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COLORADO VIEWS ON FEDERAL

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL POLICIES:

THE 2007 FARM BILL

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 12, 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):

Colorado Views on Federal Agriculture and Rural Policies: The 2007 Farm 

Bill ......................................................................................................................... 1

Monday, March 12, 2007

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

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

Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry .................................................................. 3

Salazar, Hon. Ken, a U.S. Senator from Colorado ................................................ 2

Panel I 

Foutz, Alan, Colorado Farm Bureau ...................................................................... 11

Peppler, Kent, President, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union ................................ 5

Peterson, Dr. Gary, Head Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado 

State University ................................................................................................... 10

Stulp, John R., Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture ........................................ 4

Tallman, Dusty, Colorado Wheat Growers ............................................................ 8

Welp, Alan, State Director, Colorado Sugar Beet Growers .................................. 7

Panel II 

Mix, Roger, Colorado Potato Administrative Committee ..................................... 18

Loutzenhiser, Randy, Colorado Association of Conservation Districts ............... 19

Fankhauser, Terry R., Executive Director, Colorado Cattlemen’s Association .. 21

White, Kathy, Colorado Anti-Hunger Network ..................................................... 24

Zalesky, Doug, President, Colorado Independent Cattlegrowers Association .... 22

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Fankhauser, Terry R. ....................................................................................... 40

Foutz, Alan ........................................................................................................ 48

Loutzenhiser, Randy ........................................................................................ 51

Mix, Roger ......................................................................................................... 59

Peppler, Kent .................................................................................................... 61

Peterson, Dr. Gary ............................................................................................ 69

Stulp, John R. ................................................................................................... 72

Tallman, Dusty ................................................................................................. 78

Welp, Alan ......................................................................................................... 82

White, Kathy ..................................................................................................... 84

Zalesky, Doug .................................................................................................... 86

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Carl Unlaub, Farmer, prepared statement ............................................................ 94

Central Colorado Water Conservancy District, prepared statement ................... 96

Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, prepared statement ...................................... 100

Colorado Corn Growers Association, prepared statement .................................... 102

Colorado Food Bank Association, prepared statement ......................................... 107

Colorado School Nutrition Association (CSNA), prepared statement ................. 111

Colorado State Forest Service, prepared statement ............................................. 113

Page

IV

Colorado State Tree Farm Committee, prepared statement ................................ 115

Four Colorado-based Lending Institutions of the cooperative Farm Credit 

System, prepared statements .............................................................................. 121

Liprino Foods, prepared statement ........................................................................ 125

Maurice J. Mausbach, Natural Resource Specialist, prepared statement .......... 129

Progressive 15, prepared statement ....................................................................... 133

Republican River Water Conservation District, prepared statement .................. 136

Robert T. Sakata, Farmer, prepared statement .................................................... 140

Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), prepared statement ................. 144

Stewart Environmental Consultants, Inc., prepared statement .......................... 146

The Nature Conservancy, prepared statement ..................................................... 149

(1)

COLORADO VIEWS ON FEDERAL 

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL POLICIES: 

THE 2007 FARM BILL 

Monday, March 12, 2007

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY, 

Brighton, Colorado 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:20 p.m., in the 

Waymire Dome Facility, Adams County Fair, Hon. Tom Harkin, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present or submitting a statement: Senators Harkin and Salazar. 

Senator SALAZAR. We are running a little bit late but we are 

ready to get started and I am going to have the Governor of the 

great state of Colorado, Bill Ritter, welcome Senator Tom Harkin 

and this Agricultural Committee Forum here today, so, Governor 

Bill Ritter. 

Governor Ritter. It is my pleasure to just have an opportunity 

very quickly to speak to you. We just spoke with Senator Harkin 

and I have to get back to the Capitol now for a meeting at 1:30, 

so I’m running a little late. 

I really want to express my appreciation on behalf of the State 

of Colorado for Senator Harkin agreeing to hold a Field Hearing 

here in Colorado, where we can articulate some of the issues and 

some of the struggles that we have had. 

In my discussions with Senator Harkin, we just talked about the 

things that have happened in southeast Colorado and the kind of 

really disasters that the farmers and ranchers down there have 

faced, some of the ways that the Federal Government may help. 

But, what we do know about Senator Harkin is that he had a long 

history. In fact, he has had 32 years on the Senate Agricultural 

Committee and such a long history of working on behalf of people 

who are ranchers and farmers in the United States of America, he 

really deigns us—with his presence here he deigns us with a great 

honor. So, let us give him a big hand, thank you, and have a great 

conversation this afternoon. 

Thank you, Senator Harkin. 

Senator SALAZAR. We are going to start in just a few seconds 

here. Let me just introduce Representative Kathleen Curry. Kathleen? Where are you? She is back there somewhere. Give her a 

round of applause. 

Let me just say at the outset, I am going to make few quick comments and then turn it over to Senator Harkin, the Chairman of 

2

the Senate Agricultural Committee to open up the hearing. We will 

hear from the witnesses. That will be short statements. 

We have two panels—let me start over. The program here for 

this afternoon is, I am going to make a few comments, open it up, 

turn it over to Senator Harkin and then we will hear from the first 

panel for, I think, three, four or 5 minutes each. Then we will have 

a short break. Then we will have a second panel to continue to give 

us some more information. 

Before I make my opening remarks on this hearing, what I want 

to do is, I want to recognize Senator Tom Harkin again as we begin 

this hearing in Colorado. He has been a part of writing the last 

seven farm bills we have had here in the United States of America. 

And, as we write this farm bill now in 2007, it is important to be 

looking to the future in terms of how we revitalize rural America 

and the opportunities that we have. 

And there is no one better, frankly, to lead us in that effort in 

the U.S. Congress than someone who has farming in his blood; who 

is a fourth generation Iowan; who still lives in the same house that 

he was born in; and who has been a champion of agriculture all 

across the nation. And who, today, is holding the first hearing on 

the 2000 farm bill that we are holding as an agricultural committee 

and he decided to hold that here in an Colorado as opposed to anywhere else in the nation. So, I want to present Senator Harkin. 

