country, and because of

that our farmers and citizens need flexible and

far-sighted agricultural policy that\'s appropriated to

meet the characteristics of our state. Regional equity

is a really important part of that, and we ask that you

consider regional equity in the formulation in the farm

bill.

We also need farm bill programs that support a

diversity of crops, agricultural practices and scales

of operations that embraces a multi-functional view of

agriculture, that recognizes the environmental and

social contributions of farming and food production;

that supports a working landscape that allows economic

development in rural areas without encouraging sprawl;

that promotes community-based food systems as an

alternative to global markets; that has renewed

emphasis on nutrition and health and all agricultural

programs, not only in the school lunch program and food

stamps but in commodity policy, plant preview and value

added programs and that understands and embraces the

important role in diversifying \[inaudible\] without

threatening homeland security. I\'m not done now.

In addition, we ask you to craft a new farm

bill that would support the farming enterprises of

farmers by investing in new farmer education, farming

\[inaudible\] and financial assistance for new farm

enterprises that encourages value added activities,

infrastructure retention and development and regulatory

relief that allows communities to produce and consume

locally produced food, reducing the current average

1400-mile journey from field to table.

We ask that you support research activities

that are in the public interests, particularly those

that don\'t have the payoff of intellectual property,

make it possible for our researchers to look at crop

rotation, farm worker safety and seed saving practice.

And last I\'m going to ask that you keep

community-based conservation in the forefront of your

conservation programming. Let station districts

determine what their environmental challenges and

priorities are. Don\'t send conflicting messages about

locally led conservation and then squeeze us into the

same box.

The strategic plan for the USDA says all the

right things. It\'s time for the programs in the farm

bill to address the same priorities. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Douglas

Ricker.

MR. DOUGLAS RICKER: Douglas Ricker from

Sussex County, the largest county in New Jersey and the

last county in the state to have at one time more dairy

cows than people, the last township in New Jersey to

have more dairy cows than people.

Value added is my issue. Being a dairy farmer,

it\'s come now to the point where there\'s only one

person buying dairy milk from the dairy cow in the

United States. Very, very rare. Because of that, the

value added program is available to us in New Jersey.

We are in the process of negotiating for a plan to

market a milk product on the New Jersey Fresh label,

which will hopefully lead to a project, which will

encompass New Jersey and New York, very unique. This

location will probably be in Kingston, New York. So we

will need funding under the national umbrella of the

rural development, because it will involve probably two

states. So it\'s very necessary to try to maintain

dairy farming in New Jersey. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Jenny

Carleo.

MS. JENNY CARLEO: Jenny Carleo,

Lambertville, New Jersey. I work for Rutgers

Cooperative Research Extension of Atlantic County.

I am going to be responding primarily to

question number 3, how should farm policy be designed

effectively and fairly distribute assistance to

producers. The 2007 farm bill must reflect all the

\[inaudible\], including those such as small \[inaudible\]

State of New Jersey.

New Jersey is important to the northeast region

because, for example, according to \[inaudible\] 2002

study the average market value of agricultural products

sold annually per acre in New Jersey is more than \$700

over the national average. So we are a small state but

we are a very productive state.

Additional distinctive characteristics of the

New Jersey farmers include the fact that we are small

farmers who buy a multiple parcel of land. We are

located in a densely populated region, and we typically

cultivate high value minor crops while utilizing

intensive high input agriculture.

We also have a decreasing number of new farmers

with nonfarm backgrounds. Farm bill programs

traditionally \[inaudible\] large farms. In conversation

with one of our senior agricultural extension agents I

asked him why don\'t more farmers participate in the

NRCS conservation program. He sort of chuckled and

said they simply can\'t afford it.

So in addition to this I might include

designing smaller and more affordable programs crop

share programs, incentives for facilitating the

cooperation in the community and providing integrated

health management and funding into the farm bill,

fruits, vegetables and \[inaudible\].

In summary, the 2007 farm bill has taken into

account special circumstances facing New Jersey

farmers. This could be accomplished by modifying

existing programs to be in accordance with the

progressive agricultural designs in New Jersey and the

northeast region. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Bob Williams.

MR. BOB WILLIAMS: I\'m Bob Williams of

Gloucester County, southern New Jersey. I\'m a

consultant forester. I\'m here on behalf of several

hundred land owners. I\'m also on the board of

directors of New Jersey Forestry Association, and the

Pinelands Forest and \[inaudible\].

