S. Hrg. 110–124

PART II: CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES FACING

AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

HEARING

øBEFORE THE¿

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 24, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

(

PART II: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FACING AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL

PRODUCERS

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

35–051 PDF 2007

S. HRG. 110–124

PART II: CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES FACING

AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 24, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa

MARK HALVERSON, Majority Staff Director 

ROBERT E. STURM, Chief Clerk 

MARTHA SCOTT POINDEXTER, Minority Staff Director 

VERNIE HUBERT, Minority General Counsel 

(II) 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

HEARING(S):

Part II: Challenges and Opportunities Facing American Agricultural Producers .................................................................................................................... 1

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from Iowa, Chairman, Committee on 

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry .................................................................. 1

Craig, Hon. Larry E., a U.S. Senator from Idaho ................................................. 31

Panel I 

Arnold, Kathie, National Organic Coalition, Truxton, New York ....................... 3

Brady, Mark, American Honey Producers Association, Waxahuchie, Texas ...... 8

Clarkson, Lynn, Organic Trade Association, Cerro Gordo, Illinois ..................... 5

Jackson, Emily, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, Ashville, North 

Carolina ................................................................................................................ 6

Panel II 

Brim, Bill, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, Tifton, Georgia . 43

Kawamura, A.G., Secretary of Agriculture, State of California, Sacramento, 

California .............................................................................................................. 39

Korson, Phil, Cherry Marketing Institute, Lansing, Michigan ............................ 34

Marshall, Maureen Torrey, United Fresh Produce Association, Elba, New 

York ....................................................................................................................... 36

Rice, John, former Chairman, U.S. Apple Association, Gardners, Pennsylvania, on his own Behalf ..................................................................................... 41

Panel III 

Fall, Clint, Midwest Dairy Coalition, Litchfield, Minnesota ................................ 55

Jasper, Randy, National Family Farm Coalition, Muscoda, Wisconsin .............. 60

Kozak, Jerry, National Milk Producers Federation, Arlington, Virginia ............ 52

Robertson, Eugene, Pine Grove, Louisiana ........................................................... 58

Tipton, Connie, International Dairy Foods Association, Washington, DC .......... 57

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Cochran, Hon. Thad ......................................................................................... 72

Arnold, Kathie .................................................................................................. 75

Brady, Mark ...................................................................................................... 80

Brim, Bill ........................................................................................................... 101

Clarkson, Lynn ................................................................................................. 107

Fall, Clint .......................................................................................................... 143

Jackson, Emily .................................................................................................. 149

Jasper, Randy ................................................................................................... 152

Kawamura, A.G. ............................................................................................... 161

Korson, Phil ...................................................................................................... 165

Page

IV

PREPARED STATEMENTS—Continued

Kozak, Jerry ...................................................................................................... 169

Marshall, Maureen Torrey ............................................................................... 197

Redding, Russell C. .......................................................................................... 205

Rice, John .......................................................................................................... 208

Robertson, Eugene ............................................................................................ 214

Tipton, Connie .................................................................................................. 217

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Jackson, Emily: 

‘‘Healthy Food and Communities Initiative’’ .................................................. 232

‘‘Healthy Food, Healthy Communities: A Decade of Community Food 

Projects In Action .......................................................................................... 240

American Peanut Shellers Association, prepared statement ............................... 268

Michigan Department of Agriculture, prepared statement .................................. 279

Produce Marketing Association, prepared statement ........................................... 282

South Carolina Fruit, Vegetable & Specialty Crop Association .......................... 287

South Carolina Peach Council, prepared statement ............................................. 290

Western Growers, prepared statement .................................................................. 293

(1)

PART II: CHALLENGES AND 

OPPORTUNITIES FACING 

AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS 

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY, 

Washington, DC 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:18 a.m., in room 

SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, Chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present or submitting a statement: Senators Harkin, Conrad, 

Lincoln, Stabenow, Salazar, Casey, Klobuchar, Chambliss, Coleman, Crapo, Thune, and Craig. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM HARKIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

IOWA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

Chairman HARKIN. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry will come to order. 

First, I apologize to everyone for being late. There appears to be 

some big traffic jam that has plugged up everything out there. I 

don’t think I am the only one who was caught in it, so I apologize 

for being late. 

Today’s hearing further highlights the wide diversity of our nation’s agriculture production. Last week, we heard from a good 

cross-section of animal agriculture—livestock, poultry, and eggs. 

We learned about the challenges producers face in the marketplace. 

Today, we will hear about the issues relating to specialty crops 

such as dairy, organic production, honey, and community-based 

food systems. Our hearing covers a wide range of issues, but all are 

related in several ways. They are all within the scope of matters 

to be discussed and addressed in the farm bill which we are working to recraft. And more importantly, they are related because each 

is integrally related to our agricultural economy. 

On our first panel are two important witnesses representing the 

organic food industry, from the farm to the consumer. The U.S. organic industry is the fastest-growing sector of our food enterprise 

in America, growing by some 17 to 20 percent per year. It represents genuine new opportunity for some who otherwise might be 

unable to stay in agriculture or get started farming. With this 

rapid growth in the organic market, the supply of domestically 

grown organic food often falls short of the retail demand. One of 

2

the testimonies that we will hear that I read last night showed how 

much we are importing compared to what we are exporting. 

We look forward to the recommendations of our witnesses for initiatives that can help those who want to pursue opportunities in 

organic agriculture. As Chairman, I intend to make that an important part of my Chairman’s mark in the farm bill. The organic industry is disadvantaged by the lack of essential research and market data collection. We can address that in the farm bill. 

Another witness will discuss how the farm bill can help agriculture producers and consumers benefit from the expanding interest in the local marketing of regionally produced food. Communitybased food projects have the added benefit of helping consumers 

understand exactly where their food comes from. 

The U.S. honey industry is facing one of the most serious threats 

ever from Colony Collapse Disorder. The bee losses associated with 

this disorder are staggering and portend equally grave consequences for the producers of crops that rely on honey bees for 

pollination. 

Previous farm bills have not generally given a lot of attention to 

the issues and challenges facing producers of fruits, vegetables, and 

tree nuts, usually referred to as specialty crops, even though these 

crops make up nearly one-third of the cash receipts of all U.S. farm 

crops. Americans are consuming more fruits and vegetables per 

capita than 20 years ago, still not near the recommended requirements, however. The new farm bill can and should include initiatives to encourage fruit and vegetable consumption and to help domestic producers continue to produce, make a profit, and succeed 

in the face of stiff foreign competition. 

The third panel this morning includes a diverse range of views 

and recommendations on Federal dairy policy. Again, dairy is an 

important part of the farm bill. The most recent annual milk sales 

figure of some $27 billion makes up about 10 percent of total U.S. 

cash receipts for agricultural commodities. In the 2002 farm bill, 

we included a new countercyclical Income Protection Program for 

dairy farmers, now dubbed the Milk Income Loss Contracts, the 

MILC Program, which has provided needed assistance to dairy 

farmers in times of low milk prices. 

So again, this will be an interesting series of hearings. I look forward to the witnesses. We have a tremendous challenge ahead of 

us to craft a sound farm and food and energy bill that will help improve income, profitability, and new opportunities for our nation’s 

agricultural producers while addressing the variety of additional 

needs and objectives that demand attention. 

I might also add the farm bill, as it is called, also encompasses 

the broader economic well-being and quality of life for all rural 

Americans. It also includes the interests of consumers and the necessity of protecting and enhancing our natural resources and environment. 

So there is a lot in this farm bill that we will be covering and 

the witnesses today will give us some thoughts and suggestions on 

how we might also extend to their areas whatever help and assistance that we might provide in the farm bill. 

And so we will turn to our first panel, which is Ms. Kathie Arnold, National Organic Coalition of Truxton, New York; Mr. Lynn 

3

Clarkson of the Organic Trade Association, Cerro Gordo, Illinois; 

Ms. Emily Jackson, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project in 

Ashville, North Carolina; and Mr. Mark Brady from the American 

Honey Producers Association, Washington, DC 

We will start with Ms. Arnold. In partnership with her husband, 

Rick, and his brother, Bob, Kathie has been farming for 27 years 

in their central New York town of Truxton. They have been certified organic for the last 9 years. With help from their 19–yearold son, other family members, and two non-family employees, they 

have about 140 dairy cows plus young stock and crop around 700 

organic acres. 

Ms. Arnold, welcome to the committee. I will say to all of you, 

your statements will be made a part of the record in their entirety, 

and they are very good. I read them last night. I would ask that 

each of you highlight the most important parts of your testimony 

in just about 5 minutes. If you see five minutes on the clock, start 

to wrap it up. I won’t get nervous until you hit 7 minutes, Okay? 

So if you could do that, I would sure appreciate it because I would 

like to have more of a chance just to interact with you in questions 

and answers. 

With that, we will turn to Ms. Arnold. Welcome to the committee 

and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF KATHIE ARNOLD, NATIONAL ORGANIC 

COALITION, TRUXTON, NEW YORK 

Ms. ARNOLD. Okay. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, and hello, 

members of the committee. As well as the description that Chairman Harkin said about me, I also serve on the Board of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, which is a member of the 

National Organic Coalition, and I offer my testimony today on behalf of both groups. 

Organic farming is a production system that enables family 

farms to have a viable and even thriving business that is both environmentally and family friendly. The process of transitioning is not 

easy for producers, nor should it be. Farmers make a commitment 

to produce according to the stringent standards for organic production and are rewarded when consumers buy organic products. The 

strong standards and the price premium go hand in hand. 

While the National Organic Program has been positive overall, 

there is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure that standards are consistent and strong. Most notably, the issue of pasture 

for organic livestock remains unresolved. 

Under the current USDA standards, organic livestock must be 

given access to pasture. But in spite of the clear requirement, this 

standard has not been adequately enforced by USDA. At a USDA 

forum on the subject a year ago, I and many others presented testimony urging a proposed rule specifying that organic dairy animals 

must consume at least 30 percent of their food needs from pasture 

for the growing season, which can be no less than 120 days. 

USDA’s National Organic Program indicated that a proposed rule 

would be forthcoming, yet it is still not issued. We hope USDA will 

act quickly to implement a strong pasture standard. However, if 

they do not, there may be a need for Congress to act. 

4

As this committee undertakes the task of putting together the 

2007 farm bill, I urge your consideration of several key proposals 

related to organic agriculture. 

One, the National Organic Certification cost share should be reauthorized and updated to reflect increased cost. This is particularly important in encouraging small and medium-sized operations 

to become and stay certified. 

Two, the Conservation Security Program should be fully funded 

with mandatory funding and be available in all watersheds. An 

easy crosswalk should be created between organic certification and 

CSP so that an organic farm plan can also provide eligibility for 

CSP benefits. 

Three, a National Organic Conversion and Stewardship Incentives Program should be created to provide financial and technical 

support to farmers for the adoption of advanced conservation practices as part of the process of converting to organic production. 

Four, Organic Research Programs should be reauthorized at a 

higher funding level, as Chairman Harkin suggested, to reflect 

organic’s 3 percent share of the U.S. food retail market. Also, 

changes should be made to renew and enhance the public capacity 

for classical plant and animal breeding versus the current emphasis on biotech. 

Five, as food processors and retailers consolidate and dominate 

markets, farmers’ leverage to negotiate fair prices and fair contract 

terms is in jeopardy. The Agricultural Fair Practices Act of 1967 

should be amended to require processors to bargain in good faith 

with associations of producers. 

Six, when genetically engineered material is detected in organic 

product due to contamination beyond producers’ control, farmers 

and processors can lose markets and are unfairly forced to bear the 

costs. A liability regime should be established so that farmers who 

suffer such contamination can recoup their losses from the manufacturers of genetically engineered seeds. 

Seven, organic producers are required to pay a 5–percent surcharge on their crop insurance rates, yet are often reimbursed for 

losses based on conventional prices without recognition of the higher value of their organic products. These inequities should be rectified. 

Thank you for your consideration of these proposals and for this 

opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Arnold can be found on page 75 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Arnold, thank you very much for a very 

succinct statement. I will have some questions about the loopholes 

I want to ask you about after a bit. 

Now we turn to Mr. Lynn Clarkson of the Organic Trade Association of Cerro Gordo, Illinois. He is the President of Clarkson Grain 

Company, which supplies organic grains, oil seeds, and ingredients 

for foods and feeds. Based in Illinois, Clarkson Grain Company 

purchases organic corn and soybeans directly from farmers from 

Texas to Minnesota, from Pennsylvania to the Rockies, and serves 

certified organic clients throughout the U.S. and Canada as well as 

parts of Asia and Western Europe. 

5

I might just add, Mr. Clarkson, the written statement that you 

have is one of the best overall recitations of everything that goes 

into organic from the beginning to the end that I have ever read 

and I appreciate it very much. 

STATEMENT OF LYNN CLARKSON, ORGANIC TRADE 

ASSOCIATION, CERRO GORDO, ILLINOIS 

Mr. CLARKSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Please proceed. 

Mr. CLARKSON. Good morning, Chairman Harkin, distinguished 

Senators from the Agricultural Committee. This hearing is focused 

on the challenges and opportunities facing American agricultural 

producers. In that context, I would like to talk to you about organic 

agriculture and production utilizing my experience in the marketplace where my company supplies corn, whole soybeans, soy oil, soy 

flours, and soy lectin. These are the products that come from the 

farmers between the mountains, the materials that have to be processed in some way before they become consumer items in general. 

The products that we handle are finding wonderful homes as ingredients in breakfast foods, baby foods, soy beverages, and animal 

feeds throughout the country and in some foreign countries. 

My written testimony, as the Chairman has stated, covers to the 

best of my ability every aspect of organic agriculture and production and points out both the great successes of organic with American consumers and the increasing shortfall of U.S. production. 

The Organic Trade Association currently studies the marketplace 

because the United States Department of Agriculture does not have 

the authority to do so comprehensively. U.S. organic food and beverage sales were about $14.6 billion in 2005 and occupied about 2.5 

percent of the retail marketplace. As the Chairman has suggested, 

organic is one of the fastest-growing segments in retail, but in 

terms of acreage, ERS tells us that about one-half percent of U.S. 

cropland and one-half percent of U.S. pastureland is now certified 

organic, for a total of about four million certified organic acres in 

the United States. 

We can derive from those numbers the U.S. farmers are not 

keeping up with consumer demand for organic products. While we 

lack official collection of import data, it is pretty clear to those of 

us in this marketplace that imports are substantial and increasing. 

Clarkson Grain and the OTA want to enhance the ability of U.S. 

farmers to provide as much organic food, fiber, and other products 

as possible for our country. To that end, the farm bill is an opportunity to grow this segment. 

OTA’s four 2007 farm bill objectives are: Provide technical and 

conversion assistance and cost share certification for farmers who 

are considering going organic; overcome some hurdles placed in the 

way of organic, including a lack of data about organic prices, markets, crops, farms, processors, and crop loss experience that impedes access to reasonably priced crop insurance and bank loans; 

enhanced economic and agronomic research from the USDA. If we 

try in the organic world to understand what the production base 

is, what the demand base is, we are often flying blind. We do not 

have good data on which to base decisions. Finally, we need to be 

sure that both USDA in general and the National Organic Program 

6

in specific have the resources to keep up with the dramatic growth 

that organic certification programs demand. Consumers need to 

have confidence in the label and USDA’s attention to NOP, the National Organic Program, will ensure that fact. 

The organic community really needs parity of resources to build 

sound infrastructure as we compete in the marketplace. We are 

bringing you one of the greatest success stories in U.S. agriculture. 

We are unsubsidized. We are entrepreneurial. We are doing a great 

job in finding markets. We are not doing as great a job in finding 

adequate production. We could absorb without much change in 

price at all a doubling in the U.S. production base at this time. 

There are some—since I have about a minute left, there is one 

anecdote I would like to stick in about easy things that might be 

changed inside our government and structure. Senator, have you 

ever tried a blue corn tortilla chip? Well, you and I and most of the 

people in this room understand that what you ate was corn. There 

is one large organization we deal with that does not officially recognize that as corn and that is the USDA, because the USDA program, corn program, is hinged to definitions by the Grain Inspection, Stockyards, and Packers Administration on what is corn, and 

that is pretty much defined as white and yellow corn. To add insult 

to injury, under the current discount rules and damage rules, every 

kernel of the finest blue corn that I could deliver you in the world 

would be regarded as damaged. 

So it is a little difficult for an organic farmer who wants to participate in the SEAL Program in Iowa, Mr. Chairman, to participate. So there are some things that really take very little money, 

but it takes some managerial control. 

And finally, I would like to compliment the Chairman’s home 

State for having done an exceptionally good job at the State level 

of supporting organic agriculture. 

So in conclusion, I and the Organic Trade Association look forward to working with you all on achieving great results for the organic industry. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak 

to you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Clarkson can be found on page 

107 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I learn something new every day. I didn’t 

know blue corn wasn’t corn. I have some questions about that, too. 

Okay. Now we turn to Emily Jackson, Appalachian Sustainable 

Agriculture Project, a not-for-profit organization that supports 

farmers in rural communities in the mountains of Western North 

Carolina and the Southern Appalachians. 

Ms. Jackson, welcome to the committee and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF EMILY JACKSON, APPALACHIAN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE PROJECT, ASHVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you, and thank you, Chairman Harkin and 

members of this committee, for the chance to speak with you today. 

My name is Emily Jackson and I am here on behalf of the Community Food Security Coalition. My purpose here today is to explain 

how the farm bill provides a strategic opportunity to reevaluate our 

current agricultural policy and to describe the policies and proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:10 Aug 28, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35051.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
7

grams that farmers urgently need to stay profitable, to supply existing and emerging markets, such as what Mr. Clarkson just told 

us about, and to strengthen the small and family farms that are 

critical to food security and community vitality across America. 

I work for a non-profit organization in Western North Carolina 

called the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, or ASAP, 

and I have also been a farmer. Our organization supports farmers 

and rural communities and our mission is to expand regional community-based food systems that are locally owned and controlled, 

environmentally sound, economically viable, and health-promoting. 

To these ends, we help farmers in our region, many of whom are 

transitioning out of tobacco, connect to local markets and institutions such as schools and hospitals. The experiences of North Carolina farmers transitioning out of tobacco correlate well to any farmer trying something other than growing commodity crops and we 

have found that developing skills and ability to access local consumers and buyers has made the change easier for growers. 

In doing this work, there are a number of barriers that we have 

found which, if lifted, have the potential to increase the amount of 

fruits and vegetables that farmers are able to deliver directly to the 

consumers. 

In schools and the work that I do, confusion about USDA’s rules 

related to local procurement means that even with competitive 

prices and desire to support local farmers in their region, schools 

are hesitant to purchase local products from family farms in their 

region. By amending the farm bill with a no-cost provision to state 

that a geographic preference can be used when writing a bid for 

school food, farmers and kids will both benefit. Farmers will have 

an increased access to a steady, reliable market, and the kids will 

have access to fresh, healthy food in their school cafeterias. 

Farm-to-cafeteria programs that introduce students to the farmers that grew their food and provide nutrition education in addition 

to the local food being served in their school cafeterias has been 

very successful in Western North Carolina and school systems all 

across the country. Funding to support expansion of these kinds of 

programs would be very helpful and we urge you to reauthorize increased funding for the Community Food Project’s Competitive 

Grant Program. 

As I am sure you have heard from other witnesses before the 

committee, hunger, obesity, and other diet-related diseases and 

food insecurity are all rising in both urban and rural communities. 

This is, in part, a result of the lack of affordable access to fresh 

fruits and vegetables and other foods vital to a healthy diet. Local 

food producers around the country are an important part of this solution, but they face major barriers in transporting their products 

to market, to under-served markets, and other barriers include lack 

of processing, distribution, information, technology, infrastructure. 

Each community has a unique solution and a unique situation, 

and by supporting programs like the Community Food Project’s 

Competitive Grant Program, the Value-Added Producer Grants, 

and the Farmers’ Market Promotion Program, all of which are in 

existence now, you empower communities to find innovative solutions to their own problems which, over the long run, will lead to 

increased sustainability. These existing and new policy tools to proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:10 Aug 28, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35051.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
8

vide farmers access to domestic markets are urgently needed and 

I ask that you include them in the farm bill with increased funding. 

For greater detail of the things that I have just outlined, I would 

like to enter for the record two recent documents, the ‘‘Healthy 

Food and Communities Initiative’’ and the joint report by USDA 

and the Community Food Security Coalition, ‘‘Healthy Food, 

Healthy Communities: A Decade of Community Food Projects In 

Action.’’

[The following information can be found on pages 232 and 240 

in the appendix.] 

I thank you for your time and your leadership on behalf of a 

strong and vital food and agriculture system in the United States. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson can be found on page 

149 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Jackson, thank you very much. We will 

make those a part of the record. 

Now, we will turn to Mr. Mark Brady, American Honey Producers Association. Mr. Brady is from Waxahuchie, Texas, has been 

a commercial beekeeper for over 30 years. He is President of the 

American Honey Producers Association, a national organization of 

beekeepers actively engaged in most commercial honey production 

and agricultural pollination throughout the country. 

Mr. Brady, welcome. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MARK BRADY, AMERICAN HONEY PRODUCERS 

ASSOCIATION, WAXAHUCHIE, TEXAS 

Mr. BRADY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the members of this 

committee. On behalf of the American Honey Producers Association, thank you for allowing me to testify today about issues facing 

the U.S. honey industry. 

America’s bees and beekeepers are having a rough time lately. 

Honey producers all across the country are seeing staggering bee 

losses from a mysterious new condition called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. Some are losing 90 percent of their bees. The problem appears to be spreading and we are still not sure what is causing this new CCD. 

CCD affects more than honey. Over 90 crops depend on honey 

bees for pollination, including almonds, apples, oranges, peaches, 

and many others. Honey bee pollination directly adds about $20 

billion to the U.S. farm economy each year. One-third of the human 

diet is pollinated by honey bees. 

We appreciate very much the letter on CCD that Senator Baucus 

and 43 other Senators, including many on this committee, sent recently to the USDA. We urge Congress to make sure we have the 

tools to defeat this serious new threat to our industry. 

In addition to CCD, U.S. honey producers face many other challenges. The numbers of bee colonies and beekeepers are falling at 

a time when demand for pollination is increasing. Our share of the 

U.S. honey market has fallen sharply. Unfair imports are keeping 

down honey prices at the same time our production costs are increasing. We are dealing with pests and diseases that are increasingly more difficult to control. We are concerned about the environment and effects of the new and existing farm chemicals on our 

9

bees. Beekeepers and their bees are also under great stress from 

the heavy demands of moving colonies to pollinate crops around the 

country. 

