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Release No. 0556.05

Transcript of Arizona Farm Bill Forum with Mark Rey

Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment

And Moderator Mark Killian

Phoenix, Arizona

November 9, 2005

MODERATOR: We would like to now introduce to you an honored guest who
runs the Department of Agriculture for Arizona. Mr. Don Butler will now
give us a few words.\
\
SEC. DON BUTLER: Well, I would say welcome to everybody. I\'m glad to
see a lot of these seats are filled. Hopefully there will be some more
that come in a little bit later. But I think it\'s a real tribute to
have the Secretary here. And I\'m looking forward to hearing his remarks
and those from the group here on what you all think of what can be done
with the 2007 Farm Bill.\
\
I really am saying welcome too on behalf of Governor Napolitano. She
really wanted to be here and to meet with the Secretary, but she\'s the
chairperson now of the Western Governors Association, and they\'re all
meeting in Scottsdale. So she sent her welcome to the Secretary and to
all of you from Agriculture.\
\
I think that as I say it will be an enlightening day with Arizona being
number three, agriculture being number three behind tourism, technology
and then agriculture. And it is nearing a \$7 billion product. And I
think everybody is pleased to hear that, and I think hopefully the
legislature will hear it too and give us a break.\
\
But I think things are going along well, and I\'m not going to take any
more time to turn it over to our guests here today. And it\'s up to you
to pose the questions to them, and I think that I\'ve been able to read
some of the comments that have come, and some of the comments that
Secretary Johanns has made on coming to these different forums. And I
think it gives us and the people in the country the opportunity to voice
our opinion and hopefully we\'ll see it in the results in \'07.\
\
So I\'ll turn it back to Mark.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you, Don, very much.\
\
It is now my privilege to introduce Mark Rey. Mr. Rey has served as the
Under Secretary of Agriculture for the Natural Resources and Environment
since October of 2001. He has an extensive background in natural
resources and conservation policy, serving for a time on the staff of
the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.\
\
So without further ado, we\'d like to recognize and welcome Under
Secretary Mark Rey.\
\
\[Applause.\]\
\
SEC. MARK REY: Thanks for that kind introduction. It\'s my pleasure to
be here this morning on behalf of Secretary Mike Johanns to hear
directly from Arizona\'s farmers, ranchers and rural residents about
issues of concern. In preparing for the development of the 2007 Farm
Bill, Secretary Johann\'s announced in June the first in a nationwide
series of Farm Bill forums to be held across the country. That first
forum was held in Nashville, Tennessee, and we have conducted 49 other
forums since. In addition to the Secretary, various under secretaries
have also been conducting forums such as this, but all in the hope that
no voice is left unheard as we develop this next Farm Bill.\
\
Now before we go too far into this program, we have a message from the
person who asked Secretary Johanns to solicit ideas from as many people
as possible while conducting these listening sessions. So with that, if
somebody will cue the message, we\'ll hear it.\
\
\[Videotape of President George Bush\]\
\
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Thanks for letting me speak to you at this Farm
Bill Forum. America\'s farm and ranch families provide a safe and
abundant food supply for our people and for much of the world. You
represent the best values of America \-- stewardship of the land, hard
work and independence, faith, service and community.\
\
Mike Johanns understands the importance of America\'s farmers to our
country, which is why I chose him to lead our Department of Agriculture.
I\'m proud of his work, and he will lead our efforts on the next Farm
Bill.\
\
Secretary Johanns and I believe the first step in this process is to ask
each of you how today\'s Farm Bill is working and how it can be better.
As we look to improve America\'s farm policy, we will continue to focus
on the following goals.\
\
See, America has about 5 percent of the world\'s population which means
95 percent of your potential customers are overseas. So one of our goals
must be to ensure that America\'s farmers and ranchers have access to
open, global markets.\
\
A second goal is that we want future generations to have plenty of
opportunities to go into agriculture.\
\
Thirdly, we need cooperative conservation that encourages good
stewardship of our land and natural habitats.\
\
We also need to act wisely in delivering help to our nation\'s
producers. And we must promote cutting-edge agricultural products and
research.\
\
Finally, we must ensure good quality of life in rural America. The Farm
Bill is important legislation that meets real needs. The next Farm Bill
should further strengthen the farm economy and preserve this way of life
for farmers and ranchers of the future.\
\
Hearing your advice is an important step toward meeting these goals. I
thank you for all you do for our country, and thank you for listening.\
\
\[end of videotape\]\
\
SEC. REY: As you can tell from that message, the President is determined
to see that the comments you offer today be used while formulating what
this next Farm Bill will look like.\
\
As was mentioned in my introduction, I\'m the under secretary for
Natural Resources and the Environment with jurisdiction over the Forest
Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. My career has
been spent working on conservation. As you may know, the Farm Bill is
one mechanism that helps us do that.\
\
The previous Farm Bill was considered landmark legislation for
conservation funding and for focusing on environmental issues. The
conservation provisions of that bill have assisted farmers and ranchers
in meeting environmental challenges on their land. That Farm Bill
simplified existing programs and created new ones all seeking to enhance
the long-term quality of conservation on working farms, ranches and
forestlands.\
\
What goes into a farm bill can have a long-lasting effect on our
nation\'s natural resources, and that\'s why we\'re here today \-- to
hear your thoughts, comments, and concerns on what should be included in
the next Farm Bill.\
\
To that end Secretary Johanns developed six specific questions that
we\'re seeking answers to today. The first question relates to
challenges to new farmers. How do we prepare farm policy to provide a
future for new entries into the agriculture community? Policies should
welcome the next generation of farmers, and unintended consequences such
as higher land prices that might result from farm policy should be
avoided to the extent possible.\
\
The second question relates to how we stay competitive in a world
marketplace. Today over 27 percent of cash receipts for agriculture come
from abroad. That\'s a very, very large piece of all farm income across
the country. And it\'s growing. We must remain competitive in domestic
and global markets in order to succeed.\
\
The third question relates to farm program benefits. Is the current
distribution system the most effective way of distributing the benefits?
Benefits should stabilize farm prices and incomes. The current programs,
crop insurance is a good example and we\'ve heard some conversations
about that already in previous forums, distributes assistance based on
past and current production levels. Some argue that the current programs
favor large farmers.\
\
The fourth question relates to conservation. How do we formulate
conservation policies in a way that provides for cooperative
conservation? The President and Secretary Johanns and I all believe that
our farmers are the best conservationists in the nation. Some suggest
anchoring farm policy around conservation and tangible benefits produced
like cleaner air and water and less developed landscapes.\
\
The fifth question relates to rural economic development. How can
federal rural and farm programs provide effective assistance in rural
areas? If you look back at farm bills of the past, there wasn\'t much
there relative to rural economic development. In the 2002 bill it was a
pretty significant piece.\
\
But farming and rural America were once synonymous. Demographic and
economic characteristics in some rural areas have changed, in some cases
dramatically. Some believe we should invest more in the infrastructure
of rural America.\
\
And then the last area is the expansion of agricultural products,
markets and research. We have great resources at our disposal at USDA,
particularly in the research arena. What we are interested in knowing is
what you think we\'re doing right in terms of research and if not what
we should be doing instead.\
\
Agriculture is rapidly changing. Some say policies should do more to
help develop new products and new markets.\
\
Those are the six questions that the Secretary has framed on which
we\'re interested in hearing your views. Obviously we\'d be interested
in hearing your thoughts on any other matter as well.\
\
If we run out of time today or you simply think of something you forgot
to say, please know you can always go to WWW.USDA.GOV and click on to
Farm Bill Forums. The comments submitted on the web in writing or voiced
here today are all given the same weight and will be given the same
exact amount of study and analysis.\
\
Before I wrap up, I have one last message for the younger people here
today, people like Jeanette and Julie. You\'re the reason that we\'re
here because we hope the advice and ideas that we get pave the way for
your future success as federal agricultural policy is modified in the
next Farm Bill.\
\
So that\'s essentially the last you\'ll hear from me until we wrap up
today because the purpose of this session is not for me to speak to you
but for you to give us your ideas. Again I want to thank you all for
being here today, and I look forward to a productive discussion this
morning. I\'ll be taking voluminous notes as you offer us your thoughts.
Thank you.\
\
\[Applause.\]\
\
MODERATOR: I need to cover a few housekeeping matters on the structure
of our visiting sessions. Let me go over some of the ground rules with
you. First, if you haven\'t had a chance to visit with the staff and
look at the various displays, we\'d encourage you to do that. If you
have any questions about what\'s being presented, there\'s people here
that can go over that information with you. Also in the back of the room
you need to note there\'s a USDA help desk. With this particular
listening session, if you have additional comments you want to get into
the record these folks will be able to help you do that, whether in
written form or other ways.\
\
In the interest of hearing as many as possible today we\'re going to ask
that you limit your comments to two minutes and we\'ll remind you these
aren\'t speeches. This is a visit, and so we would like you to keep your
comments in that frame of mind. As the under secretary mentioned, if you
are unable to make a comment today or simply think of something else you
want to do, again you can always go to WWW.USDA.GOV and click on the
Farm Bill and you can make you can make your comments right in there.\
\
Also if you brought with you written comments or a statement and other
documentation that you\'d like to leave for the Secretary, the staff in
the back of the room with the comment boxes will be happy to gather
those so that you\'ll be able to get those to the under secretary.\
\
If you would, before you make your comment please tell us who you are,
where you\'re from, your city, state, and the role in agriculture that
you have. Then also if you would, please state which particular question
you\'re most concerned about and who your remarks deal with, which
question we\'ve been given so we can categorize your comments.\
\
Be sure and speak clearly. If you run over time not only will you get
the red light but also I\'ll throw my pen at you.\
\
Okay. Now it is a very dangerous thing to give a microphone to a
recovering politician. And so I\'m going to take the prerogative of the
chair and invite three individuals to speak first. It happens to be
three of the youth that are here. I\'m going to call them in this order.
Casey Kinney (sp) who is from Buckeye, Arizona. I\'m going to have her
talk first. Then Julie Darr. And then Janette Barnard, in that order.