Just a little gift so, hopefully, he—I know he will never forget us 

because he chose us first to hold his hearing here across the country—but it is a book of photographs of Colorado, one that was put 

together by the famous nature photographer, John Fielder. It is 

called ‘‘Mountain Ranges of Colorado’’ by John Fielder and has his 

signature and some other things on it. So, Tom, thank you for 

being with us. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, thank you very much. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KEN SALAZAR, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

COLORADO 

Senator SALAZAR. Let me just open it up by saying this. I want 

to want to welcome the Chairman and the ranchers and farmers 

of the rural communities who are here today. Last year I held a 

number of different sessions across Colorado in about nine different 

communities to listen to the farmers and ranchers of our state 

about what issues they were most concerned about in terms of agriculture. It has always been my view that Washington is a long 

ways from the people who are actually affected by the policies that 

are actually written there. And the best way that you can write a 

bill that has the kinds of implications that the national farm bill 

does, is to go out and listen to the farmers and ranchers and those 

who are involved in the business and are most affected by those 

policies. 

So, today is a beginning of Senator Harkin’s effort in this Congress to write the 2007 farm bill. But what we really want to do 

today is, we want to hear from all of you who are here. There are 

a number of different things that are very important to us as we 

move forward, and I am sure we are going to get into those as we 

move forward with the panel. So, with that I will turn it over to 

my chairman, Senator Tom Harkin. 

3

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

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

Chairman HARKIN. Well, thank you very much. I guess the first 

thing I have got to do is bang the gavel and say that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry will come to order. 

And, I want the record to show that the gavel was hit before Senator Salazar spoke, OK? I mean we actually got into official session 

before you spoke. I am sorry I did not do that before. And you can 

all laugh at that if you want, anyway. 

But, it is just great to be here. I want to thank Roxy Elliott, the 

Adams County current facilities technician for helping us here. I 

want to thank the Adams County Commissioners for hosting this. 

Commissioner Larry Pace. Is Larry Pace here? Right over here. 

Larry, thank you very much. And also Skip Fisher. Let’s thank 

them both for helping us get this arranged here today. Thank you 

both very much. 

Of course, I want to thank Governor Ritter. I know he had to return back to the statehouse. And also our Ag Commissioner Stulp 

who is here. We just had a press conference. Representative Curry, 

who is the chair of the House Agriculture Committee. 

Now, I have a Representative Sonnenberg. Is Representative 

Sonnenberg here? Well, thank you for being here. Representative 

Sonnenberg is here. Thank you. 

And I have a Trent Bushner, Yuma County Commissioner. 

Where’s Trent Bushner? Back here at the left. Thank you for being 

here, Commissioner. 

Well, I am going to ask consent that my statement just be made 

a part of the record. We are running behind time. You don’t need 

to hear from me; I need to hear from you. I just want to say that 

we have—Senator Salazar and I worked together getting this farm 

bill together. It is going to be aggressive, progressive. It is going 

to look to the future. A lot of new things in there. We are going 

to move energy, big time, and cellulose. We are going to do a lot 

of things in rural development area, also in conservation. 

But, I would have to say that the core—the core mission of our 

farm bill is to promote profitability and income potential in agriculture. And that means all our farmers and ranchers. That means 

specialty crops. That means everybody that is in production agriculture. 

So, we need to do that and how we do that? We are going to be 

looking at how we address the next 5 years. But just keep in mind 

that our National Security demands that we get off of that oil pipeline; that we quit importing so much of our energy. 

We put the first ever energy title in the farm bill in 2002 when 

I was chairman at that time. And we put it in on the Senate side 

and we held it, and it has formed the basis for us moving ahead 

in getting our energy needs from our land in this country. And we 

have to do that. So, aside from just food and fiber, we are going 

to be looking at fuel as a part of our farm bill. 

So, I just wanted to mention that. There are a lot of other passes 

of our farm bill, everything from specialty crops, to conservation, 

to all the things that are going to be done. I was looking at Colorado and I said, ‘‘Colorado? Great diversity. Everything from fed 

4

cattle, to dairy, to sheep, to lettuce, to sugar beets, potatoes and 

peaches. You cannot get much more diverse than that.’’ So, Colorado, aside from being ski country, is also farm and ranch country. 

And you could not have a better spokesman for your interests and 

a better fighter for you interests than Senator Salazar and I am 

just proud to have him on our Agriculture Committee. 

And with that, we will turn to our first panel. Now, all of your 

statements—and I read a lot of them last night—I had your initial 

statements. So they will be made a part of the record in their entirety. If there are one or two things that you want to see this farm 

bill do, let us have it in about 5 minutes, if you can. And then I’d 

rather just have questions. I am sure that Ken would like to ask, 

and I would like to ask. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN R. STULP, COLORADO COMMISSIONER 

OF AGRICULTURE 

Mr. STULP. Thank you, Senator Harkin. I, too, join the rest of agriculture in Colorado welcoming you and our good Senator Salazar 

for this hearing today. And I hope we have a good conversation 

about what we think is important in the upcoming farm bill. And 

we certainly appreciate the time and effort you have spent over 

your career on working for agriculture across this great country. 

As you pointed out, Colorado has a wide diversity of products 

that we produce, and we are quite proud of it. So, there is not an 

aspect of the farm bill that does not impact producers here one way 

or another. 

Now, we do not grow rice, cotton and peanuts, but Bob Sakata 

is working on bananas, I think. We do have a lot of entrepreneurs 

and the fact of agriculture is changing in Colorado. But there are 

some things that are still very important, as agricultural producers 

deal with the weather on a regular basis. And one of the first 

things I would like to see in the new farm bill is a more permanent 

disaster mechanism. 

We have just experienced a horrendous blizzard in southeastern 

Colorado. It may be the worst one in a hundred years. And we will 

have other disasters. We have disasters throughout the nation, as 

I know you well know. But we do not have a good mechanism to 

help livestock producers at this point. 

We have been frustrated by the fact that the USDA has been trying to apply a crop loss formula for a livestock disaster, and it just 

does not work. So, we need a permanent type of legislation to protect those producers that beyond their own ability need some assistance from the government. 

Another thing that I would like to visit with you about today is 

the specialty crop issues that are coming up in the new farm bill. 

We have a number of vegetable and specialty crop and fruit growers in Colorado and I do not think they are looking toward the traditional type of commodity program. But, they need additional support in areas of research and market development, and that research includes some disease control and some research at our 

land-grant institutions. So, I urge you to take a strong look at the 

needs of specialty crop producers. 

There are some issues around the allowance in the new farm bill 

of whether fruits and vegetables would be allowed on traditional 

5

commodity lands. I think we need to be very careful with that because we would not want to jeopardize one industry at the expense 

of another one. 