CCD and other problems are making it hard for U.S. honey producers to maintain strong bee colonies for honey production and 

pollination. As outlined in our testimony, there are a number of 

steps that Congress could take to help our honey industry address 

these problems. 

New and sustained research by the ARS labs and other researchers is critical in the fight against CCD and other threats. We recommend additional targeted funding for this vital work and we requested at least $1 million in new funding through the appropriations process for the ARS research on CCD. 

The Marketing Loan Program for honey must be continued. 

Based on recent CBO data indicating minimal or no budget impact, 

Congress should also consider raising the loan rate from 60 to 75 

cents per pound, extending the loan term from nine to 12 months, 

and adding the reseal provision. 

Congress should provision one-time loss payments for honey producers suffering recent bee losses. Congress should also press the 

USDA to implement an already authorized Crop Insurance Program for honey producers. 

Congress must consider new ideas to encourage beekeepers to 

help the environment, such as pollination incentives and/or green 

payments. The protection of bees must be a key part of our environmental enforcement and approving new farm chemicals. 

Congress should look at common-sense ways to ensure that U.S. 

consumers can be sure that they are buying real American honey, 

including reasonable trade law compliance changes to current country of origin labeling rules. 

The current CCD crisis should be a loud wake-up call about the 

essential role that American bees and honey producers play in the 

U.S. farm economy. We must act now to prevent further serious 

damage to our industry and to make sure that we have healthy 

bees to pollinate the fruits and vegetables that are on our tables 

every day. We look forward to working with Congress to do this. 

Thank you very much for holding this hearing and I will be glad 

to answer any questions when you guys are ready. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brady can be found on page 80 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Brady. 

I guess I want to ask both Mr. Clarkson and Ms. Arnold some 

questions about the organic business here. As you both point out, 

it is expanding rapidly, but basic research and data collection is 

lacking and causing producers to make business decisions without 

adequate information. What I need to know, or what we need to 

know, is what kinds of research and data information would be 

most critical and helpful and important to the organic industry. 

What kinds of research and data information do we need? This 

question is for whoever wants to handle it. 

Mr. CLARKSON. From the top, I think we need more information 

on markets so farmers know what the organic market price is. 

Chairman HARKIN. Okay. 

10

Mr. CLARKSON. States that regulate grain companies need to 

know what market prices are so they know if people are keeping 

themselves in position. And right now, we are relying entirely on 

the private sector, who is not doing a perfect job by any means. 

Second, we would benefit significantly from knowing well how 

many acres are certified organic and how many are coming onto 

the transition period into organic. We have recently seen a significant move from dairy farmers and chicken farmers putting animals 

into organic certification. I suspect that as a nation, we are going 

to run out of feedstocks before we get to next year’s crop. 

Chairman HARKIN. So what you are saying is right now, we get 

data from USDA on planting intentions. We get that early spring 

and we get another one, I think late May sometime. But we don’t 

have it for organics, that is what you are saying. 

Mr. CLARKSON. That is correct. 

Chairman HARKIN. I see. 

Mr. CLARKSON. We have no segregated information for organics. 

Chairman HARKIN. I see. 

Mr. CLARKSON. Similarly, in responding to any question you 

would ask us about what imports are, anecdotally, we can tell you 

that perhaps half of the organic soybeans used in the United States 

come from overseas. 

Chairman HARKIN. Yes, I noticed——

Mr. CLARKSON. But I have no hard data to back it up because 

we don’t study or we don’t set aside and classify organic imports. 

Chairman HARKIN. So while we might know the overall imports 

of agricultural products, for example, commodities, they are not 

separated out by organic? 

Mr. CLARKSON. That is correct, and it is put together because 

people look at things and say, corn is corn, but organic markets 

have their own supply demand curves that differ from the conventional commodity markets. One may be going up while the other 

is going down and we need segregated information and we don’t 

have that. 

Chairman HARKIN. The other thing I wanted to cover with both 

of you is just the issue of crop insurance. Both of you mentioned 

that in your testimonies, in your written testimonies, and how it 

has not been adequate. Can you spell that out just a little bit more 

clearly for me? What do we need to do in crop insurance to help 

organic producers? 

Mr. CLARKSON. The institutions that write crop insurance don’t 

have good data, actuarial data on yields. They don’t have good actuarial data on prices. They are somewhat uncomfortable writing 

the insurance. They charge an organic farmer more than a conventional farmer, but they only insure his crop at a conventional market price. 

Chairman HARKIN. Why is that? If you are going to insure an organic crop, why wouldn’t it be insured for the market price of what 

organics bring? 

Mr. CLARKSON. It is a wonderful question and I wish I had an 

answer for you. I think it should be at the market price. When I 

left my office yesterday, we were probably paying $3.50, $3.70 for 

conventional corn delivered, Decatur, Illinois. At the same time, we 

were paying $6.50 to $7 for organic corn at the farm. And if I were 

11

going to have a risk, I would certainly want to insure the market 

value. Currently, organic farmers have no way of doing that. 

Chairman HARKIN. Do they get a cut rate in their insurance premium, though? 

Mr. CLARKSON. Not that I am aware of. I think they pay the 

same as the conventional farmer. They pay an extra premium, no 

cut rate. 

Chairman HARKIN. What conversion assistance is needed for 

farmers who are transitioned to organic? I have heard others talk 

about this. You know, you had that 3–year sort of valley of death 

right now——

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN [continuing]. That you have to get through. 

Ms. Arnold, what would be helpful, what kind of conversion transition payments? Give me some idea how this might work. If a farmer wants to become organic or a portion of his farm or her farm 

become organic, how do we get them through that 3–year period of 

time? 

Ms. ARNOLD. Well, I think possibly through some of the EQIP 

funding. There could be funds specifically for some of the practices 

that would be needed for organic production practices that could be 

funded through EQIP, would be one way to do it, other than direct 

financial subsidies during that 3–year time period. 

And I would also like to go back to the research. Mr. Clarkson 

specifically talked more on the marketing end, but there is also a 

great dearth of research on the production end and there is a real 

need for a lot more research on developing seed varieties, plant varieties, and breeds that are really specific to the conditions under 

organic production, because so many of the seeds now are being designed and bred for chemical-intensive agriculture and that isn’t a 

good fit for the kinds of practices that organic producers have. I 

know a real impediment for a lot of dairy farmers converting to organic, they are so concerned, is how I am going to live without antibiotics and the conventional health care medications. So it would 

be nice if there could be more research on the efficacy of alternative 

health care treatments, and a lot of those kinds of things could also 

be beneficial to conventional producers, as well. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much. 

I have a question for Ms. Jackson. I don’t think you will find anyone on this committee who does not support in principle the idea 

of allowing schools to use geographic preference for the procurement of local foods. I mean, that just stands to reason we would 

all support that with our own areas, right? 

Ms. JACKSON. I can’t find anybody else who has a problem with 

it, either. 

Chairman HARKIN. But here is the problem. The reason that prohibitions on local procurement currently exist is to prevent favoritism in contracts. So if Congress did choose to give local schools 

the authority to procure foods locally using geographic preferences, 

how can we be sure that those contracts are going to be fairly 

awarded and on some kind of a competitive basis? 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, Senator, it is just one piece of the bid process. They would still—the geographic preference would just be one 

component of the bidding process. The others would be quality and 

12

ability to be served in the school, be able to serve the school system. But it is also, I would say, the present system, by not helping 

the small family farmer, especially in my neck of the woods—you 

know, our farms are very small due to the mountainous terrain—

they are not on a level playing field as it is. They can’t compete 

with the huge food companies now. So I would say that until that 

field has been leveled out a bit, we can’t quite look to this one piece 

of a bid to say that would give an undue advantage to local farmers. 

Chairman HARKIN. You didn’t mention it in your testimony, but 

I read in your written testimony about the kids that went out and 

saw how okra was growing. 

Ms. JACKSON. Right. 

Chairman HARKIN. And once they saw how okra was growing, 

they went to the restaurant or someplace the next day and the chef 

made okra and they gobbled it up and ate it. So if I go out and 

watch okra being grown, will I develop a taste for okra? 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, if you are a child who has been given this 

great experience—it is a member of the hibiscus family, so children 

are like us. They respond to beauty, and it was a beautiful plant. 

They also respond well to food that is presented well and is prepared well. I think when—farm-to-school encompasses a lot of components, taking children out to farms, growing school gardens. All 

of these experiences help to create this demand, and then that demand goes home. I think that was the point of my anecdote, was 

that this child went home and shared that enthusiasm about a vegetable such as okra and that was——

Chairman HARKIN. I was just joking, but I have seen that happen in the schools in my home State of Iowa, where kids in rural 

schools used to have gardens. They don’t any longer. Now they go 

out and find out how it is growing. I have seen this happen many, 

many times and I think our schools ought to do more of that. 

Thank you very much. My time has run out. 

I will yield to our Ranking Member, Senator Chambliss. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

I promise you, if you come down South, and we are going to get 

you to Atlanta soon, we are going to give you some boiled okra——

[Laughter.] 

Senator CHAMBLISS [continuing]. Which when you eat it, you will 

never know you ate it, it goes down so quick. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CHAMBLISS. And we are also going to give you some fried 

okra, which I promise you will eat like popcorn. It is absolutely delicious. 

First of all, Mr. Chairman, let me apologize for running late. Just 

like I understand you, I got caught up in the traffic this morning. 

I don’t know what is going on around town, but there are an awful 

lot more people than usual and they ought not to be driving, that 

is for sure. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CHAMBLISS. But I do thank you for holding this hearing. 

I have got a statement which I will submit for the record. 

13

Senator CHAMBLISS. Ms. Jackson, let us talk a little bit more 

about these fresh fruits and vegetables because I am a big fan of 

particularly our School Lunch Programs trying to take advantage 

of that. We have had a major pilot program in the last farm bill 

that we have expanded over the last couple of years. My State was 

scheduled to be a participant in that pilot program, but unfortunately, during the appropriation process last year, we didn’t complete it, but we are going to be working hard on that again this 

year. 

Senator Harkin raises a good point relative to contracting, but 

whether you contract or whether your school lunch folks just have 

the authority to go out to your local farmers’ market and purchase 

fresh fruits and vegetables, we need to make sure that we are 

incentivizing those local programs to take advantage of our fresh 

fruits and vegetables that are out there. 

Is there anything that we should do on our end, do you think, 

to try to promote that in a different way from what we are doing 

now with the pilot program as well as the authority that is given 

otherwise? 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, I think you did an excellent job in the 2002 

farm bill, it is just that things got a little confusing when it got to 

the USDA, so maybe helping the USDA understand what you all’s 

original intent was in the 2002 farm bill, where you, I think, made 

it pretty clear about local procurement, that you wanted that to be 

encouraged and incentivized. 

And I am glad you brought up the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables 

Program because that is a program that has met with success everywhere and that actually is a program where there is no process—I mean, there is no penalty for local procurement. If you wanted to go out and get everything at your local Wal-Mart, you could. 

But that is not well known. In fact, I had to educate the Department of Public Instruction in North Carolina that that was so. 

And so I think with the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Program, 

because that is one stellar program, that if you made that more 

clear, that there is no bid process in that one at all, if you made 

that more clear that that money, which is about $80 a child, which 

is significant money, could be used for local food, to support our 

local farmers and our food dollars stay in our local communities, 

I think that would be an excellent step. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Okay. 

Ms. JACKSON. Plus, the monies that we are asking for through 

the Competitive Grants Program, that would also allow individual 

communities to come up with individual solutions that fit their particular agricultural climate there. Like the mountains of North 

Carolina are very different than Iowa or other larger agricultural 

areas, and so it really does need to be localized and solutions come 

from local communities rather than one-size-fits-all mentality. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. My mother lives in Polk County, not too far 

away from you in Ashville, so I am very familiar with a bunch of 

local markets around that area and you grow great agricultural 

products in that part of the world. 

Mr. Clarkson, I want to go back to this issue of risk management 

and crop insurance in particular. It is my understanding you actually pay about a 5–percent additional premium for organic products 

14

to be insured under the Crop Insurance Program. I really don’t understand why the insurance industry hasn’t done the research necessary to develop a market price for your products. They obviously 

think there is something different. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be 

charging you that 5 percent additional premium. So they know that 

your products are a little bit different, your quality is in a different 

category from the normal row crop operation. 

Has there been any dialog between your industry and the insurance industry relative to this issue, or can you give us any reaction 

you have had from the insurance community relative to this? 

Mr. CLARKSON. Senator, I appreciate your question. I can’t answer it in as good of detail as I would like. I would like to check 

with some people in the Organic Trade Association and get back to 

you. 

At the risk of speaking for the insurance industry, I would suggest they would say to me, when I raised the challenge, that, well, 

you don’t have a quick chemical defense if there is something that 

goes wrong with your crop and we don’t know how to rate that because we can’t go to the USDA and get good actuarial data about 

what has happened in organic agriculture yet. So I think they 

would pass the responsibility back to our industry and we would 

come back to saying, could we get the USDA to assemble more information so they would have better data on which to base their 

risk analysis. 

So to some extent, it is probably legitimate to say the insurance 

industry is feeling their way into new programs, new protocols, but 

the organic production community is feeling somewhat aggrieved 

paying higher premium than a conventional neighbor and only 

being insured at conventional prices when their risk level is quite 

higher. 

So I will get back to you following this hearing with some more 

detailed information about our conversations, if we have had them, 

with the insurance industry. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Well, it is interesting they figured out a way 

to charge you, but they haven’t figured out a way to develop a price 

for your crops. 

Mr. Brady, I am very sympathetic with the situation you have 

got in the production of bees right now and this issue relative to 

colonies dying and disappearing and what not. What is it both 

short-term and long-term that you think we could be doing to give 

you some relief short-term and long-term? Tell us exactly what we 

need to do. 

Mr. BRADY. Well, one of the things, of course, is funneling money 

through USDA ARS research. One of the things we found with—

we have four major bee labs here in the United States that work 

on these issues, and Weslaco, for instance, which is in my home 

State of Texas down there, when you look at their budget, by the 

time that they pay their in-house costs and their salaries and those 

sorts of things, there is basically no money left for actual research. 

Of course, they do hustle a lot of money from outside sources and 

grants, and as a matter of fact, the American Honey Producers, we 

just funded a study about a year ago in the almonds in California. 

We paid for that. The money is just not there. I understand that 

15

money is scarce all over, but we need to—we have got to have 

money to look at these things. 

We are also interested in some private university funding, 

maybe. Sometimes through USDA ARS and our bee labs, money 

sort of gets bogged down and doesn’t always go exactly where it 

needs to go. We have got an excellent—U.C.-Davis in California, 

who is right in the Central Valley there where all the almond pollination goes on. A lot of critical fruits and vegetables come out of 

the State of California. U.S.-Davis is right there in the middle of 

that and we are thinking that probably some funding for that particular lab, maybe some new personnel there who could—I mean, 

if you look at it, instead of running all over the United States to 

look at these bee colonies and study them and research them, California is the perfect place to do it because in January and February, 90 percent of the bee colonies in the United States are in 

California for almond pollination. So we think that is a perfect scenario for research and study. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. We had somebody from the USDA in here 

either last week or 2 weeks ago testifying and I brought up this 

issue to them and I know they are on top of it, this particular crisis 

you are in right now. I am a little bit surprised that we are not 

getting a quicker reaction from them. I hope you will stay in touch 

with us literally in the short term, over the next several days and 

weeks, because I know how critically important, and especially this 

time of year——

Mr. BRADY. Yes, sir. 

Senator CHAMBLISS [continuing]. From a cross-pollination standpoint and we need to figure this particular issue out. 

Mr. BRADY. Yes, sir. Right now, over at USDA here in Beltsville, 

there is a 2–day meeting going on which I attended part of it yesterday. Lots of ARS people, USDA, as well as a lot of college scientists and professors are there and they are having a 2–day study 

on this thing now. We are trying to narrow it down and pick some 

key points that we need to be working on. But unfortunately, it is 

just like everything else. Without money, we can’t do much of anything, so we have—if you look at our long testimony, we have got 

a lot of ideas that we are interested in looking at. I know that you 

guys can help us with this. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. I just want to 

join Senator Chambliss in just saying that I think most, if not all 

of us, signed on the letter with Senator Baucus and others to urge 

them to really move aggressively on this issue. This is of the highest importance to us on this committee, I can assure you. 

Mr. BRADY. We appreciate that letter very much. I was amazed. 

We only had a few days to get that thing done, and you are correct. 

A lot of people signed onto it. I think if we had another day or two, 

we probably would have had pretty much everybody’s signatures. 

Chairman HARKIN. I just second what Senator Chambliss said. 

I know the Department is working very aggressively on this right 

now. 

Mr. BRADY. Yes, sir. 

16

Chairman HARKIN. The line-up that I have for order of questioning will be Senator Thune, who stepped out, and then Senators 

Klobuchar, Salazar, Stabenow, Crapo, Conrad, Lincoln, and Senator Craig is here, I know, to introduce the next panel as soon as 

we get through with this line of questioning. So I would recognize 

Senator Klobuchar. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for 

holding this hearing. I welcome all our witnesses, and on the third 

panel, and I am not sure if I am going to be back from my other 

two hearings, there is going to be a Minnesota witness and I wanted to welcome him, Clint Fall, who is the President of the First 

District Association, which is a dairy processing co-op 

headquartered in Litchfield, Minnesota. As you are going to hear 

from Clint, the MILC Program created in the last farm bill has 

been a life-saver for our dairy farmers in the upper Midwest, and 

by providing assistance only when prices are low, the MILC Program has effectively targeted Federal dollars to help farmers survive tough times. 

I also met this weekend with a number of sugar beet producers 

and I just wanted to mention, Mr. Chairman, that the sugar program operates at no net cost to the taxpayers and they want to see 

it continue. We had some very good meetings out in Breckenridge. 

Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit with you, Mr. Brady, about 

the honey issue. I was out in Ortonville at a breakfast yesterday 

and there were some beekeepers there talking about exactly what 

you talked about. They are very concerned. They have lost a large 

number of their bees. There were a lot of theories going around 

about why this was happening, especially at the Econolodge where 

I was in the morning. Someone mentioned cell phones, someone 

talked about pesticides. There was just all over the place. 

I just wondered if you could go through, to follow up on what 

Senator Chambliss was asking you about, what some of the theories are and if you have any beliefs in addition to some of the research you talked about with him. What do you think would be the 

best thing we could do about this quickly, because they are very 

concerned not only in the effect on their own businesses, but the 

effect on other crops. 

Mr. BRADY. Yes, ma’am. I appreciate your interest. On the cell 

phone issue, we took all the phones away from the bees, so we addressed that immediately. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BRADY. But the CCD is basically just a name that was given 

for what I believe has been an ongoing problem for the last few 

years. One of the things that we are looking at really close right 

now is when EPA approves pesticides, what we have historically 

done is approved that based on the fact that it didn’t kill bees immediately. So one of the things that we are looking at really hard 

right now is a cumulative effective of pesticides. As bees work during the summer, whatever crops they may be working on, they pick 

up pollen and they pick up nectar. Both of those are stored inside 

the hive, and in a lot of cases, that pollen and/or nectar is not used 

or consumed until wintertime. 

So I guess what I am—some pesticides are a contact kill, I would 

say, so you can go out and you can see evidence where the bees 

17

have dropped dead because they got poisoned for one reason or another. But one of the things we are looking at is the cumulative low 

doses of pesticides that buildup in the hive. Your hive survives all 

summer long, but when the honey flow shuts off, when the weather 

turns cold, and then the bees are forced to consume what they have 

got inside the hive, that is one of our big concerns, that there may 

be some pesticides stored up inside that pollen. Low doses, sub-lethal doses that we haven’t been concerned about before, we are beginning to wonder now if maybe that is causing a delayed effect on 

some of these colonies dying. 

The stress factor is something that we need to look at. I know 

it is hard to believe that bees would be under stress, you know. 

They seem to be the happy go lucky, out there working, having a 

good time. But things are so much different now. We continually 

shift these things all over the country. Almost every hive in the 

United States goes to California for almond pollination. The 

stresses on those bees are getting more and more because of more 

food production. Almonds, for instance, they are basically—California grows 100 percent of the U.S. supply of almonds, so all the 

colonies have to go to California to pollinate out there. 

We are looking at fungicides. We are looking at insecticides. We 

are looking at stress. There is just a wide variety. I just came from 

the meeting over at USDA and it is going to be a good meting. 

There are a lot of good minds over there and everybody is putting 

in their ideas and we are going to try to narrow it down and pinpoint what this may be. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much. I have some questions of you, Ms. Arnold. In your testimony, you mentioned the 

need for financial assistance for organic farmers to go through the 

certification process. 

Ms. ARNOLD. Well, that wouldn’t really be for the organic farmers. It would be for conventional farmers. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. To go through the certification, all right. 

And a recent survey in Minnesota showed that half of our organic 

farmers paid between $300 and $750 for certification and two respondents paid $2,500 or more. Can you shed some light on these 

costs and why they are so high? 

Ms. ARNOLD. Annual certification, is the process that we have to 

go through each year to maintain our organic certification. When 

I send our application in, it is probably half-an-inch thick of paper. 

We have an inspector come. He spends almost all day viewing our 

farm and then this half-inch-thick paperwork has to go into the 

certification office. They do data entry and review. 

It is just a lot of work, a lot of man hours that go into the certification process, and then the certifiers have to be accredited by the 

USDA every 5 years, and currently, the second round of accreditation is happening. The first one, I think, was financed by the government. The second one is being financed by the certifiers, and 

they are being charged $107 an hour per USDA personnel who is 

in the office, plus travel time. So many of these certifiers are going 

to have a $15,000 bill or more to get reaccredited this year, and 

that has got to be passed down to all the farmers. For our farm 

itself, we pay, I think, about $2,800 a year to be certified. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you. 

18

Ms. ARNOLD. You are welcome. 

Chairman HARKIN. Next, we will turn to Senator Salazar. 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Harkin and 

Ranking Member Chambliss. Chairman Harkin, thank you, as 

well, for the hearing being held in Brighton, Colorado, not too long 

ago where you saw the great diversity of specialty crops and 

organics that people came to testify about. My own family has been 

involved in agriculture for many centuries and we today produce 

potatoes in Colorado and it is now, I think, the third-largest crop 

that is produced within our State. So I am appreciative of the fact 

that you are paying attention to specialty crops and organics as we 

move forward toward the farm bill, so thank you very much. 