We\'ll start with those three. Casey. Come right here to the microphone
and speak to us, please.\
\
MS. CASEY KINNEY: Good morning. Thank you, Agriculture Under Secretary
Rey for coming to Arizona and allowing me to be one of the first
speakers. My name is Casey Kinney, and I am 17 years old and a junior at
Buckeye Union High School. This is my 9th year in 4-H.\
\
4-H has been a major part of my life, and it\'s taught me how to run a
business through my livestock project. It has given me the leadership
skills that I need through holding offices in various areas of the
program, and it has taught me the social skills that I need through the
various camps and social activities throughout the state and nation.\
\
So most importantly it has given me a sense of belonging. For those of
you that do not know me I am extremely \[inaudible\] challenged, so
sports has kind of been out of the question. At first it really bothered
me that I wasn\'t the star basketball player, but in fact I was probably
the worst on the team. But then I started becoming more and more
involved in my 4-H club. That\'s when I realized my strengths lie
elsewhere and that I have become efficient at showing, raising and
judging livestock. And I even found a sport through the 4-H shooting
program that I\'m good at.\
\
And not only has 4-H helped me, but also I have witnessed what it has
done for the many young 4-Hers in my club. I have watched them bloom
with confidence and skills before my eyes. It is so awesome to see them
do well with their projects and to watch their faces light up when the
judge gives them their ribbons. It is so rewarding, especially when you
know you helped them get there.\
\
Finally, if it wasn\'t for 4-H I would not have the courage to get up
here and talk about this and so now that you have heard all the good
things about 4-H you\'ll realize how vital this program is to the
outcome of so many youth today. Please continue to provide funds through
the University of Arizona, our land grant university, and support the
positive influence on youth today. Thank you.\
\
MODERATOR: All right. Who\'s next? Go ahead.\
\
MS. JULIE DARR: Good morning, and thank you, Agriculture Under
Secretary, for coming today and allowing me to be one of the first
speakers. My name is Julie Darr. I am a 17-year-old junior at Buckeye
Union High School in Buckeye, Arizona. I have been a member of Buckeye
4-H for 8 years. In 4-H I am involved in four goats, swine, rabbits and
dairy paternity. I have held offices from president to reporter. I am
privileged this year to be able to represent Arizona in Atlanta,
Georgia, at the National 2005 4-H Team Conference.\
\
In Arizona there are over 100,000 4-H members, 30,000 in Maricopa County
alone, and over 200 members in my hometown of Buckeye. Currently I am
involved in my most rewarding position as a junior leader of the Buckeye
Valley Rabbit Club. I have over 15 members in my club and only two of
these members are from agriculture families. I am entering these to be a
better adult. We meet twice a month. The beginning of our meeting is a
business meeting where I am teaching Roberts rules of order, community
service, leadership skills, and public speaking.\
\
The second part of our meeting is used to teach the youth about their
project and general agriculture.\
\
The third part of the meeting is used to teach the youth how to handle
and care for their project. The final part of the meeting, is teaching
the youth record keeping skills, how to keep a financial budget, and
recognizing leadership skills they are acquiring. Personally 4-H has
helped me through many aspects of my life, from making friends to
speaking in front of crowds. All the skills 4-H has taught me will help
me throughout my life.\
\
As part of 4-H I have learned to pledge my head to clear thinking, to be
able to help the younger members with their projects. My heart to
greater loyalty to stay committed to all my responsibilities. My hands
to larger service to be able to help my community in any way possible
and my health to better living to stay drug-free and be a great
influence on all younger members and be a good role model to them.\
\
4-H is a wonderful organization that teaches kids responsibility away
from their home life. Without federal funding 4-H would cease to exist.
Please continue to provide funds for 4-H programs through the University
of Arizona, our land grant university, and support the positive
influences on youth today. Thank you.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Jeanette?\
\
MS. JANETTE BARNARD: Hello. My name is Janette Barnard and I\'m from
Wilcox. Coming from a perspective from a farming background and also
being involved in agriculture education and FFA for about the past six
years I\'d like to speak this morning about investing in the future of
agriculture and future agriculturalists. I think we can do that by two
ways\-- one by investing in education of young people about the industry
of agriculture. As a state officer part of what I did was travel around
to high schools and I\'ve seen the value of educating these young people
can have about agriculture. It can encourage them to pursue careers in
the industry and also help develop an educated public. The people we
serve is agriculturalists.\
\
The second way I believe we can invest in the future of agriculture is
by developing new opportunities and ways and means for young people to
become involved in those industries of farming and ranching and all the
different aspects of agriculture.\
\
So I\'d like to thank you for your time this morning, and just encourage
you to invest in the future of agriculture, which is through young
people. Thank you.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. All right. Now the time is yours to
express your opinions and thoughts. So yes, ma\'am?\
\
MS. MARTHA HAMMONDS (sp): Good morning. My name is Martha Hammonds. I
just moved back here to the city after living on a small farm in Amish
country in Ohio, and we were there for two and a half years. I was able
to see firsthand the incredible tangible and intangible benefits that
agriculture brings to a community. And I want to first say thank you,
thank you, thank you. In my book you guys are all heroes.\
\
Agriculture is just a miracle, and if I\'d never been on that little
farm I never would have understood. So because my understanding of what
agriculture provides as well as my values, the changes that occurred, I
believe that our policy really must provide the understanding of the
benefits that agriculture plays in communities. I also believe that any
policy needs to provide for a way for the community and the public to
participate in agricultural events such as fairs and education. And I
also believe that we need to provide education and support for community
farms within the city, maybe start out small and allow communities to
start growing some of their own items in some of the smaller areas and
set aside greenbelt areas in development so that people can actually
grow some things. Thank you.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you very much.\
\
MR. TOM ISEM (sp): My name is Tom Isem. I\'m a farmer from Casa Grande,
Arizona. I farm cotton, grain and vegetables. I\'d like to thank you,
Mr. Secretary, for taking time today and allowing me time to speak to
you today regarding the 2007 farm program.\
\
I\'m here to address the question on how farm policy should be designed
to effectively and fairly distribute assistance to producers. The short
answer is, it\'s already been done. The current Farm Bill that was
enacted in 2002 has accomplished these goals. The countercyclical
payments, the direct payments, the marketing and loan program protect
farmers from unpredictable weather and commodity markets while allowing
farmers to respond to market signals and not distort overall production
and prices.\
\
Since its passage in 2002 the Farm Bill has worked just the way it was
designed and actually paid out approximately \$17 billion less in farm
assistance over the first three years that was budgeted.\
\
If any of the components of the current Farm Bill are removed or
restricted in the 2007 Farm Bill it will have a very negative impact on
production agriculture and agribusiness in Arizona and the entire
Southwest region. I understand that further farm program spending must
be reduced because of budgetary constraints along with all other
federally funded programs, but we must share equally with those
reductions as necessary. I would urge that enacting all new Farm Bill,
the new Farm Bill in 2007 will not place an unfair portion of that
burden on the backs of the American farmers.\
\
I firmly believe that the next Farm Bill should be a continuation of the
current program. As I am sure you\'ve heard a thousand times before, the
current program provides planting flexibility to growers, and an
effective safety net when prices are low, and that has minimal impact on
overall pricing and plantings. Thank you for your time.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you. Next, please.\
\
MS. JOANNA AUSTIN MANYGOATS (sp): Good morning. On behalf of the
director of the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture, Mr. John
BlueEyesMan (sp), could not be with us today to attend to other
important commitments out of state. My name is Joanna Austin Manygoats,
senior planner for the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture in Window
Rock, Arizona.\
\
I am honored to be here participating in the 2007 Farm Bill listening
session. Thank you for that opportunity, Under Secretary Rey. The Navajo
nation is responding to five of the six questions posed for comments and
they are in the order of 2 to 6.\
\
The Navajo nation is responding to numbers 2 to 6 and will be eventually
arriving at the global market one day. The Navajo nation knows that in
carrying out any conservation program the Secretary can use program
resources to enter into partnership agreement with tribes. In 1994 USDA
and the Department of Interior agreed to a new foundation to improve the
delivery of programs and services to the American Indians and Alaskan
natives. However, the Navajo Nation has not adequately received the
commitment from USDA with funds, program and technical assistance
available to us.\
\
We believe that the Navajo Nation itself will deliver these program more
effectively to its tribal members and to make amendments of policies and
programs that will correspond to the needs of the Navajo people.