I have always appreciated your support for the renewable energy 

sector of our agricultural industry in the United States, and it has 

really taken off here in Colorado, too. We have seen a tremendous 

result in the price of corn, if you are a corn farmer, in the improved 

prices, as we produce a very clean product and help defer our need 

on foreign oil. It came at a good time because our energy prices in 

agriculture have also sky-rocketed. 

And our livestock industry, too, has been hit with these higher 

commodity prices as well as higher fuel prices. So, it is important 

that we try to develop new markets for our beef and our livestock 

producers that they too can afford these higher costs of energy. 

I have always pointed out to people that it is unfortunate in agriculture that we become somewhat cannibalistic and that one element of agriculture tends to feed off of another element of agriculture. And when you look at the take-home cost of food today, 

consumers are the best fed and, perhaps, the cheapest fed consumers in the world. So, it is important that we keep providing 

that and we do that through profitability that you so well pointed 

out. 

One last point on conservation. You have done a great job in conservation. We need to re-look at the CSP program to make sure it 

fits eastern Colorado, or all of Colorado, and that it is adequately 

funded. I think USDA spent more funds on advertising than they 

have on putting it in the ground. And so I urge you to take a 

strong look at that. 

And, again, I thank you for coming here and listening to our concerns. We pledge to work with you and Senator Salazar as you go 

forward with this new farm bill. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stulp can be found on page 72 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Commissioner Stulp, thank you very much. 

Let us go on down the panel here. Mr. Kent Peppler, the Rocky 

Mountain Farmers Union. 

STATEMENT OF KENT PEPPLER, PRESIDENT, ROCKY 

MOUNTAIN FARMERS UNION 

Mr. PEPPLER. Chairman Harkin, Senator Salazar, I am honored 

to have been asked here today to testify on the upcoming farm bill. 

My name is Kent Peppler and I am President of the Rocky 

Mountain Farmers Union. We are a general farm organization that 

represents about 25,000 family farmers throughout the states of 

Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. I also farm full time 30 miles 

north of here at Mead, Colorado. I was on the Farm Service Agency 

State Committee during the Clinton administration. And I am currently representing National Farmers Union on the Agriculture 

Trade Advisory Committee in the Bush administration. 

Later on in my testimony, I will give the bullet points on exactly 

what types of programs Rocky Mountain Farmers Union is going 

to support, but right now I would like to talk about what the No. 

1 issue is within the farm bill conversation. 

6

The No. 1 issue is money. It is imperative to the future of the 

economic health of rural America that Congress and the administration invest the proper amount of resources in the family farm 

agriculture in small town America. We are the key to National Security, energy independence, and we are the moral and ethic fiber 

that made this country great. 

At the National Farmers Union, we have committed significant 

time and money to researching the different farm bill proposals, 

and I am here to tell you that no matter how you crunch the numbers, a baseline or below baseline farm bill will not work. If we 

have a baseline farm budget, young people will continue their mass 

exodus from the heartland; small rural towns will continue to have 

tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street; and this country will become dependent on foreign sources for food, just are we are currently relying on oil. 

This is not a pay-as-you-go situation. If rural America is to survive, we need at least the 2002 budget, and more. 

The members of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union have asked 

me to relate to all of you what we will support in the upcoming debate. Obviously, we support protection of the safety net. It is true 

the commodity prices are high now, but history has proven to us 

that this, too, will pass. And when it does, we will need a strong 

counter-cyclical mechanism, plus the current fixed payment to 

allow us to be viable. 

Rocky calls for a farmer-owned commodity loan or strategic biofuel feedstock reserve. Our members believe it is time for a permanent disaster program. That includes livestock. We have a disaster 

every year and it wastes our time, it wastes our legislators’ time, 

and it wastes the taxpayers’ money for us to continually have to 

go back and fight for this disaster aid. 

We support fully funding conservation programs, such as Senator Harkin’s CSP program. It is amazing to me that we left $23 billion 

on the table in the last farm bill and somehow we did not get the 

conservation programs properly funded. 

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union whole-heartedly believes in the 

development of renewable energies. This may be the most exciting 

technology for the sustainability of family farm agriculture that we 

have seen in a generation. 

We believe in a trade title that promotes, not just free trade, but 

fair trade. We support strong public research and urge the finalized 

funding for the greenhouse complex at the USDA Research Center 

in Akron, Colorado. 

Rocky urges continuation of the crop insurance program with 100 

percent coverage, just like we have on our homes and our vehicles. 

And in times of multiple-year disasters that our APH yields never 

fall below FSA county average yield. 

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union supports rural development programs. We support payment limits; we support current sugar programs; we support full staffing of the Farm Service Agency; we 

support a dairy program that increases the viability of family sized 

producers. 

We support a National Organic Certification Costs program and 

we absolutely support food nutrition programs and urge Congress 

to make rural healthcare an issue. 

7

In conclusion, I would like to thank you again for allowing me 

to testify. The world has spun around many times since we developed our last farm bill. I believe that history has proven that the 

sustainability of family farm agriculture is the linchpin to the future success of our great country. 

God Bless America. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Peppler can be found on page 61 

in the appendix.] 

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

I did not say this earlier. These lights and green, then yellow. 

When it hits red, that is 5 minutes. So far, we are doing pretty 

good. 

Mr. Alan Welp, State Director of the Colorado Sugar Beet Growers. Welcome, Mr. Welp. 

STATEMENT OF ALAN WELP, STATE DIRECTOR, COLORADO 

SUGAR BEET GROWERS 

Mr. WELP. Mr. Chairman, welcome to Colorado. 

The Colorado Sugar Beet Growers look forward to working with 

you and your committee on developing the sugar provisions for the 

2007 farm bill. We support the structure of our current U.S. sugar 

policy. And we continue to work to enhance the current program 

and to make our program more predictable. 

There are six observations I would like to make. First, I am a 

shareholder of Western Sugar. We are a very young co-operative 

whose shareholders carry substantial debt from our purchases of 

our factory in 2002. We are currently struggling to maintain acres, 

due to the high prices of corn and the low prices of sugar. We have 

not had a support rate increase for 20 years. Yet, our prices for our 

fuel, fertilizer and virtually all other inputs have risen dramatically. This problem needs to be addressed in the new farm bill. 

Second. Our prices have plunged since last summer when USDA 

announced in July a commitment to import 250,000 tons of sugar 

from Mexico, and an additional 250,000 tons of sugar from our 

WTO trading partners. This significantly oversupplied our market. 