I also wanted to say thank you to Senator Stabenow and Senator 

Craig as they move forward with legislation on specialty crops. It 

was legislation that I cosponsored last year and look forward to 

taking a look at the bill that they have introduced this year. 

I have a question for you, Mr. Clarkson and Ms. Arnold. Mr. 

Clarkson, you sent forth a vision that you say we ought to be able 

to double the amount of organic production that we have in this 

country and you talk about the disparity that we currently have between the amount of organic production that we have and the demand that we have out at Wild Oats and places like that that sell 

organics. For you and Ms. Arnold, I guess I would ask, if you were 

to do the top two things to enhance the organic agriculture industry here in America, what would those two most important things 

be? 

Mr. CLARKSON. Do you want to go first? 

Ms. ARNOLD. It is hard to pick. I would think——

Senator SALAZAR. You gave us, I think, ten——

Ms. ARNOLD. Seven, yes. I would say increasing the research to 

reflect the amount that organic is of the market. Right now, I think 

organic research, specific research, has point-six percent of the Federal dollars versus the actual marketplace that organic is almost 

3 percent. 

Second—it is so hard to choose because there are many needs 

and some of them require dollars and some of them don’t—can you 

go with your first——

Senator SALAZAR. You can stick with your seven, Ms. Arnold. 

Ms. ARNOLD [continuing]. And I will come up with a second. 

Senator SALAZAR. We have your seven. How about you, Mr. 

Clarkson? 

Mr. CLARKSON. My personal priority here is the integrity of the 

entire organic movement rests on the integrity of the seal. We as 

a nation have funded a National Organic Program which lives inside the Agriculture Marketing Service, which lives inside the 

USDA. It is a small band of people—I think they number less than 

nine—and they have an entire new market sector to regulate, enforce the rules in, define new definitions as they come up. 

So this is really just a request for good government. The classic 

role of government is to enforce the rules, certify the certifiers, and 

help develop the law that they are custodians of. I don’t believe 

there are enough people, I don’t believe there is enough funding for 

them to do their job adequately, and I think that is a foundation 

issue for our entire industry. 

19

Ms. ARNOLD. Yes. I would totally agree with that, and that is not 

a farm bill issue, so I wasn’t thinking of that, but absolutely. That 

is why this pasture issue, or at least that is why USDA is saying 

this pasture issue has not been taken care of, because they only 

have eight people in the office and they have so many responsibilities and their budget is an annual appropriation thing, not a farm 

bill issue. But yes, having the staff and the ability to keep the program going and oversee it and keep the integrity there is absolutely a crucial thing to organic agriculture. 

Senator SALAZAR. So what both of you would say, making sure 

we beef up the USDA operation with respect to organics and putting a focus on that within USDA would be very helpful. 

Let me ask you as a follow-up to that question, we have received 

lots of testimony from Secretary Johanns and USDA with respect 

to organics and specialty crops. What is your view of the administration’s proposal with respect to organics and also your view in 

terms of what they have said or what their proposals are relative 

to the functioning of USDA with respect to organics? 

Mr. CLARKSON. I don’t feel competent to respond directly to your 

question because I am not that knowledgeable about what the administration is proposing on this. If I might, I would like to follow 

up on your other question, because I only gave you——

Senator SALAZAR. Go ahead. 

Mr. CLARKSON.—I only gave you one answer. The second answer 

to your question is really a linked one. It goes to the insurance for 

organic farmers so they can cover their risks so their lenders will 

be happy to finance them. But I don’t believe that that is going to 

work until we have better data, which goes back to authorizing the 

USDA to collect, or the various government agencies to collect import-export and then the Agriculture Department collects production and marketing data so that the insurers can be nudged into 

more reasonable insurance for the organic community. Those would 

be my two-and-a-half key points. 

Senator SALAZAR. Ms. Arnold? 

Ms. ARNOLD. Yes. I am not all that familiar with the USDA’s, or 

the President’s and Johanns’s points on organic agriculture, although I do believe that their proposal for organic research was actually a decline and not an increase. So I would say that is absolutely off base. 

Senator SALAZAR. Do you think that we ought to have a separate 

title in the farm bill that deals with organics? 

Ms. ARNOLD. I am not sure that that is necessary. I think organic agriculture can be fit within existing titles. 

Senator SALAZAR. Mr. Clarkson? 

Mr. CLARKSON. At the Organic Trade Association, that has come 

under discussion. I have been party to some of the discussion, certainly not all. It seems to us that we can fit the organic requirements inside the existing structure. We are thinking that a new 

title would be unnecessarily complicating and perhaps setting up 

new communications paths inside the administration that are difficult to do, difficult to regulate. So we would look forward to trying 

to work within the current structure without a separate title. 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you and also the rest of the witnesses 

for your excellent testimony this morning. 

20

Ms. ARNOLD. Thank you. 

Mr. CLARKSON. You are welcome. 

Chairman HARKIN. Senator Thune? 

Senator THUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding another in a series of hearings that are so important to this 

farm bill. I know that part of the farm bill discussion is going to 

include the topic of today’s hearing, which is the important role 

that fruits, vegetables, and specialty crops play in our agricultural 

industry. And in fact, the sales of those crops constitute a third of 

U.S. agriculture cash receipts, and the figure rises to 50 percent 

when nursery and other specialty crops are considered. 

So as we will hear today, I think, challenges facing the fruit and 

vegetable industry can be met by effective public policy and it is 

a tight budgetary atmosphere and the members of this committee 

are going to have to work together to allocate resources in a fair 

and equitable manner that provides a safety net for our producers 

and a reliable food supply for our nation. So I appreciate all those 

who are testifying today and the perspective and the insight that 

you give us as we begin this important work of getting a new farm 

bill put together under what are some interesting budgetary and 

international trade constraints. 

I have a couple of questions tying back to—I want to come back 

to some of the questions, the line of questions that has been raised 

earlier with regard to the bee situation, the honey. Mr. Brady, if 

you could describe—I know you have already answered in some degree questions with regard to what is causing this, but can you tell 

me that based on known current losses what impacts CCD is going 

to have on the 2007 honey crop, on 2007 pollination needs, and 

what will be the long-term repercussions if this disorder is not addressed? 

Mr. BRADY. I believe as far as the 2007 honey crop and pollination, I believe at this point that—some of the things that are 

happening in the industry, myself, for instance, we are increasing 

the number of colonies that we are running. A lot of the smaller 

outfits have just not been able to maintain profitability so they 

have gone out of business. So our colony numbers have gone down, 

but some of the rest of us are trying to pick up the slack and increase our numbers so that we have an adequate amount of bee 

colonies for pollination. 

Honey production, it is going to suffer any time you lose the 

amount of colonies that we have lost last fall and this winter. We 

can rebuild those numbers, but in the process of rebuilding them, 

it also weakens your good, strong, established colonies, which 

therefore in turn cuts down on your honey production for that particular year. 

I believe with the proper research—I believe if nothing is done, 

we are going to be in a very serious problem. California almonds, 

for instance, I always use that example because it takes over a million hives of bees to pollinate that almond crop out there. Projections for 2010, 2012, it could take up to 1.5 to two million colonies 

of bees to be able to pollinate that crop. So we have got to make 

some increase in our numbers. We have got to get these things 

built back up, but it can be done. It can be done through the proper 

research. We have got good beekeepers out there that are not going 

21

to give up. You know, the health of that honey bee is going to be 

critical to maintaining these numbers. 

Senator THUNE. In your opinion, has USDA effectively utilized 

its available resources to assist beekeepers with this problem? 

Mr. BRADY. That is a tough question. USDA has done us a lot 

of good, but I believe that the last four to 5 years, they have been 

lacking on some of the research, and I am not pointing any fingers 

or blaming anybody. It is probably a money problem. There is only 

so much money to go around, and like I said, a lot of the funding 

for these labs, they are so underfunded that it has taken most of 

the money just for administrative costs, salaries, those type things, 

and the money is just not there for the research. We are so far behind on bee research, it is just unbelievable. 

That is one of the reasons I am leaning toward University of 

California at Davis. I am thinking possible some of these private 

universities might be able to lend a hand and maybe do some more 

specific work on some of these problems that we are facing. 

Senator THUNE. Are there steps that Congress ought to be taking, do you think, in your opinion? 

Mr. BRADY. Only on the money side, you know. Of course, we are 

trying to get crop insurance. We have never had crop insurance. 

There is a proposal on the table and I think it is kind of ridiculous, 

really, that all of these crops that we pollinate, that we don’t have 

any crop insurance for our sale. I know it is going to be a really 

tough thing to do. We are working on it. The numbers are not really good because so many beekeepers jump from one State to the 

next, it is hard to come up with good numbers on production. We 

are looking right now at maybe using grower income numbers, 

those kind of things, to make a better base for some crop insurance. 

Of course, the loan program is vital for us, especially with all the 

imports that are coming in. The loan program is at 60 cents right 

now. We would love to see it go to 75, but our biggest concern is 

to maintain it. This is a really good marketing tool for beekeepers. 

And pollination and honey both go hand-in-hand. We are not 

going to have one without the other. Some people say, well, just 

don’t worry about the honey, just pollinate, but you can’t keep 

these bees healthy without keeping them on a honey flow. So there 

has got to be some honey production in there, as well. 

Senator THUNE. I appreciate that and I would just say, in my 

home State of South Dakota, we don’t produce a lot of fruits and 

vegetables, but we are one of the nation’s largest honey producers. 

Mr. BRADY. Absolutely. 

Senator THUNE. We are, I think, fourth largest honey producing 

State and over ten million pounds of annual honey production. And 

you add to that the fact that the bees are transported around the 

country to pollinate several other different varieties of fruits, vegetables, and specialty crops, this is a very, very important issue to 

my State, and in South Dakota and several other States around the 

country, we are losing 40 to 60 percent of their hives. 

So I appreciate your testimony. I know from what you said earlier that some producers are experiencing losses as high as 90 percent, so——

Mr. BRADY. Yes, sir. 

22

Senator THUNE [continuing]. This is going to have an immediate 

impact on the economic well-being of our honey producers and we 

want to do everything we can to assist in coming up with workable 

solutions and welcome, as always, your input in that regard. I 

know that I will be hearing from my honey producers in South Dakota. 

My parents were in the honey business for one summer back in 

1961. It was a dry, hot summer, as is typically the case in South 

Dakota. It was not a good year for honey production, but I am told 

that I got a bee sting that year which they were worried I wasn’t 

going to make it. So we have a little personal experience with this, 

but I have great respect and regard for the people in my State of 

South Dakota. They are very hard working and we want to make 

sure that they have the tools in place that allow them to continue 

to be prosperous and contribute to the many needs of production 

across the country. 

So thank you for your testimony, and Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you to address these important issues. 

Thanks. 

Mr. BRADY. I appreciate it very much. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Thune. 

I now will turn to Senator Stabenow. 

Senator STABENOW. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this important hearing. We have three excellent panels today and welcome 

to each of you. 

First, I appreciate the comments regarding the Fresh Fruits and 

Vegetables Program. We have all worked so hard on that, and part 

of the reason that we want to add a new title of specialty crops in 

the farm bill is to also help our organic farmers. It is very much 

a part of what you are doing. The more we expand into fresh fruits 

and vegetables for all of our Commodity Purchase Programs, our 

nutrition programs, I am assuming that is a very positive thing for 

each of you, so we hope to be able to do some significant things in 

the farm bill. 

Mr. Brady, I wanted to ask you a question, as well. I know there 

is a lot of interest as it relates to bees these days, and not only directly for the industry, but the environment and just the broader 

issues that surround the need to have a healthy bee industry. 

I wondered if you might speak about the unfair trade practices 

you talked about earlier. We know that what happened with China 

and the fact that we were able to do anti-dumping protections and 

then change the loopholes that China was using to be able to address the concerns regarding the unfair dumping coming into this 

country. But I wonder if you might just speak a little bit more from 

a trade standpoint, and I would welcome any other panelists who 

have had issues related to trade practices as we work to level the 

playing field and make sure that we are truly enforcing the laws 

so that our producers and businesses in the United States have full 

opportunity to succeed. 

Could you speak about, a little bit more about the unfair trade 

practices? It looks like it is getting a little better, but maybe 

not——

Mr. BRADY. It is getting better. Closing the loophole was a tremendous help for us. It took us a while to get it done, but you guys 

23

got it done and we appreciate that. You know, the Chinese are very 

energetic people and every time we plug one hole, another hole 

opens up. 

Right now, one of the things that we are facing is what we call 

a Baker’s Blend. There is over a million pounds a month coming 

in right now and we are in the process of doing some sampling to 

see if it is a blend of other sugars and honey or if it is pure honey 

and they are trying to come in under the radar as far as our tariffs 

are concerned under the anti-dumping. 

It is really tough when you look at the packers here in the 

United States, and I am not blaming them. They are there to make 

money, as well. But we are competing with China on a basis that 

there is just no way. They are selling honey over here still way 

below what our cost of production is. We just—you know, in my 

particular case, I have got a few packers here in the United States 

that pack 100 percent domestic honey and I really appreciate them 

for that. We hold honey all year long for them in the warehouse 

and sell it to them a little bit at a time. But when you are forced 

onto the open market to try to compete with China, you can’t do 

it. There is just no way. 

The new shipper legislation helped us a tremendous amount. 

Like I said, now, they are coming in with what they call a Baker’s 

Blend. We are not sure what it is. We are working on that to find 

out whether they are just dodging the anti-dumping laws or whether it is a labeling issue. 

We are trying to get a standard of identity for honey, as well. 

What is pure honey? We are working on that through USDA. So 

there is quite a few things in the process right now, but the imports are—I have some numbers here just real quick. Our share of 

domestic honey sales in 2006, 31 percent of the honey that was sold 

in the United States is domestic honey. In 2005, it was 38. In 2004, 

it was 46. So you can see that even with the things that we are 

doing, our market share is shrinking every year. Now, part of that 

can be attributed to a smaller honey crop here due to CCD and 

those particular things. Our 2006 crop was about 155 million 

pounds, which is down over 50 million pounds from our average 

crop. 

But our market share is shrinking, and so we really—one of the 

things that we are working on is a U.S. Domestic Honey Board. 

USDA has got that information now and we want the consumer to 

be able to know what they are buying. We are working on labeling 

laws. When you go in and buy a jar of honey at HEB or wherever, 

it may have a country of origin label on there that has got ten different countries on there. You have no idea where it came from, 

none whatsoever. 

Our current marketing board, National Honey Board, can only 

promote honey generically. They are not allowed to promote USA 

honey. So we are in the process of trying to come up with a USAonly Honey Board that will promote USA honey only and——

Senator STABENOW. Would you repeat that again, that they don’t 

promote U.S. honey? 

Mr. BRADY. Yes, ma’am——

Senator STABENOW. Go back on that again, would you? 

24

Mr. BRADY. Our existing National Honey Board can only advertise or promote honey generically. They can’t push U.S. honey one 

way or the other, and that is just the way it was set up. So it is 

very important to us now to get this U.S. Honey Board that we are 

working on, get it in place. It will be able to promote U.S. honey, 

as well, so people know the difference. 

Constantly, I have people coming up to me and they say, why 

does the honey that I buy in the store, why doesn’t it taste like the 

honey that we get from you, and the simple reason is some of it 

is junk. A lot of it is blended to bring the price down. We just want 

them to realize that there is a good, pure USA product out there 

that they can buy, and this new Honey Board that we are working 

on will help us do that. 

Senator STABENOW. Absolutely. Thank you very much. 

I don’t know if anyone else—Mr. Clarkson? 

Mr. CLARKSON. Senator, depending on the breadth of your question, the organic community has run into trade obstacles serving 

clients in countries such as Korea over GMO issues. The Koreans 

have adopted the world’s most restrictive attitude toward genetically engineered trace. Their tolerance level officially is zero, which 

is an impossible standard. 

We have known a number of organic companies that have just 

quit shipping because they don’t believe they can ever meet the 

zero standard. We have noticed others that have continued to ship 

and they have had their containers stopped and after two to 3 

weeks, they seem to go in, which would suggest to me that there 

is an informal rule, as well as a formal one. But no company wants 

to subject itself to the risk of being stopped by the formal rule. 

So this is a situation on which I know the USDA is engaged in 

negotiations. The Koreans bring their own difficulties to the trade 

table and I would wish our negotiating parties good luck at the 

next session. But that is an increasing problem for the organic 

world, being tainted with any trace element of GMO. Most countries are more liberal than the Koreans. 

Senator STABENOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. [Presiding.] Mr. Clarkson, do you know 

whether or not that issue was addressed in this most recent bilateral with South Korea? 

Mr. CLARKSON. I absolutely do not, sir. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Okay. Senator Lincoln? 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Both of my questions actually go to the issues that Mr. Clarkson brought up and 

also with the honey issue. 

Mr. Brady, I appreciate your testimony and seem just as shocked 

as Senator Stabenow that we can’t promote domestic honey. Maybe 

there is a way—I don’t know about the rest of you all, but with the 

amount of pollen that is in the air right now——

[Laughter.] 

Senator LINCOLN.—I have always been told that if you use not 

only domestic, but more importantly locally produced honey, that 

it will definitely lessen your effects with allergies and with the pollen that exists in your local area, so maybe we can use it for that 

purpose, promoting locally produced honey on behalf of all of us 

that suffer from allergies. 

25

Mr. BRADY. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator LINCOLN. I certainly would like to look at those types of 

exceptions, but I think it is so important that we maintain our domestically produced honey. 

Arkansas is not one of the top honey-producing States in the 

country, but we do have a number of commercial producers and 

certainly some hobbyist beekeepers. It was one of the first things, 

when my Mother and Daddy married, my Dad started beekeeping. 

It was one of the things that they loved doing together and it was 

a wonderful hobby for them and something that they enjoyed. 

When you talk about the Baker’s Blend and you talk about these 

trade issues, you have elaborated, I think, on some of the challenges. We were delighted in that pension bill to be able to get the 

new shipper’s review and do feel like it has been helpful, but obviously, as you said, they are going to find other ways around that, 

whether it is labeling or the mis-labeling of those imports, blending 

or tainted imports that we are not aware of. What about transshipments? Has that been an issue, as well? 

Mr. BRADY. It has been an issue, and by closing the loophole, it 

makes it more of an issue. But the transshipments going through 

other countries, whether it be Mexico or Taiwan or wherever it 

might be, we do a fairly good job of monitoring that. We have a 

good law firm here in Washington that takes care of some of those 

issues through ship manifests and those type things, and we are 

also able now to identify honey through sampling. 

Chinese honey has certain qualities, certain ingredients in it that 

we don’t have in U.S. honey. So we can—it is sort of a fingerprint 

issue. We can tell where some of those honies are coming from. Not 

too long ago, we actually caught a couple of loads in Canada that 

had come in from China and they tried to come in through Canada 

and market as Canadian honey, so Customs was able to catch that. 

So that is an issue, but it is something that we have a fairly good 

handle on. 

One of the things that is keeping prices down right now is while 

we were waiting on getting this new shipper legislation passed, 

there was a tremendous amount of honey that just flooded into 

here, and the Chinese knew that we eventually were going to get 

it passed, so they took advantage of it and a lot of these packers, 

they are just stockpiled up. Once those supplies go down some, I 

think we will see a good result from the new shipper loophole. 

Just for your information, Arkansas, I sell a lot of honey to Fisher Honey Company in Arkansas. They are an excellent company 

and they buy a lot of domestic honey, so I appreciate that. 

Senator LINCOLN. They are a good company, and it is important. 

I know not only do I appreciate it as an industry, but as a consumer——

Mr. BRADY. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator LINCOLN [continuing]. With two boys that eat plenty of 

honey on their oatmeal and plenty on their biscuits, it is a great 

way, it really is, in terms of allergies and stuff, if you can get it 

domestically and particularly locally, which I do. 

Mr. BRADY. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator LINCOLN. Ms. Arnold and Mr. Clarkson, just to touch a 

little bit on your testimony pointing out about the organic proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:10 Aug 28, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35051.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
26

ducers, what they face when their crops are unknowingly contaminated, particularly Ms. Arnold, with the genetically modified material, this has been a tremendous problem for our rice growers in 

Arkansas and our rice producers and they are facing it right now, 

as well, as you may well know, with the multiple circumstances 

they have dealt with. 

Maybe you could elaborate on some steps that you believe Congress could begin to take to help mitigate some of the losses that 

farmers are experiencing. We are finding certainly that the losses 

our rice growers are experiencing is tremendous in terms of what 

they are producing that is contaminated, but then they are also becoming skittish because—I mean, the seed crops for these crops 

started in 2003, so knowing what kind of seed they are getting 

from the dealers, it may have been certified by USDA and yet still 

they are finding those traces in there. Our farmers are finding that 

they are not getting much help from USDA in terms of losses of 

what they are experiencing. Maybe you can——

Ms. ARNOLD. Right. Well, this is definitely an issue that cuts 

across. It isn’t just an organic issue, but many conventional producers also need GMO-free commodities for their markets. I would 

say it is not the responsibility of the taxpayers to cover these losses 

that producers are suffering, but it should be the responsibility of 

the manufacturers who are making the profit on these seeds to be 

the ones that pay the farmers and the processors who are experiencing these financial losses. So I am not exactly sure what kind 

of law could be put into place, but that is where the responsibility 

should squarely lie, on the shoulders of the manufacturer. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, it is interesting, because when we talk 

to those particularly in the scientific field that are the ones experimenting with these things, they tell us it is not their responsibility 

because this is not their product. They are just doing the scientific 

research there and that the product belongs—and, of course, as you 

said, the manufacturer of the product is saying, well, it is not our 

research, it is their research that is causing the problem——

Ms. ARNOLD. Right. 

Senator LINCOLN [continuing]. And maybe perhaps their lack of 

sophistication in keeping that research contained. And, of course, 

USDA is responsible for the review and making sure that there is 

oversight of all of this. And all three of those throw up their hands 

and say, well, it is not our responsibility, and yet our farmers are 

the ones that end up with the loss, so——

Ms. ARNOLD. Exactly. 

Senator LINCOLN [continuing]. We would certainly love to work 

with you to come up with something that helps our farmers. 

Ms. ARNOLD. And I think the other point is that the farmers that 

are purchasing the seeds and growing the crops, they actually are, 

I believe, they are only renting the seeds and it is the manufacturer who retains all rights——

Senator LINCOLN. Oh, absolutely. 

Ms. ARNOLD [continuing]. So that is absolutely where the responsibility lies. 