President Clinton envisioned a strong government-to-government
relationship with American Indians and Alaskan native tribal
governments, and on April 29, 1994, a historic meeting with the
leadership of federally recognized Indian tribes at the White House
President Clinton issued an executive memorandum of
government-to-government relationship with the Native American tribal
governments.\
\
President Clinton\'s April 29, 1994, executive memorandum outlines the
principle to clarify the responsibility of the federal government to
operate within a government-to-government relationship with federally
recognized American Indians and Alaskan native tribes. USDA too has
somewhat increased emphasis on economic development activities and
programs in American Indian and Alaska native communities including
rural development by working at the national, state and local levels to
provide financial and technical assistance directly to tribal
governments. Which is still slow in coming and still needs increased
investment in tribal waters, waste program, housing, community
facilities, business projects.\
\
We are the stewards. We are the caretaker of the Navajo Nation. This
means that we have a sacred and shared stake in improving the lives of
our people and to open opportunities to all of them. Under Title II,
Section 2003 of PL107171 the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture is
prepared to enter into partnership with USDA. Section 2003 provisions
provide USDA to fund stewardship agreement with Indian tribe for the
purpose of providing enhanced funding including USDA funded incentive
payments and technical assistance to owners, operators and producers.\
\
Navajo producers and ranchers will participate through the Navajo Nation
Department of Agriculture in designated projects for implementation of
certain conservation practices under the Farm Bill. With consultation
and approval of the Navajo Nation with the support of the state
conservationists, the Navajo Nation will amend policies, laws and
regulations tailored to fit the need of the Navajo people, the Navajo
farmers and ranchers as well as the environment in which conservation
measures are applied.\
\
The Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture has taken the initiative to
be the first to get its foot in the door to encourage strong partnership
program with USDA. The Navajo Nation knows that in creating this
partnership agreement the farm policy is effective and fair in the
distribution of assistance to Navajo producers. The Navajo Nation
Department of Agriculture knows best what is the priorities of
conservation and environmental goals in the rural areas. We the Navajo
Nation know that the Navajo agricultural product development marketing
and research-related issues to be addressed. We know how the farm policy
needs to address the unintended consequences to ensure that such
consequences do not discourage new Navajo farmers and ranchers and the
next generation of Navajo farmers and ranchers from entering the
production agriculture.\
\
We the Navajo Nation want to arrange with the USDA on crafting the
partnership agreement on behalf of all the Navajo people enabling our
members equal access to USDA programs, funds, technical assistance, and
education available to them. Thank you.\
\
MODERATOR: Thank you very much.\
\
MR. HUTCH NOLENE (sp): Good morning. My name is Hutch Nolene. I
represent the San Carlos Apache tribe. And I\'m a member of the Farm
Bureau and formerly of the Cattlemen Association.\
\
In 1988 a committee was formally established to address the concerns of
a program creating incentives for young farmers and ranchers to remain
in agriculture. I enjoyed the speech that was made by the three young
ladies that came before you.\
\
And I\'m a firm believer in agriculture. And this advisory committee had
a list of 94 applicants in committee and 20 were chosen. And I\'d like
to see that in Arizona whether it be Native American or non-Native
American be on the board to represent our dry, harsh environment that we
see from year to year. We are in a drought season right now. A person
from Nebraska back East cannot make decisions for us. It\'s hard for
them to make decision. We endure the harshness of the environment.\
\
As time permits I\'d like to also say that we like to\-- the occurring
situation of agricultural and farmland being taken out of production for
development of housing and new communities which is taken thousands of
acres out of production in our area. As these lands are retired out of
agriculture, the establishment allotment base for crops such as small
grain and cotton are being lost. We\'d like to see a more stringent
input from the Department of Agriculture be put in, work with the local
people here.\
\
As you are probably aware that Phoenix and Nevada, Los Vegas is one of
the fastest growing cities in the United States. But I do like to see a
more representation from our area right now as it seems like we don\'t
have any from New Mexico nor Arizona, Nevada, or Utah on the board. I\'d
like to see this change in the future. Thank you.\
\
MR. RONALD REINER (sp): Mr. Secretary, Director Butler and Mark Rey,
I\'m Ronald Reiner. I\'m a Goodyear and Buckeye area farmer. My family
farm consists of approximately 5,000 acres, but it\'s operated by
myself, two brothers, and two nephews. So basically five families make
their living from that acreage. I guess we\'re in a way kind of like a
five 1,000-acre operations put together in a co-op.\
\
We grow alfalfa, cotton, durum wheat and silage sorghum on land that has
high salinity and uses a significant amount of irrigation water that
came from municipal wastewater treatment plant. Given these parameters,
you can see that our crop choices are actually quite limited.\
\
The framework of the current Farm Bill is the very best in my lifetime
of farming in that it can provide positive results to each of the six
specific questions we were invited to comment upon. I\'ve been active in
several farm organizations during the last 35 years and have had the
opportunity to work in some of these think tank type meetings that have
lasted over several weeks and even months at a time. And included in
these think tank type meetings were farmers from all over the country,
and a lot of times we would have our processors, our financing
institutions, input suppliers and economists that would be present in
those as well.\
\
The most recent was one year that I served when I was chairman of the
board of the National Cotton Council in the year 2000. This strategic
planning committee started with a blank sheet of paper and the charge
was to look at in proposal no mater how far-fetched to create a farm
policy outline that would meet our objectives.\
\
When I analyzed the six questions that were presented here today I was
not surprised to find that in fact they were probably about the same
questions that we were given over five years ago.\
\
Mr. Secretary, the current Farm Bill addresses competitiveness and
allows us to compete in the foreign markets. Some tweaking might be
necessary because of the recent adverse WTO rulings. The current Farm
Bill has not discouraged next generation farms in our area. As a matter
of fact I think I\'ve seen more young people become successful operators
in the past few years than at any other time of my farming life. I
presume a large part of that was due to the stability and safety net
that\'s provided in the 2002 Bill.\
\
The current Farm Bill is very complex, but that complexity was necessary
to more fairly distribute assistance to producers. To couple the nature
of the assistance assures that producers plant for markets rather than
for some program. The marketing loan program puts a low safety net under
production but still allows crops to move to market avoiding the old
government-owned reserves of surplus commodities that became price
depressants in future years.\
\
The current Farm Bill has a carefully crafted and extensive conservation
title, but yet it has yet to be funded at a level to see the results
that it is capable of producing. Rural programs, marketing and research
related issues all have titles under the current bill, but some of the
parameters to implement these provisions like the conservation title
took many months to develop. So they\'ve only been in place for two
years for some of these programs, and some of them only for a year at
the local level.\
\
The current program has also been fair to taxpayers according to the
original CBO scoring projection.\
\
A final conclusion is that the 2007 program should look very much like
what we saw in 2000. Thank you.\
\
MR. JOHN FOWLER: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. My name is John Fowler. I
represent the Public Lands Council. I am a rancher from Gila County. And
I\'m here this morning to thank you first of all for holding the hearing
on the Farm Bill in Arizona. And secondly and more importantly for
helping to steward through the EQIP program as a pilot project in the
town of Florence public lands. We believe that this addresses items 4
and 5 on your list in the sense that we have seen resource protection on
the ground as a result of this implementation. We\'re seeing waterline
distributions moving livestock out of riparian areas, putting them in
the uplands which really helps the situation up there.\
\
We would like to see this program spread throughout the west to other
public lands including DLA and other forest service. They help both in
conservation and efficiency of this program because you\'re getting more
bang for your buck on the 50/50 spread. It also assists the rural areas,
your other point. We\'re keeping ranchers in business, keeping
communities successful by keeping them in business and keeping open
space out there. Thank you.\
\
MR. BILL BRAKE (sp): Good morning. My name is Bill Brake. I am president
of the Arizona State Cattlemen\'s Association, which represents about
800 ranchers in the state of Arizona. I\'m going to do the best I can in
two minutes to say what I\'d like to say in about four hours. But in
your case it\'s probably good that I only have two minutes.\
\
First of all, Mr. Secretary, you have been a real champion for us in
Arizona. There are warm feelings about what you have done for us in this
state and how you have helped us in the park program and the Tonto and
other areas.\
\
I would like to talk about the items 4 and 5 on the list, and although
there are many other things I\'d like to, in the time allowed, mention
these. What you have and we need you to continue to do is through NRSCS
financing in monitoring protocol which has helped us establish a
protocol between the university, Arizona State, the Forest Service and
the BLM as far as monitoring is concerned. And that has been a major
problem over the years, and we\'re finally getting someplace on that,
and it\'s because of your funding and your support on that.\
\
Secondly you\'ve financed conservation and environmental projects
including fencing and many other projects I\'d like to go into, but I\'d
just like to point out to you that we built a fence on our ranch and
I\'m in southern Arizona in the town of Elgin. We built a fence for
\$200 per mile. Park Service right next to us built it, cost them
\$18,000 for that same mile of fence. I don\'t need to tell you what the
condition of the Park Service is in today as far as their structures are
concerned. We built a water line for \$6,000. The same Park Service had
a \$27,000 per mile water line. Well, we are using your money
effectively, and it is creating what we think environmentally we all
agree we are protecting riparian areas where the greens and the ranchers
all agree this is what\'s necessary.\
\
More importantly the health of the range has really been increased
because we\'ve spread water throughout the ranches, and this in turn has
allowed us to graze more effectively and made a healthier range and by
your monitoring protocol we\'re able to prove that. We need you to
continue that.\
\
I\'m going to say last something else that only us southern Arizona
ranchers probably know about. You probably don\'t realize you\'re saved
probably hundreds of lives. The reason, I have water all over my ranch
and I found three dead bodies that froze to death, illegal aliens coming
across. But at least they\'re not dying of thirst. There are people
going out there putting bottled waters out there and getting a lot of
press, but every day all along the border from California to Texas your
water is keeping those people alive. Should it be there or not is not my
argument, but it\'s because of USDA funding. We appreciate that. Thank
you, sir.\
\
MR. BOB CATNIG (sp): Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I\'m Bob Catnig,
associate livestock specialist, University of Arizona. I had a chance to
meet you a couple years ago, and I echo the other fellows in
appreciation of your efforts on our behalf. And my primary role is
education and the assistance in developing livestock programs and
projects.\
\
I think this may be best addressed under number 5. We need to continue
to support the expansion of multiagency programs. When we do things
together we can be much more effective and often avoid duplication of
efforts that would be a problem if we all do things separately.\
\
You already heard about the range monitoring project, but some other
areas between the NRCS and the EQIP program and the Cooperative
Extension has occurred on, especially some of the Indian land. You\'ve
heard from some of the Navajo and some other folks earlier today. We\'ve
had some very successful educational programming projects by combining
our efforts and utilizing mixed funds to make these occur.\
\
The situation a number of years ago that I also want to highlight \-- as
you know we\'ve been in a very severe drought. Because of current Farm
Bill and because of the people in place we were able to address some of
these things. We received an opportunity to use nonfat dry milk and Alan
from our state office did a wonderful job coordinating this with our
Department of Agriculture, our livestock association groups, livestock
industry, University of Arizona, and feed industry, who were able to
distribute about 4,000 tons of nonfat dry milk which equated to about
16,000 tons of feed. This started within about 30 days from the first
day we were able to do something. We pulled together as a group. We
developed some product. We rolled it out, and in 30 days later it was
out in the country doing some good. I think that\'s a beautiful example
of multiagency cooperation addressing a specific issue.\
\
As we move forward we have the need for continued research, applied
research. As you know, our land grant universities are under extreme
pressure for funding, extreme pressure from other areas of programming.