Mexico has a short crop this year and does not have the 250,000 

pounds of sugar to import to us, so they are buying sugar from 

their neighboring countries so that Mexican sugar can be shipped 

into our market. The bottom line is, Mexico is shipping us sugar 

that they don’t have and we don’t need. That just is not right. 

This also calls into question whether Mexico will live up to its 

NAFTA obligation and will there be a level playing field for American sugar farmers in our own markets and in the Mexican market. 

Third. USDA proposes to retain the basic structure of our existing policy and continue to run it at no cost to the taxpayer. We 

agree. We should use the taxpayer dollars wisely. We do object to 

USDA’s request that it be given sole discretion to reduce domestic 

sugar production without parameters or guidelines. 

Fourth. Large food manufacturers are lobbying Congress to 

eliminate the no-cost sugar policy. They want a $1.3 billion a year 

plan built around sugar subsidy checks—a plan that sugar farmers 

strongly oppose. 

Fifth. Everyone asks about making ethanol from surplus sugar. 

We view this as a limited option to be used for the simple purpose 

8

of disposing of surplus sugar because of excessive imports. Now, 

this will take some time to develop and additional incentives will 

be required. 

Finally, as the WTO negotiations continue, our farmers are deeply concerned that the developing nations that produce and expert 

75 percent of the world’s sugar, not plagued by the same trade 

rules that we do, we ask that you continue to watch these negotiations closely and not allow American producers to be put at a disadvantage. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and our industry looks 

forward to working with you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Welp can be found on page 82 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, Mr. Welp, I thank you for a very concise and very well delineated problem that we have in sugar. I will 

have more to say about that later. 

Mr. Dusty Tallman of the Colorado Wheat Growers. Mr. 

Tallman. 

STATEMENT OF DUSTY TALLMAN, COLORADO WHEAT 

GROWERS 

Mr. TALLMAN. Thank you, Chairman, members of the committee. 

We appreciate you holding the meeting here today, and we appreciate Senator Salazar and all the work he does for agriculture and 

what you both do for agriculture. It is important to most of us in 

this room. 

Unfortunately, Colorado has had somewhat of a drought the last 

10 years. Six out of the last 10 years, we have had below-average 

wheat crops. And I guess something that has not been mentioned 

so far, we do support a disaster for the 1905–’06 years and I know 

that you both have been working on that very hard and we hope 

that can continue and that we can get that done in the next month 

or two. 

As far as the farm bill and disaster payments over the last 5 

years for many of us in the room, that is what has kept us in business. And even with that, we have been using quite a little of our 

equity just to continue farming. For many of us, it is getting to the 

point that we cannot go on too much longer. So, we do have a few 

suggestions of improvement, I guess, on the 1902 bill. 

We think direct payments are still, by far, the best way to go. 

We think in wheat’s case, they should be increased—and I don’t 

want to speak for the other crops—but a fairly significant increase 

for wheat. I think in the written testimony, we talked about how 

we came up with the figure we came up with. We also see a similar 

increase in our target price. In the 1902 farm bill, when the discussions came between the House and the Senate to conference the 

bill, wheat lost about 74 cents for a little bit, and then 62 cents in 

the end. We lost quite a little of our target price at that time. 

We see an increase in our target price. We have not used the 

counter-cyclical payment at all, partially because we have had 

small wheat crops and the price has been high. So, it has worked. 

It has worked the way it was supposed to. 

But, I think increases in the direct payment and also increases 

in the counter-cyclical, for the wheat, at least, would strongly help 

9

eliminate the need for disaster bills. I do not think it will ever 

eliminate completely the need for disaster, but I think it would 

help. 

Crop insurance has been a very, very effective tool for us to try 

and preserve some of our income but, as was mentioned before, 

when you have six out of 7 years of below-average crops—we have 

people, I think I have a field actually that has been so dry that my 

APH is cut by two-thirds and my crop insurance rate has doubled. 

So, I am paying twice as much for one-third of the insurance I was 

buying five or 6 years ago. 

We need to continue to work on that, and that is one of the reasons we suggest a higher direct payment. We think if we can have 

a higher direct payment, it covers some of that 25 to 35 percent 

that we cannot afford to buy. We cannot afford to buy much over 

60–65 percent insurance in eastern Colorado. So, a larger direct 

payment and a larger counter-cyclical target price would help fill 

that void we cannot insure. 

As far as conservation title, we thought it was a wonderful thing 

last time around. We still do. And I guess I would echo the 

thoughts that it needs to be fully funded; it needs to be available 

to every producer. Quite often, when you start getting environmental points and ground bid in by environmental points, the front 

range along the mountains here gets higher points than we do, just 

because they have more pressure from urban development. And we 

need to make it available so it goes clear out to the eastern plains 

and western Kansas and all across the country. 

It has been mentioned about a permanent disaster bill. As far as 

wheat goes, we have not decided. We cannot decide if that is a good 

thing, a bad thing—I guess we need to see some more information. 

It would ease the pressure on trying to pass disaster, but I do not 

know how you would ever decide how much to fund it with. So, 

that is still a little up in the air for us. 

Energy is very important to wheat, as it is to all of agriculture. 

Not only do we pay more for everything that we use energy for, but 

the promise of ethanol is out there and I think wheat can benefit 

from that, also. 

As far as the WTO negotiations, I would suggest that we go 

ahead and write a farm bill we think is the best for the producers 

and not worry too much about what WTO is. If we negotiate things 

away before we write a new farm bill, then we will not have anything to negotiate about and they will find something else they do 

not like. 

Payment limitations? I guess I cannot oppose payment limitations, but I sure would hope that if we increased direct payments 

and target prices, we could increase payment limitations, or at 

least package them somehow different. It has been very unfair to 

wheat producers who use only the direct payment, that is the lowest payment we have. And it has been kind of tough on us. 

Last, I would say that we provide the safest, most reliable, most 

affordable food supply and we need to continue to do that and not 

become reliant on foreign countries. 

Thank you, very much. 

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

78 in the appendix.] 

10

Chairman HARKIN. Well, thank you, very much, Mr. Tallman. 

And now, Dr. Gary Peterson, Head of the Department of Soil and 

Crop Sciences at Colorado State University. Dr. Peterson. 

STATEMENT OF DR. GARY PETERSON, HEAD DEPARTMENT OF 

SOIL AND CROP SCIENCES, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY 

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the new farm bill. Today I am representing the College of Ag 

Sciences and the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, which 

is housed at Colorado State University. I would like to bring just 

a few points to your attention, many of which you are already 

aware. 