Previous folks have said something that I don\'t

understand, so I\'ll just \[inaudible\]. Most people

don\'t know the U.S. Forest Service is in the Department

of Agriculture, and we had an opportunity to get Chief

Bosworth here about two years ago, show him the

forestry in New Jersey. New Jersey certainly isn\'t

thought of as the place where you\'d see forestry, but

we have great forests here. Last year we gave a tour

to people from the U.S. Forest Service on the

stewardship program which comes out as a \[inaudible\].

One of the conclusions of that review by the

U.S. Forest Service was they all thought New Jersey was

doing a good job of preserving land, that is creating

open space and protecting it. There\'s little, if any,

effort to stewarding, let\'s say. Preservation is not

conservation. We have done little to steward these

important forest resources. The results are

overwhelming when you look at the conditions of our

forests today.

In large part that burden is falling on the

private owners since the government doesn\'t have the

political will or social will to manage these forestry

services. So as the forest health issue, there\'s

nothing more important to farmers than healthy forests.

They truly are protecting the water and the soil, the

air, everything. The fact that we all use \[inaudible\]

should not be something that we have to ask for.

Typically it is brought up in discussion because it\'s

viewed in negative terms.

We believe that healthy forests, healthy,

thriving forest ecosystems and \[inaudible\] are not

mutually exclusive. It depends on how it\'s done, but

we should be pursuing that.

And the two forestry programs FLEP and EQIP,

we should strengthen \[inaudible\] to private land owners

who want to achieve some specific objectives. Forest

health, restoring ecologically rare forest types,

globally rare forest ecosystems should be given

priority. Money should be focused on that.

Lastly, we here in southern New Jersey have the

highest \-- except for southern California \-- fire

hazard in North America. This is not being addressed.

MODERATOR: Excuse me.

MR. WILLIAMS: That issue needs to be

addressed.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Jim Etsch.

MR. JIM ETSCH: My name is Jim Etsch.

I\'m a third generation grain farmer in Middlesex

County. I also represent the other farmers involved in

the establishment of an ethanol plant in New Jersey.

This morning I\'d like to make a comment as to

value added grants received by Garden State Ethanol.

We received our first grant in 2002 with a 50 percent

cost share. Activities funded by this grant included

developing a business operating plan, conducting an

energy feasibility study, hiring finance consultants,

project management consultant, conducting a

preengineering feasibility study and permeating

consultant, especially in this state we need that.

This project focused on locating

41 million-gallon a year corn ethanol plant in south

Jersey. When operational, it has tremendous potential

to add value to the grain crops produced in the region

while also providing a renewable U.S.-based

transportation fuel. The grant funds allow the

farmer-run project to move forward through a difficult

phase of the business development process when funding

is normally difficult to obtain.

The project is slowly moving forward with the

assistance of the farm bureau, New Jersey Board of

Public Utilities, federal grant funds and private

investors. We\'re in the process of our first

feasibility study. We found that the valuable

byproduct is CO2. At that point we applied for our

second grant, title \[inaudible\] fees and locally grown

produce which CO2 would provide from an onsite ethanol

plant. That was also a 50 percent cost share grant.

It was received in 2002.

The activities funded by this grant included

conducting a supply feasibility study, conducting a

sales and marketing feasibility study, developing

facility layout specifications, completing a business

plan for the project. This grant showed the benefits

of the \[inaudible\] and flash freeze facility adjacent

to an ethanol plant.

Farmer surveys indicated that there\'s an excess

production of \[inaudible\] and peaches in the Garden

State that is wasted along the years. The project has

intention to add \$1.1 million of farm-grade pepper

sales and 1.7 million to the farm grade pepper sales.

Running on two shifts a day, the flash freezer facility

could generate gross revenues of \$6 million a year.

Similar facilities would be set up at ethanol plants in

the Midwest using the model created right here in New

Jersey.

The project was conducted jointly by Garden

State Ethanol, New Jersey Department of Agriculture,

Rutgers Eco Complex and the Food Innovation Center.

At this time I\'d like to thank the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, the rural development,

specifically \[inaudible\] and Andy Law for these grants

that have been very beneficial to us and helped get us

off the ground.

I also will encourage continuation of these

value added grants to the next farm bill. These grants

and projects and others like them will help keep the

farmer on the farm. Thank you.

MODERATOR: As Cliff Lundin is

coming forward, Mary Jo Hebert, Rita Muzzarelli,

Kurt Alstede and Steve Jany, you could line up

behind the next mic.

MR. CLIFF LUNDIN: Good morning,

Mr. Under Secretary. My name is Cliff Lundin. I\'m

from Hopatcong, New Jersey. I\'m the chairman of Sussex

County Soil Conservation district, and I\'m also past

president of the New Jersey Association of Conservation

Districts.