And it is vital I think that we have continued opportunities through
USDA to do applied research to build partnerships and make our future
one of inclusiveness, not of exclusiveness. Thank you very much.\
\
MS. ANNA MARIE ALHA (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary, Mr. (Cary) (sp),
and Director Butler. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
Anna Marie Alha representing Western Growers Association, an association
of over 2,000 California and Arizona fruit, vegetable and nut
producers.\
\
A secure domestic food supply is a national security imperative. At a
highly competitive specialty crop industry is necessary for the
production of an abundant, affordable supply of highly nutritious
fruits, vegetables and other specialty crops. Specialty crops are vital
to the health and well-being of all Americans. An increased consumption
of specialty crops will provide tremendous health and economic benefits
to both consumers and growers.\
\
It has become increasingly difficult for specialty crop growers to
compete against heavily subsidized and minimally regulated foreign
producers in today\'s global markets. The next Farm Bill must address
specialty crop issues much more effectively than previous Farm Bills.\
\
Specialty crop growers produce approximately 50 percent of farm gate
value of total plant agricultural production in the United States yet
only receive a very small percentage of federal resources aimed at
promoting and sustaining efficient agriculture production.\
\
Federal resources aimed at addressing issues of concerned to specialty
crop producers must reflect their value and the value of production to
the U.S. economy as well as the dietary needs of all Americans.\
\
Despite a decade of free trade agreements, U.S. specialty crop growers
continue to face trade barriers in many international markets, thus
impeding the growth of our exports. Congressional enactment of the
Specialty Crop Competitiveness Act of 2004 was a small first step
towards addressing these issues.\
\
We urge USDA to move forward expeditiously with the implementation of
this landmark law. The Farm Bill must build on the SCCA and provide
specialty crop growers with the tools needed to remain competitive in
global markets. Policy areas that the next Farm Bill must address
specifically with respect to the needs of specialty crop growers include
the following:\
\
Specialty crop block grants.\
International trade.\
Nutrition.\
Marketing.\
And basic pest and disease issues.\
Research and competitive grants.\
And conservation program.\
\
Finally, I\'d be remiss not to mention that the need for immigration
reform is vital to the specialty crop industry. Approximately 200 miles
southwest of here in Yuma growers are gearing up for the winter
vegetable season, which provides the U.S. with 90 percent of their
winter lettuce supply and much of the broccoli and cauliflower. Without
a reliable agriculture guest worker program, this area cannot continue
to provide this highly nutritious crop to the United States.\
\
The specialty crop industry looks forward to working with the Bush
Administration and Congress to craft a Farm Bill, which truly addresses
the need of specialty crop growers and allocates resources sufficient to
achieve specialty crop goals. Thank you.\
\
MR. JAMES RASMUSSEN (sp): Good morning. I\'m James Rasmussen. I\'m
representing the Gila County Cattle Growers Association in Globe,
Arizona. Primarily represent allotment owners on Tonto National Forest
and other areas around there. And Secretary Rey, I appreciate you coming
out. We thank you very much for holding this session in Arizona.\
\
The EQIP pilot program by the NRCS that was instituted a couple years
ago on Tonto is an unqualified success. A lot of ranchers are taking
part in it. It\'s really working good, and we thank you for making this
possible and encourage you to expand it if possible.\
\
The cattle are starting to return to the forest, and they might be in
small numbers, but more importantly there\'s hope there. And there is a
few years ago that hope didn\'t even exist. Now people are planning on
buying a few cows or a few heifers and returning to the land. So there
are still some problems to be resolved, but I think we\'re making our
way toward resolving those, and that makes a great difference.\
\
One unintended consequence that bothers me personally is that ranchers
are out there practicing good stewardship, they\'re improving the water,
they\'re improving the forage, they\'re making the roads accessible, and
through their success the land is very attractive. And this is done for
the benefit of their grazing. The tendency then is for the agency to
say, oh this is great land, let\'s take the cattle off of it and just
use it for recreation, something like that. And that\'s an unintended
consequence I don\'t want to see happen. Thank you very much.\
\
MR. WILEY MURPHY: Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for holding these
sessions for the development of the 2007 Farm Bill, which is extremely
important to us in Arizona. My name is Wiley Murphy, and I\'m a cotton
and grain farmer in Marana, Pima County in Arizona. I also am on the
board of directors of the National Cotton Council. I represent the far
western cotton growing states of California, Arizona, and New Mexico.\
\
My comments will address three of the questions you\'ve put forth, very
briefly. First of all before I go into the next Farm Bill I\'d like to
say how important it is for us to continue the current Farm Bill through
its completion in 2007 without major changes. Farm programs must have
some degree of consistency. A farm program provides a foundation upon
which we can make long-term investments that are necessary to today\'s
agriculture.\
\
Also the next generation of farmers will disappear if they cannot look
forward to a safety net to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of
farm commodity prices. The distribution of government assistance is
under constant attack. The lowering of payment limits is a real threat
to the stability of Arizona agriculture. Large commercial farms\'
per-unit costs are roughly the same as smaller farms. Farms are getting
larger just as almost any other business in the United States is getting
larger. It seems unfair to penalize large commercial operations \-- it
just doesn\'t make sense \-- by lowering payment limits.\
\
Cotton is truly in a global market. A few years ago what happened in
West Texas determined to a large extent how much a cotton farmer
received for his profit. It\'s much more complicated than that now.
China is a big player in the global cotton market and will be a big
player in a lot of other markets very soon if not already.\
\
American farmers must be competitive in world trade. The current Farm
Bill\'s competitiveness provisions including step 2 help us do that and
should be maintained.\
\
Rural Arizona is an endangered species. Without the chance to obtain
financing and the chance to make a profit that the current Farm Bill
provides, rural Arizona could become an extinct species.\
\
In closing I would like to say that the next Farm Bill farm program
should resemble the one we have now. It seems to be working, and like I
say continuity is a key to this. We simply can\'t redesign a whole new
Farm Bill every five years.\
\
Thank you for your attention to this, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate the
chance to give the comments.\
\
MR. BRUCE HIDEN (sp): Mr. Secretary, thank you for conducting these
listening sessions, and thank you for the opportunity to be heard here
today. My name is Bruce Hiden. I\'m from the Buckeye area. Buckeye,
Arizona is about 30 miles west of Phoenix. I\'m the second generation
farmer. My father began farming in this area in 1943. I currently have
three sons in business with me in that area. We farm cotton, alfalfa,
wheat, corn silage, and we also operate a commercial feedlot on our farm
site.\
\
I\'ve personally been farming for over 50 years, and I\'d operate under
every conceivable farm program imaginable. In my view, the current farm
program is a good one. Now having said that, it\'s not perfect. No Farm
Bill has been, and that\'s understandable. The task of writing one piece
of legislation that addresses all of American agriculture in its breadth
and diversity is virtually impossible.\
\
But Congress crafted an excellent Farm Bill that has offered critical
financial support during periods of low prices and helped U.S. farmers
stay in business providing products to our fellow Americans and to
people all over the world.\
\
Now there are so many things that we can\'t control about our farming
operations and it can be very difficult to earn a living. But we seem to
keep doing it because we believe that what we do is very important. Yet
there are those who are extremely critical of the farm program. I
question their motives. Every farmer in this room, every farmer in these
listening sessions that you\'ve heard from provides a valuable service
to this nation and the world producing food and fiber to feed and clothe
our families and our neighbors.\
\
And this has been accomplished in an extremely reasonable cost to the
American people. In fact at the moment I\'m told were under budget. The
farm program is an extremely successful investment that has produced
excellent returns to all of the U.S. population.\
\
While we are producing crops our critics have produced nothing but
criticism. That criticism has been getting a lot of attention, and a
great deal of incorrect information has been passed around about the
Farm Bill and U.S. farmers. The critics want to destroy farm programs.
Doing so will destroy America\'s farms. So I urge you to consider
carefully any drastic changes to the farm program.\
\
Today farmers face greater risks than the vast majority of businessmen.
Many factors are beyond the farmers\' control \-- a strong dollar,
unanticipated oversupply in high production years, depressed prices and
destructive natural events that can wipe out an entire crop. An
effective farm program is essential for providing stability in
production, financing and marketing.\
\
Political and economic reality will make it difficult to extend the
current Farm Bill, but I urge USDA and Congress to consider the 2002
Farm Bill as a template for continued success with the farm policy. In
these times of heightened national security America\'s need for good
farm policy is more critical than ever. Thank you very much for hearing
my comments today.\
\
MR. SAL PALIZOLO (sp): Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. My
name is Sal Palizolo. I\'m the Farm Bill coordinator for the Arizona
Game and Fish Department. I\'m going to be addressing four questions
today.\
\
Regarding question number 2, in order to maintain global
competitiveness, we should encourage stewardship programs that are not
trade-distorting and try to be in compliance with the World Trade
Organization\'s green box evaluation while still trying to provide the
significant conservation benefits of the 2002 Farm Bill.\
\
With relationship to question number 3, the 2007 Farm Bill must provide
program flexibility to deal with issues unique to individual states and
regions. It was touched on several times already this morning. For
example, according to our data less than 1 percent of Arizona ranchers
ranch exclusively on private property. Future farm programs must contain
provisions and adequate funding to allow work on state and federal lands
to address both the environmental and production needs of these
ranchers.\
\
Question number 4, as far as conservation we must ensure that wildlife
will be a coequal priority with soil and water and all phases of the
conservation program within the Farm Bill. This is throughout. This
should be consistent throughout implementation, maintenance, monitoring
and evaluation.\
\
Number 6, which is diversified products and additional production, we
should support energy initiatives that promote and enhance healthy fish
and wildlife population and habitat.\
\
Activities that qualify for carbon sequestration should be ecologically
and regionally based to ensure compatibility of the carbon sequestration
practices with the climate and soil characteristics of the area.\
\
Incentives should be established to provide and encourage carbon
sequestration projects that include an ecological restoration component.
Thank you.\
\
MR. DOC LANE (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary. My name\'s Doc Lane.
I\'m with the Arizona Cattle Growers Association based here in Phoenix.
And I just have a slightly different take on question 4 and President
Bush\'s number 3 on cooperative conservation. We have successfully, in
this state, in the last three years begun a cooperative conservation
project that includes the producers, NRCS, \[inaudible\], BLM,
University of Arizona, and the state Land Department. We\'ve done it in
part because of the TSB funding that goes to NRCS and in part because of
the ability for NRCS to stretch its dollars through contracts to make it
work.\
\
Unfortunately we have just started because as you well know there\'s
always the don\'t-mess-in-my-rice-bowl issue that you have to work
through with agencies. We have done it though in one instance and we\'re
working on the second, and we want to continue if at all possible. So we
would urge you to continue the funding for at least the federal
government\'s portion of this. Thank you.\
\
MR. CLYDE SHARP: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. And welcome to Arizona. My
name is Clyde Sharp. My brother and I farm near Roll, Arizona, which is
a small community near Yuma where we grow a wide variety of crops, both
program and nonprogram crops. I\'m also currently serving as the
president of the Arizona Cotton Growers Association, which represents
approximately 800 producers in Arizona.\
\
We appreciate the effort the Department is making in holding these
listening sessions on the next Farm Bill. We strongly favor the current
Farm Bill in terms of its various programs and structure. That is, we
favor the direct payment program, countercyclical payments and LDPs. In
addition we favor the current loan program of eligibility for marketing
loan benefits for all production and current payment limits and
eligibility requirements.\
\
We expect the next Farm Bill to contain these elements. The current Farm
Bill is essential to a capitalizing of commercial-size agriculture
enterprises throughout the West. If lower payments are imposed or
payment rates are modified, the West in particular will be substantially
harmed. For example, if the Grassley Amendment would have passed 62
percent of Arizona producers would have been affected. This happens to
be the largest in the country.\
\
It is our hope that as the department drafts its own concepts that it
does not propose changes that put our operations at risk. The current
Farm Bill has done a very good job in creating a safety net as well as
giving stability to the marketplace and to the consumer. We have the
cheapest and best quality food in the world.\
\
Frankly we are concerned with what we are hearing from the departmental
representatives about how the next Farm Bill will be. Such comments
suggest that the department is prepared to take a turn in farm policy
that would not be helpful.\
\
Some of the things we are hearing are that subsidies are bad, that the
current method of payment is wrong, that payments should be equally
distributed, that current payment limits should be changed, and that
large operations are somehow wrong.\
\
These views if true are not reassuring to the American agriculture, the
cotton industry and in particular to those of us in the West with our
large operations. We urge you to be cautious in pursuing radical reform.