Senator LINCOLN. And it costs them an awful lot to not be able 

to manage their own seeds from year to year, and I hear regular 

complaints about that. 

27

Mr. Clarkson? 

Mr. CLARKSON. Senator, the issue in the rice world comes critically from a company introducing a genetic trait that was not approved in the United States, let alone in foreign countries. I think 

it would be appropriate for us as a nation to not allow the introduction and open production in the great outdoors of unapproved genetic events. That is using the U.S. farmer as the infantry in a battle that is not his——

Senator LINCOLN. Right. 

Mr. CLARKSON [continuing]. And really damage him. 

Second, if people are going to introduce new traits, those of us 

who have to test for traits when we see things coming into elevators and moving into commerce would love to have some sort of 

genetic signal that we can pick up when we are testing rather than 

have to go to link the analytical labs, where we may not get the 

results for a week and it costs us a thousand dollars to find out 

what is inside that crop. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, go back 10 years in research, which is 

what they are doing, and you are right, I mean, not being able to 

test at the elevator. 

Mr. CLARKSON. We are not saying no to genetic engineering. We 

are not saying no to development of new traits. But we are thinking that it would be very appropriate for us to regulate the introduction of those traits better than we have done as a nation. 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Senator Casey? 

Senator CASEY. Senator Chambliss, thank you very much, and I 

want to thank you and Senator Harkin, our Chairman, for calling 

this hearing. I want to accomplish two things. I have a couple of 

questions for this panel, but I do want to preview the next panel 

because there is a Pennsylvanian on that panel that I want to say 

hello to. 

John Rice from Adams County, Pennsylvania—I didn’t see John 

when I came in, I don’t know if he is—John, thank you very much 

for being here. I am going to brag about you for another 20 minutes, no more. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CASEY. No, I want to welcome John. He is, as I said, 

from Adams County, Pennsylvania, the county of Gettysburg and 

so much history, but also a county that produces a lot of apples. 

John is an apple grower and packer and he will be giving us his 

perspective today on specialty crops. 

I do want to mention for the record Russ Redding, who is from 

the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, was scheduled to be 

here this morning, but he had a medical emergency and can’t make 

it, so Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. 

Redding’s written testimony be made part of the record and that 

members of the committee be allowed to submit questions to Mr. 

Redding for the record. That would be a very important part of the 

record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Redding can be found on page 

205 in the appendix.] 

Senator CASEY. But just for the record, I wanted to make sure 

that we highlighted some of the aspects of Pennsylvania agriVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:10 Aug 28, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35051.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
28

culture. We have got, obviously, a lot of dairy farmers in Pennsylvania. Specialty crops and dairy represent the majority of Pennsylvania agricultural products. As Mr. Rice knows, we grow everything from apples and mushrooms to peaches and more mushrooms 

in Pennsylvania. We also have a lot of nursery stock in our State 

and a good deal of floriculture, which is sometimes forgotten when 

we talk about specialty crops. 

We are way up there on the ranking of dairy States. But unfortunately, just recently, this past month, I guess it was, in March, we 

went from fourth to fifth in dairy production. Senator Crapo’s State 

of Idaho, has now passed us out, and that highlights the problem 

we have in Pennsylvania. 

Basically, as everyone here knows if you know anything about 

dairy farming, is that our farmers are not getting the price that it 

costs to produce the milk that they are producing. In fact, farmers 

in Northeastern Pennsylvania, which is the corner of Pennsylvania 

where I am from, they are losing $5 on every hundredweight of 

milk that they produce. So in many ways and in large measure, the 

future of Pennsylvania agriculture depends upon the decisions we 

make in this year’s farm bill for dairy and specialty crops. 

I think we also must assist specialty crop growers with programs 

for marketing research and export, and I know the new farm bill 

must include a new Federal dairy program that works for Pennsylvania farmers by taking into account that cost of production. 

So I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today. I missed 

the opening testimony from the witnesses before me. 

Let me just quickly get two questions in, if I can. I guess the 

first, I would direct to Kathie Arnold. Your testimony, which I 

missed but I have the written version of it, and I especially respect 

what you do as a family. I know in your testimony it mentions your 

husband, Rick, and his brother, Bob, and the family aspect of it 

and that is certainly true of family dairy farms in Pennsylvania. 

I can’t imagine what you do every day just to make ends meet and 

I appreciate that. 

But we know that certified organic label certainly plays a huge 

role in any success that you or others have, and I know that as 

part of your testimony, you said that the labeling program should 

be updated to reflect that increased cost in funding needs. I guess 

the basic question I have for you is, do you have an estimate as 

to how much this update would cost? And you may have already 

answered this, you may have been through it, but I just wanted to 

have this for the record if that is available to you, if you know it. 

Ms. ARNOLD. Yes. What you are referring to, I think, is the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program——

Senator CASEY. Correct. 

Ms. ARNOLD [continuing]. Where producers can get up to, currently up to $500 reimbursed on their certification costs and we are 

asking that it be moved up to $750 because of these increased accreditation costs of the certifiers. What we are asking for is $25 

million for a 5–year farm bill for the certification cost share. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you very much. 

Ms. ARNOLD. You are welcome. 

29

Senator CASEY. And I appreciate the work that you do. I know 

I am short on time, but I also wanted to ask one question to Ms. 

Jackson, part a commentary and part a question. 

I appreciate the fact that you highlighted something in your testimony where you introduced this paragraph by saying, we have 

heard this from other witnesses. Sometimes that is the case, but 

sometimes it doesn’t matter because it bears repeating and emphasis because of what you have in there. 

I was struck by this statement. Hunger, obesity, and other dietrelated diseases and food insecurity are all rising in both urban 

and rural areas, and then you talk about the challenge that local 

food producers have in terms of transportation and other costs and 

you talk about the programs that we are discussing as part of this 

farm bill, including the Community Food Project’s Competitive 

Grant Program, the Value Added Producers Grants, the Farmers 

Market Promotion Program. And then you say by using those programs, you empower communities to find innovative solutions to 

their own problems. 

First of all, I want to commend you for highlighting the challenges that real people face. Sometimes we get a little lost here. We 

talk about programs and budgets and numbers, as important as 

that is and as essential as that is, but we forget the impact sometimes and the urgency that is a part of this farm bill to impact people’s lives in a positive way. These challenges, whether it is hunger 

or obesity or other health problems that families have, and especially children have, are not limited to one party or one region of 

the country, and I appreciate the fact that you highlighted that. 

I don’t know whether you have a comment about some of those 

costs and some of those burdens that people face in those situations. 

Ms. JACKSON. Of course, I do. I think we have a strange phenomenon in this country where we have people who are obese and 

malnourished at the same time. I like to say it is a proliferation 

of cheap nasty food. It used to, when people were poor, they had 

a garden to rely on and so they got fresh whole foods and they had 

clear access to that. And now, people who are of low socioeconomics 

rely on calorie-dense and nutrient-not food because that is what 

some of our food policies have led to in this country. You can walk 

down any aisle in a grocery store and kind of see that in action. 

And so I think it is really important that we do look at this document that lays out several programs, not just the ones that are already in existence that you mentioned, but others that could support communities to find solutions that fit the needs of that particular community. As a former classroom teacher, I used to see—

I saw the meals that were provided in schools. I saw what my children brought to school to eat. Now I noticed that several of those 

children have developed diabetes and that is something that is 

going to cost and is costing the American public a tremendous 

amount of money, so we need to make sure that we are doing what 

we can and put——

The USDA says that for every two programs that they fund 

through the Community Food Project Grants, there are eight others that go unfunded and they have done tremendous work, the 10 

years that this grant has been made available. We are asking that 

30

that be increased so that we can have more communities show us 

what they can do to—because Community Food Project grants meet 

the needs of low-income people while at the same time benefiting 

our farmers. And in this day and age, that is a big job, to address 

those two needs simultaneously. 

But thank you for your comments. 

Senator CASEY. Thank you very much. Sorry for the overtime. 

Chairman HARKIN. It is very good. I just say to my friend from 

Pennsylvania and to you, Ms. Jackson, our nation for that we 

ought to take pride in having established a Food Stamp Program 

that allows people of low income to get adequate food. The other 

problem is that the highest incidence of diabetes and obesity and 

bad health is among low-income people. This is not surprising since 

the cheapest and most filling, not to mention convenient foods are 

high in fats and carbohydrates. One of the reasons they don’t buy 

fruits and vegetables is because those are the most expensive 

things in the store. And, if you are shopping at you local Bodega, 

fresh fruits and vegetables may not even be available. 

Now, I hope to work with the Senator from Pennsylvania and the 

Senator from Michigan on the farm bill to maybe put some incentives in there, so that when you use your EBT card, if you buy 

fruits and vegetables, you get a bonus in your Food Stamp allowance. For example, if you bought something for a dollar, it would 

only cost you maybe 50 cents or something like that to encourage 

people to purchase and consume more fresh fruits and vegetables. 

The other thing is to allow users of the EBT card, Food Stamp 

cards, the EBT card, to use those at farmers’ markets. We tested 

that out last year by providing farmers’ markets with these wireless point of service devices that enabled EBT card use even where 

theere was not electricity or a pemanent farm stand in place. The 

next project is information out through our Community Action 

Agencies, churches, different places like that so that people who 

use the EBT cards know that they can take them to the farmers’ 

market. In the places that we experimented with these devices and 

publicity, the result was—I don’t know if it was overwhelming, but 

very positive. The Food Stamp recipients would go to local farmers’ 

markets and start picking up fresh eggs and fresh meats and fresh 

fruits and vegetables and things like that. 

Ms. JACKSON. And I think your proposal to have that bonus be 

particularly helpful, because studies show that most people’s Food 

Stamp dollars don’t last them long enough, you know, don’t take 

them through the month adequately. At the same time, when we 

work for farmers, we want farmers to get as much of the food dollar as possible, so we are paying the high cost of cheap food, so we 

want our farmers to get as much money for their food as possible. 

So you are kind of playing both ends against each other. 

Chairman HARKIN. Right. 

Ms. JACKSON. And so I think it does need something extra added 

to the EBT situation so that they have more money to spend at the 

farmers’ markets. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much. This has been a very 

informative panel. We thank you very much for your wonderful testimony and especially the written testimony you have, which gives 

us a lot of things to go on. 

31

But this will be, I can tell you right now, this will be a very significant part of this farm bill. I think we all agree on that. We are 

going to focus more on specialty crops. As you point out, 30 percent 

of our farm income, cash, goes to specialty crops, and yet it has not 

been made much of a part of the farm bill in the past and we are 

going to do more, I hope, in this regard in this bill. Of course, I 

know the Senator from Michigan is one of the leaders in this, she 

and Senator Craig, and I also know the Senator from Pennsylvania, also. So we have got good people here working on this. So 

I thank you very much. 

Now, we will call up our second panel, and he has been most patient being here all this time and I appreciate Senator Craig for 

being here before the next panel. I would call up the next panel. 

That would be Mr. Phil Korson of the Cherry Marketing Institute; 

Ms. Maureen Marshall of the United Fresh Produce Association; 

Mr. A.G. Kawamura, Secretary of Agriculture—well, hello again. I 

haven’t seen you for some time. That is good—from California; Mr. 

John Rice, former Chairman of the U.S. Apple Association; and Mr. 

Bill Brim, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. 

Before we open this panel, I would yield to my good friend, the 

Senator from Idaho, Senator Craig. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR CRAIG, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

IDAHO 

Senator CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the courtesy you have extended to allow me to stay behind the dais this 

morning. I used to serve on this committee and I, in listening to 

the last panel, realize how much I miss it, having farmed and 

ranched what I say the better and productive side of my life. To 

even have a discussion on pollenization was a fascination because 

I used to recertify alfalfa seeds and pollinators were critical. I 

spent a good deal of time in the Central Valley of California now 

working with agricultural people, primarily on water issues and 

immigration and labor issues, so it has always been a fascination 

and an involvement of mine. 

Now I am here working with Senator Stabenow on what I think 

is a very important issue, and when I look at the makeup of the 

panel that you have allowed me to lead this morning, it falls so directly into what you have already said you would put as a high priority this year in the writing of a new farm bill, and we believe it 

is and must be a priority, I think most do not realize, Mr. Chairman, the significance of specialty crops and their value in the U.S. 

economy and in the health of U.S. citizens. You heard a little bit 

of that this morning. 

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture—these figures 

have been talked about some, but fruits and vegetables alone add 

$29.9 billion to the U.S. economy, and that is in 2002. That doesn’t 

include nursery crops and a variety of other ornamental plant crops 

and specialty crops of that type that are rapidly becoming a part 

of the U.S. agricultural and marketing scene. In my State of Idaho, 

that side of it is growing significantly. The specialty crop industry 

accounts for $53 billion in cash receipts for U.S. producers, and 

that is close to 54 percent of total cash receipts for all crops in 

American agriculture today. So it is extremely significant. 

32

I grew up in a State of specialty crops, so when I think of it, yes, 

we are large grain producers in the North, and yes, we produce 

sugar beets, and yes, of course, potatoes. But when I look at cherries and table grapes and wine grapes, of course, and apples and 

onions and carrots and a variety of the seed crops that we produce 

in my State because of the uniqueness of the climate, dry falls, controlled moisture because of irrigation and all that, we really—it has 

been a very significant role for our agriculture to play. 

Just a few years ago, Mr. Chairman, I was able to get the wine 

industry of Idaho just a small grant to do a little focused research, 

to do a little advertising, and it has significantly helped them in 

a way that I think, when I focus on that and when I am working 

with the Senator from Michigan, we clearly understand the importance of it. 

Maintaining a viable and sustainable specialty crop industry 

also, as I said, benefits the American citizen. We heard about obesity earlier and the tragedy of that, especially on our young people 

today. I used to sit in this room chairing the Aging Committee and 

I talked about these longevity charts and what it is doing to us in 

domestic policy, if you will. What do we do when the average age 

gets to be 90, when we have five million septuagenarians. I am 

now being told that if we are not careful, those demographic charts 

are going to adjust, not upward but downward in the next generation, and that would be the greatest tragedy played upon the American scene that we have ever seen. With the kind of investment 

that we make in science and health today, to fail in those areas 

would just be a tragedy. 

S. 1160 that we have introduced, the Specialty Crop Competition 

Act of 2007, we would hope that in the drafting of the farm bill, 

you and the committee would take a special look at this because 

we have spent a good deal of time working with the industry itself, 

crafting it in a unique way, in a bipartisan way that we think fits. 

I talked with the Secretary of Agriculture the other day. They have 

looked at our proposal and are very enthusiastic about it in a general sense. I can’t say it was an endorsement, but he recognizes, 

as we all do, the value of specialty crops in this area. 

Mr. Chairman, this bill does not provide direct subsidy to producers like other programs do. It is a different approach because 

specialty crops are different in that respect. It is a bill that I think 

is a step forward to highlight the significance of this industry in 

a way that brings benefit not only to the industry and the strengthening of it, but also the diversity that the food supply provides to 

a healthy consumer, and that, of course, is predominately the 

American consumer. 

Thank you very much for allowing me to slip in and say hello to 

the committee again and to support my colleague, Senator 

Stabenow, in this effort and the specialty crop industry per se. 

Now, I should stay for the third panel because it is dairy, but I 

won’t. That is one of the uniqueness of my State. We are one of the 

fastest-growing dairy States in the nation, as you know, and I 

think we are up in the top four or five now and still growing and 

it plays a significant role in the overall economy of our State and 

the region. But that, I will not do. You have been generous and 

kind with your time. I will monitor and my staff will work very 

33

closely with yours and the other Senators as you craft a new farm 

bill for our country. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, Senator Craig, thank you very much for 

a very perceptive statement. You sure you don’t want to come back 

on the committee? We could use you for this farm bill. 

Senator CRAIG. I have been trying to get back, but they won’t let 

me for some reason. 

Chairman HARKIN. I know. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, I can assure you, I am aware and my 

staff is aware of the bill that you and Senator Stabenow have. As 

I said, we look forward to working with you. You know how this 

place operates. Obviously, we would like to have the benefit of your 

insight and your knowledge as we move ahead on this bill on specialty crops and what we do to really get not only more produced, 

but get more consumers eating them, too. 

Senator CRAIG. Well, Mr. Chairman, the thing that concerns me, 

and I have watched it closely over the years, there are a variety 

of input problems that are changing the scene of American agriculture. Senator Chambliss and I have worked very closely on the 

issue of labor and a necessary and important labor pool. But I 

think if we are not careful, we are literally going to see the divesting of the U.S. agriculture portfolio in a way that, in the long term, 

damages this country. 

I have large producers not only in my State, but in the Central 

Valley of California, I have had producers tell me, Larry, if we 

can’t do it here, we will simply go elsewhere. And that isn’t a 

threat, that is a reality of all of the input costs. It is a reality of 

certain things. It is a reality of labor, a combination of things that 

we clearly have to be sensitized to. 

And a farm bill can set trends, can set policy, can do a variety 

of things that I think lend to the stability of American agriculture. 

So the task ahead of you is critically important. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Craig. 

Again to this panel, I want to make clear, your statements will 

be made a part of the record in their entirety. We will just go 

down, from Mr. Korson on down, and to introduce Mr. Korson, I 

will yield to the Senator from Michigan, Senator Stabenow. 

Senator STABENOW. Thank you. Before Senator Craig leaves, Mr. 

Chairman, I just want to thank Senator Craig. It is a great pleasure to work with him on this issue. He has, I think, spelled out 

very well what the goals are and I would agree, we have a very 

broad coalition of people, I think from all over the country. I appreciate your leadership. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you and Senator Chambliss 

also care very deeply, both from the standpoint of our growers as 

well as the nutrition programs and what we can do to achieve multiple goals. I would just in introducing my good friend, Phil Korson, 

just have to put a plug in that, in total, about 50 percent of the 

cash receipts in the country, if you count everything beyond fruits 

and vegetables, nuts and horticulture, floriculture, all of it together, about 50 percent is specialty crops and it is the equivalent 

to our five program crops together. 

34

I have program crops in Michigan, as well. We want to see them 

do well. But when we look at 93 percent of the direct farm bill cash 

subsidies going to five program crops, we are not asking for 93 percent. We are not even asking for 1 percent of the cash subsidies. 

But as our panelists will say today, there are important things that 

we need to do to be supporting this critical industry and its variety. 

One of the key people in Michigan, Senator, Phil Korson has 

been a key person in Michigan and nationally on all of these issues. 

He is President and Managing Director of the Cherry Marketing 

Institute, which is a national research and promotion organization 

for tart cherries, which we are proud to lead the Nation in. He has 

also played a key role in planning strategic directions through the 

Tart Cherry Industry Council and he is a member of the Promotion 

Committee for the National Cherry Growers and Industries Foundation. He has numerous awards, is involved, I think, in every aspect not only of cherries, but apples, asparagus, all of our specialty 

crops in Michigan. 

I am just so pleased that you could be here to share your time 

and expertise with us today. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF PHIL KORSON, CHERRY MARKETING 

INSTITUTE, LANSING, MICHIGAN 

Mr. KORSON. Good morning, Chairman Harkin and Ranking 

Member Chambliss and other members of the Senate Agriculture 

Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and present 

testimony on behalf of tart cherry growers in Michigan and across 

the country and provide input into the next farm bill. 

I would like to extend a special thanks to our Senator Debbie 

Stabenow for her important role that she has played on this committee and who has worked very hard on our State’s specialty crops 

and the issues that we face for many, many years. Senator 

Stabenow, we appreciate all that you have done for us. I commend 

you and Senator Craig on the introduction of the new specialty 

crop bill. You have set a high standard for a lot of us in the specialty crop area and the provisions that potentially could be in the 

next farm bill. 

Members of the committee, the Cherry Marketing Institute is a 

national organization that was created in 1988 to help promote tart 

cherries and fund research. Our members who provide funding include primarily growers from across the country. We offer to the 

public, food manufacturers, and government expertise on cherries 

and their application as we think about nutritional uses on basically all fronts and at the same time fund health benefits research 

on our product. 

Our efforts to promote our crop were recently featured in the 

Wall Street Journal when we announced bringing on board Jeff 

Manning as the Chief Marketing Officer. Mr. Manning is best 

known for the development of the ‘‘Got Milk?’’ campaign and 

worked for the California Milk Processing Board for a number of 

years. His instrumental role in developing our new ‘‘Not just another berry’’ campaign will help increase awareness about the incredible health benefits of tart cherries and build new demand as 

we look to the future. 

35

The industry I represent in Michigan and across the country is 

an excellent example of the unique needs of not just cherries, but 

many other specialty crops. My testimony today will outline specific 

concerns as it relates to cherries, but they could be applied to many 

other things. 

First and foremost, the specialty crop community is excited about 

the opportunity to include for the first time ever a specialty crop 

title in this farm bill. We have come a long ways in the last decade 

to make our concerns known to Congress and we appreciate the opportunity to address longstanding issues unique to our crops in this 

farm bill. While there are many causes we all share today, I will 

focus on the importance of nutrition, research, and disaster programs. 

Cherries are an important specialty crop in Michigan’s agricultural economy and the nation. In fact, Michigan’s tart cherry growers produce 75 percent of the U.S. supply on an annual basis. 

Michigan is also a unique State in that many other fruits and vegetables are not grown for fresh consumption. Rather, they are processed in a multitude of value-added products, like dried cherries, 

cherry juice, flash frozen, et cetera, et cetera. 

It is important to note that while the demand for our product has 

been strong, effects on our processing economy in the State and the 

direct impacts on the thousands of fruit and vegetable growers 

processing and handling jobs in Michigan and across the country. 

It is critical that when we are developing legislative language regarding specialty crop, that we consider all forms of fruits and 

vegetables. Processed fruits and vegetables are an important component of a healthy diet and come in many forms, including dried, 

cut, peeled, and flash frozen. 

Nutrition—we support all efforts to increase additional fruit and 

vegetable purchases for distribution to all USDA Nutrition Programs, including the National School Lunch Program. We support 

the highest level possible of mandatory funding for this program. 

Federal purchases of fruits and vegetables in surplus years are 

critical to maintain fair grower prices. 

We have had a good crop in 2006, but we now face an incredible 

surplus that needs an outlet to help maintain grower prices as we 

go into 2007. We are awaiting an announcement from USDA for a 

much-needed purchase of about 26 million pounds of tart cherries. 