On behalf of the New Jersey 15 districts, I

welcome you to our state.

I\'d like to address the issue concerning

conservation and environmental programs. One, the New

Jersey conservation partnership is strong. I\'d like to

highly praise the NRCS as well as Secretary Johanns\'

department.

Concerning the farm bill, we support EQIP, we

support CREP, we support with, in the farmland

preservation, we view it very effectively here in New

Jersey and we encourage its continuation at increased

funding levels.

We also strongly support the regional equity

provision in the 2002 farm bill. That has brought

additional sums into New Jersey. One of the down

sides, however, of the 2002 farm bill had to do more

toward moving the NRCS program toward programs rather

than and overlooking the traditional Conservation

Technical Assistance program. We would like to

encourage additional attention and funds toward the

Conservation Technical Assistance program to the new

development of the farm conservation plans through best

management practices. That has a tremendous potential

for impacting water quality, and that is the entry

level program to get farmers in agriculture into the

other programs. So we strongly recommend continuing

and expanding the Conservation Technical Assistance

program.

We also touch upon urban conservation. The

sign behind you that says Listening to Rural America is

wrong. It should be Listening to All America, suburban

America, urban America. They are the voters, and they

are the people that are moving to the farm communities,

and we need an urban conservation program to address

those fringe areas, those interface areas the

right-to-farm areas, the areas where there are

conflicts between farmers and the people moving in

surrounding them.

Education, best management practices. National

resource factors are as important to the farm as it is

to development. There is no difference between the

various land uses. Soil data is absolutely critical.

So we fully urge some urban conservation elements

within the farm bill.

With that I will conclude my remarks. We think

we would be submitting some detailed comments on the

various programs, but urban conservation is important.

The conservation partnership in New Jersey is strong.

We have a very active program, and I thank you for

listening.

MODERATOR: Mary Jo Hebert.

MS. MARY JO HERBERT: Hello. Thank you

for coming. My name is Mary Jo Herbert. I\'m a member

of the state board of agriculture. I represent the

equine industry, which is the third largest agriculture

industry in our state. I am very much \-- let me read

this.

To help our horse farmers, we need to be able

to be part of the loan program for manure, fencing,

glass filters, you know, all kinds of programs. The

horse farms provide beautiful open fields, they need

hay, grain, veterinarians, barriers, fertilizer,

tractor and EQIPment supplies and farm help that

provides many jobs. I know that Paul Hlubrik is, he

really helps us tremendously and, you know, I really

appreciate all he has done for our state.

Also, the Equine Science Center from Cook

College, which is a wonderful place, they\'ve been doing

so much for us for over 20 years.

The loan program, the horse farmers need an

increasing participation among the loan programs, must

include the expansion. We\'d like to be considered

production agriculture so we would qualify for more of

these loans. We have 28,896 \-- this is as of the 2002

census \-- head of equine in our states. Dr. Dey talked

about the number of farms, the equine farms in our

state. There are 4,978 women farm operators in New

Jersey, 1,922 farms with women as the primary operator.

The majority of those farms are equine. 1,725 farms

showing women as full owners, and most of those are

equine. So we would like to be considered production

agriculture so we can qualify for some of these loans.

Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Rita Muzzarelli.

MS. RITA MUZZARELLI: Good morning

Secretary. Thank you very much for giving me this

opportunity.

I want to tell you a little bit about our farm.

My husband and I, we farm a 200-acre farm. We only own

about 45 or 50 acres. On our farm we\'ve had many, many

disasters unfortunately, like others have. We\'re very,

very diversified, and I think that\'s a key word along

with weather-related, and with the Farm Service Agency

in mind, our farm and many other farms probably

wouldn\'t be up and running if it wasn\'t for those

programs that we have been able to participate in.

Once in a while we will come into a problem

with some of these programs and maybe not so much

problem, but it\'s probably not understanding our

diversity. With a 200-acre farm or with a 45-acre farm

you can grow many, many crops, 27, 28, 29, 30 different

crops on small acreage. It\'s very hard for some to

understand that. We are very fortunate with our

weather. We do have warm weather. There\'s years that

we can start planting in February and sometimes we\'ll

have a disaster or there will be a program out there to

help us that don\'t put limits on us where they\'ll tell

us well there\'s only two plants here. Again,

weather-related. You need to remember how diversified

we are, how weather-related we are. I can start

planting in February and continue to plant until August

or later. I can continue to harvest crops sometimes

until January, if the weather cooperates. If the

weather doesn\'t cooperate, of course then that\'s

another different story; but just try keep in mind the

diversity of our state, the weather that we\'ve had in

our state, not that no other states doesn\'t have that

weather, I\'m not saying that.