What we need is predictability, a program that keeps us competitive, and
that is reflective and supportive of the economic world in which we
operate.\
\
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for giving us this avenue to express our
concerns.\
\
MS. JEAN CALHOUN: Good morning. Thank you, Under Secretary Rey, for this
opportunity to comment on the 2007 Farm Bill. I\'m Jean Calhoun. I am
with the Nature Conservancy here in Arizona. And the Nature Conservancy
is an international conservation organization with over 1 million
members. We also own land and manage land as well.\
\
Our mission is to preserve the diversity of life through preserving and
protecting the land and water needed. And here in Arizona we participate
on the state Technical Committee and we really appreciate the positive
partnership that we have with NRCS.\
\
I\'d like to comment on question number 4, how can farm policy best
achieve conservation and environmental goals?\
\
On a global basis temperate grasslands are the most endangered and the
least protected ecosystem. Here in Arizona we have some very important
grasslands. If you know the film Oklahoma was actually filmed in
Southeastern Arizona on the San Rafael Ranch. With this mission of
working with landowners, NRCS is uniquely positioned to affect
conservation of these lands. Grassland preservation provides many
benefits for the Farm Bill funding\-- sustaining ranching and local
economies while conserving watersheds and thus water resources.\
\
A couple of Farm Bill programs are positioned to accomplish grassland
protection but they haven\'t been as effective as they could be. The
Grassland Reserve Program is the key program. But it has suffered from
insufficient funding. It\'s funding cap and acreage cap should be raised
significantly, and greater allocation should be provided to western
states to recognize the importance of this ecosystem in this area of the
country.\
\
The other key program is the Farmland and Ranchland Protection Program.
The most productive ranchlands in the West are native grasslands. In
this case the eligibility criteria need to be updated to meet the
broadened mission of protecting ranchland as well as farmland and the
match requirement lowered. Both GRP and FRP should focus on permanent
protection rather than rental agreements. For conservation easements to
be successful, both programs should allow not only NRCS but also local
and nonprofit conservation organizations to design, hold and monitor
conservation easements.\
\
This would be more attractive to the landowners and less burdensome for
NRCS staff.\
\
Grasslands also need occasional fire to renew their productivity. A key
management need in the West is to restore the natural fire regime for
the health of grasslands and woodlands. Farm Bill programs EQIP and WHIP
can be used to support prescribed burn projects. As they do here in
Arizona, NRCS in other states could leverage their resources by engaging
in partnerships with state and private organizations to develop
prescribed burning programs.\
\
Farm Bill programs represent a huge investment of both time and money;
yet there\'s little understanding of the conservation effectiveness of
the programs. To ensure an effective return on investment, the
ecological outcome should be monitored. You heard some comments about
that this morning. For every project funded, a monitoring component
should be funded as well as a management action.\
\
And finally from a programmatic point of view, NRCS is pressured to
spread the funding around equally without regard to the ecological
benefit of the project. While small projects do have value, a more
focused program is important to sustain larger landscapes and to prevent
the fragmentation, especially here in the West, you\'ve been hearing
about.\
\
We recommend prioritizing funding for functional landscapes with intact
grasslands and viable ranching operations. Thank you for the opportunity
to comment.\
\
MR. CHASE CALDWELL (sp): Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to
comment. My name is Chase Caldwell, and I own the 6K6 Ranch in Greenlee
County, Arizona on the eastern border with New Mexico. I\'m the
president of the Upper Eagle Creek Watershed Association.\
\
My comments are in regard to providing effective assistance in rural
areas, and in best achieving conservation and environmental goals.\
\
The ranches in our area and in much of Arizona consist of relatively
small deeded acreages and leases on large tracts of public land
administered through the Forest Service, BLM and state. Our watershed
group organized by local ranchers is focused on making improvements to
the rangelands through a wide landscape approach encompassing a total
watershed. This approach incorporates wildlife groups, environmental
groups, the local and state cattle growers, the Forest Service, and
Arizona Game and Fish Department.\
\
Our recommendations for the Farm Bill is to expand the current EQIP
program as it\'s been done in the Tonto Forest with great success to
allow funding to qualified projects for improvements on public lands
particularly where there are collaborations ongoing which take on large
landscape approaches to improve range health for livestock producers
when there is protection of sensitive areas and riparian areas, and for
wildlife species and water quality improvements.\
\
We think that the overall approach of expanding the program, the EQIP
program to take on improvements on public lands will greatly benefit all
the ranches.\
\
We also recommend that safe harbor provisions be incorporated into the
application process to encourage participation when endangered species
are involved in projects.\
\
Thank you for the opportunity to comment today.\
\
MR. BOB STAPLETON: Good morning, Mr. Under Secretary and Mark. I\'m Bob
Stapleton known to several of you. My cowboying days are over. I got
Parkinsonian tremors in my legs because maybe of Agent Orange but what
we don\'t know, I\'m on a pension. My cowboying days are done.\
\
Mark knows me a long time. I have a bachelor of science degree in
agribusiness and resource management, and I was 15 years a field manager
to American Agriculture Movement lobby in Washington, which is no longer
functioning.\
\
I\'d like to talk about not just Arizona issues but the national
agriculture. And I\'d like to think in terms of our broader history if I
may.\
\
Agriculture in the United States has been more alone than owned since at
least the \'20s. Everybody in this room today is somehow the beneficiary
of what amounts to a socialized agriculture. And everybody who\'s had a
comment today has had some allusion to obtaining monies from the
government in order to continue their operation.\
\
Now in backhanded sort of way I\'ll address all of your questions. We
have an interesting set of circumstances that constitute a paradigm in
agriculture today. But it didn\'t happen overnight. It happened over
about 60 years. Post WWII corporations, large corporations in this
country got together and decided how agriculture policy should continue
be, and we live with the consequences of that today.\
\
Many unintended consequences of that today, which you know.\
\
If I said to you at the other end of the spectrum of possibilities that
even as we\'re fighting a war in the Middle East and all those other
exigencies that occur, we live on money that we obtain in agriculture.
We live on the money that is obtained from the sale of securities,
primarily purchased by foreign entities. We have huge trade deficits
every year. China is a major trader with us today, and they take their
differentials and buy our securities with them for which we pay
interest. Interest has become at least as big a competing interest,
competing concern for American revenues as the monies that agriculture
will want to be able to continue.\
\
I\'m suggesting by all of that that there needs to be as there was at
the end of WWII a new paradigm determination and that all of the issues
that are on these questions here will be addressed better by a trend
toward building equity in diversified farm agriculture system. Farm and
ranch \-- wouldn\'t want to leave ranches out because I used to be a
cowboy.\
\
But you need to think in terms of building equity. The positive of
reinforcement for a new generation to come along to think that they can
build equity because family farming has always been about family as much
as it was about farming and the ability to build equities and to be able
to pass it on from generation to generation.\
\
The last half a century we have lost millions of smaller farmers that
were highly diversified. If I illustrate the point by saying even as Mr.
Hitler was in his bunker in Germany at the end of WWII it was difficult
for us to break the back of German agriculture because it was highly
diversified even at that point. They still had food.\
\
The day can come, and I do believe there would be a recession in this
country, there has to be a reevaluation. A recession will have an
unfortunate trickle-down effect on agriculture that will affect anybody
who\'s here. And if people are standing here today saying basically a
handful of gimme and a mouthful of much obliged, which is unfortunate,
in this particular economic environment today in the highly pressured
circumstance where you have a devaluation in the overall economy,
unfortunately I think the current paradigm which gives heavily to
corporations and commodity manipulation in policy will squeeze an awful
lot of the marginals out.\
\
I think I\'ve used up more than two minutes. Better warm up that pen,
Mark.\
\
At any rate, I hope I\'ve made my point to that extent. I give you this
personally to read. And you all get up here and talk. Have a nice day.\
\
MODERATOR: We\'re going to take a five-minute break.\
\
\[Recess.\]\
\
MODERATOR: All right. We\'re going to get started again. Let\'s, while
we\'ve got everyone\'s attention, get you to sit down for just a second
\-- we need to introduce someone that\'s here today, another one of the
representatives from Governor Napolitano, and that\'s Brent Brown. Brent
does a lot of work for the governor. Brent, would you stand up so we can
recognize you? Thank you both for being here.\
\
\[Applause.\]\
\
He\'s one of those recovering cattlemen. All right.\
\
Let\'s go ahead and continue on. Anyone that would like to speak if
you\'d come on up and share your thoughts with us. Thank you.\
\
MR. ROB CLAYMER (sp): Mr. Secretary and gentlemen, thank you for hosting
this program. My name\'s Rob Claymer. I\'m a general partner of
Vicksburg Farms and a proud card-carrying member of Arizona Farm Bureau
among other organizations. I suppose you would consider us one of those
nasty corporate farms although structurally we\'re a partnership, an
LLC, of three or four families.\
\
The gentleman before me before the break, I don\'t know. I don\'t really
understand where he gets his history or economics. But I would submit
that what\'s happened in the last 40 years is called productivity. We
unfortunately have 19th century crop base land, crop acreage, and 21st
century productivity. Indeed, the problem with family farming is that
the small grower who has maybe one tractor and a few implements simply
cannot compete in the environment we have today. Right, wrong or
indifferent, that\'s the way it is.\
\
And I\'m here to suggest that if we don\'t do anything else we please do
not wish to have productivity, don\'t punish productivity because the
rest of us must compete in a global environment. I\'m going to read what
I believe will be passed by Arizona Farm Bureau in the next couple of
days\-- our policy, at least from Arizona, on farm programs.\
\
We believe that the federal farm program policies and features in place
in the 2002 Farm Bill should be continued without any structural
changes. The current programs reflect several years of negotiations and
compromises that all sectors of agriculture have learned to live with.
Tinkering with the existing formula can only hurt agriculture in one
form or another.\
\
For example, Congress should not punish productivity by ignoring the
fact that world commodity price competitiveness demands ever-greater
economies of scale. It\'s a simple fact of life. Sorry.\
\
If budget restraints call for reduction in agriculture\'s budget
baseline, we believe that all programs should be reduced equally by some
identified percentage. Thank you.\
\
MS. LORI SANCONE (sp): Good morning, Mr. Secretary. I\'m Lori Sancone,
executive director for Housing America Corporation in Somerton, Arizona.
We are celebrating 29 years of dedicated service to the very low and
moderate income families in Yuma, Mohave and La Paz counties. My
comments will address question number five.\
\
We partner with USDA Rural Development since 1978 and a multifamily
program since 1981 under Self Help Program. And the funding from those
programs has helped us serve our community in rural areas and I hope
that you will please continue funding for USDA Rural Development and the
housing programs.\
\
I\'d like to assure you that funding for Rural Development helps to
reach out and touch the people in the grassroot areas. These programs
work with communities that people work and live in and our mutual Self
Help Program is one of the best ways to mend communities. We currently
operate on our eleventh consecutive 523 technical assistance grant with
USDA Rural Development and Housing America has helped the low income
families that we serve to build 858 homes in rural Arizona; 137 of those
homes are in Kingman and 721 are located in southern Yuma County, mostly
in Somerton.\
\
Historically 60 to 80 percent of the low income families we serve have
been in the very low income category, which is below 50 percent of your
area median income. And most of those families are also farm workers.