The more we can increase the Federal Fruit and Vegetable Purchase Programs, the more we can help specialty crop growers in 

those years when they are in their most surplus position. These 

purchases also provide excellent value and a very competitive price 

for the products that might not otherwise be used. Again, it is important to reiterate that these purchases should not be limited to 

just fresh fruits and vegetables but should be available to all fruits 

and vegetables that are grown and processed in the United States. 

Research is key to the future of our industry. It keeps us on the 

cutting edge and competitive in a world market. We support the 

administration’s proposal for $1 billion for a specialty crop research 

initiative and are especially excited about all the research provisions included in Senator Stabenow’s specialty crop bill. 

One important area that we need more help is in finding alternatives to pesticides used to combat pests and diseases on our 

36

crops. Because the incentive to develop new pesticides is relatively 

small compared to the demand for pesticides for major crops, we 

are at an economic disadvantage and many times don’t have those 

new alternatives available when we need them. Azinphos methyl is 

one example of those that will be phased out in 2012. 

Disaster assistance—as we think about disaster assistance, acts 

of God happen and when they happen, it puts growers in very uncomfortable positions. Margins for growers are simply too thin for 

farmers to absorb these costs on their own, and their low-interest 

loans can sometimes be helpful but are often difficult to pay back 

when operations have been hit hard. We support efforts to create 

permanent disaster assistance for all specialty crop farmers. The 

current emergency supplemental funding bill contains measures 

that would help these farmers, but their fate rests in the political 

whims and in the controversies of the bill. Our nation needs a permanent system in place to help growers who are impacted by these 

natural disasters. 

In conclusion, the specialty crop community and especially the 

United States tart cherry growers that I represent appreciate the 

attention paid to our unique interests in this farm bill. On behalf 

of my growers, I offer my strongest endorsement for the specialty 

crop bill and hope that it provides the foundation for the specialty 

crop title in the farm bill. 

Thank you again to Senator Stabenow for your leadership and 

thank you to the committee for the opportunity to present my 

views. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Korson can be found on page 165 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Korson. 

Now we will turn to Ms. Maureen Torrey Marshall of the United 

Fresh Produce Association of Elba, New York. Ms. Marshall is Vice 

President of Torrey Farms, Incorporated, of Elba, New York. The 

Torrey family has farmed in upstate New York for 11 generations? 

Ms. MARSHALL. Yes. 

Chairman HARKIN. That is very interesting. Ms. Marshall oversees marketing and business management for her family’s 10,000–

acre farm. That is a pretty good size farm. She also works with her 

husband, Paul Marshall, in managing their trucking business. Ms. 

Marshall has served the produce industry at the State and national 

level for many years and is testifying today on behalf of the United 

Fresh Produce Association. 

Welcome and please proceed, Ms. Marshall. 

STATEMENT OF MAUREEN TORREY MARSHALL, UNITED 

FRESH PRODUCE ASSOCIATION, ELBA, NEW YORK 

Ms. MARSHALL. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and 

members of the committee. As I have been introduced, my name is 

Maureen Torrey Marshall. My day job is farming with my two 

brothers in Western New York. Torrey Farms is an 11–generation 

family farm operation that has been able to grow. We specialize in 

fresh-to-market vegetables. We also grow processing vegetables and 

grain crops for rotation, and in 1996 we entered the dairy business 

and we run two dairy farms now. I am also a soccer mom and I 

also assist my husband in his transportation company. My night 

37

job and my passion, I serve as Co-Chairman of the United Fresh 

Produce Association Board of Directors and appreciate the opportunity to testify before the committee regarding the 2007 farm bill 

and the role Congress will play in shaping policy for specialty crop 

producers and my next generation across the United States. 

I am also presenting testimony today along with my colleagues 

on this panel as members of the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance. 

More than 100 organizations representing growers of specialty 

crops, including United Fresh, have indicated their support for the 

policy priorities developed by the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance 

that will be discussed today. 

Domestic policy issues facing the produce industry: As part of the 

broad specialty crop industry, we believe government policy should 

provide incentives for private investment, tools to increase profitability, and help to those producers who are committed to constant 

improvement to better serve the consumer needs. 

Five years ago, during testimony before the House Agriculture 

Committee regarding the reauthorization of the 2002 farm bill, the 

produce industry presented broad-based recommendations for the 

farm bill and we believe that the 2002 farm bill took a step in the 

right direction for the produce industry. However, as part of a 

broader specialty crop coalition, we believe that there are additional areas where the Federal Government can assist in maintaining the competitiveness of this important segment of U.S. agriculture. 

As the policy discussion for the 2007 farm bill takes shape, we 

look forward to working with you to develop new programs and enhance existing programs that will improve the competitiveness of 

the specialty crop industry. Most would recognize that as the specialty crop production across the country varies in different States 

and regions, so do the individual elements that impact production, 

from weather to land values, local regulation, local pest and disease 

pressures. 

Over the past 2 years, the coalition has been working with Members of Congress to develop specific legislative language consistent 

with our priorities and help address the unique diversity of the 

U.S. specialty crop industry. The cumulation of that work came last 

week when Senators Debbie Stabenow and Senator Larry Craig, 

along with 17 cosponsors, introduced the Specialty Crops Competition Act of 2007, S. 1160. We believe this legislation is a comprehensive farm bill package providing the necessary farm work to 

enhance the competitiveness of the specialty crop industry. We expect this legislation to begin a constructive discussion of specific 

crop farm policy and allow our industry to play a significant role 

in the farm bill debate. We congratulate and thank you two Senators, along with your colleagues who cosponsored this bill, on supporting the efforts of the specialty crop industries across the country. 

I would now like to take a few minutes to highlight some of the 

policy areas that we believe Congress should incorporate into the 

2007 farm bill and are at the focus of the coalition’s farm bill recommendations. 

Prohibition of planting fruits and vegetables—the Specialty Crop 

Farm Bill Alliance strongly supports maintaining or strengthening 

38

current U.S. planning policy, which restricts producers from growing fruits and vegetables on acres receiving program payments. 

Fruit and vegetable producers are concerned that any alterations 

in this provision would allow commodity producers to migrate any 

startup costs or migrate risks inherent to fruit and vegetable production, resulting in unfair competition. 

Nutrition policy—the fruit and vegetable industry has the good 

fortune to offer consumers a healthy and nutritious product that is 

recognized as critical to preventing cancer and other chronic diseases, reducing obesity, diabetes, and maintaining overall good 

health. The dietary guidelines for Americans call for the consumption of five to 13 servings a day of fruits and vegetables, but on any 

given day, 45 percent of children eat no fruit at all and 20 percent 

eat less than one serving of vegetables. The School Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program is an effective and popular nutrition program 

proven to increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption. It should 

be significantly expanded in the 2007 farm bill. 

State block grants—the industry also supports continued expansion of the State Block Grant Program for specialty crops and allow 

States to invest in programs and projects that support productionrelated research, commodity promotion, food safety, and other programs that enhance the competitiveness of specialty crop producers. Because different States have different conditions, it is important that we have these different block grants that can meet the 

needs of a particular State. 

Research policy—we need to continue investments in research 

and development for specialty crop production. We also need a good 

conservation policy. As environmental regulations continue to put 

pressure on specialty crops industry’s ability to be competitive in 

the world economy, we need to keep pushing our conservation policy. 

Our international trade policy—we should address attention to 

our current trade policies which help expand market access. We 

face obstacles in the development export markets for our commodities and the unique challenges due to the perishable nature of our 

products. Farm bill programs that have worked well, increasing access to foreign markets for domestically produced specialty crops 

are the Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops and the Market 

Access Program, should be expanded in the next farm bill. 

In concluding, many of the pressures that specialty crop producers face are similar to those of producers of other commodities, 

but the perishable nature of our crops result in different marketing 

strategies, market requirements, and the need to move our product 

to market quickly. We hope these unique characteristics can be addressed through agricultural policies that drive domestic consumption and expand foreign market access while investing in research, 

food safety, conservation, and pest exclusion policies that benefit 

the U.S. specialty crop industry. 

Like producers of program crops, specialty crop growers face significant challenges in the production and marketing of their commodities that must be addressed if we are going to remain competitive in an increasingly global marketplace. We ask that the committee continue to work with the produce industry to ensure that 

specialty crops are appropriately addressed as we move forward. 

39

Chairman HARKIN. Could you sum up, please? 

Ms. MARSHALL. That concludes it. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Marshall can be found on page 

197 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Next we turn to Secretary A.G. Kawamura, who is the Secretary 

of Agriculture for the State of California. I was privileged to be on 

your farm once a few years ago. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. Yes, you were. 

Chairman HARKIN. Congratulations on your position as Secretary 

of Agriculture. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. Thank you very much. 

Chairman HARKIN. Welcome to the committee. 

STATEMENT OF A.G. KAWAMURA, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 

Mr. KAWAMURA. That field, many of us—in fact, many of the 

farmers around the country, of course, rent properties to grow their 

crops. Unfortunately, that field that you were in is now a housing 

development, for the record. 

Thank you, Chairman Harkin, members of the committee, for 

calling this hearing to discuss challenges and opportunities facing 

American growers and ranchers. I am here representing Governor 

Schwarzenegger, who has been a champion and a very big supporter of agriculture, not just in California, but across the country. 

In California, we are working hard to share our understanding 

that access to nutritious California-grown foods and foods from 

other States is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle and is 

key to maintaining the economic prosperity of the State and nation. 

The health of this nation relies upon the investment we make in 

our agricultural economy. 

As we move toward reauthorizing a 21st century farm bill, we 

must understand the key challenges and opportunities facing agriculture. It was not long ago that this nation’s specialty crop industry—fruits, vegetables, and nuts, the other products—were referred 

to as minor crops. In fact, the U.S. specialty crops industry now accounts for, as was mentioned several times, over 50 percent of the 

U.S. farmgate value. It is not wrong to say that U.S. agriculture 

has been defined in the past by the great successes of corn, dairy, 

wheat, rice, and cotton, but it is wrong to omit specialty crops from 

the list of high achievements and high successes. 

Every nation in the world seeks a healthy, thriving population. 

We as the United States, the producer of the safest and highestquality agricultural products, are facing a crisis in nutrition. The 

tragedy of adult onset diabetes in children and other health implications from malnutrition are the evidence of this epidemic. According to health professionals, we as a nation spend 95 percent of our 

health care costs after we are already sick and less than 5 percent 

on prevention and wellness. No farmer in this nation would want 

that ratio. We spend 90–something percent of our dollars making 

sure our crops or our flocks are thriving and we hope we don’t have 

5 percent that are chronically sick. 

40

U.S. agriculture provides a healthy building block for a diet of 

dairy, whole grains, meats, and specialty crops. We provide guidelines that can improve the individual diet, increase the health of 

the nation, and reduce the cost and burden of health care. Yet 

when we speak of a farm bill, consumers and the media see entitlements. Instead, we should speak of a public health bill that places 

agriculture on the forefront of preventative care, providing healthy 

and nutritious products to a thriving population. 

The key elements of this public health bill should focus on the 

overall health of our nation. The areas of nutrition, rural communities, working landscapes as part of the environment, specialty 

crops, and renewable energy must be priorities. The specialty crop 

industry, nearly 50 percent of U.S. farmgate value, is the key to 

improving the health of this nation. Within a farm bill context, we 

should see not that specialty crops are there by themselves as an 

individual title, but rather encompassed within all title areas of the 

farm bill. 

The Specialty Crop Competitiveness Act of 2001 was unable to 

fulfill the demand that was placed upon it. The Act did, however, 

provide multiple successes in the areas of research, nutrition, disease prevention, marketing, and trade, hitting the targeted areas 

of a healthy nation. The most innovative concepts in this Act provided funding directly to States to address local challenges and opportunities that cannot be effectively addressed by the national 

government. Every State’s specialty crops’ needs are different and 

States are in the best positions to assist local growers with the specific investments they need to increase competitiveness. 

The Specialty Crops Competitiveness Act is an investment in the 

health of the Nation and must be integrated within our public 

health bill. We can all agree that investment in agriculture is necessary. Providing the funding for that investment is difficult. We 

should not be restricted to a shrinking pie scenario when we are 

making an investment in our critical resource base for the next 5 

years. In respect to funding for the farm bill, Congress should look 

for innovative areas in government funding that can increase the 

preventive role of agriculture in our nation’s health by 

reprioritizing our investment strategy. 

In the end, we as stewards of our nation’s agricultural infrastructure must take a targeted investment approach that enhances the 

health of our population and environment and continues to provide 

a dependable, safe, and affordable supply of food, fiber, and fuel. 

If we fail to make that investment, we will be held accountable for 

turning over the security and safety of our food supply to foreign 

agricultural suppliers. We do not want to become replaceable suppliers of those products. A secure domestic food, fuel, and fiber supply is a national security imperative for the United States. 

In closing, we have seen the success of the Specialty Crop Competitiveness Act of 2001, the concurrent success of the 2004 Specialty Crop Act. We see some very good efforts from Congress, from 

the Senate, from the House in terms of specialty crop bills that are 

out there, whether it is S. 1160 or 1600, and we look for more collaboration in those bills and more attention to those kinds of priorities. 

41

I cannot stress enough that this is not the time in our nation’s 

history to allow a shrinking pie mentality for the investment we 

need to make in the strategic resource of agriculture. Our commitment to agriculture and our commitment to a healthy nation and 

population deserves this investment. 

Chairman Harkin, members of the committee, thank you again 

for this opportunity to provide remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kawamura can be found on page 

161 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much, and 

again, I thank you for your many years of public service and your 

devotion to agriculture and to public health and to preventative 

health, and maybe I will get into a little bit more of that in the 

question period. 

Now we turn to Mr. John Rice. Mr. Rice is a seventh generation 

fruit grower in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Together with three 

of his brothers, he owns and operates R&L Orchards, which has 

about 1,000 acres of orchards, including 800 acres of apples, 160 

acres of peaches and nectarines, and 40 acres of pears. He is the 

former Chairman of the U.S. Apple Association and is testifying 

here today on his own behalf. 

Mr. Rice, welcome to the committee. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN RICE, FORMER CHAIRMAN, U.S. APPLE 

ASSOCIATION, GARDNERS, PENNSYLVANIA, ON HIS OWN BEHALF 

Mr. RICE. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member 

Chambliss. Thank you for the kind remarks from my own Senator 

Casey, and thank you, distinguished members of the committee 

and good friends of the U.S. apple industry. As I have been introduced my name is John Rice. I am a seventh generation fruit grower from Pennsylvania. Together with my three brothers, we own 

and operate R&L Orchard Company and Rice Fruit Company, 

which stores, packs, and markets fresh fruit produced by R&L Orchards and about 50 other family farms in Pennsylvania, as well 

as Maryland and New York. Today, Rice Fruit Company is the 

largest fresh apple packing facility in the East. We have 115 fulltime employees and employ as many as 150 seasonal employees. 

In many ways, it is an exciting time to be in the apple business. 

A number of exciting new health research studies have found possible links between the consumption of apples and apple products 

with a lower risk of breast cancer, heart disease, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, and other serious health issues. New, great-tasting varieties and new products, like bagged fresh-sliced apples, 

may lead to expanding consumer demand and apple consumption. 

But at the same time, a very tenuous labor supply, high energy 

costs, world competition, and increasing regulations present unprecedented challenges for our industry. 

The produce industry historically has never relied upon direct 

payment programs to support grower income or market prices. Like 

the majority of fruit and vegetable growers today, I do not believe 

that this would be in the long-term interest of my industry. But 

our industry is strongly advocating for programs that will grow demand and grow consumption of our products. The Specialty Crops 

42

Competition Act introduced last week by Senators Stabenow, Craig, 

Casey, and others, goes a long way toward achieving those goals. 

Programs such as the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program are 

also critical to our industry’s survival, but the current program is 

seriously underfunded. Pennsylvania received just over $100,000 

this past year, and that makes it nearly impossible to fund the 

types of projects that we were able to realize through the 2001 program. 

The export market is also critical to the health of the apple industry in Pennsylvania and nationally. Approximately 25 percent 

of the entire U.S. fresh apple crop is sold into foreign markets. The 

Market Access Program has been very beneficial to the apple industry, helping to level the playing field as we compete with countries such as China and Chile. It operates with matching funds provided by American growers, and these American producers help to 

direct and manage the ways the funds are spent. MAP is a great 

example of a successful partnership between government and private business. It deserves your continued support and increased 

funding. 

Apple producers and the entire specialty crop industry face 

mounting pressures from the decrease in the availability of important crop protection tools. We know that our customers and consumers are placing an increased value on sustainability and conservation. Unfortunately, conservation practices can be very costly 

and these costs are difficult to recoup in the marketplace. Therefore, the next farm bill should include expansion of conservation 

programs, such as EQIP and the Conservation Security Program. 

Both programs encourage good stewardship of the environment, 

but these programs need to be expanded with effective outreach to 

industries such as ours, since few of our growers presently know 

how to access and successfully apply for these programs. 

Federal farm policy today must emphasize the need for significant investment in specialty crop research. Of particular interest to 

us as apple growers are research programs that improve labor productivity, root stocks and varietal selection, production efficiency, 

and fruit quality. 

In conclusion, the American apple industry hopes and expects to 

remain an important part of the American agricultural economy 

and the American way of life. We are, after all, as American as 

apple pie. But to survive, we need the support of an agricultural 

policy that will promote our products and help our farmers and not 

just weigh them down with regulations. The 2007 farm bill could 

help us open the door to a healthier produce industry and a 

healthier America. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing us to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rice can be found on page 208 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Rice. I am going 

to be asking about Elmwood School in my round of questioning. 

To introduce our last witness, I will turn to our Ranking Member, Senator Chambliss. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very 

pleased to have today as the final member of this panel Mr. Bill 

Brim. Bill is a longtime dear friend of mine whose farming operVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:10 Aug 28, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35051.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
43

ation is located in Tift County, Georgia, which is adjacent to my 

home county and right in the heart of agriculture county in Southwest Georgia. Bill operates a greenhouse operation for transplant 

both vegetables and pine trees and he also has about 4,000 acres 

that he operates from a produce production standpoint. 

Bill is not only one of the best farmers in America, but Bill is 

one of the true leaders in the agriculture community in this country. He visits us quite often here in Washington and has testified 

before this committee a number of times. Bill has truly been a 

leader in so many different areas, but most recently in the area of 

the Migrant Worker Program, H2(a) program, and seeking to help 

us reform it in the right way. Bill is a great resource for me, in 

addition to being a dear friend. 

So, Bill, welcome to the committee. We look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF BILL BRIM, GEORGIA FRUIT AND VEGETABLE 

GROWERS ASSOCIATION, TIFTON, GEORGIA 

Mr. BRIM. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to 

be here today. Good morning, Chairman Harkin and Senator 

Chambliss. I just want to take a moment just to thank Senator 

Chambliss for really knowing what agriculture is all about in our 

State and how much we appreciate him down in South Georgia and 

the knowledge that he has and presents to us and gives us an opportunity to voice our opinions back to him so he really knows 

what is where about what is going on in our area. 

Over the past 2 years, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers 

Association had about 80 different specialty crop organizations to 

help develop our industry’s 2007 farm bill policy recommendations. 

As noted in my written testimony, we support the Specialty Crop 

Coalition recommendations to this committee. 

Mr. Chairman, in your invitation, you stated that the hearing 

would focus on economic challenges and opportunities facing 

produce producers in today’s world. My comments are directed at 

two economic challenges and two economic opportunities which we 

face as Southeast growers. 

Beginning in the 1985 farm bill, program crop producers have 

been restricted from planting fruits and vegetables on land for 

which they received a subsidy payment. While there have been 

some adjustments in the flex agriculture planting restrictions, essentially it has remained in place as a fairness issue. Removing the 

planting restrictions on base acres will allow program crop producers to continue to receive a subsidy even if they are growing 

fruits and vegetables. This will place most fruit and vegetable 

growers at a competitive disadvantage and before the crop is even 

planted. 

In addition, according to the flex acres economic study report by 

Informer Marketing Research, removing the planting restrictions is 

predicted to remove roughly one million acres into production of 

specialty crops—remove roughly one million acres. While this accounts for less than one-half of 1 percent of the total program 

crops, acre-based, it represents more than a 10–percent increase in 

the total specialty crop acreage. The study projected if the planting 

restriction plan was lifted in Georgia, we would see more than 

44

26,000 new acres. That would be an increase of almost 9 percent 

in our State’s production, large enough to significantly impact market supply and demand. Nationwide, we expect over-production 

would translate into a revenue loss of over $3.1 billion in fruits and 

vegetables to fruit and vegetable growers. Plain and simple, removing the planting restriction flexibility restriction will be a significant economic disaster for the fruit and vegetable industry. 

Another major challenge for specialty crop producers is the $80,000 limit placed on disaster payments. We support restructuring the current disaster assistance payment regulations to allow 

specialty crop producers to receive a proportionately larger disaster 

assistance payment due to much higher input costs, higher labor 

costs, potential losses per acre experienced by specialty crop producers as a result of a disaster. This is significantly greater than 

that of other commodity producers. 

Another area is the block grants can be a tremendous economic 

opportunity for specialty crop producers. For example, funds for the 

2001 block grants allowed our association to establish a Food Safety Network, an educational initiative that would train over 300 

growers and certify more than 50 farm operations. A State block 

grant is a centerpiece for a fruit and vegetable farm bill program. 

Each of our specialty crops and each geographic area have unique 

challenges and attributes which must be addressed individually. It 

is at this State level that growers, shippers, packers, workers, laborers together with industry and government have the expertise 

and can identify the programs that we need to enhance our competitiveness in the specialty crop industry as a producer. 

The economic opportunities generated from agricultural research, 

except to say research is the foundation for the growth of our industry and acts as a catalyst for change. Federal investment in agricultural research should be increased and allocated to reflect the 

national importance of fruits and vegetables in our American diet, 

supporting our food safely, our health, our American diets, our safe 

food supply that we have in this country. 

Mr. Chairman and Senator Chambliss, thank you for the opportunity to present our thoughts and views today as we look forward 

to working together to craft a farm bill that would address the economic opportunities and challenges we are facing in the fruit and 

vegetable industry. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brim can be found on page 101 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Brim, and I thank 

all the panel for excellent testimonies. 

I guess for all of you, I just want to say that we have to increase 

consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, and Mr. Kawamura, I 

think, really put his finger on it, talking about preventative health 

and getting people to eat better. We know what is happening to 

kids with diabetes and obesity, the new dietary guidelines. We 

have to get these kids eating better for our next generation. 