But I would like to see maybe that the state or

the district or the county could have some type of

control over the limitations, the regulations that are

put in these programs for us and that will be a great

need, and it is a great need and it will be greatly

appreciated.

Again, farmers in my area would not be

operating if it wasn\'t for the programs. Thank you

again for giving me this opportunity.

MODERATOR: Kurt Alstede.

MR. KURT ALSTEDE: Good morning, Under

Secretary Dorr. I appreciate you coming out to the

Garden State today and your efforts along with

Secretary Johanns and President Bush to hear our

inputs.

First generation farmer in Morris County, New

Jersey, farm approximately 500 acres and raise about

130 different crops and a grandson of German

immigrants, and I think my grandparents came here

pursuing the American dream, and I think there\'s lot of

people in the world today that wish to pursue that

dream today in America, and we need them to work on our

farms and I can\'t emphasize enough the importance of

the guest worker program, getting something fixed, H2A

is a nightmare. I understand your department doesn\'t

have authority over any of these things, but perhaps

you can influence those departments that do.

It\'s also important to have good, safe, clean

housing for these people that work very hard in our

farms. We\'ve taken advantage twice now of farm labor

housing loan programs that are under your authority

both in building, purchasing and rehabilitating farm

labor housing. I would just ask that you be mindful of

the costs of real estate and homes here in the

northeast. It\'s a lot more expensive than other places

in the country and just make sure that the programs

reflect the fact that we can be looking at numbers that

are much, much larger than in other parts of the

country but they\'re still very real numbers for us and

we need that housing.

I also wanted to comment today on some FSA

programs. Previous speaker just mentioned the fact

that we have an excellent staff here in this state and

on the county level that administers these programs,

but sometimes national programs don\'t always fit the

needs of growers here in New Jersey. The national

insurance program I think is well intended, but it

doesn\'t quite provide the coverage in a way that are

useful and meaningful to the producers of New Jersey.

You just heard reference to the reporting

periods, very difficult and cumbersome to report

plantings of fruits and vegetables. It\'s real simple

if you\'re a grain farmer, you come in and buy

five-sixteenths or a quarter acre. If you\'re growing

many multiple crops over the course the entire growing

season, it becomes extremely cumbersome to report those

acreages.

Another issue is the fact that we have small

counties in New Jersey. We\'re required to purchase

maximum \-- we have to pay for a maximum of three

policies in each county. Why should we be jeopardized

and have to pay for policies for a county that maybe

are a mile away from our farm just because we happen to

be located on a county line. I\'m sure there\'s a way

that you can administer those policies and procedures

more equitably close by.

And finally, the \$2 million gross income

requirement for NAP, you\'re growing high value crops

which we need to in New Jersey, \$2 million is not hard

to come by, and plus that includes all other business

incomes. NAP is treated differently than other FSA

programs. I think you really need to look hard at that

\$2 million-dollar cap for eligibility for NAP coverage.

I appreciate the time, thank you very much.

MODERATOR: As Steve Jany is coming

to the microphone, Adele Latourette, John

Rigoluzzo, Richard Nieuwenhuis and John Banscher,

if you can come to other microphone, please.

NR. STEVE JANY: Good morning, I thank

you for holding this here today. I\'m on the Mercer

County Board of Agriculture, New Jersey Farm Bureau and

my brother and I are running a 2200-acre grain farm in

Mercer County and Middlesex County. My wife\'s family

have a 50-acre Christmas tree farm in Middlesex County.

The program crops needs support of at least

the safety net as a minimum. We needed the programs

continued for renewable fuels to help us to utilize our

excess crops that aren\'t food. Hopefully by enhancing

that value added that way we can keep the prices high

enough that we don\'t need that safety net.

We need crop insurance, risk management, the

whole program between the management help that they

give you, the financial management and the crop

insurance, we need those programs continued. We need

our land grant colleges, our Rutgers Cooperative

Extension in this state, funded so that we have the

leading edge technology to keep us ahead of our

competitors.

We need our FSA offices for our participation

in the programs, they help us in so many ways for all

the different programs that there are.

The Green programs need to be funded in New

Jersey. While grain might be the largest acreage, the

diversity as you heard from other speakers is so great

in this state that there\'s a lot of use in those

programs. They also help with clean water and

conservation.