Now these families are so low income that they would never qualify for a
conventional loan. Without funding from these programs they would never
be able to obtain the American dream of home ownership.\
\
And as you know, home ownership helps families to have a more stable
home life and be contributing more to the economy through payroll
taxes.\
\
I\'d like to thank you again for coming to Arizona here today and
supporting rural home ownership development in America. Thank you.\
\
MR. TONY JEVEZES (sp): Well, that\'s great that I get to follow off
Lori. My name is Tony Jevezes. I\'m currently a Yuma county supervisor.
I was the mayor of the city of San Luis for 10 years before that. And I
run a housing nonprofit development organization. So as you can tell, I
can touch upon many different subjects.\
\
And I also turn sort of colorblind when I attend these forums, so if you
want to stop me you got to throw something at me, okay? It happens to me
at all forums like this.\
\
Anyway, I\'m a politician. You know, so tell me I have two minutes is an
insult. Where do you start?\
\
But anyway, look. I\'ll try to keep it brief. First I\'d like to tell
you something. As a former mayor of a small community, San Luis, I can
tell you unequivocally without the community development programs that
farmers home makes available to us we would never be able to build the
kind of infrastructure that\'s necessary to keep with the growth,
especially in a border community like San Luis. I mean we have a 50, 60
percent unemployment rate. The revenues comes from sales taxes, which is
as you can tell with the Mexican economy it\'s sometimes you never
know.\
\
So essentially without those programs we wouldn\'t be where we\'re at.
We started off as the community of 2000 people in 1980. We\'re now
20,000-some. Essentially without that assistance we wouldn\'t be where
we\'re at.\
\
Now as a county supervisor I can tell you, Yuma, Arizona is an
agriculture town. A lot of the programs that are made available,
assistance made available to those farmers make them remain very
competitive in the market. So again, without USDA that could never
happen.\
\
And the housing development, I can tell you we\'re also working on the
self help programs. We had loans from 523s, 524s. We have helped over
200 people achieve the dream of owning a home. We wouldn\'t be able to
do that without the assistance. So I\'m here to urge you to at least
keep that funding level if not increase it.\
\
And the two suggestions I would have to improve that is, one,
decentralize. I\'m sure you hear that a lot. But let the local folks
that know what the problems are make those decisions without having to
check with the national office every time they have a problem. They need
to have that ability.\
\
And second, cities that go beyond the population count which in this
particular case sometimes is 10,000 or 20,000 depending on the size,
they also face a problem. They become sort of like a middle class. They
don\'t qualify for any assistance, but they\'re not large enough to be
able to sustain the kind of infrastructure expense that is necessary to
keep up with the growth. So look at that every once in awhile. It\'s
like everything in modern life now, you got to move those target
populations up a little bit and allow us to work with you guys a little
longer. You\'re a godsend. USDA programs are a godsend. And you should
continue to fund them and support them as much as you can. Thank you
very much for the opportunity.\
\
MR. DAVID CHAMBERLAIN: Hello. My name is David Chamberlain. I work for
the Hualapai tribe. I represent them today, located in northwestern
Arizona with Peach Springs Arizona being the capital.\
\
You know, since the beginning the reservations were established in the
1800s the United States government has said that they would take care of
the Native American including their resources. We seem to have to
constantly justify a need for funds from the USDA. With that said I\'d
like to address question number 3 just a little bit here, how should
farm policy be designed to effectively and fairly distribute assistance
to producers?\
\
Since the early 1990s, \'90 or \'91 whichever that Farm Bill was, USDA
said they would have a representative on the reservation. This is 2005.
We don\'t have a representative on the reservation in the Hualapai
Nation anyway. We just like to have compliance with that law. We have 75
percent unemployment on the reservation. We have many, many tribal
members that don\'t own a car. They can\'t get to Kingman to talk to
their local representative. We would like to have that just in
compliance with that law that was passed in the 1990s.\
\
I also believe \-- I\'m just going to lead this in for my next speaker
here \-- that cost share for tribes should be eliminated. Thank you.\
\
MS. ANNETTE MORGAN: Hi. My name is Annette Morgan. And I\'m the Wildlife
Fisheries and Parks Program manager for the Hualapai tribe. The Haulapai
tribe is a sovereign nation, and we enjoy a direct relationship with
each government agency including the Department of Agriculture. Our
reservation is in Northwest Arizona. We have 1 million acres, and we are
adjacent to the Grand Canyon.\
\
We\'re located in a very remote area. We have over 75 percent
unemployment. What I\'m going to address today is number 3. What I would
like to see in this new Farm Bill is direct funding for tribes. Ranching
is a lifestyle of the tribal members within the reservation. By tribal
law everyone who ranches has to be a member of an association. The land
is still owned by the Hualapai tribe, so any of these improvements that
happen on the reservation becomes property of the Hualapai tribe.\
\
We have participated in NRCS, the Farm Bill for the last several years.
When with the assistance of NRCS we have constructed over 20 miles of
fencing and 50 miles of pipeline. These projects have encouraged
adherence to grazing management plans in cooperation amongst all the
grazing districts. We have improved habitat for state wildlife as well.\
\
Because of the remoteness of our reservation and our high unemployment
rate, it is very difficult for many of our tribal ranchers to come up
with the match monies required for the EQIP projects. Direct funding for
tribes will encourage our tribal ranchers to continue implementing these
conservation practices so that ranching can continue for future
generations. Thank you.\
\
MR. CLAYTON ONIMPTUA (sp): Good morning, and welcome Secretary Rey. My
name is Clayton Onimptua. I\'m from the Hopi Tribe, director for office
of Hopi Land Administration. And also cochair for the Arizona Tribal
Southwest Strategy Support Team.\
\
I guess to open up, our reservation is also pretty remote, located
northeast of here, Phoenix, comprising about 1.6 million acres in the
desert, out in nowhere, no water you know, everything. You need water to
do anything out there, you know. So basically we are waterless, so we do
a lot of dry farming. That is our main thing is dry farming, relying on
the rain and all that. I guess to add to that, we had purchased new
lands, several ranches between Flagstaff and Winslow. We run a tribal
herd now approximately 5,000 head. Also on the reservation we have up to
500 livestock owners on the reservation. We are implementing the APHIS
animal ID program. It\'s benefiting us but we need more money. There\'s
not enough \-- it\'s only for a certain amount of money that we\'re
getting to implement it, and we need more money because of the number of
animals we have.\
\
We started a feedlot this past September with MOA, with Colorado or
Indian tribes down in Parker, Arizona. So that\'s ongoing, and we\'re
going to need technical assistance, a lot of technical assistance in
order for us to be successful in running our own feedlot.\
\
Other stuff is, housing. You know we need housing. As you know we have a
lot of land but because of infrastructure, there\'s no infrastructure
out there, so we have six communities that we have identified in our
comprehensive land use plan, which was revised in 2001. And to date
we\'ve only got one community going. So we need money for
infrastructure, getting the power and water out there.\
\
Also the other issue is we have Navajos still living on Hopi land under
75 year leases. So those people live in a remote areas that we do need
all this infrastructure, housing and what not.\
\
We are part of the EQIP program both on the reservation and on the lands
that we currently lease from the state, the BLM, the Forest Service,
based on grazing permits. I guess there in that case we have issues with
the environmentalists trying to shut off the grazing within the Forest
Service lands, the BLM lands, you name it.\
\
WHIP program, we are part of. We are taking advantage of the WHIP
program. But because of the issue that it be addressed only to the
endangered and declining wildlife it doesn\'t really help that much on
the reservation. And we do have wildlife and also in our new lands the
biggest elk herds are on our new lands. So a lot of these issues.\
\
Again the tribes, in the U.S., we own a lot of the land, 53, 70 million
acres belong to Indian tribes. And yet we see the less of the money, you
know. By the time it filters down to the Indian tribes, there\'s zilch.
So we have to compete with everybody else, and looking at it needs to be
more equal\-- the issue of equal and fair. Fair I guess getting
appropriations for our projects.\
\
Again I want to thank Under Secretary Rey and thank the panel. Thank
you.

MR. KEVIN ROGERS: Under Secretary Rey, thank you for being here,
appreciate it. Director Butler, recovering Speaker Killian, thank you. I
also want to thank you for years of service in the legislature and
defending private property rights. You\'ve done an outstanding job in
your career.\
\
My name is Kevin Rogers, fourth generation farming here in the Phoenix
area, farmed with my dad and my brother, my sister and my other brother
and my uncle. We farm together. Together we farm over 7,000 acres. Part
of that land is tribal land that we lease from the Gila River Tribe as
well as the Salt River Tribe, and part of the property we own in West
Phoenix.\
\
I echo a lot of the concerns expressed by the Arizona Cotton Growers and
the Arizona Cattle Growers about what we\'re hearing out of Washington
and the suggestions are placing agriculture in the West at an increased
risk. Why is it that agriculture is not afforded the same consideration
of enjoying economies of size and scale? Why are we so eager to punish
the productive? And if we\'re simply going to reduce support for
agriculture with no vision or discussion as to the consequences then
such reductions should be proportional, across the board, and not pit
producers in this country against each other.\
\
But all this what the new Farm Bill should be about, reductions in
scope? Those crafting the Farm Bill should be sensitive that American
agriculture is becoming less and less competitive due to regulations,
taxation, shortage of labor and various forces impacting our lands and
our operations. We must have a discussion as to the consequences of
allowing our agriculture to be outsourced at the same time not providing
nurturing environment for the next generation of producers.\
\
Given the nature of the investment and the allied infrastructure
required of agriculture, once agriculture goes away, once it is
outsourced, it will not return. This is even further consequences for
our rural communities. Their economic vitality and truly American
character are at risk.\
\
This could be lost due to urbanization or simply just lost.\
\
I also wanted to comment that programs that the USDA provide in
cooperation with other agencies such as EPA have proven to be very
successful for us. I serve at the Secretary\'s pleasure on the USDA
Aquatic Task Force and I think groups such as that have gone a long way
to help work with the regulators to understand actually what\'s going on
out in the field and keeping the Secretary up to date on some of the
issues that affect agriculture.\
\
I also close by adding a specific suggestion that policymakers need to
expand and enhance risk management tools, which would help, control
public cost. They could also provide the safety nets that are needed so
that they are there when they are needed. Thank you again for being
here, appreciate it.\
\
MR. LYLE FREDERICKSON (sp): My name is Lyle Frederickson from the
Arizona Business Bank. And we use the Rural Development Business and
Industry Loan Program considerably in our organization. That has allowed
us to make loans over \$20 million on Indian reservations, which has
employed a lot of Native Americans. Early testimony I think indicated 75
percent unemployment rate in some areas.\
\
So what we\'d like to do is thank you for supporting the program and
encourage you to continue to do so. Thank you.\
\
MODERATOR: Any other comments? Anyone else want to visit? There\'s \--
okay. Let\'s have this gentleman come up.\
\
MR. MONTY NEVITT (sp): I was about to chicken out and just leave and
e-mail my comments in. But I suppose since the line is down I\'ll speak.