To that extent, the last farm bill started a pilot program, and 

some of you mentioned it in your testimony, the Fresh Fruit and 

Vegetable Program, a Snack Program in schools. We started in four 

States, Michigan being one of them, and I think we are up to 14 

States now. We started with four States and 100 schools. We are 

45

up to about 14 States and 400 or 500 schools, something like that, 

now. Every school that has ever participated, not one school has 

asked to drop out of it. And now in States like yours, Mr. Rice, 

where we are now starting, schools that don’t have it are wondering why they can’t get it. 

You had a story about Elmwood School and the kids there getting the snacks and they are now involving nutrition education 

along with it. I have been to several schools in different places that 

have this program and many of them have incorporated nutrition 

education into their curriculum. In other words, they are not only 

giving the fresh fruit to the kids, but then, they also address where 

where does the fruit come from or where do the vegetables come 

from, how they are grown, that type of thing. 

More and more, we are seeing these kids that really kids get 

hungry in school in the morning, and when they get those growlies, 

as the teacher says, now they are able to get fresh fruit or a vegetable or carrot sticks or broccoli—I have seen with my own eyes, 

and I think you are probably going to think I am probably going 

too far in this, but I have seen with my own eyes elementary school 

kids eating fresh spinach. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. People think I must be exaggerating, but it’s 

true. They get these little bags. Now, some of the marketing, I 

think Dole and Sunkist and others are now packing for this program and they put these little baby spinach leaves in a little bag 

and they give a little can of that ranch dip and those kids eat that 

fresh spinach or fresh broccoli. They dip it in and eat it and the 

kids love it. 

Now, why do I belabor that point? My goal, personal or as Chairman of this committee, is to expand that program. My goal is that 

within 10 years, that every elementary school kid in America gets 

free—free—fresh fruits and vegetables as snacks, morning, afternoon, not just in the lunchroom, but in the morning and in the 

afternoon, any time of the day, any time they get hungry. 

That is about, I think right around about $2 billion a year. So 

we can’t do it right now, but we have got to keep moving it up, $2 

billion a year. That would be quite a market for fresh fruits and 

vegetables, plus it does, for Mr. Kawamura, it provides for preventative health care and gets kids started early understanding about 

fresh fruits and vegetables so that as they grow older, they will 

continue to eat these fresh fruits and vegetables. 

Almost all of you talked about that. I know you are all familiar 

with it. It has had kind of a slow start, but it is moving and we 

know that it is well liked. 

I say to my friend, Secretary Kawamura, I hope that you will go 

back and talk to Governor Schwarzenegger about this. I have 

talked to him about it personally and we would love to get California involved in this program. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. Yes. Actually, following your great leadership, 

Chairman Harkin, this last year, we had an $18 million bill for a 

School Snack Program for fruits and vegetables in the school cafeterias as well as a $15 million School Garden Program that helps 

bring a garden back to every school where the kids can learn these 

46

garden-based lessons. So we are trying to get there just like everybody else. 

Chairman HARKIN. Has that gotten through the legislature? 

Mr. KAWAMURA. It did get through the legislature last year and 

we hope to do that again this year. 

Chairman HARKIN. That is great. Good for you. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. It is a crisis. 

Chairman HARKIN. How much is it? 

Mr. KAWAMURA. It is an $18 million School Snack Program for 

the fruit and vegetable side of it and a $15 million——

Chairman HARKIN. So it tracks exactly what these other States 

are doing, right? 

Mr. KAWAMURA. That is correct, because we are not a part of 

that program yet, but we hope to be on the Federal level. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, this is great news. I did not know that, 

because I had once talked on the phone with Governor 

Schwarzenegger about this, and, of course, he is doing some great 

things in getting junk food out of schools and getting healthier food 

into schools, so please take back my appreciation for his leadership 

in that area. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. That is exactly right. We all recognize at this 

point we can’t say we are ignorant about what the problem is, and 

if we don’t act on it soon and quickly, we all move into the realm 

of negligence, I know. 

Chairman HARKIN. One other question, just open to the panel, is 

what are the two or three most important things that our bill, the 

farm bill, should do to help encourage Americans to eat more fruits 

and vegetables? Well, the Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program, obviously, for the kids in school. What else would you advise us to 

do? Yes, Mr. Korson? 

Mr. KORSON. One of the things that I think we rely on and one 

of our program ideas is always to promote our own industry and 

whatever we can do to promote awareness on what these things actually do when you consume them. I think fruits and vegetables, 

in particular, are just this fabulous resource, and a lot of people 

just take it for granted. They don’t really realize it. And so I think 

we all need additional dollars to do what we can to promote our 

industries not only in the schools, but across the country. That is 

one area. 

Chairman HARKIN. Okay. 

Ms. MARSHALL. I think with the USDA looking at the WIC Program and maybe when we had the testimony and the hearings of 

including the $8 voucher, and if that gets approved, that is going 

to help improve the health of women and young children. And I 

think your idea that you presented in the first panel about part of 

the Food Stamp, there would be a credit in buying fresh fruits and 

vegetables. 

And I also think with the School Snack Program, it goes farther 

than just with the young people. These people go home. Their parents see what they are eating. They realize that their child is not 

sick as often. They don’t have to worry about child care while the 

child is sick and they are starting to see results from that. It is also 

affecting the eating patterns of the parents. 

47

Chairman HARKIN. Sure. We have had testimony on that, about 

kids who go home to parents and they are asking their parents to 

buy these things. Mr. Secretary? 

Mr. KAWAMURA. One of the things that I think the public has forgotten is the original Food Stamp Program came in the early 1940’s 

when recruits applying for the U.S. Services could not pass the 

physical, and so the Food Stamp Program is not an act of charity 

or compassion, although it seems that way. Certainly we address 

the needs of the needy. In this case, it was an investment in the 

health of its first No. 1 resource, which is the American public and 

the ability to defend a nation. 

The current hard work that went into putting together the new 

food pyramid out of the USDA, if we were to just follow those 

guidelines, whether it is whole foods, a good amount of both good 

dairy products, meats, and then, of course, the fruits, vegetables, 

and nuts, the food guide in that pyramid would tremendously 

change the way not only the Nation moves forward in its own 

health, but would also significantly help agriculture in many, many 

areas, if not all. 

Chairman HARKIN. Any other responses to that? My question 

was, what should we do in the farm bill? Yes, Mr. Rice? 

Mr. RICE. Certainly from the standpoint of the apple industry, 

we would like to see much more money appropriated in the farm 

bill for specialty crop research. It is something that we have been 

losing over the years and is something that we regard as very important. 

There are a list of things in our roadmap that we would like to 

ask for in the way of help from the ARS and the USDA. One thing 

in particular are labor-saving devices, which we think may be a 

long-term solution to the labor shortages that we see down the 

road. And yet I believe that there is legislation that limits the 

USDA’s ability to even fund research that would do mechanical 

harvesting and I think that that is being addressed. It is something 

that we believe we are on the cusp of having the sensor technology, 

but we do not have it now. It is not the kind of thing that we can 

do very well from within our industry. It is the kind of thing that 

the USDA, ARS is in a very good position to help us with and that 

is what we would like to see. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you. 

Mr. BRIM. Yes. I think being able to support our specialty crops 

by supporting the WIC Program, Food Stamp Program, and the 

programs going to the elementary schools to allow more schools, 

like you said a while ago, Senator, the more we can put on line, 

the more vegetables we are going to be able to produce and sell. 

I think our nutritional value of these vegetables will certainly help 

us down the road as far as being able to take care of our nation 

and then our health. 

Chairman HARKIN. Very true. Very true. Thank you all very 

much. 

I will yield to the Senator from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, who 

is a great leader in this whole area. 

Senator STABENOW. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, for 

holding this hearing because this is very important. I appreciate it 

and I know that your interest and your leadership on nutrition 

48

dovetails in such an important way with what we are talking about 

today. 

I might just mention again that the Commodity Purchase Program, which is so critical not only to support our growers and keeping—when there is a surplus in terms of pricing, but making those 

fruits and vegetables available to the programs that are so important in our school lunch and breakfast and senior nutrition and all 

those kinds of things. So it is a wonderful partnership, and last 

time in the farm bill, we thought we were adding a requirement 

to purchase $200 million more a year in fruits and vegetables and 

unfortunately the USDA interpreted that as $200 million, period, 

not $200 million more. So this is an area that I am hoping we can 

fix and clarify and have folks understand that we want increased 

purchases. 

There are so many different pieces as it relates to specialty crops, 

from research which is critical into pests and disease, to market access, to commodity purchase, to support EQIP, to conservation programs, tree assistance, I mean, there are all kinds of important 

pieces that come together and I appreciate your speaking to many 

of those. But I wonder if we might just take a moment to talk a 

little bit more about the Block Grant Program. 

The USDA has put forward their farm bill, and I appreciate they 

have placed more dollars, substantially more dollars into research, 

other areas, which is very positive. But they did not include funding for a Block Grant Program for the States. So I am wondering 

if you would like to speak to that. I know, Phil, you spoke about 

promoting the industry and how each of the commodities promotes 

their industry, but I wonder if you might speak to the State Block 

Grant Program and how that is important. 

Mr. KORSON. I think, in particular, the State Block Grant Program, and that is really, when I was thinking about promotion and 

how do we expand the knowledge and the wealth of knowledge, 

those Block Grant Programs are really critical, especially when 

they come back to the States and directly back to commodity 

groups, because then it becomes a partnership and that partnership then allows industries to set priorities on how they allocate 

those resources out. 

In our particular case, we spend a lot of our dollars on school 

lunch promotion activities. When the government buys cherries, for 

example, or dried cherries, for example, we then work with school 

lunch directors to show them how to use those products in various 

ways. We also attend a lot of the shows and different events that 

really try to wholesale change the way people think about cherries. 

And so those block grants play a key role in that promotion, market awareness opportunity that we would take advantage of as a 

commodity group. They are really important. 

Senator STABENOW. Mr. Chairman, I think it is an important 

point. The State Block Grant Programs give the States and the 

commodity groups the ability to have resources to do the promotion 

that you were talking about earlier and I am hopeful we will see 

that retained. 

Mr. Secretary, in calling on you, I also want to—a good friend of 

mine, Alice Waters, has done amazing work on the schoolyard gardens and so on. I am assuming she is working with you. 

49

Mr. KAWAMURA. Yes, she is. 

Senator STABENOW. Yes. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. We have had a great working relationship on 

talking about ‘‘slow food’’ as a part of this nation. We have a very 

fast society and slow food is one of those very exciting areas that 

is building throughout the country. 

Senator STABENOW. Right. But on block grants? 

Mr. KAWAMURA. On block grants specifically, as you would know, 

the State Departments of Agriculture, NASDA, in talking about 

block grants unanimously supported the success of those block 

grants and actually compiled a record from the 2001 block grant 

projects and put that together, showed that over $40 million were 

leveraged against the $120–plus million that were originally given. 

And so the ability to leverage dollars to increase investment in 

many areas, whether it is research, whether it is marketing, 

whether it is access to foreign markets, these were all some of the 

success stories that came out of those block grants. 

In our own State, we were able to leverage almost a 60 percent 

increase in terms of matching costs investments in block grants in 

our State, and this program was over-subscribed. Many, many people had applied for those programs and we ran out of money, all 

of us, all the States. And so the distribution of those dollars, the 

investment that they created, and the return to the U.S. economy 

as, again, an investment, not a cost in this component of what a 

farm bill can be, is probably one of the most significant innovations, I think, that we are all excited about, and certainly we hope 

to see in a new farm bill. 

Senator STABENOW. That is great. It sounds like you leverage 

that very, very well. So we put in some dollars and then we are 

able to——

Mr. KAWAMURA. There are not many other areas in government 

spending that you see that kind of partnership. 

Senator STABENOW. Thank you. Mr. Rice, did you want to respond? 

Mr. RICE. Yes, I did want to comment. I eliminated some comments in my oral testimony talking about the Block Grant Program, but it is interesting what the States have done with the 

block grant monies that were appropriated in 2001. They have, in 

many cases, taken very different routes which have produced some 

surprisingly good results. 

In Pennsylvania, we first raised the visibility of the local produce 

industry by promoting the local produce growers and then using 

State funds to actually try to connect our food service operators to 

buy from the local growers and supply it to our schools. 

An interesting project that was funded by the Block Grant Program in the State of Michigan you are probably familiar with was 

to improve the technology for making the fresh apple slices. They, 

in fact, ended up making a breakthrough in that technology, which 

is one of the reasons why I believe one of our largest fast food retailers has been very successful in selling fresh apple slices for the 

first time in all their restaurants. 

The State of Virginia used block grant money to set up and pass 

the rather arduous protocol set up by the country of Mexico to export apples into that country. They were able to meet that protocol 

50

and now Mexico is one of the more important export markets for 

Virginia. 

So it is a way of giving the States an opportunity to say what 

are their priorities, and where they have, in fact, used them, they 

seem to have produced very positive results. 

Senator STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Senator. Senator 

Chambliss? 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have got a 

question or comment I want to make here and I would like to get 

a comment from each one of you on it. 

The American Farm Bureau Federation is going to present testimony here tomorrow. Given the determination in the Brazil cotton 

case, the American Farm Bureau supports the elimination of the 

fruit and vegetable planting prohibition. They support eliminating 

the restriction on direct payments and continuing the restriction 

for countercyclical payments. The Farm Bureau concludes that a 

realistic amount of funding to compensate specialty crop growers 

for the elimination of the planting prohibition and the loss of direct 

payments on those program crop acres is $250 million annually. 

Their testimony goes on to suggest that one approach would be 

to invest this amount in specialty crop conservation programs. Specifically, the Farm Bureau recommends a $250 million annual increase in EQIP for fruit and vegetable producers as well as earmark 17 percent of all mandatory EQIP funding for fruit and vegetable production. 

I am curious to hear your comments on all of this. This issue is 

going to be somewhat controversial, the issue on planting flexibility, as we get into this farm bill. Bill, let us start with you and 

just give me a comment what you think about the planting flexibility issue and their proposal on this $250 million. 

Mr. BRIM. Well, I think the proposal of the $250 million is a drop 

in the bucket to what we will lose if the planting flexibility is not 

held to. Also, the possibilities of them building up conservation, I 

agree with. I think that is a great idea. But with the $250 million, 

we will lose at least our first year $3.1 billion if we don’t hold them 

on the flexibility. 

I would like to see you do some more research on it before you 

vote and make sure that you hold them to the flexibilities for us 

in fruit and vegetables because we have got so many things that 

we can lose, and that is just in the first year. With the situation 

with our growers in Georgia right now, with the disasters they 

have had in the last couple of years, they don’t need any obstacles 

to have to overcome after those couple years. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. [Presiding.] Mr. Rice? 

Mr. RICE. I think I would defer to Maureen Marshall. Certainly, 

the apple industry is completely in tune with the United Produce 

Association with regard to flex acres. We think it would make it 

very difficult for us to compete with a part of agriculture that we 

haven’t had to compete with before. It is hard enough to compete 

with ourselves. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Kawamura? 

Mr. KAWAMURA. Although our State certainly would encourage 

an increase in the conservation title and the EQIP Program, we 

51

have been very strongly against the flex acreage elimination. We 

struggle enough many times thinking that we are always talking 

about the proverbial level playing field when we talk about the 

international competition, but when we have an unlevel playing 

field within our own country, that is very difficult and that is a big 

struggle for us. 

When we look at specialty crops, however, in that flex title, there 

is always a new specialty crop emerging and we all recognize what 

that is. That is energy crops. And so part of the direction, the 

places people can go is certainly—and we hope—that the energy 

crop arena in all of its spectrum, whether it is biodiesel or bioethanol or any of the other products that are coming along, are all 

crops that we are excited about that people can transition to. 

But going back to the flex acreage, our State has always been 

and continues to be very strongly against the elimination of the 

flex program. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Ms. Marshall? 

Ms. MARSHALL. I have to echo my other panel members in what 

they have said, and as Bill has said, the impact on the family farm 

and individual farmer is going to be a whole lot greater than the 

$250 million. We do recognize we need the conservation programs 

and the EQIP Programs, but we need to maintain that flex acre 

program. As a farmer, it has been a business decision. We grow 

program crops. We are also fresh market vegetable. It is a decision 

that we made at the time of growing. 

To put it in plain language, to the program farm growers in my 

area, the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, so they 

are going to go out and plant lots of easy-growing specialty crops 

and they are going to flood the market and we are all going to turn 

out losing. I am going to lose more because they have program 

money coming on those acres if it is allowed to change. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Korson? 

Mr. KORSON. I defer to Ms. Marshall. We are part of this coalition, as well, and while tree fruit growers are probably less impacted because of the trees that you plant in the ground, the vegetable component, we are partners in this project and so we support 

United’s position on this. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. It is a difficult issue and it sounds like 

something that ought to be easy to resolve, but as we move into 

a farm bill, my attitude has always been that we give our farmers 

the opportunity to begin in every new farm bill to decide which direction you want to go in. Ms. Marshall, you say you participate 

in program crops. Bill, obviously we have a lot of folks who participate in production crops as you do, as well as in specialty crops. 

It is a decision for each farmer and I am afraid it is one of those 

things that if we get away from the current program, we get more 

into mandating to folks than we do otherwise. 

Bill, I appreciate your comments here regarding the planting restriction. We have had the opportunity to discuss this in the past, 

at previous hearings, but since that time, the Informer Report that 

you mentioned has been released. What key message would you 

like to leave with the committee about this subject as we move 

closer to the farm bill? 

52

Mr. BRIM. With the Informer Report being as conclusive as it 

was, I think it would be disastrous for us in the fruit and vegetable 

industry and in the specialty crop industry to not be taken to task, 

but put us back in a safety net with these flex acres, because if we 

are not supported, we are going to lose. And if we don’t—with different States receiving different DCP payments, the countercyclical 

payments, we all have to deal with that because, like I said, I am 

a program crop grower as well as a 4,000–acre vegetable grower. 

So we, as farmers, we can deal with that. 

But this Informer Report, it is going to hurt too many family 

farms and vegetable farms for us to do anything other than keep 

this safety net for us, whatever the WTO says or not. I mean, I 

think at some point in time we have got to say how important our 

farmers and how important is it to ruin those WTO. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. All right. Thank you all very much for some 

very good testimony this morning. 

Ms. MARSHALL. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. [Presiding.] Again, thank you all to this panel 

for being here and for your wonderful testimony. Mr. Secretary, 

please take my regards back to your Governor and thank him for 

the job he is doing. 

Mr. KAWAMURA. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thanks. I will call our third panel, and this 

is the dairy panel, Mr. Jerry Kozak, Mr. Clint Fall, Ms. Connie 

Tipton, Mr. Eugene Robertson, Mr. Russell Redding, and Mr. 

Randy Jasper. I am informed that Mr. Redding is under the weather and will not be testifying today. 

I want to thank this panel for its patience in waiting so long to 

testify. We are constrained by the number of days around here 

when we can have our hearings and things because of everything 

else that is going on, so I had to try to get as much as I could in 

today. 

But again, another critical part of our agricultural bill, as it always has been, is the dairy portion. As I mentioned, it is one of 

the larger parts of our agricultural economy in America today. It 

is a very complex issue, very complex issue. I look forward to hearing your testimony. As I said, all your statements will be made a 

part of the record in their entirety, and we will go down the line. 

We will start, again, from this side over, with Mr. Jerry Kozak, 

National Milk Producers Federation. He is the President and CEO 

of the National Milk Producers Federation. He also serves as Executive Director of the American Butter Institute. Mr. Kozak prior to 

this had also been a high-level official with the U.S. Food and Drug 

Administration. 

Mr. Kozak, welcome to the committee and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF JERRY KOZAK, NATIONAL MILK PRODUCERS 

FEDERATION, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA 

Mr. KOZAK. Thank you, Senator Harkin and those of your colleagues who are remaining. I appreciate the opportunity this morning to provide testimony to present ideas on the future direction of 

dairy farm policy. I am Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation in Arlington, Virginia. 

53

My testimony today focuses on the proper role for the Federal 

Government in assisting the domestic dairy industry through the 

upcoming farm bill. This is obviously a critical issue for all dairy 

farmers from coast to coast. The formation of the Federal farm policy must take into account and balance many different and sometimes competing factors: The needs of producers and consumers, 

the budget, political priorities, trends in domestic and international 

markets, animal and public health prerogatives, and others. The 

final result is inevitably a synthesis of ideas. 

For the upcoming farm bill, the National Milk Producers Federation has strived to achieve the same type of balance and synthesis. 

We are taking ideas that have been successful in the past and, 

where appropriate, building on them. Our policy recommendations 

are intended to help the dairy producer sector in the future. Farming and food production is evolving and so, too, must Federal policies evolve to reflect new realities. 

The members of National Milk have deliberated for more than a 

year on the best path to take in the future. Last winter, we held 

regional sessions called our Dairy Producer Conclave Meetings to 

obtain direct input from farmers and to get them to discuss the 

pros and cons and various approaches. These farmers not only represented National Milk members, but also we had producers from 

all other State and national dairy organizations. That input was 

then analyzed by our Economic Policy Committee, which last fall 

and winter developed a detailed series of proposals. Our outside advisor, Mr. Chairman, was Bruce Babcock from Iowa State University, and although Bruce was not a dairy expert, we felt it incumbent to get new views from different experts. 

The resulting proposal is a reflection of a broad-based membership and was achieved through collaboration, compromise, and ultimately consensus. NMPF recognizes that one dairy program cannot 

meet the needs of all dairy producers, and as a result, we firmly 

believe in a multi-faceted approach and that it is necessary in 

order to create a more effective market-oriented safety net. Our 

plan was created with extensive input and discussion by dairy producers throughout the nation, taking in consideration the concerns 

of producers of all sizes and in all regions of the country. 

The end result of these extensive considerations is a far-ranging 

package of individual proposals. Each is important in its own way 

and each deserves to be included as part of the farm bill package. 

Here are the specific hallmarks of our proposal. 

It is fair and equitable, without regional biases. All farmers are 

treated equitably. It is predictable and allows for better planning 

and fewer market uncertainties. It is market-oriented and acknowledges the fact that signals about supply and demand should be delivered to farmers. It establishes a true safety net, ensuring that 

the Federal Government is there when needed, but at the same 

time, it doesn’t provide undue price enhancement. It is forwardlooking, with new initiatives acknowledging new technologies in 

our changing industry. It is compliant with our WTO commitments 

and we feel beyond challenge. It is comprehensive because it addresses all areas affecting dairy production. Last and certainly not 

least, we believe it is politically practical. This package has been 

thoroughly debated within our entire membership, and because of 

54

the breadth of our membership, I feel confident in presenting to 

you a wide-ranging package for your committee’s considerations. 