We need a viable young farmer program, and I

certainly don\'t have the answer. New Jersey is tough

with the land costs and the cost to start up here, the

cost of living. In West Windsor Township where I live

the average cost of a house is around \$400,000. How is

anybody young going to be able to afford to live there

in the farm. If they have family help, sometimes they

can get started that way.

And if you \-- if USDA chooses or the government

chooses to cut programs drastically, I don\'t see how

you won\'t lose farmers across this country. The farm

program is there, lots of years that\'s the only money

you make in the course of a year. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Adele Latourette.

MS. ADELE LATOURETTE: Good afternoon.

My name is Adele Latourette, and I\'m from the

state-wide Emergency Food and Hunger Network. I have

to say I\'m a bit out of place, but I\'m going to address

the nutrition programs, specifically the Food Stamp

program that is contained in the 2007 farm bill and

actually began as a farm support program. So

don\'t \[inaudible\].

Most critically, I think especially at this

time we needed to make sure we keep the entitlement

structure of the Food Stamp program intact. We saw in

Hurricane Katrina how even incredibly effective and

immediate the \[inaudible\] from the Food Stamp. We need

to make sure that that\'s always in place in disaster

times. Food stamp families cannot afford cuts in the

Food Stamp program. We\'re looking at those right now,

they\'re on the boards in the House and Senate. But

specifically about the farm bill we need to make sure

that the Food Stamp program remains intact.

specific a recommendations in the area of

eligibility, we need raise or eliminate the asset

limits, specifically as it relates to savings for

retirement and the education of children in the

household. We need to raise the income eligibility to

185 percent of covering and make it equal with other

nutritional programs. We need fully restore immigrant

eligibility and the single adult eligibility. We need

to allow children under the age of 22 who have children

and are living with their parents eligible as separate

households. The household definition has really been a

problem. We need to raise the minimum benefit of \$10 a

month to at least \$25 a month to make it a program that

people want to participate in. And we need to increase

all allotments from the national average of 93 cents

per person per meal per day, woefully inadequate.

In terms of access to the administration, we

need to make it an easier program to access. We need

to conduct extensive outreach. New Jersey has only

about a 50 percent participation rate of eligibles. We

need to ensure that all state and local offices offer

extended hours. It makes it more accessible to more of

the people who need it, the working people. Increase

administrative monies to states so that they can

operate the program effectively, and again we hope you

would take these opinions into serious consideration,

and I thank you for your time.

MODERATOR: Thank you. John

Rigoluzzo.

MR. JOHN RIGOLUZZO: That\'s me. I\'m

real shy like Danny Doyle was (laughter).

Mr. Secretary, thanks for being here today. I

think the last time we had an opportunity in New Jersey

to speak at one of these forums it was in Virginia or

St. Louis. This is a real step forward.

I am John Rigoluzzo. I\'m a fifth generation

fruit and vegetable and grain farmer. I farm about 400

acres in Camden County and Burlington Counties.

There\'s two things that I really would like to address,

and they are about AGR and also world trade issues, but

I want to say also there were some good comments here.

I have already raised three children and they\'re up and

grown and out of the farm, but I have the opportunity

now that I\'m raising a six and-a-half year old and if I

can last 20 more years maybe we\'ll keep him on the

farm.

But the two things that I was concerned about

besides all the other issues here and Rita, I want to

say Rita Muzzarelli addressed the small farm very well.

The AGR program, I participated in it, I, at one time I

was a Farm Bureau President of the state and I promoted

it and I don\'t participate in it now for several

reasons. One of them was my personal experience was

crappy, pardon the French. The 15 months for the adjustor

to come out seemed a little bit too long. I\'m not sure

that\'s still the same today, but the program is

expensive. If you\'re a large farmer, you\'re paying a

lot of premium, a lot of hope that you don\'t have to

use it. In years where you don\'t take in a lot of

income that extra premium expense becomes quite a lump

of crap. In the beginning there was a 50 percent

subsidy and as we moved along that subsidy has been

dropped.

I want to say that I think with the experience

that we\'ve had with it that AGR should not be based on

expected income. AGR program should be based on your

expenses, the farm expenses. And you can buy out or

whatever, have those options included. I think that

would lower the premiums, give the farmers a better

opportunity to afford to manage their risks. This was

a very popular terminology in Washington a few years

ago, and I personally believe in it, but right now what

we have is kind of tough for many farmers, not all but

for me.