My name is Monty Nevitt. I\'m from the Queen Creek side of the valley,
born and raised on a cotton and wheat farm. I\'m currently, I don\'t
even know how to claim what I do. I\'m a farm consultant, Scythe and
Spade. We manage about 75,000 acres between the southern half of Arizona
and Idaho and even some in Mississippi.\
\
Just a couple of comments here. I feel like questions 2 and 3 there\'s a
conflict there. The mentality that has created the current Farm Bill,
the payment limitation in particular, is what I\'ll address my comments
to.\
\
The class envy mentality that created this whole payment limitation
program of penalizing the very producers who are farming on a little
more large and more efficient scale may fly in Congress. It may satisfy
the urban congressman in trying to make it more palatable for them. But
it\'s my opinion that it penalizes the Southwest growers.\
\
If you consider that the average farm size across America is some six
acres because of the small minifarms across the state of Ohio or
wherever farms are that size, there probably isn\'t much impact that a
\$20,000 limitation might have if those payment limits are reduced. But
considering the capital outlays that the southwest area growers have to
put out to farm here, it has a discriminatory effect.\
\
It also does not recognize that the family farm in Arizona is now
incorporated. Because of liability reasons and other issues we see
families that are organizing and farming in different ways, and if the
intent at the USDA level is to try to find a way to discriminate against
these large, evil corporations, if that\'s what we think of
corporations, we\'re failing to recognize how the family farms are
constituted now.\
\
And I suppose that\'s all the comments I\'ll have for today since my
light is on, Carla.\
\
MODERATOR: Secretary Rey tells me we\'re now on seconds. So if you\'d
like to come up and extend and revise your remarks? So Monty, if you
want to come back up and finish up, you\'re welcome. Come on up.\
\
MR. BRENT MURPHY: I concur with a lot of things that have been said
today. My name is Brent Murphy, and my family has farmed in Arizona for
about 90 years here. This last year was the last year that we farmed
because of the encroachment. And we are now, in order to keep the family
business viable, we\'re growing houses.\
\
I think that my comments are more philosophical really than to a point.
I may have some points later on if I get through before the light
changes.\
\
But the issue is not only security and economics but it\'s also a moral
issue. I think that we cannot allow foreign entities to control what we
do internally in America with our farm policy. And we need to develop
our farm policy first in America without taking into consideration, or
eventually taking into consideration what we have to do with WTO in
terms of amber box, in terms of green box, in terms of blue box.\
\
But I think we first have to make sure that we do what\'s best for
America. Along those lines I think the current farm policy in place does
it very well for production agriculture in Central Arizona. It should
include the eligibility rules and payment limit provisions. The budget
process should not be used as a vehicle for rewriting farm policy.\
\
I hope that we see the continuation of Step 2, which helps specifically
Arizona cotton farmers. Monty spoke very well to the payment limit
issue.\
\
And I think that we need to look to the current farm legislation to
maintain what Arizona and American farmers currently face under this
policy. So thanks.\
\
MODERATOR: Anyone else want to comment? All right. Mr. Butler, do you
want to make some final comments, and then we\'ll have Secretary Rey,
and then I\'ll have the final last word.\
\
SEC. BUTLER: Well, I think it\'s been a very productive morning. At
least I feel so. I\'ve written down several things, notes on things that
have been commented. I believe it\'s true that we are different out
here, the Southwest with large corporate farming and just large farming,
family farming. And I think that Secretary Rey will maybe remark about
that. He indicated to me that this is his eighth forum that he\'s
attended, so he can kind of give you a cross-section of what he\'s come
upon in the last few weeks and take that back to the Secretary and
hopefully formulate things for the upcoming bill.\
\
It sounded to me as though most of you want to keep what is going in the
2002, tweak it maybe but not too much. But in going back over the notes
I\'ll find out more things. But I think it has been productive. And
again I would say that the governor was saddened that she couldn\'t be
here, and I hope you understand that I think it\'s an honor that she is
the chairperson for the Western Governors Association. And she would, of
course, have been here to say some remarks. I\'m sure she would not have
been up here on the stage for this length of time. I\'ve traveled with
her a little bit, and she\'s one that gets there and gets it done and
then leaves because her schedule is just pretty tough.\
\
But again I say thanks to the Secretary, and it\'s been a pleasure
having him here to meet him. I worked with some of his cohorts back
there, and they\'ve got a good staff. I\'ve not had the pleasure to meet
Secretary Johanns but I look forward to it because from what I\'ve read
and seen he speaks for those of us that are really in agriculture.\
\
But again thanks, and I will turn it back to Mark.\
\
SEC. REY: Well thank you all for your comments. I have seven pages of
notes, which is slightly more than the average that I\'ve taken in
previous Farm Bill forums. So you can at least take some consideration
that you win in terms of that, that indication of interest.\
\
\[Laughter\]\
\
As the Secretary said this is the eighth Farm Bill Forum that I\'ve done
personally. I guess I\'ve, for more happenstance than anything else,
have gotten the full span of farm interests because I held the Farm Bill
Forum in Alaska as well as the one in Rhode Island. So I went to the
biggest state and the smallest state, more through happenstance than
anything else.\
\
And as you might expect, the issues are very different among the states.
But there are also some similarities that are I think beginning to
appear as I talk with the Secretary and our fellow under secretaries,
that we\'re hearing as a fairly consistent theme.\
\
We are not at the point in all honesty where we\'re prepared to say now
that we\'ve heard this, this is what we think because we\'re still
holding these sessions and we\'ll continue to hold them through the end
of next week when I think we\'ll finally finish off the last few. And
then we\'re going to sit and talk among ourselves, compare the notes,
the transcripts, look at the comments that have come in, and then begin
to line out what we think the best approach going forward would be.\
\
I can however share with you a couple of things that we seem to be
hearing on a pretty consistent basis throughout most if not all of the
states that we visited. One of those common themes is a substantial
concern about what the next generation of farmers will do and what will
assist in their success. And that\'s a fairly common theme that we\'ve
heard a little bit about today, we\'ve heard a little bit about in
virtually every state that we were in.\
\
I think that\'s a reflection of the fact that the median age of a farmer
in America today is about 55 years old, the median age of a rural
forestland owner is slightly older at 57 years old. Coincidentally the
median age of a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee is about 50
years old. So we\'re all kind of hitting a certain stage in life
together.\
\
And that\'s something this next Farm Bill will have to be reflective of
because it will have to be forward-looking to see how the programs that
we develop affect the transition that will have to occur as we all get
past the point where we\'re going to want to continue to farm.\
\
Today about 40 percent of U.S. agricultural lands are leased lands, and
unless we\'re prepared to see that continue to increase with a smaller
and smaller number of operators farming and with them getting gradually
older and older, we\'re going to have to look hard at the programs that
we have and see how they affect the transition that\'s going to occur.\
\
Are some of those programs increasing land prices or inflating land
prices to make it almost impossible for new entries into the market? Are
there other things that we can be doing that can make it easier for new
entries into the market? Do we have the right mix of educational and
incentive tools available so that the 4-H and Future Farmers people that
heard from at the beginning of this are able to get into agriculture if
that\'s their desire.\
\
So that\'s been a pretty common theme.\
\
Another common theme is the pressure on agricultural lands to be
converted into something else. That\'s been a fairly important theme
throughout the inner Mountain States and not surprisingly because the
Inner Mountain Region is the fastest-growing and most rapidly-urbanizing
region of the country. And most of that growth and urbanization is
coming as a consequence of the conversion of farm and ranchlands to
subdivisions.\
\
But it\'s not unique to the Inner Mountain Region. We heard some of the
same things in the Upper Great Lakes and in New England and in some of
the southern states, which are also experiencing population growth.\
\
So there is at-large around across the country, a significant amount of
concern about whether the policies that we\'re developing are actually
maintaining the agricultural base that we need for future productivity.\
\
A third thing we talked about or we heard about I should say in almost
every forum is international trade and free trade and fair trade. And
the one statistic that for me underscores the importance of trade for
agriculture is that today our rate of consumption of agricultural
products is increasing at just slightly half the rate of our increase in
productivity. So unless we\'re all committed to eat twice as much on a
daily basis and thereby concede the war on obesity, the future points
very strongly in the direction of being more proficient and more
successful in moving more of our products overseas and abroad.\
\
And that\'s not something we can do all by ourselves. That\'s something
that will require trade policy that\'s agreed to by our trading
partners, and there are a lot of aspects to that and to making it
happen.\
\
The Secretary I think would like to have been here today and would be
but for the fact that he\'s in Geneva with the U.S. Trade Rep, former
Congressman Portman, trying to jawbone our trading partners, most
particularly at this moment the European Union countries, to reduce
trade barriers to the importation of America\'s agricultural products.\
\
But the negotiations that occur around trade are not bilateral. They are
multilateral and multifaceted. And just as we are pounding on the
European Union countries to reduce trade barriers so are a number of
other countries pounding on us to reduce some of our agricultural
policies that they believe distort world trade trends.\
\
We can of course resist that. We can certainly resist it if our trading
partners are not willing to make substantial concessions that make sure
that whatever future trade policies are developed do provide a level
playing field for our products. But I think at the end of the day that
the future probably cannot reflect the past if we are going to be
successful in American agriculture because the future involves the
realization of levels of productivity that we cannot consume
domestically and must find a way to market abroad.\
\
And that inevitably puts us in a position of having to engage the people
to whom we\'d like to sell those products in a discussion that has an
outcome that\'s beneficial to them from their perspective just as we
find it beneficial to us. It\'s not to say we\'re going to be
successful; it\'s just to suggest what the future necessities involve.\
\
We have heard a great deal about our conservation programs and about our
Rural Development programs. There seems to be a general thread of
support for both of those as well.\
\
So those are some of the trends that we\'re hearing around the country.