I am also pleased to say that our proposals are very much in concert with some of the USDA proposals and that hasn’t happened 

very often. But they even go further in suggesting changes and refinements to current programs. 

A summary of our farm bill proposals has been included. The 

current Milk Price Support Program would be replaced by a program that supports specific dairy product prices, improving the effectiveness and predictability of this critical government safety net. 

The current MILC payment would be replaced by a direct payment 

program that delivers a regular, consistent payment to farmers decoupled from price and future milk production output in order to 

help them plan and budget in this new high cost of production environment. The farm bill needs to take measures necessary to ensure the implementation of promotion checkoff on imported dairy 

products that was included in the 2002 farm bill but never implemented by USDA. 

Through additional Federal investments in bioenergy research 

and initiatives, dairy producers will be able to capture the energy 

value of their animal waste systems, which will help improve air 

quality, soil quality, and greater sources of renewable energy. 

Conservation programs—expanding the scope and funding of 

both Environmental Quality Initiatives and Conservation Security 

Programs to help dairy producers implement practices that improve their environment and conserve natural resources. 

The importance of dairy products in our diet has also been cited 

in our proposals. Federal dietary guidelines must enhance the role 

of dairy foods in Federal feeding programs. The government must 

also maintain funding to control animal diseases such as brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, et cetera. 

We are also proposing to help expand our overseas markets for 

U.S.-produced dairy products and it has played a crucial role in a 

number of farm bills. 

Finally, we include a risk management tool for producers 

through the creation of a forward contracting program, provided 

that certain producer safeguards are included and that this should 

not be permanent and should fit with the program before reauthorizing. 

The full package, Mr. Chairman, of detailed descriptions has 

been sent to everybody in the House and the Senate yesterday and 

we look forward to working with you and your staffs to bring about 

a successful dairy producer bill. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kozak can be found on page 169 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Kozak, thank you very much for your testimony. 

We have a vote on right now and the second bells have just started, so I am going to have to recess while I run over and vote and 

we will be right back. The committee will stand in recess for a few 

minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman HARKIN. The committee will resume its sitting. 

55

Now we turn to Mr. Clint Fall of the Midwest Dairy Coalition of 

Litchfield, Minnesota. Mr. Fall is President and CEO of First District Association, an independent dairy cooperative in Litchfield, 

Minnesota. He is here today to testify on behalf of the Midwest 

Dairy Coalition. 

Mr. Fall, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF CLINT FALL, MIDWEST DAIRY COALITION, 

LITCHFIELD, MINNESOTA 

Mr. FALL. Thank you very much, Chairman Harkin and members 

of the committee. My name is Clint Fall, President and CEO of 

First District Association, and I thank you very much for this opportunity. 

First District Association is a dairy farmer-owned cooperative located in the small town of Litchfield, Minnesota. Our co-op’s 1,200 

dairy farmer members produce approximately 1.7 billion pounds of 

milk each year. Our single cheese manufacturing plant is a very 

modern and efficient operation and is the largest cheese plant of 

any facility east of the Mississippi River. 

We strongly believe United States dairy farmer-owned cooperatives are critical to the dairy processing sector. In Minnesota and 

Wisconsin, approximately 85 percent of the milk is marketed 

through cooperatives. First District is a member of a Midwest 

Dairy Coalition and the National Milk Producers Federation. We 

strive to be active in supporting Federal dairy policy that benefits 

dairy farmers. 

The structure of a Federal dairy policy plays a significant role in 

the status of the Upper Midwest dairy industry, although not always in the most equitable way. Whether it is the ongoing structure of the Federal Milk Marketing Order System or past experiments with regional dairy compacts, Federal dairy policy has often 

placed the upper Midwest at a competitive disadvantage by artificially inflating Class I prices that ultimately places downward 

pressure on manufactured milk prices. Since approximately 85 percent of the milk in the Upper Midwest is used in manufacturing, 

such policies are detrimental to the Upper Midwest region. 

I would like to make several points about programs that we believe are important to our dairy farmers. No. 1, the Milk Price Support Program. Without a doubt, the Milk Price Support Program is 

an important program and should be continued, but it is in need 

of reform. The current price support level of $9.90 per hundredweight has proven to be a porous and ineffective floor. In recent 

years, the Class III price has fallen below the $9.90 support price 

on many occasions, falling as low as $8.57 in November of 2000. 

Contrary to the intent of the program, dairy manufacturers are reluctant to sell surplus product, particularly cheese, to the Commodity Credit Corporation, in large part because the costs are significantly higher than selling to the commercial market. 

To more adequately reflect these costs, we are interested in the 

new proposal by National Milk Producers Federation to legislate 

individual CCC purchase prices for butter, powder, and cheese instead of having one overarching milk price support of $9.90 per 

hundredweight. We believe this is a step in the right direction to 

56

help assure that the Price Support Program functions more effectively as a true safety net. 

No. 2, the Milk Income Loss Contract Program. Because of the 

inadequacy of the Milk Price Support Program, we argued during 

the last farm bill debate for an additional program to provide a 

more credible safety net for dairy producers. Fortunately, others 

agreed. The countercyclical Milk Income Loss Contract Program 

that emerged out of the 2002 farm bill has proven to be a very effective safety net for dairy farmers. Assistance is only provided 

when the market prices fall below target levels. We have proposed 

that the MILC Program be reimplemented without a diluted formula as it originally emerged from the 2002 farm bill. 

Congress also sought to limit the taxpayer costs of the MILC Program by placing a volume cap to limit the benefits to the first 2.4 

million pounds of production per year. Roughly 82 percent of all 

dairy farms in the Nation receive full benefits of the MILC Program and are fully covered under this cap. Yet even those that exceed the cap receive great benefits. 

For the Upper Midwest specifically, there is no doubt that this 

program has helped maintain many family dairy operations in 

rural communities during low milk price cycles. It is critical that 

the MILC Program or a similar type of countercyclical or direct 

safety net program be continued in the new farm bill. 

No. 3, trade policies. We must review our trade policies and those 

of our trading partners to assure that we have consistent and rational policies as we move into the future. Specifically, during the 

Uruguay Round of WTO trade negotiations, tariff rate quotas were 

placed on imports of traditional dairy product classes such as 

cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk. Yet we failed to recognize 

emerging trends with regard to milk protein concentrates and we 

failed to create tariff rate quotas on these milk protein concentrates. As a result, we have seen instances during which MPC 

imports into the United States have surged, negatively affecting 

farmers’ milk prices and adding to taxpayer costs. 

In conclusion, as the committee works on the 2007 farm bill, we 

ask for your support for a two-pronged safety net as represented 

by an improved Dairy Price Support Program and the continuation 

of the MILC Direct Payment Program. Thank you very much for 

your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fall can be found on page 143 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much. I want you to know 

that I am not listening to some strange music or something on this 

device. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. The acoustics in this room are so bad, we 

have a loop system in here and this device really clarifies everything so I can hear better sitting up here. 

Next, we turn to Ms. Connie Tipton, who is President and CEO 

of the International Dairy Foods Association. She is no stranger to 

this committee. She has been here many times in the past. 

Welcome again, and please proceed, Ms. Tipton. 

57

STATEMENT OF CONNIE TIPTON, INTERNATIONAL DAIRY 

FOODS ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. TIPTON. Thank you, Chairman Harkin. We have, I think, 

what is an unprecedented opportunity with this farm bill because 

we have growing global demand and domestic demand for our U.S. 

dairy products and we have an opportunity because of that to transition to a better safety net for our nation’s dairy farmers. Let me 

just say it is important to us that we have programs that are helpful and provide opportunities for both producers and processors in 

the dairy sector. 

Also, I would like to start off by saying that we support putting 

in place an effective safety net for our dairy farms. We have five 

suggestions: Provide a safety net for farmers that will give help 

under a variety of market conditions, not just when prices are low; 

encourage environmental improvements on farms with direct payments that aren’t tied to price or production; reinstitute forward 

contracting so that dairy farms and milk buyers can enter into voluntary agreements; eliminate the Dairy Price Support Program 

and the Dairy Import Assessment; and establish a commission of 

industry stakeholders to identify and recommend measures for addressing the many complex problems with the Federal Milk Marketing Order System. 

Now, I would point out that the context for these suggestions is 

radically different. It is a radically different dairy marketplace 

than we have really ever seen before. We have milk prices that are 

expected to go to record high levels this year. That is largely driven 

by demand for exports of high-quality milk proteins, wheys, lactose, 

and those exports, Mr. Chairman, are commercial market exports 

without subsidies. This is a new thing for dairy in the last few 

years and it is a very important phenomena and something we 

need to take advantage of in rewriting our policies. 

The demand is expected to remain strong for the foreseeable future, so that extends that opportunity. But ironically, at the same 

time, our dairy farms are still going to be stressed because of 

record high feed prices and our current safety net programs, the 

Dairy Price Support Program and the Milk Income Loss Contract 

Program, are not going to be useful or effective in this marketplace. 

The Dairy Price Support Program buys basic commodities to prop 

up market prices. But there is more to it than that because it encourages production of these commodity products. It provides a 

guaranteed market for them. So of course, it is easier to keep producing those for the government than it is to retool and produce 

for the market. This has kept the dairy industry from responding 

adequately to the exploding demand for higher-value dairy proteins. And today, with record high milk prices, the Dairy Price Support Program offers no help to producers, yet it continues this commodity production mentality, and that is why we think this is a 

good opportunity to eliminate rather than resuscitate the Dairy 

Price Support Program. 

Now, I would like to stress that I think it is really important 

that we have adequate resources to give dairy farmers the safety 

net they need, and I know everyone comes to your committee saying they need resources, but it is very important for our industry 

to have an effective safety net. 

58

We suggest providing assistance that is not tied to price or production and using these payments to encourage environmentally 

sustainable practices on our dairy farms, and then complement this 

with risk management tools for dairy, like revenue insurance and 

forward contracting. It is vital to our members that we keep our 

abundant and high-quality milk supply, and we have a chance in 

this farm bill to do that with updated policies that allow markets 

to work better, including international markets for our dairy products from the U.S. 

Now, there was a provision included in the 2002 farm bill that 

called for a new assessment on dairy imports and that was never 

implemented. We believe that now, our trade prospects have 

changed so dramatically that our approach on this issue should 

change, as well. As our exports are growing and driving better 

prices for our producers, we think it is absolutely the wrong time 

to put up new barriers to other countries’ imports. 

Finally, just about every segment of the dairy industry is currently frustrated with the Milk Marketing Order System and wants 

to see some change. That system, however, is so complicated that 

it is hard to find consensus about what those changes might be. 

Both our organization and the National Milk Producers Federation 

have set up committees to review all of these issues and try and 

find consensus within our organizations, but we believe it would be 

useful for Congress to call for a blue ribbon commission made up 

of industry stakeholders and experts to try and find a consensus 

across the industry for long overdue change to the Federal Milk 

Marketing Order System. 

I know that dairy policies have always been one of the most difficult areas to navigate, but I am optimistic that our strong market 

opportunities this year will provide the chance for the committee 

to come up with positive improvements. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Tipton can be found on page 217 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Ms. Tipton. I will follow up with you on a couple of questions on forward contracting 

later. 

Now we turn to Mr. Eugene Robertson, Pine Grove, Louisiana. 

Mr. Robertson and his son operate a 150–cow dairy in Pine Grove, 

Louisiana. His son has a separate dairy operation, as well. Mr. 

Robertson is a member of Dairy Farmers of America Cooperative 

and is testifying today on his own behalf. 

Mr. Robertson, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF EUGENE ROBERTSON, PINE GROVE, 

LOUISIANA 

Mr. ROBERTSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity 

to be here today to testify. As you were saying, I am Eugene Robertson from Pine Grove, Louisiana. I have been in the dairy business for 46 years. My son, as you said, is in the dairy business in 

the operation that we have on my family farm in addition to his 

own dairy. 

I guess in the 46 years I have been in the dairy business, we 

have never seen the price of milk going as low as it is going now 

and the fluctuation of the high points and the low points. The 

59

trough seems to be getting deeper, although as we have been hearing, we are going to see improving prices and we have experienced 

them already in 2007. We know they are going to be going higher. 

But the price of the feed that we heard about and the fuel cost is 

eating this margin up about as quick as we get it. 

Our dairy industry in Louisiana, of course, was severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We had some awful hard 

weeks and months afterwards of the loss of power and the loss of 

our crops and the interruption of the feed supply and the health 

problems that we never even thought of after the storm that we 

had to face for many months there. 

I am well pleased to have the opportunity to discuss with the 

committee today the issue of the Milk Income Loss Contract payments that the producers in our State have received for the last 6 

years and the value of other Federal dairy payments that we have 

received. 

It is important for this committee to note that Louisiana is a 

milk deficit State, which means that we do not produce enough 

milk in our State to satisfy the needs of our consumers. We probably bring in 25 to 30 loads of milk per day in Louisiana to help 

meet these needs. So it is critical to maintain what milk production 

that we do have and the existing dairy operations in our State. 

I would like to place into context my comments on the MILC Program, on some history that led Congress down the road toward the 

development of the Milk Income Loss payment in the 2002 farm 

bill. Our State, along with other States in the South, had been 

working on ideas that would help dairy farmers get through the periods of time when milk prices were low. We needed a countercyclical payment that would help offset reduced blend prices and 

keep us financially solvent. That is one reason Louisiana passed 

enabling legislation to join a Southern Dairy Compact Region. 

However, since the legislation to ratify the compact was not passed 

by Congress, the MILC program was put forward as an alternative 

measure. 

From 2002 through 2007, the dairy farmers in my area have received $9,977,000 in payments from the MILC. Our State now has 

approximately 200 to 250 dairy farms, according to USDA statistics. But between 2005 and 2006, we lost almost 11 percent of our 

dairy operations, and this trend is not letting up. It is getting 

worse in the last several years, and of course by Katrina, that has 

really caused things to get difficult for us. 

The MILC program has helped, although I believe it can be improved. The trigger price of $16.94 a hundredweight based on the 

Class I price in Boston is too low and does not reflect the high feed 

and energy costs that we are facing today. The payment rate of 34 

percent based on the Class I utilization does not come close to reflecting our fluid utilization rate in the South. I would hope the 

committee takes these factors into account when you are preparing 

the dairy title of the bill for 2007. 

The MILC payments could fall in the Amber Box under the WTO 

rules. In terms of direct payments to dairy farmers that the committee will be considering during the preparation of the farm bill, 

I would like to point out that National Milk Producers Federation 

is proposing a direct payment to dairy farmers that would offer a 

60

solution to the WTO requirements. In their proposal, the direct 

payments would be Green Box compliant with the WTO requirements. 

There are a number of other issues that are very important to 

us in the South, as well, and I would like to briefly touch on them. 

We are part of the Southeast Federal Milk Marketing Order Area. 

The Federal orders need to have some significant changes if they 

are to work efficiently for producers in the future. One of the main 

purposes of the Federal Milk Marketing Orders, as you know, is to 

guarantee a fresh supply of milk for the consumers in the areas. 

However, in practice, the Federal milk orders do not always accomplish this goal in assuring a fresh supply of milk and at the same 

time adequately reflecting price to the dairy farmers. One example 

is the feed cost and how it has gone up. 

Another thing I want to point out is not only Louisiana, but the 

whole Southeast part of the United States, as you are aware of, is 

a deficient area of milk. DFA, the co-op that I ship my milk to, on 

an average daily basis, we have sales for approximately 900 million 

pounds of milk and we only produce 630,000 pounds of milk in the 

area. This is putting a great burden on us by doing this. 

I am sorry, just one other point, that we just need to have a process in the Federal Milk Order that would address this and I will 

quit there. 

Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time and I will be pleased to 

answer any question. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Robertson can be found on page 

214 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Robertson. 

Now we turn to Mr. Randy Jasper, National Family Farm Coalition, Muscoda, Wisconsin. He and his son, Kevin, milk 100 cows, 

raise 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans along with 200 acres of hay 

in Wisconsin. He is a member of the American Raw Milk Producers 

Pricing Association and speaks today on behalf of the Dairy Subcommittee of the National Family Farm Coalition. 

Mr. Jasper, welcome to the committee. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF RANDY JASPER, NATIONAL FAMILY FARM 

COALITION, MUSCODA, WISCONSIN 

Mr. JASPER. Thank you. Our program comes at this a little bit 

different. We come at this from the standpoint of the mark of getting the money from the industry. I will just outline a few things 

and go over a few other things. 

Dairy producers throughout the country need a policy that results in dairy farmers receiving cost of production plus a return on 

investment; access to affordable credit with fair terms; competition 

restored to a non-competitive dairy market, and that is a real big 

issue; protection from predatory practices of the largest corporations, including the largest dairy co-ops; protection of integrity of 

dairy products, meaning no support to domestic milk protein concentrates, MPC, or for any MPC used in our food supply; prohibiting of forward contracting; promotion of smaller co-ops and increasing oversight of co-op management to ensure interests of processors being met. Our plan, it is outlined in our full testimony that 

61

you received. The money comes from the government—or, excuse 

me, from the industry, not the government. 

My milk and my son’s milk go to a small co-op called Scenic Central that we formed. Within two-and-a-half to 3 years, we put on 

250 farmers. We send 19 million pounds of milk a month. We return 98 percent of every dollar that goes out goes back to the farmers. This was very hard to do. There are a lot of rules that you 

have in place against starting a market in the agency. That might 

want to be looked at. 

The crisis that we saw on dairy farmers large and small throughout America in the past year, when rising costs of production combined with weather disasters, continued low milk prices, there is 

just no way that anybody can stay in business. In real dollars, it 

has been the worst year for dairy farmers, including the Great Depression. We set up conference calls. This program was put together after real long hours and there are farmers from 20 States 

that have put this together, sorting out things we can do. 

On February 20, 2007, the NFFC delivered a letter to USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong identifying problems with the inaccurate pricing reporting in the NASS survey. This situation is costing dairy farmers millions of dollars a month. Our understanding 

is that the Inspector General is currently involved in this investigation. 

And one thing I come at this a little different perspective, where 

we do a fair amount of corn and beans. The problem with dairy 

farm money is not high grain prices. Grain prices are not high, people. They are somewhere in the vicinity of where they belong. They 

have been terribly low for years and years. 

Another thing that I have just jotted in here, I heard a lot about 

healthy food in the schools. Well, milk is a very healthy food and 

we need to make sure we keep that one in the schools. 

With our program, we need a price support system that allows 

dairy farms a fair price through the current Class III and IV hearings and with our legislative proposal for the 2007 farm bill for the 

Family Farm Act. The solution is a fair price, a fair price for dairy 

farmers and for farmers who raise program crops and a non-recourse loan program with price floors that respect a farmer’s cost 

of production, farmer-owned, humanitarian and strategic reserves, 

incentives for participation in conservation programs, and international cooperation in supply management. Years of distressed 

grain prices have fueled expansion of mega-dairies and forced thousands of dairy farmers and their diverse family operations out of 

business. 

One thing I heard earlier today, the price support at $9.90, while 

that helps a little bit, it is so low that it just prolongs the inevitable. No farmer can produce milk for $9.90 a hundred. The USDA 

statistic as of right now in the State of Wisconsin, February 2007, 

says $23.68 per hundredweight. On our dairy farm, we receive $14 

to $16 per hundredweight. So we need a realistic price on that one. 

When the new program went into effect, milk prices fell on our 

farm about $3 a hundred and their support price gave us back 

about a dollar of that. Now, I am no genius, but if you lose $3 a 

hundred and you give me a dollar back, I still have a net loss of 

62

$2 per hundred. So it is something that needs to be tweaked so 

that part doesn’t happen. 

We are also losing, the Senator has mentioned, we are losing out 

here in Pennsylvania, losing $5 per hundredweight. That is about 

what we are losing, and for those of you, a hundredweight is 12 

gallons of milk. I don’t know if too many people are aware of that. 

So the price support thing needs to be on there, but we need to 

set a formula that gets the industry to pay what milk costs. We 

worked with ARMPPA. ARMPPA is a marketing agency in common 

through the Cooper Bluffs. We talked to many of the processors 

and they all stated it doesn’t matter what they pay for milk, 

whether they pay $12 a hundred or $17 a hundred. As long as they 

are all paying it, they are fine with it. They just can’t be put in 

a competitive disadvantage. 

So if it is through a different formula, and the USDA has a formula. Every so many months, they put out a formula that says 

what the cost is to produce milk. I don’t know why we don’t just 

use that. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jasper can be found on page 152 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Jasper. I thank 

this panel for your testimony and for your patience in being here 

today. 

I want to commend at least the National Milk Producers Federation for putting forth the comprehensive set of farm proposals. I am 

not saying that I am absolutely supporting them, I say I commend 

you for doing that, and I want to take advantage of the expertise 

of this panel to get your reactions to those proposals. Have you all 

had a chance to look at those proposals? 

What I would like to know is, first, about the price support proposal. How would separate support prices for cheese, butter, and 

nonfat dry milk affect the price that dairy farmers receive for milk? 

How would it affect the prices that the dairy farmers receive if you 

had separate prices for each because farmers are not producing 

butter and nonfat dry milk and cheese. They are producing milk. 

Any thoughts on that? Mr. Kozak? 

Mr. KOZAK. Yes, Mr. Chairman. One of the things that I think 

we have to remind ourselves about the Price Support Program, it 

is a market clearing mechanism. It is only there as a safety net. 

It is only there when the bottom drops out, and the Price Support 

Program has been effective over the years, but there have been 

some situations where, for instance, cheese dropped down to $8.70 

in 2003 when we had the lowest milk prices in our 25–year history 

and it wasn’t effective. 

So what we have done in terms of recalculating the Price Support Program is to recognize that it is a market clearing mechanism of which, when prices are extremely low and we have some 

surpluses, the government buys those products at a specific level. 

It doesn’t buy all milk products. It doesn’t buy fluid milk. It doesn’t 

buy yogurt, cottage cheese, et cetera. It buys those three specific 

products because those three specific products are the basic foundations of what we produce ultimately in this country and are tied 

to our over-quota tariff rates. 

63

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Kozak, what does it do to the farm? Does 

it affect the price farmers receive? 

Mr. KOZAK. Absolutely, because it gives at least some firm foundation that says that if we are in that kind of period of time, prices 

won’t drop below that. By recalculating what we have done, we believe that it is going to be an effective safety net that provides at 

least some floor, if you will, from the Federal Government. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Fall, you said you were very interested 

in this proposal. 