First off, publicly supported Ag research and extension has resulted in significant increases in productivity of farms and ranches 

and low-cost, safe, nutritious food for the consumers. That has been 

brought out many times. And recent study shows that the annual 

return on investments in Ag research is 35 percent per year. Most 

of us would like to make that kind of money. 

So, Colorado State University strongly encourages increased support of Ag research and co-op extension to land-grant universities, 

especially in regard to formula funds. We have had level formula 

funding and, with inflation, that has really eaten into the effectiveness of that money. And, I want to speak to formula funding in the 

sense that it is the way that we have an infrastructure for research. And it is the way we can conduct long term research. When 

we talk about cellulosic energy and we talk about removing crop 

biomass, what are the effects of that on soils? You cannot find that 

out with a 3–year grant. So, even though we really also like competitive grants, we think that formula funding is a key thing for 

not just Colorado State University, but all land-grant universities. 

Regarding competitive grants, NRI has been a really good thing. 

It also is underfunded. Our scientists now are writing proposals 

and roughly 8 percent of the proposals they write are funded. And 

it is not because they are poor proposals, it is because there is just 

not enough money. That is probably not news to you. 

Also, ARS, which is another part of USDA, really needs support. 

We have many collaborative projects between land-grant universities and ARS—the work at Akron; the work at Ft. Collins; the 

works in Ames, Iowa, with the National TILF Lab those people are 

cooperators, and as we talk about reorganization, we want to make 

sure that no partner is damaged here—when we talk about how 

ARS fits into the funding. These collaborative projects are very important. 

In summary, everything in agriculture is changing fast. And, I 

guess because I am getting older, I think it is changing faster than 

some other people and our rural communities are in need of help. 

So, investing public funds in research that will benefit those rural 

communities and Ag in general, is really something the country 

needs. 

I thank you for the opportunity to address both of you today. 

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

69 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, very much, Dr. Peterson. 

11

And now we go to Mr. Alan Foutz, Colorado Farm Bureau. Mr. 

Foutz, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ALAN FOUTZ, COLORADO FARM BUREAU 

Mr. FOUTZ. Good afternoon, Senator Harkin. It is indeed a pleasure to welcome you to our great state of Colorado. As you indicated 

in your opening, it is a tremendous agricultural state and we appreciate your being here. It is also a pleasure to be with Senator 

Ken Salazar. Senator Salazar, I am sorry I did not get to see you 

last week. I was pretty busy while I was in Washington, but I will 

be there the next time around. 

Senator SALAZAR. (inaudible) second tier. 

Mr. FOUTZ. I sent the second tier, that is right. 

Senator SALAZAR. I gave them equally a hard time that I give 

you. 

Mr. FOUTZ. I heard that, too. 

Colorado Farm Bureau does represent 28,000 families here in the 

state of Colorado and we are pleased today to have some time to 

spend with you. 

We do support extending the concepts of the 2002 farm bill into 

the next farm bill. However, we do feel that changes will be necessary and if there are changes that do happen, we think consideration should be given to green box compliant compensation programs, particularly for fruit and vegetable growers. 

We think we need to work some more on some working land conservation programs and strengthen our revenue-based, safety net 

program, direct payments and our commodity loan programs. 

As we looked at the USDA proposal that we began to see earlier 

this year, we find that the budget for that is some $10 billion less 

than what was budgeted in the 2002 farm bill, and that greatly 

concerns us. Even if we take one step further and look at the CBO 

estimates that just came out this month, that is something that is 

significantly less than what was even proposed in the USDA proposal. So, we are very concerned about the amount of money that 

is being proposed for this next farm bill and the impact that has 

on commodity programs and on our disaster assistance programs. 

The recent USDA proposal calls for moving away from a countercyclical program to a revenue-based program that is responsive to 

actual conditions and still provides a strong safety net. Colorado 

Farm Bureau supports that concept. Farmers really need the help 

when Mother Nature deals them a blow and today’s loan deficiency 

payment programs, and so forth, just simply do not do that. When 

prices are high, payments are low; when prices are low—it just 

does not work very well. So, we think we need to have some revisions there. 

One of the things we would like to see and have a discussion 

about is on payment limits. American Farm Bureau has taken the 

stand, and continues to take the stand, that we would not like to 

see payment limits. We think, if you are in agriculture, you are in 

agriculture, regardless of the size of operation you have. So we 

would really not like to see payment limitations. 

In addition, USDA has proposed to eliminate a provision in the 

current law governing how farmers organize their operations—

12

known as the three-entity rule—and Colorado Farm Bureau opposes that proposal, as well. 

The USDA proposal would increase the acreage limit on Wetlands Reserve Program from 2.3 to 3.5 million acres. Colorado 

Farm Bureau does support the Wetlands Reserve Program. The 

program, however, should include a buy-up clause that would allow 

producers to remove those areas from the program. In addition, authority for the Federal Government to purchase permanent easements under the program, we think, should be terminated. 

The USDA proposal also calls for continuing the Conservation 

Reserve Program at the current acreage limit. We support that concept and we support continuing the CRP program. We do feel, however, that it is important that tenant farmers’ rights be protected 

in that program. Reasonable limits on participation should be included to protect the economic stability in individual counties or regions. We have seen that there have been negative impacts there 

with the CRP program in our state. The administration’s proposal also includes more than $1.6 million in the renewable energy funding. We support renewable energy funding all the way from the ethanol programs with corn and 

cellulosic projects and so forth. We really do think that the future 

of agriculture is probably part of that and based in that. 

I could continue on several other issues, Senators, but I think I 

am going to stop here and thank you for being here with us today 

so we could have this discussion. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Foutz can be found on page 48 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Foutz, thank you, very much. 

Thank you all, very much. You are very concise and, as I said 

earlier, well-delineated statements. I appreciate that, very much. 

One of the themes that came through to me from everyone who 

spoke was this problem with disaster payments. Let me point out 

something here. In 2003, it was the first time ever—first time 

ever—that we took money out of agriculture to pay for a disaster. 

It never, ever happened before. I, and others, fought it like the 

dickens. We did not win, but we got the money put back. 

Then, when we got the money put back, they came back the next year and took it out again. So, what we have lost is about $4 billion 

that was taken out of conservation to pay for disaster. As I said, 

that has never happened before. Think about it this way: It would 

be like us going to New Orleans and saying, ‘‘Well, you had 

Katrina. It is a bad disaster. OK, we will give you all this money, 

but we are going to take it out of your highway funds. We are 

going to take it out of your education money. We will take it out 

of your Medicare. We will just take it out of Federal money that 

goes to your state.’’ We do not say that to anybody. No disaster—

whether it is a hurricane, a flood, fires, droughts, whatever. 