There are, as I said, a lot of differences among regions, but there are
these similarities that seem to be occurring as we hear from more and
more states. And I think it\'s from those similarities, from those
unifying points that most likely we\'ll find the insights that will go
into the development of the next Farm Bill.\
\
I want to say one thing in response to what some of you may perceive
you\'re hearing from us at USDA, and that is we don\'t frown on
productivity at increased levels of scale. We certainly don\'t feel that
incorporating agriculture is somehow an unworthy enterprise. So I want
to reassure you that we don\'t hold that candle in the deliberations
that we\'re going to have going forward particularly given my background
as representing corporations for the first 18 years of my career you can
take some comfort that\'s not a perspective I bring to this particular
task.\
\
So those are sort of what we\'ve heard a little bit about so far. And
we\'re now going to go forward and finish off this cycle, and I think
you\'ll start to hear from us again probably sometime just after the
first of the year.\
\
On behalf of Secretary Johanns I again want to thank you for the
thoughts that you\'ve given us and may yet contribute should you think
of anything else that you\'d like to say, either here today in the time
remaining or in written comments that you send to us on the web.\
\
MODERATOR: Mr. Secretary, we want to thank you for being here. And one
thought that comes to mind, and if you could convey to our congressmen
and to the President and the Secretary of Agriculture that we are
grateful for the help that we do receive. And we don\'t want you to
think that we\'re complaining and carping and griping here, but much of
the help that we have received has helped us change and improve the
environmental standards of many of the properties that we own and
manage. And we\'re most grateful for that.\
\
And for those that are in Congress who are so negative, it\'s
interesting. They are the ones that sometimes are the ones championing
protect the environment, but yet they\'re not willing to come out in the
West and see what we\'re doing to improve and do better.\
\
And so if you would convey that message to them that we are again most
grateful for the help that we have received.\
\
There\'s three issues that I get to have the last word. I love this.
Three issues that I\'m concerned about.\
\
Number one, when we talk about passing our farms from generation to
generation, I feel that the USDA should be the champion of moving to get
rid of the inheritance tax and removal of the capital gains tax on
agricultural land\-- I think if those two steps were taken immediately
notwithstanding Katrina or any of those other things that are going on,
that would do more to keep production agriculture land in production
than anything we can do.\
\
The challenges that the youth face today in agriculture \-- I look at my
sons. There is no way based on the values that we see in agriculture
because of nonagricultural entities purchasing ranches and farms and
driving the prices up, that they can afford to pay the inheritance tax.
I don\'t care what kind of tax structure you create, what kind of trust,
whatever \-- but we\'re going to see a huge wealth transfer out of the
people who would keep the land healthy and producing, into homes. It\'s
just going to happen. They have no other choice.\
\
And something needs to be done to do that. And I think if we do that and
pursue that policy \-- and as far as I\'m concerned the government has
no business taking money away from families at the graveside. That\'s
just unconscionable.\
\
The second issue that concerns me greatly, and that is agriculture as a
whole as a strategic value to our country. And I\'m concerned when I
hear voices from Congress who seem to devalue the importance of growing
food and fiber. And we cannot lose that strategic advantage we have over
the rest of the world particularly with China and where it\'s headed.
It\'s the great sleeping gorilla in the corner of the room. And we\'ve
seen what it\'s done to the cotton industry. And it\'s just going to
continue to grow and to grow, and we need to make sure our agriculture
is strong.\
\
And any message you can do, that would be helpful.\
\
The last one is more of a personal note, and that is after the Rodeo
Chijevski (sp) fire and what we saw, as I drive down Highway 260 to my
place there near Show Low and I see all those dead trees still standing
there, and I see my friends on the reservation who have already cleared
their lands and made their forests healthy and productive, and yet I
still see those sticks standing there. And we haven\'t been able to do
anything about that, and I don\'t know what\'s keeping us from doing
that. But I will say this\-- we get a lot of tourists up in that area,
and one of these days one of those dead trees is going to fall on a
tourist, and we\'re going to get sued. And the lawsuit will be more than
if we would have spent the money to clear out those trees. I don\'t know
if it\'s the environmentalists that are keeping us from doing it or some
wacko judge somewhere that\'s holding up the show, but there\'s a lot of
very productive land just sitting there wasting away. And the liability
of that I think is enormous. And any help we could get there, we would
appreciate very much.\
\
All right. Again we thank all of you for being here and appreciate your
time and effort. And again we appreciate the Secretary coming to
Arizona. Remember, the best oranges in America are grown right here.\
\
\[Laughter\]\
\
Not Florida, not Texas, not California \-- Arizona. Thank you very
much.\
\
\[Applause.\]\
\
POSTSCRIPT: \[Testimonies of support for Rural Development.\]\
\
MALE: We are in Sulphur Springs Medical Center, which is clinic that was
funded by the USDA Rural Development program. The reason that we got in
to developing the clinic in our community was to stabilize our position
base in the community. Being a small rural community one of the problems
that we faced was having positions available and continuing to practice
in a community.\
\
This facility provides offices for three physicians and two midlevels,
so we are able to provide services to a wide base of patients within our
service area. We have recently been certified as a rural healthcare
center, rural healthcare clinic, by the Center for Medicare, Medicaid
Services. And it will allow us to provide more services to the people
that we serve in the community.\
\
When we started this program we looked at several different funding
sources, and USDA Rural Development really was the program that came
forth and really is designed and developed to help small communities put
together projects like this. And we appreciated the technical help that
we received from the Rural Development people. It was a very exciting
and very good group to work with, and we appreciated the help they
provided us in addition to the funding.\
\
MALE: \-- to develop our reservation slaughter homes. And our Rural
Development really comes in and help. We have a big reservation, 1.6
million acres. About 13,000 people living on the reservation. And what
Apache tribe cannot do a lot of these development by itself. We need
partners to develop our reservation quarter homes, and our Rural
Development really comes in and helped us.\
\
If it wasn\'t for them, we wouldn\'t have a lot of these facilities that
we have. Apache Ridge is one good example. Mustang Ridge out at Cibecue.
Honda (sp), water and sewer infrastructure that we built, millions of
dollars that we have worked together as partners. And we really
appreciate Rural Development being our partner to help develop the
reservation.\
\
FEMALE: Thanks to the USDA Rural Development guaranteed loan we were
able to finance a state of the art cooling operation, which helps our
customers in the sense that before that they had to transport their
product all the way into Yuma, which was approximately a five-hour delay
from the last lettuce that was harvested. And now that we have that
facility here it has shortened the cooling time of their product from
hours to minutes.\
\
MALE: Well, back in late 1990s the city of Wilcox began looking at
opportunities to expand its wastewater treatment facility. The facility
back then wasn\'t really sized for the demand that the community
actually required. And there was a process that the city staff at the
time went through at looking at the future demand. And they contacted
the Rural Development Office here in Wilcox and began a collaborative
effort. And we were able to put together a project that actually doubled
the size of our wastewater treatment facility, which has played a
tremendous role in our ability now to deal with economic development
issues.\
\
As we look at housing issues for the community, we look at future
expansion of our business, opportunities both in the industrial district
and in the commercial retail centers, it\'s very important that we have
the capacity for the wastewater treatment. And without Rural Development
there\'s absolutely no way the city of Wilcox would have been able to
fund that project entirely. They take the time to work with our small
staff and the volumes of paperwork that have to go into these various
projects. So without that support there\'s absolutely now way that again
we\'d be able to complete these projects.\
\
MALE: Wellton is a rural community between Yuma and Gila Bend, midway
between Phoenix and San Diego. The project that we\'re setting in now
which of course is our library is what we call the icing on the cake
here. For probably over 10 years building a new library in Wellton has
been a priority of our town council. And as in so many small
communities, funding is always short, and although various loans are
available we are well-aware you have to have a way to pay them back.\
\
And when we started talking to Rural Development about our library
project they were extremely supportive. The staff worked very closely
with us in putting together this project from the financing end of it to
the planning stage through construction. Our library as in most small
communities is the center of our community. It\'s where our friends meet
and a lot of people use the library not only as a resource facility but
for a great many people that live alone this is their social contact.
And our librarians are very gracious, and check on people if they go a
day or so and don\'t show up. And that\'s what small community is all
about.\
\
FEMALE: We\'ve been affiliated with USDA ever since we began. The co-op
started in 1962 in the rural area around Wilcox serving customers that
no one else would serve. And that\'s really what began our family of
companies. We recently went through the USDA grant program to get one of
our schools that actually is New Mexico that we serve to build a library
addition and add a community computer center.\
\
We\'re really excited about the opportunities that the grant programs
brings to our rural schools. RUS program has been huge in being able to
be a total foundation cornerstone to advancing telecom services into
Arizona, New Mexico, across the whole United States. I mean literally
for us there wouldn\'t be telecommunications services in rural
Southeastern Arizona if it wasn\'t for the RUS program. We take our
challenge very seriously, and RUS has been a huge, huge piece of our
success.\
\
FEMALE: The formal name of the program is Mutual Self Help Housing. And
what that means is that the families, groups of families come together.
We assist them, we provide the technical assistance for a group of
families \-- and it could be a group as little as six families or as big
as 12 families that come together and we help them qualify for the loan.
And they enter into an agreement to help each other in building all of
their homes.\
\
We then assist them in coordinating and scheduling the work so that
every house is basically at the same stage of construction. The families
going into one part move on to the next house and so on and so forth.\
\
Right behind them we are scheduling the subcontractors to do the rest of
it, and then that house is again ready for the families. So the houses
are maintained at the same level of construction and finished the homes
within two weeks from each other regardless of the size of the group. A
little more detail in self-help housing, and I talked about the
affordability to the families.\
\
How that is provided is that by doing the work themselves, by providing
the sweat equity, they have an average savings of about \$25,000. These
homes that they\'re building are appraised at close to \$100,000. And
the loans are averaging \$75,000, so that difference, that \$25,000 is
the sweat equity, the savings that the families have been able to
acquire by providing the labor while learning the skills.\
\
In addition to that USDA provides interest subsidy. The loans are made
at market rate, but for families that need additional assistance to make
it affordable to the, the interest subsidy is provided down to as low as
1 percent if needed. So that has been one of the greatest benefits for
folks that otherwise could not under conventional methods be
homeowners.\
\
MALE: We are now doing group 18, and we through this process of self
help which are families working together with each other to build their
homes in a group setting we have helped close to 200 families in San
Luis, Arizona, to achieve the American dream of owning a home. It\'s
such a great feeling to see so much growth happening in San Luis.\
\
But not only that, to see the impact it\'s had on the families, the way
that they look at life, so different from where they come from, and some
of them have lived in trailers for a long time, and most of their adult
lives, and it\'s just great. You get a great feeling walking around the
neighborhoods and you see kids coming from school, and it\'s just
immense the impact that USDA programs have had.\
\
And it\'s heartwarming to see all the families moving into their homes,
coming from farm worker background, coming from a situation where credit
isn\'t readily available. Their only option really is this option, the
self-help program.\
\
We\'re trying to improve the lifestyle of these communities and without
the assistance of USDA many of these wouldn\'t have happened. I think
the success comes from having been able t combine the resources that
USDA puts out to communities like San Luis and to nonprofit agencies
with the actual track record of organizations like ours who are
dedicated in the last 25 years to assisting mostly low income farm
worker families. And I\'m really proud of their accomplishment.