Mr. FALL. Yes. 

Chairman HARKIN. We are all interested. I just don’t know how 

you feel about it. 

Mr. FALL. We are interested and, for the most part, I think we 

believe that there needs to be something done. We don’t want to 

see the support program go away. Like Mr. Kozak commented, it 

functions as a safety net in the worst case scenario where it basically clears surplus product from the marketplace. There is no farm 

that can actually survive at $9.90 equivalent milk price, but if in 

the event milk prices go that low, it generally occurs because of a 

surplus of dairy products, commodities that are in the marketplace. 

So we support the idea of changing the support program in some 

way to help it to work better. We believe that the measures that 

National Milk is pursuing, we believe that that is probably a step 

in the right direction toward achieving that objective. 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Tipton? 

Ms. TIPTON. Mr. Chairman, I would argue exactly the opposite. 

I think keeping the Dairy Price Support Program with our current 

market conditions will do nothing but put a dampening effect possibly on our U.S. dairy prices, and that is because we have growing 

global demand for the foreseeable future. People think we are going 

to be selling these higher-value dairy proteins both here in our own 

markets, but on international markets. We are selling whey proteins. We are selling lactose to Japan. We are selling more and 

more of these non-fat dry milks, whey proteins over to China. We 

have lots of market opportunities right now and it is driving our 

prices up for U.S. dairy farmers. As I mentioned, we are going to 

see record high milk prices for our U.S. dairy farmers this year. 

Keeping a program that encourages people, encourages the producers of products that aren’t in demand in the market, just so 

they can sell them to the government and maybe make a few cents’ 

profit, is not going to help dairy farmers. It is going to maybe keep 

that company in business who wants to crank out non-fat dry milk 

instead of upgrading their facility, but I think we should encourage 

people to upgrade their facilities and go for these higher-value 

dairy markets that are going to actually drive prices to a better 

level for our farmers. 

I just see this as a great opportunity for us to relook at these 

things and get out of this situation. Corn had a Price Support Purchase Program years ago and when they started having global market opportunities, they got rid of it, too. I think it is time for us 

to do that with dairy and go for the market. I think we have a 

great opportunity there. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Ms. Tipton. 

Mr. Robertson? 

64

Mr. ROBERTSON. I have no comment. I will have to go along with 

what Mr. Jerry Kozak said. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Jasper, you already said that you were 

not in favor of——

Mr. JASPER. Right. Right now, according to USDA’s statistics, we 

import more dairy products than we export, so we are actually a 

deficit nation right now. So while I am not against exports, I don’t 

think they are necessarily the answer. 

Chairman HARKIN. The National Milk also proposes to replace 

the Milk Income Loss Contract, the MILC Program, with a program with fixed payments based on the 85 percent of the producer’s past milk production. Now, again, it would seem to me that 

the proposal would be more generous to larger producers and more 

costly than the current MILC Program. New dairy producers would 

not be eligible for payments. So how would beginning dairy farmers 

compete against established dairies that would receive monthly 

payments, I ask? Mr. Kozak? 

Mr. KOZAK. Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me point out that the 

current MILC payment would be considered to be in the Amber 

Box for WTO purposes, and although I understand that some of the 

people up here feel that there is not going to be a Doha Round or 

we shouldn’t be really addressing these issues, our organization 

didn’t feel that way. We felt that it was important to look at the 

future. So the first thing we did was to put together a program 

that wouldn’t fall in the Amber Box. 

Second, we put together a program that would try to create some 

equality that the MILC payment doesn’t have at the present time. 

If you take a look at how the MILC payment functions, it is a countercyclical payment. It only kicks in when prices are at a certain 

level or when the bottom drops out. But look at the situation we 

are in right now, when we have got high energy and feed costs, 

record high energy and feed costs for producers, and you have 

heard that from some of the panel members and our producers, the 

MILC payment will not—there will be no MILC payment for the 

rest of this year because of the way of its nature. 

So our Green Box payment addresses inflation, addresses feed 

costs. It is more predictable. We calculate that it will cost the 

equivalent to what the MILC payment——

Chairman HARKIN. Excuse me for interrupting. How would beginning dairy farmers compete, because they would not be eligible 

for payments. 

Mr. KOZAK. Well, at the present time, we are looking at a refinement to that, Mr. Chairman, to see how we can incorporate that, 

because under the strictures of WTO, you can’t tie it to production, 

so if a farmer doesn’t have a historic production, he is not eligible, 

but we are committed to working to try to resolve that particular 

issue as part of our plan. 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Tipton, you talked about forward contracting. Mr. Jasper, in your statement, your group was opposed to 

forward contracting, but let me ask this question. I mean, why is 

forward contracting so bad if a farmer knows what he can contract 

for and he can get an assurance of a price forward? It seems to me 

that he could either contract all or a part as a hedge. What is 

wrong with hedging a little bit if you know you can lock in a price? 

65

I just don’t understand why you would be opposed to forward contracting. 

Mr. JASPER. Well, in our program, the National Family Farm Coalition proposal, it is based on the cost of production, so you 

wouldn’t know ahead of time what you are going to get anyway. 

Our program states four times a year it would be looked at. Four 

times a year, the price would be adjusted to the cost of production. 

So there would be no need for any forward contract. You would already know for the next quarter what you were going to receive. 

Chairman HARKIN. But still, though, you don’t know what the 

market is out there. I mean, you can make a guess on it, perhaps, 

depending upon certain conditions, but I don’t think this committee 

or anyone is going to set up a program that basically is a government payment program regardless of what market prices happen 

out there. There may be some subset of that in terms of a small 

payment as a safety net or something like that, but nothing in 

there that is going to guarantee some kind of a market type of a 

price. 

So dairy farmers always have to think about what the future 

markets are, and that is why I just don’t understand why you 

wouldn’t—as long as the contracts are transparent and as long as 

they are open, as long as they are dealt with on an arm’s-length 

basis, and as long as the producer has adequate time to consider 

the contracts—we are going through this right now in other parts 

of agriculture, by the way, and as you know, I have a competition 

title, a competition bill in right now that deals with a lot of contracting problems that livestock producers have, especially our pork 

producers, cattle producers have with contracting. 

But as long as you have an open system and it is transparent, 

I just don’t see any reason why you—I don’t understand the opposition to forward contracting. 

Mr. JASPER. Well, first off, like I say, you wouldn’t need it because you would already have your forward contracting based with 

each quarter setting the price, and the price wouldn’t come from 

the government. The price would be set through a formula by the 

government that said industry pays, we will say, $16 or $18 a hundredweight for milk. Everybody pays the same. That is the price. 

I mean, the power company is regulated through the government. 

They say what they need for power and that is Okayed by the government that they can charge that much. 

So you are able to do that, and that would eliminate—the problem with forward contracting, you keep getting everyone forward 

contracts and it usually ends up lower. There is no reason, and 

right now that makes it look bad because there are forward contracts also for $12 that looked pretty good when milk was $11, but 

it turns out it is $3 or $4 below the cost of production now. So it 

didn’t do the farmer any good. 

So there is really no—we don’t feel there is any need for forward 

contracting. As long as the price is set quarterly for each quarter, 

there would be no need for it. You would already know what the 

price is. 

Chairman HARKIN. How do you feel about forward contracting, 

Mr. Robertson? 

66

Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, I would have to agree with Mr. Jasper. I 

would have to first admit I don’t know a whole lot about it, but it 

would seem to me we would get caught in a situation like now 

where you had it at the end of the price and the feed and the fertilizer and all the costs went up so much and the price of milk is 

going up that you would lose some on that part. But I don’t know 

enough about it to tell you, sir. 

Chairman HARKIN. I understand. Ms. Tipton, I know you are in 

favor of forward contracting——

Ms. TIPTON. Well, let me just give you an example, Mr. Chairman. Reliability of income is very important. You know what your 

costs are. You know what your loan for the tractor is if you are on 

the farm and you know what your labor is and all of your other 

costs, but just to give you an example of the fluctuation in milk 

prices, in 2002, just over $12 on average for the year. In 2004, a 

little over $16. Last year, $12.90. This year, it is probably going to 

be more like $16.50. Those are big ups and downs and that is very 

hard to manage, and probably the smaller you are, the harder it 

is to manage. 

Dairy farming is very capital intensive. If you want to start a 

dairy farm and you know there is a farm in Lamars, Iowa, that 

was started to supply Wells Dairy out there—we visited with you 

about that—and they honestly couldn’t have gotten the bank investment and so forth to start that farm if they couldn’t have had 

a forward contract, and that was when we had the pilot program 

in place in the early 2000’s. It enabled that farm to get into business. They were able then to use a local supplier to get their milk. 

It is just a simple matter of having reliability of income and I don’t 

see what is so threatening about that. 

Chairman HARKIN. You mentioned something about the new 

marketplace, something we haven’t seen before. It really has 

changed. What if I were to tell you that they are now shipping 

fresh milk from California to Wells Blue Bunny Dairy? 

Ms. TIPTON. I believe it. 

Chairman HARKIN. And they are shipping milk from California 

to Wisconsin. 

Ms. TIPTON. Right. 

Chairman HARKIN. They have got better tankers and they can 

deliver the milk all over the country, so it is not like it was even 

20 years ago. So again, I am wondering when even fluid milk—I 

am not talking about the manufactured processes—but fluid milk 

can go anywhere almost now. If you can get it from California to 

Wisconsin, you can get it from the Midwest to New York. 

Ms. TIPTON. Well, you can get virtually anything in any grocery 

store in America today. Milk is no exception. You can get avocados 

here in Washington, DC, and they certainly aren’t produced here, 

so——

Chairman HARKIN. So what does that mean on the milk order 

provisions that have been in law since before I was born? 

Ms. TIPTON. It means they need to be looked at. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, I am just wondering. It doesn’t really 

ask us to take a look at the new regimes out there and what is 

happening with the transportation that we have today. 

67

We need to take a better look at our export-import situation, too. 

Ms. Tipton mentioned the new export markets that are opening up. 

From everything I have seen, international markets may grow substantially in the future. How much, I don’t know—until other countries figure out that we are doing it and then they take advantage 

of it and start undercutting us, I suppose. Mr. Kozak? 

Mr. KOZAK. Mr. Chairman, you bring up a good point and I want 

to make sure that we get this across today, is that there is a lot 

of rhetoric about exports, and I am hearing that some at this table, 

but we have our own self-help program that we instituted in 2003. 

Just this past year, dairy producers on a voluntary basis spent $40 

million of exporting to over 30 countries. But I want you to understand that while we need some basic safety net programs, our producer industry isn’t just talking about exports, we are doing something about it, and I think that is a major achievement for producers all across the country. We do think it is an important tool, 

but let us put it in perspective. It is only 5 percent of our production. 

Chairman HARKIN. It is not that large. 

I am going to yield to Senator Coleman, who will ask the final 

questions here. 

Senator COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I 

wanted to start by associating myself—I didn’t hear all your comments, but everything I heard, your questions about forward contracting and how do we move forward here, your comments about 

kind of the changing nature of transportation and global markets 

and we have been doing things a certain way for a long time, with 

this new farm bill, it is a real opportunity to think about it. So I 

appreciate your leadership and I look forward to working with you 

and I commit to working with you on these issues. 

I want to first welcome Mr. Fall from Litchfield. I was at the 

Main Street Cafe on Saturday with a number of good dairy folks 

and came home with some good cheese, too, by the way. So I just 

want to welcome you here. 

Mr. FALL. Thank you. 

Senator COLEMAN. I have worked very closely with a number of 

folks on this panel, certainly Mr. Kozak and Ms. Tipton and working with the Midwest Dairy Coalition. 

One of the things that I really appreciate, dairy is a complex 

issue. It is one of the most complex in all of farm policy. And it is 

one, by the way, which my State, a big economic impact, I think 

about $3 billion. It is a big deal. It needs to be a big deal into the 

future, not just in the past. 

But I just want to indicate that I am optimistic about where I 

see some areas of agreement, and I have had private separate conversations. At some point, we will probably all sit in the same 

room, with the National Milk Producers, International Dairy 

Foods, Midwest Dairy Coalition. I think there are enough areas of 

agreement to move together, and so I think that is positive. A 

MILC-like program, we need a safety net. Direct Payment Program, reform of the Price Support Program in the farm bill. 

The forward contracting that we have discussed, and Mr. Kozak, 

you have moved on some of the forward contracting issues from our 

68

early discussion. You still have a concern about making it permanent. Can you talk about that a little bit? 

Mr. KOZAK. Yes. Thank you, Senator. Well, as you know, we did 

move on it. When we started this process, we realized that this is 

a consensus document. This represents 33 co-ops with over 50,000 

farmers who had some input into this program. And just like everything you do up here, it was our job to try to find consensus. 

We still have a good portion of our membership who have concerns about forward contracting, but to their credit, they came to 

the table and tried to solve the problem instead of coming up here 

and asking you to solve this problem. And so what we were asking 

for was a few provisions that would ensure the sincerity of the program as well as the integrity and the credibility of the program, 

and just like we have to do with all of our other dairy programs, 

the Price Support Program, the MILC payment, even some of our 

basic animal health programs, they all expire with the farm bill 

and they get looked at again to make sure that they are working, 

et cetera. I think that is a small price to pay for an organization 

coming to the table and willing to have some consensus and compromise. 

Senator COLEMAN. Some of you were talking about some of the 

producer protection pieces. Is that what you are kind of looking for 

as we move forward——

Mr. KOZAK. In fact, the Chairman mentioned a couple of them. 

One is we want to make sure that the contract is enforced by 

USDA, just like everything else. It is making sure that if the farmer does contract a price below the minimum price, that somebody 

ensures that the farmer gets it, there is some oversight. 

Second, we want some language to make sure that farmers aren’t 

coerced into signing contracts. I think that is a critical piece. 

Again, I don’t see that as a bureaucratic issue, but one that assures 

our farmers that they are going to get a fair shake. 

And third, that it sunsets so that we can have an evaluation, review it, but it is not a pilot program that we are offering. It is just 

that it would be a full part of the farm bill but would then sunset 

and have to be reviewed. 

Senator COLEMAN. Ms. Tipton, and I give my thanks to you. We 

have had some very good discussions about finding common ground 

and moving forward with our kind of shared interests here. Is 

IDFA open to some of the producer protection proposed by National 

Milk? 

Ms. TIPTON. Well, we are certainly very heartened that they are 

willing to support a forward contracting program. As you know, we 

felt that a 5–year pilot program that was successful was probably 

a good enough bellwether to move forward with. We would like to 

see it permanent. Certainly, we are willing to be at the table and 

talk about it. We do think that the way it was set up in the pilot 

program worked fine. Everybody’s contracts were filed with the 

market administrators. It doesn’t seem to us that we need a lot 

more oversight of those, but we are certainly willing to talk about 

it and we are anxious to get some of these risk management tools 

out there so that everyone can use them. 

69

Senator COLEMAN. And again, I look forward to continued conversation, but I am certainly very pleased with the direction in 

which things are moving. 

Mr. Fall, does the Minnesota Dairy Coalition support National 

Milk’s modification to the Price Support Program? Have you looked 

at that? 

Mr. FALL. In all honesty, Senator, the Midwest Dairy Coalition 

probably hasn’t come together to discuss the details of the Price 

Support Program, but conceptually, I think with discussions that 

I have had with members of the coalition and our lobbyists, I believe that I can say that we are very, very interested in National 

Milk’s proposal and the direction that they are going. We think it 

is a step in the right direction. 

We know that the program as it exists currently today needs 

some reform and we believe that this is a step toward going in the 

right direction. We need to maintain some level, some—the support 

program at a $9.90 equivalent is a very, very low dollar amount. 

There is no farm that can sustain themselves at that kind of price. 

We are looking at basically a program that functions as a clearinghouse, and by putting the prices on commodities that farmers 

produce, hopefully, it will set a more fixed level floor that processors will receive from those products. 

Senator COLEMAN. And Mr. Kozak, you have opted to change the 

Milk Price Support Program into a product-specific support program. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I have been in Minnesota 

30–plus years now. When I grew up, I told people there was a 

movie called ‘‘A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.’’ I saw the movie, I read 

the book, I didn’t see the tree. So it has taken me 30 years to try 

to understand dairy policy, and now we are in the process of changing it. Can you just briefly—my time is running short here—can 

you talk about why did you opt to change the Milk Price Support 

Program into product-specific support? 

Mr. KOZAK. Well, first of all, it sort of better aligns us for the 

future, looking at really what the Price Support Program is intended to do. It is a market clearing mechanism. I should point out 

that unlike what I heard from Ms. Tipton, we haven’t sold product 

to the government—very little product to government in 2 years. 

There are no stocks of butter and cheese. It is truly a safety net. 

It doesn’t distort the market, as has been alleged. 

So we looked at, well, is the government buying all milk? No, it 

is not buying fluid milk. It is not buying yogurt. It is not buying 

cheese. It is buying specific products that are tied into the basic nature of our dairy industry. So we changed it to a specific product 

price. It incorporates a level that we think addresses Mr. Fall’s concerns about a safety level of $9.90, making sure it is there, at least. 

In addition, it incorporates some other ideas that are more marketoriented, a trigger mechanism that when there are huge surpluses, 

it sends the market back. 

It takes the uncertainty out of it. It is more predictable. We don’t 

have to worry about a butter powder tilt, discussions with USDA 

about all those issues. It is a contract. It is straightforward and I 

think it is the way to go and it is a great transitional mechanism 

for this farm bill. 

Senator COLEMAN. I thank you, Mr. Kozak. 

70

Again, this testimony has been encouraging. The conversations 

that we have had have been encouraging. I want to commend the 

panel. I want to thank the Chairman. I am optimistic that we can 

find some common ground and really do some good things in the 

farm bill for dairy, so thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the 

panel. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Coleman, and I thank all 

of you for your testimony. 

Dairy is always a tough thing to get through. There are so many 

competing different interests, market orders and things like that. 

Perhaps this idea of a blue ribbon panel to take a look at this—

I am just wondering if some of this ought not to be really addressed, whether these old systems that we have had for a long 

time need to be addressed and some changes really need to be 

made. But we have a lot of experts on this panel. We have a lot 

of people to rely upon to give us input on that. I continue to ask 

for all of you, any thoughts, suggestions, or input and advice you 

have as we proceed, please let us know. 

That will conclude our hearing today. We had a long session. We 

have a long session tomorrow. For anyone who is interested in coming back, we have another long session tomorrow, beginning with 

just about every commodity group you can imagine. 

Thank you very much. The committee will stand adjourned until 

9:30 a.m. tomorrow. 

[Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

(71)

A P P E N D I X

APRIL 24, 2007

72


35051.001
73


35051.002
74


35051.003
75


35051.004
76


35051.005
77


35051.006
78


35051.007
79


35051.008
80


35051.009
81


35051.010
82


35051.011
83


35051.012
84


35051.013
85


35051.014
86


35051.015
87


35051.016
88


35051.017
89


35051.018
90


35051.019
91


35051.020
92


35051.021
93


35051.022
94


35051.023
95


35051.024
96


35051.025
97


35051.026
98


35051.027
99


35051.028
100


35051.029
101


35051.030
102


35051.031
103


35051.032
104


35051.033
105


35051.034
106


35051.035
107


35051.036
108


35051.037
109


35051.038
110


35051.039
111


35051.040
112


35051.041
113


35051.042
114


35051.043
115


35051.044
116


35051.045
117


35051.046
118


35051.047
119


35051.048
120


35051.049
121


35051.050
122


35051.051
123


35051.052
124


35051.053
125


35051.054
126


35051.055
127


35051.056
128


35051.057
129


35051.058
130


35051.059
131


35051.060
132


35051.061
133


35051.062
134


35051.063
135


35051.064
136


35051.065
137


35051.066
138


35051.067
139


35051.068
140


35051.069
141


35051.070
142


35051.071
143


35051.072
144


35051.073
145


35051.074
146


35051.075
147


35051.076
148


35051.077
149


35051.078
150


35051.079
151


35051.080
152


35051.081
153


35051.082
154


35051.083
155


35051.084
156


35051.085
157


35051.086
158


35051.087
159


35051.088
160


35051.089
161


35051.090
162


35051.091
163


35051.092
164


35051.093
165


35051.094
166


35051.095
167


35051.096
168


35051.097
169


35051.098
170


35051.099
171


35051.100
172


35051.101
173


35051.102
174


35051.103
175


35051.104
176


35051.105
177


35051.106
178


35051.107
179


35051.108
180


35051.109
181


35051.110
182


35051.111
183


35051.112
184


35051.113
185


35051.114
186


35051.115
187


35051.116
188


35051.117
189


35051.118
190


35051.119
191


35051.120
192


35051.121
193


35051.122
194


35051.123
195


35051.124
196


35051.125
197


35051.126
198


35051.127
199


35051.128
200


35051.129
201


35051.130
202


35051.131
203


35051.132
204


35051.133
205


35051.134
206


35051.135
207


35051.136
208


35051.137
209


35051.138
210


35051.139
211


35051.140
212


35051.141
213


35051.142
214


35051.143
215


35051.144
216


35051.145
217


35051.146
218


35051.147
219


35051.148
220


35051.149
221


35051.150
222


35051.151
223


35051.152
224


35051.153
225


35051.154
226


35051.155
227


35051.156
228


35051.157
229


35051.158
(231)

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

APRIL 24, 2007

232


35051.159
233


35051.160
234


35051.161
235


35051.162
236


35051.163
237


35051.164
238


35051.165
239


35051.166
240


35051.167
241


35051.168
242


35051.169
243


35051.170
244


35051.171
245


35051.172
246


35051.173
247


35051.174
248


35051.175
249


35051.176
250


35051.177
251


35051.178
252


35051.179
253


35051.180
254


35051.181
255


35051.182
256


35051.183
257


35051.184
258


35051.185
259


35051.186
260


35051.187
261


35051.188
262


35051.189
263


35051.190
264


35051.191
265


35051.192
266


35051.193
267


35051.194
268


35051.195
269


35051.196
270


35051.197
271


35051.198
272


35051.199
273


35051.200
274


35051.201
275


35051.202
276


35051.203
277


35051.204
278


35051.205
279


35051.206
280


35051.207
281


35051.208
282


35051.209
283


35051.210
284


35051.211
285


35051.212
286


35051.213
287


35051.214
288


35051.215
289


35051.216
290


35051.217
291


35051.218
292


35051.219
293


35051.220
294


35051.221
295


35051.222
296


35051.223
297


35051.224
298


35051.225
299


35051.226