I\'m also very interested in world trade

issues. I had the opportunity to travel around the

world many times as president of the Farm Bureau, and I

currently work with Dean Kleckner on Truth about Trade. The

world trade issues are going to be very, have a very

big impact on New Jersey, and I really think that New

Jersey farmers need to pay more attention to that. But

as you develop a farm bill you need to remember that.

If you can do it and it did work well in New Jersey,

it will work well everywhere. If you do it based on if

it works good in Iowa, it may not work here. Thank you

for your time.

MODERATOR: As Richard Nieuwenhuis

comes to the microphone, we are going to be ending

probably in about ten minutes or so. The list is

longer than the time will allow. I will remind

everyone again that there are two other options

that exist. One is the comment box, and the other

is the web site. You can be assured that the

information and comments, which you provide in both

of those, by both of those means will be just as

weighted as the verbal comments that are being

offered now. So just so you know, if we do not

get to you, please know that you have some other

options as well.

MR. RICHARD NIEUWENHUIS: Good morning,

Under Secretary Dorr. I had the pleasure of meeting

you last night. My name is Richard Nieuwenhuis, and

I\'m the president of the New Jersey Farm Bureau. We

feel very privileged to have you here and piggybacked

behind our very successful convention we had for the

last few days, and of course the farm bill was a

discussion in our resolution as well.

There\'s a couple items I\'d just like to briefly

address with you, and many of them have been covered

already, but the farm and ranch land protection program

is very, very vital here in New Jersey. Due to the

high land costs, the high labor costs, we have the

honor of the largest amount of or the largest

percentage of preserved farmland in the nation on a

percentage basis. But there is some problems with

federal money on that end. One of the major stumbling

blocks is I myself coming from the greenhouse industry

is the impervious cover issue in some of the

preservation programs. Two percent does not work for

New Jersey. We have operations here that are on 5 or

6 acres that need to have that possibility of having

more than 2 percent impervious cover. It just \-- we\'re

not a big land base here so we\'re very, very restricted

in that, and I think that goes for the whole picture of

northeast agriculture, which my colleagues, farm bureau

presidents in the northeast are very well aware of. As

a matter of fact, in a couple weeks we\'re getting

together to discuss regionalized comments that we would

like to make for the farm bill.

The other thing is some of the loan programs,

the \$200,000 limit is way too low for New Jersey. That

just doesn\'t work. Equine operations we would like to

see come under that purview as well. I think they are

a very bona fide agriculture operation, especially in a

state like New Jersey and the higher value area.

And we support a change to allow direct farm

ownership, ownership funds to be used for financing

debt, which is another item that I think is very, very

important to us. As John Rigoluzzo just mentioned

about world trade, that definitely affects us as well

as, Under Secretary, your opening comments here.

But world trade issues are going to probably be

settled on payment, on program payments because

obviously that\'s a huge issue. But we need to have

some other type of safety net, some other type of

incentive built into that program. If we\'re going to

be cutting commodity payments, we need to bring

something up elsewhere as a support net.

Just to get back just real quickly to the

regionalized area, a lot of times federal programs just

don\'t fit in the northeast for sure, and there are

other areas in the country as well, but the northeast

is very, very unique with its high density of

population and the high costs of operations, and I hope

that the farm bill addresses that directly. Thank you

very much for being here. We appreciate it.

MODERATOR: As John Banscher comes

forward, I will call up Tom Wells, please, and

then we\'ll see how we are with time.

MR. JOHN BANSCHER: Good morning, Under

Secretary and ladies and gentlemen. My name is John

Banscher. I\'m the president of the Professional Horse

Association in New Jersey. I\'m a farmer in Diggstown,

New Jersey, Gloucester County.

I\'m just going to take a few moments of your

time to respond to the question about new farmers and

new generation farmers that are in our state. One of

the biggest problems is the low prices of our products

in the market. We want to set a minimum price for our

products statewide and also ask the state government to

compensate farmers with grants. We cannot compensate

our expenses and costs of rising labor if our product

does not sell at a just price.

I\'ve submitted a full copy of my comments to

the board, and if you need any more comments or any

questions, please feel free to contact me.

MR. TOM WELLS: Good morning. My name

is Tom Wells, and I\'m with the Nature Conservancy here

in New Jersey. I\'d like to thank you for the

opportunity for us to provide input into the

development of the administration\'s 2007 farm bill.

The Nature Conservancy is an international

organization. We have chapters in all states in the

country and about a million members.