Freezes. We have never ever said that it has got to come out of agriculture. We treat it as a natural disaster just like everything else. 

So, I want to make that point because we are going to work very 

hard in the farm bill to see what we can do to stop that from ever 

happening in the future. We should never allow any administration 

to come in and take money out of agriculture to pay for a disaster. 

13

So, that has kind of put us down. Put us down about $4 billion right there and, as pointed out, USDA’s budget is down about $10 

billion. Actually, we are down about $23 billion in agriculture from 

what we were allowed to spend. 

OK, I just need to make this point very clearly. I was chairman 

for the last farm bill. We were given a budget. We stayed within 

that budget. But, because of higher crop prices, good conditions, we 

didn’t have to pay out all that money, so we saved the taxpayers 

23—well, actually about 18—it was about $4 billion, as I said, that 

they took out of conservation, then about another $18 to $19 billion 

that we did not have to spend. But, we could have spent. 

So, the thing about this way—we were very successful; we saved 

the taxpayers money; so now, we are getting penalized for it. I 

know that may sound familiar to a lot of you. But, we should not 

be penalized because we need this now for energy security; we need 

to put money in for our National Security purposes; we need to 

make sure that we respond to changing crop climates and things 

in this country; we need to make sure that we have a strong conservation program; and to make sure, as some of you have mentioned, our crop insurance program needs to be tinkered with a little bit to make sure that people can have coverage so that they do 

not get in the position that some of you mentioned where your productivity goes down and your costs go up. And that does not make 

any sense whatsoever. 

But, I just wanted to thank all of you for your input and for your 

statements, especially on research, Dr. Peterson. You are right. We 

need to fund research more, especially in the areas of energy and 

also specialty crops. More and more people in this country want 

specialty crops. We have to figure out how we can produce them, 

where we can produce them, and how we make it profitable for 

those who grow our specialty crops. 

And, last, I will just say this about fair trade—and that gets into 

the sugar business, too. I am all for fair trade and living up to our 

WTO commitments. Now, it was said by one of you that we should 

go ahead and write a farm bill and forget about WTO. I wish I 

could do that. I cannot. Under the Constitution of the United 

States—you can read it, it is in the Constitution—treaties are the 

supreme law of the land. It is in the Constitution. And we have a 

treat obligation, like it or not. And I may not like it all that well. 

I have to be cognizant of that. So does Senator Salazar. 

So, we do have to understand that we have WTO obligations and 

that we will have to draft our farm bill accordingly. Now, one of 

you mentioned looking at green box payments. Those are exempt 

under WTO, 

Now, the other thing we are going to fight very hard to do is, we 

are going to fight very hard to ensure that our programs for energy 

production—for cellulose energy production, wind production and 

things like that. And that will be in the farm bill, by the way—

that those are also WTO compliant. Since we are not exporting it. 

We are using it here. It has nothing to do with trade. So, it also 

ought to be exempt from WTO. And we are going to fight very hard 

to make sure that happens, also. To make sure that they are input. 

We are also looking at conservation. Some of you mentioned the 

CSP program, how we can use that again as it was intended as a 

14

national program, not based on watershed. To make it a national 

program to get to every farmer. I do not care what you produce—

whether it is lettuce, or cabbage, or corn, or cattle, or hogs—whatever it might be. Whatever you are producing, you should be eligible for CSP payments as long as you are a good conservationist; as 

long as you protect the soil and the water wildlife habitat. 

So, those are just some of my thoughts, listening to that—I do 

have questions, but guess I used up all my time talking. But, thank 

you, very much, for your input into this farm bill. It is going to be 

a tough bill to write with the constraints of the budget that we 

have. I have no doubt that we will do all right, we will meet our 

obligations and we will most ahead aggressively. 

With that, I will turn to my good friend, Senator Salazar. 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you, very much, Senator Harkin. Let 

me first say to the panelists, I very much appreciate the excellent 

testimony that you provided here, as well as the written reports 

that you provided to us, our committee and our staffs. I have an 

opening statement, but as Senator Harkin did, I, too, will submit 

that for the record, so I can ask at least one question. I also would 

like to say, just at the outset, that there are a lot of important 

things we are going to do in the Congress this year, ranging from 

what happens in the whole field of National Security and what 

happens with military and Homeland Security legislation that we 

are working on now. How we move forward with the issue of a new 

energy security future for our nation; how we deal with other very 

difficult issues, such as immigration. There are those issues that I 

am sure we will work on. 

But, one of the things that will be as important, to my mind, will 

be what we do with this 2007 farm bill in making sure that what 

we are doing is supporting the food security of our nation—as those 

of you, I think most of you have been in my office at one time or 

another—you have seen the sign on my desk that says, ‘‘No Farms, 

No Food.’’ And I think it is important for us to keep reminding the 

world about the food security of or country. 

Let me ask a question relating to energy. And, I have about 

three or four questions for each of you. But, what I am going to 

do, because I will not have the time is, I am going to submit those 

questions to you and your organizations and I would ask that you 

respond back to those questions. 

Let me just focus in on the question of energy. Huge issue. It is 

a big wave. It is coming across Colorado. I want Colorado to become very much the renewable energy capital of the world. Senator 

Harkin gave us 4 hours of his time this morning to tour the National Renewable Energy Lab, and I think he and I both came 

away impressed with some of the advances that are being made in 

technology. My question to each of you—and if you will take 20 seconds to answer it apiece—is this: How do we make sure that it is 

the farmer on the ground that ultimately benefits from this renewable energy revolution that we are seeing that is going to be 

pushed forward because of the national security, environmental security and economic security reasons and values that we are trying 

to protect here? How can the farmer with a small bio-diesel project 

or with some other cooperative project—how can we bring those 

benefits of this renewable energy revolution to rural America? 

15

So, if you will take 30 seconds apiece and we will try to get to 

you one at a time, starting with you, John. 

Mr. STULP. I have never answered anything in 30 seconds. I will 

try. 

I think we have got to look at the Tax Codes and how the different credits for renewable energy are applied, and make those 

credits marketable. So, when you have a small producer—whether 

it is bio-diesel, ethanol, or wind—that oftentimes they do not have 

the tax liability and they need the ability to market those tax credits so they can turn them into cash. I think that is one thing that 

comes to mind. 