I\'d like to comment on question four, how farm

policy can best achieve conservation and environmental

goals. Generally we believe that the 2007 farm bill

should eliminate incentives that encourage the

conversion or intensify production on ecologically

sensitive lands. Here in New Jersey \[inaudible\]

species as \[inaudible\] are primary threat to forest

health, and based on this we recommend that the Plant

Protection Act be amended to bolster \[inaudible\] and

preventing the introduction of plants of pests that

goes along with the development of urban and rural

forests here in New Jersey.

We also believe that the 2007 form bill should

do a better job at targeting a portion of conservation

program funds to specific landscapes, watersheds or

species where concentrated funding can produce the

greatest conservation results.

In addition, we strongly recommend that

ecologically-based measures tied to each conservation

program being incorporated in the 2007 farm bill to

measure the success and to inform future program

implementation.

We think that resources should be increased to

monitor compliance with the existing conservation

farmers and that the NRCS should be required to return

to the historical spot check regarding conservation

compliance.

As was mentioned before, the four-state

Highlands region includes part of New Jersey, and it\'s

been recognized nationally as nationally significant by

the USDA Forest Service. The trend in New Jersey as it

is in many other developing areas of the country is

increasing nonindustrial forest ownership. We ask that

the 2007 farm bill eliminate barriers to participation

by nonindustrial forest owners to all USDA conservation

programs.

Finally, the Nature Conservancy of New Jersey

has made good use of the Wildlife Habitat Incentive

Program, and we strongly recommend that this program

continue to be well funded in the next farm bill.

Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: There is room for one more.

Troy Ettel, please come forward.

MR. TROY ETTEL: I appreciate the

opportunity to speak today, especially being the last

one. I didn\'t think I was going to make it, but I

represent the New Jersey Audubon Society. We have

about 22,000 members in the State of New Jersey, and I

want to echo the sentiment of several people that have

said about whatever direction the United States is

headed in in New Jersey is going to get there first. I

think that\'s a really key issue for all of us.

People have alluded to some of the animosity

that exists sometimes between the conservation

community and the farming community. And I think New

Jersey is maybe the best example in the country, and so

I\'ll settle that once and for all. I\'ll create the

model where that kind of \[inaudible\] anymore.

New Jersey Audubon believes that maintaining

viable farming, keeping farmers on the land is critical

to the preservation of wildlife. That\'s the main thing

that we do. We advocate for the preservation of wild

life, and there\'s a real problem with farming and

wildlife in the United States, not just in New Jersey.

A lot of farmers in New Jersey, especially in central

and southern New Jersey, could easily recount seeing

wild life quail on their farm in the years past. Well,

there are no quail on farms in New Jersey anymore.

There are no quails on farms in Indiana, Tennessee. I

mean it\'s a universal problem. There\'s a huge issue

with farm and wild life.

And so looking at question number 4, we need to

increase the amount of funding that\'s going into these

programs that actually subsidize conservation programs

on the farm. We need to increase the amount of

technical assistance that NRCS can actually provide to

the farmer, because a lot of programs are really good

but there is not enough staff to market them well.

Tony Kramer\'s staff is one of the best staffs

that I work with around the country in promoting these

programs, but they\'re understaffed, they\'re

undermanned. We need more technical assistance to

actually get out and market these programs. And the

programs should be tied to any species at risk that

we\'re losing on farms and throughout the country.

The last thing I want to comment about is there

is a real need to increase the attention paid to forest

health in the next farm bill. We\'re going to lose so

many species in our forests. We\'ve got, Dutch Elm

disease is an example of eliminating our elms. We\'ve

got chestnut blight that\'s eradicated American chestnut

from our forests. Now we\'ve Asian longhorn beetle.

We\'ve got \[inaudible\]. We have these diseases that are

going to devastate the economic viability of our

forests and also the ecological value of our forests.

We need more, we need to fund those programs

that are already in place and additional programs

helping to prolong these species and renewed forest

stewardship.

MODERATOR: That will be our last

verbal comment. Now for some remarks by Under

Secretary Dorr.

UNDER SECRETARY DORR: Well, first

of all, let me once again thank all of you for

taking the time out of your day to spend three

and-a-half hours with us and sharing your

concerns, your thoughts and many opportunities

that we see.

You know, there are a lot of, there\'s been a

common theme throughout the farm bill listening

sessions that I\'ve heard. They are pretty consistent

quite, frankly. There are four or five of them.

Number 1, consistently is how do we retain

young people in rural communities and particularly in

farming operations.

Number 2 are very consistently conservation

water issues. What do we do and how do we continue to

fund those programs that are so viable to the clean

air, clean water issues, which we\'re dealing with.

Another one that comes through on a regular

basis is farmland preservation, particularly out here

in the northeast in this part of the area.

Another one that we hear a great deal about is

renewable energy and our value added programs and niche

market opportunities. The consistency with them, quite

honestly, is not surprising when you really think about

what has transpired over the last 20 years, and yet the

challenges are to try to define programs that will

accommodate these new changes, these new insights,

these new thoughts.

Let me make one anecdotal observation. We

probably relative to the forest issues, and they come

up a lot in this part of the country, we probably have

one of the most outstanding under secretaries in NRCS

that I\'ve known in my career of being involved in

agriculture. Mark Rey is an outstanding forester. He

understands the healthy forest issues probably as well

as anyone I\'ve ever heard discuss it. And it\'s my

anticipation that given a few more years under his

leadership there would be some very firm groundwork

laid relative to a number of these forest issues.

Interestingly enough, about three weeks ago I

did a farm bill listening forum in Arkansas. It was a

minority farm bill listening forum sponsored by the

Arkansas Land and Farm Development Group. The

moderator, the host of that session was a gentleman by

the name of Dick Bell, and I don\'t know if many of you

remember him or not. I know some of the farm bureau

leaders probably do. Dick Bell is a guy that really

made Earl Butz look great. He\'s a very traditional

agri-economist, I think that\'s a fair way to characterize

him, out of the University of Illinois, the Illinois

Farm Group. He broke his teeth cutting the Russian

grain deal for Earl Butz in 1973 or \'75, whenever it

was. He was the consummate international trader.

After he left government he went to Stuttgart,

Arkansas to assume the position of CEO of the Riceland

Foods Group. Riceland Foods is probably the most

successful cooperatively owned rice company in the

country. They not only sold commodity rights, but they

were very effective at developing brand new rice

product, selling them all over the world.

Dick Bell is a guy that I\'ve known for a long

time and I\'ve got a lot of respect for, and at that

particular farm bill forum, he essentially retired

about a year and-a-half ago from farmland \[inaudible\],

and Governor Huckabee of Arkansas appointed him as his

first Secretary of Agriculture. It was an appointed

position. Given this background that I\'ve laid out,

Dick Bell gets up and says, \"You know, having spent all

my life in agriculture and watched what\'s going on in

agriculture, I\'ve decided that we\'re going to have four

primary focuses here in this state in agriculture at

least while I\'m in office and as long as Governor

Huckabee tolerate raise it.\"

And it was poignant when Mary Jo Herbert got up

to talk about the number of women involved with

production of agriculture here in the State of New

Jersey. He said first of all we need to understand

that 58 percent of all the farming operations in

Arkansas are headed by females. So my first focus is

going to be on women in agriculture.

So he said, \"My second primary focus is going

to be on renewable energy.\" It was interesting how he

said it, because he said historically Arkansas,

particularly eastern Arkansas and the delta has had a

traditional advantage because of its access to export

markets for rice, for soy beans, for cotton, crops of

that ilk. He said, Well, we\'ve lost that traditional

export advantage due to global changes in production

agriculture so we\'re going to focus on renewable energy

because we need energy. That\'s a product that we can

compete with very, very effectively. We\'re not going

to give up on the rest of it but we\'re going to focus

on renewable energy.

And then he went on to say, \"My third focus is

going to be farmers markets.\" Farmers markets. And

the fourth one is going to be on niche market

opportunities for rural Americans in general.

Folks, the reason I point this out is because

you talked about all of those things here today. When

you get a traditional retired ag economist from the

University of Illinois talking about the same things,

you know that there is a sea change taking place in the

thought process of developing farm policy.

I commend all of you for providing that similar

insight, that guidance and that assistance for us, and

I can assure you that the secretary and the president

will take this very, very seriously, and I\'m certain if

you go to the web site and look at the transcriptions s

of all the farm bill listening sessions we have across

the country, particularly those of you representing

your congressional delegations, you\'re going to find an

immense amount of equally good fodder for the

development of the next farm bill that will obviously

be written by Congress.

So on behalf again of Secretary Johanns,

President Bush and particularly myself, I\'d like to

thank all of you for some very, very good insights and

a delightful time on my part here in New Jersey, and I

wish you the very best in the coming year both as

producers and as rural Americans. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY DORR: I did forget one

thing. Dean Goodman asked me to point out that the

array up front and I know, it was actually provided by

Dickie Graff (phon.) and Gail Johnson of Cook College,

and they did do a magnificent job. I love cauliflower.

(Applause.)

MODERATOR: Last reminder for those of you

that would still like to provide a comment, you can do

so both at comment box or go to www.usda.gov/farmbill.