Senator SALAZAR. OK. Mr. Peppler? 

Mr. PEPPLER. Well, I think as we go into this exciting new renewable energy situation, I think we need to have our eyes wide 

open and be flexible on things. And, I think as we start these programs, we need to call on our farmer organizations and talk with 

the grassroots people and be able to amend and adjust these things 

as we go through them. 

Senator SALAZAR. So, maintain some flexibility. Mr. Welp? 

Mr. WELP. Yes, sir. With the new technologies that are going to 

be coming forward, there is a whole frontier in front of us on renewables. How to get it into farmers’ hands, that remains a very 

good question. I guess technology at the former level on production 

and how to produce for the ethanol market. 

Senator SALAZAR. Mr. Tallman? 

Mr. TALLMAN. I guess, actually in my mind, we are benefiting 

fairly significantly right now, because they are using so much corn 

in the ethanol business that it has kept the wheat price high. And 

sunflower price in our country—the bid on sunflowers is very good 

this year. So, I think it is actually benefiting us right now, indirectly. I think research is probably as important as anything else. 

We hear about switchgrass and other crops that will grow in eastern Colorado without irrigation. I think that would be very important to help us become energy-independent on the farm, too. 

Senator SALAZAR. Mr. Peterson? 

Mr. PETERSON. I would think an educational program so that the 

farmer would understand that the productivity of their land could 

be affected by what they remove. It is important to return carbon 

to the soil. So, if the cellulosic energy is just removal of corn stalks, 

that could be really bad for Colorado soils. So, some caution about 

how we actually derive the cellulosic energy. 

Senator SALAZAR. Alan? 

Mr. FOUTZ. You know, I would agree with all of the comments 

made here. There is one thing I think we need to look at very seriously—organizationally—and that is, we are asking our members 

to be something than a producer of food and fiber. And for most 

farmers’ ventures, that is a deep-set feeling. And we are asking 

them to be producers of energy. So, I think we have got a lot of 

work to do—not the mechanical issues—I think we have a lot of 

work to do to change the philosophy of how we do agriculture 

today. 

Senator SALAZAR. One of the concerns I have is—I am an unabashed advocate for what we are doing with efficiency and renewable energy and new technologies and will be for my seats on the 

16

Agricultural Committee, Finance Committee and Energy Committee, and hope to push that very hard over the next 2 years. But, 

I also do not want to see this new wave that is coming across 

America, essentially only benefit Wall Street and those who can afford to put together the $100 million packages. 

So my question that I am going to keep trying to explore is, how 

do we get these opportunities down on the farm? How do we create, 

for example, a co-op among three or four farmers for a maybe a biodiesel refinery that can provide the diesel, the fuel supplies, for 

those farms? How do we do the same thing with respect to the 

wind energy that is being produced so that we can have the kinds 

of credits and incentives that allow us on any particular farm, perhaps, to take advantage of some of the wind technology that is now 

being developed and extensively deployed across the country? 

So, how we get these benefits down to the farmer level is a big 

question for me. I want your help and continuing guidance on this 

issue as we move forward. 

We have lots of other questions but, I think—Mr. Chairman, it 

is about three o’clock and we have one more panel to go. 

Chairman HARKIN. I am told we have a little bit of time, if I 

might just ask two kinds of questions. One general. I am going to 

go down the line, just like Ken did. 

We see the aging of agriculture in America. I see it in my state—

all over rural America. The average age of our farmers and ranchers are getting older and older. Our small towns are drying up. 

And what do we do? What do we need to do? 

If we are going to look at this farm bill which addresses economic 

development, addresses the structure of agriculture—but looking at 

the future—what should we be looking to develop as future opportunities for young people—or anyone for that matter who wants to 

get into farming or agriculture or live and work in rural America? 

I know that is broad, but I am just trying to get some of your best 

thoughts. I mean, we have got to do something to revitalize rural 

America as a place for young people to live and work and raise 

their families. And we need to find some way for them to get into 

agriculture. The cost now to get in is just almost exorbitant. 

What should we do? If we are looking at that down the pike, 

what should we be looking at in the farm bill? 

Commissioner? 

Mr. STULP. I think the one thing that I would characterize that 

will attract people into agriculture would be profitability. The problem that we have had over the last several decades—it may be 

even more than that—is a lack of profitability. So, we have seen 

a greater concentration—in my own farming operation—we are 

farming over the tops of probably of probably 40 or 50 homesteads 

that were started by the Homestead Act back in the early part of 

the last century. And it was because of a lack of profitability that 

those people left. And we have seen that decline in production 

units going to larger ones. And if the smaller operator is to succeed, or a young person going into agriculture is going to succeed, 

they have to be able to make a profit. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Peppler? 

Mr. PEPPLER. Well, I agree with Commission Stulp. Profit is obviously the No. 1 issue. But, I think we also need to look at rural 

17

America from the social side, also, and rural development. We have 

to maintain the standard of living that is equal to, or better than, 

our urban cousins’. We need to look at healthcare. We need to look 

at public schools. We need to look at quality of life issues within 

our small communities, including churches, healthcare and schools. 

Mr. WELP. I do have two sons who are very interested in coming 

back into farming, but they have seen how, in the last six or 7 

years, that the operation has struggled due to drought in Colorado 

and then the low prices. And their other concern is our water here 

in Colorado. So it goes back to profitability—eliminating the 

drought would be a good idea. 

Mr. TALLMAN. I guess profitability would be No. 1 with probably 

anybody. I think it will attract people to come to the farm, if they 

see that they can make some money. The problem that we have got 

in eastern Colorado is, we don’t have many young people to stay 

there. You were talking about your hometown last night—we are 

the same way. We have gone from 400 kids in school—K–12—to 

about 180 I think it is right now. So, we don’t have many kids to 

even draw from. So, we’re going to have to draw young people from 

the cities to come out there and I think the way to do it is show 

them they can make some money and that it is a great way of life. 

You are your own boss out there. You have your own hours. You 

work real hard when to and you can take some time off when you 

do not. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Peterson? 

Mr. PETERSON. My remarks are related to profitability, but just 

a little broader. There are a lot of opportunities in jobs where people live in rural communities and then serve agriculture. One of 

the problems we have is that the starting salaries of people that 

graduate from the College of Ag Sciences, is quite a bit lower than 

for engineering. And it is simply because that agriculture is not 

profitable enough to pay the salaries that some of these people 

need. So, it really goes back to opportunity and money. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, very much. Mr. Foutz? 

Mr. FOUTZ. Well, obviously I would have to say that profitability 

is probably the major issue. I had two children that decided not to 

come back to the farm. They like to live in the Denver and Cheyenne area. And I think part of that is not necessarily profitability, 

but it is also as someone else said, and that is the social activities 

that take place in a rural community. So, one of the things that 

we need to do is to somehow have a stronger rural development 

program so that we can offer services and activities in rural communities that we do not currently have. That would include 

healthcare and all of those sorts of things that just are not there 

today. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, I have just added that—I had just 

marked it off. Everybody said profitability, but I agree with Mr. 

Peppler and Mr. Foutz. You can have a lot of profitability out 

there, but if you do not have decent healthcare in rural America, 

if you do not have the schools where your kids do not have to ride 

an hour on a bus every morning in the dark and back home in the 

dark—if you have got decent shopping, churches—the kinds of 

things that make for a social infrastructure, you can have a lot of 

profitability and people just will not do it. 

18

So, I think you are all right. We have got to have profitability 

in there, but we have to think about rural economic development 

and how we do other things—provide for other incomes. Broadband 

technology, things like that in rural America to get those kinds of 

rural jobs out there for people. 

Did you have anything, Ken, that you wanted to follow up? 

Senator SALAZAR. (inaudible). 

Chairman HARKIN. I think we had better move on. Thank you 

all, very much, for being here. We have finished our panel on time. 

I was told to finish by 2:10 and that is where we are. So, I thank 

you, very much for your input. 

I just conferred with my boss and he said that we are not going 

to take a break, we are just going to move right into the second 

panel. So, I would like to call up our second panel here—as soon 

as I find the list—Mr. Roger Mix, Mr. Randy Loutzenhiser, Mr. 

Terry Fankhauser, Mr. Doug Zalesky and Ms. Kathy White. 

Thank you, very much. Now, we turn to our second panel. We 

have a mix of different people and different interests here. I think, 

again, just to show the breadth of what we do in agriculture. We 

will do the same thing: the green light will come on, you have got 

up to 5 minutes, if you just begin, give us your best points and 

what you think you want us to do in the farm bill, and then we 

will open it for discussion afterward. 

If we have any time—excuse me, I am losing my voice, darn it—

if we have any time before we have to rush to the airport to catch 

the last flight back to Washington, I would like to open it for any 

questions or comments from the audience. So, I am going to try to 

do that. I always like to do that and I will see if I can do that here. 

First, we will go to Mr. Roger Mix, of the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee. And, again, all of you. We have your testimonies and we have made them a part of the record in their entirety. If you would just sum it up in 5 minutes, we would appreciate it. 

Mr. Roger Mix. 

STATEMENT OF ROGER MIX, COLORADO POTATO 

ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE 

Mr. MIX. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Senator 

Salazar. I am a third-generation farmer from Center, Colorado, in 

the San Luis Valley, the south central part of the state. My family 

farm produces certified seed potatoes and malting barley. Currently, I am a Director on the Executive Committee for the National Potato Council, and a board member on the U.S. Potato 

Board. 

I am extremely happy to be here to have the opportunity to 

speak to the specialty crop title in the farm bill. Fruit and vegetable and tree nut production accounts for over $35 billion in farm 

gate value annually, or 30 percent of the farm cash receipts on an 

annual basis. The specialty crop industry is an important sector of 

the United States agriculture deserving full and equal consideration as other agricultural sectors in the farm bill. In these numbers, potatoes represent 10 percent of that total. 

Speaking for the potato growers, we are not interested in direct 

program payments, but the type of fund we want to see in the farm 

19

bill is designed to build our long-term competitiveness and ensure 

sustainability for our industry. 

Some of the key priorities I would like to go over with you right 

now is nutrition programs, fruit and vegetable accessibility to 

school children; to comply with increased consumption of fruits and 

vegetables in the dietary guidelines; research is another one. We 

need significant increases in the amount of investment in specialty 

crop research. 

Another priority is state block grants. We need to expand this 

program because state departments of agriculture are in tune with 

the diverse needs of their growers to know what specific investment will increase specialty crop competitiveness. 

International trade is a big priority for us to increase access to 

foreign markets through addressing the trade barriers we face involving sanitary and phytosanitary issues. And of particular interest to Colorado is the Mexican market, which has already been 

opened, but we need to extend that market past the 26 kilometers. 

Also, a market is a Market Access Program. 

In conservation, a critical issue for Colorado and the western 

United States is a sustainable use of ground water and surface 

water for irrigation. Increased funding for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program is necessary to assist watersheds for 

Colorado and in the San Luis Valley. 

The last point that I would like to bring up is the great importance to the specialty crop producer is the need for continued restrictions on planting flexibility that prevents fruits and vegetables 

from being planted on program crop acreage. To allow subsidized 

farmers and land to compete with unsubsidized farmers would be 

an inequitable and market destroying practice. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mix can be found on page 59 in 

the appendix.] 

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

And now we turn to Mr. Randy Loutzenhiser I hope I pronounced 

that right—Executive Director of the Colorado Conservation Districts. 

STATEMENT OF RANDY LOUTZENHISER, COLORADO 

ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION DISTRICTS 

Mr. LOUTZENHISER. Yes, you did, Chairman Harkin. Mr. Salazar, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify before you here today. 

My name is Randy Loutzenhiser and I am a dry-land and irrigated producer from eastern Colorado in Kitt Carson County and 

the Past President of the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts, and currently continue to remain as a Director to that board. 

We have heard of the different scenarios with regard to the climate here in Colorado, that it has brought in the past six to eight 

to 10 years. And we understand what the Ag economy has been 

like. Some of the things that we have not mentioned here today are 

the regulatory burden that gets placed upon agriculture, as well as 

the socio and political burden. 

I am going to take my comments in this direction right now. We 

have been in this drought; we have been burdened by the economy 

as agriculture producers; and I look at the conservation aspects 

20

here in Colorado and can stand upon this statement. In the past 

five to 7 years this drought has gone on, we have not had the erosive forces of nature that was seen back in the 1930’s. I guess it 

is just a compliment that I would like to make toward private land 

owner-land stewardship throughout the years and what we have 

learned over time. 

Therefore, the preface to my comments is, and the foundation of 

this is the fact that we have established a very good baseline utilizing conservation program efforts and would continue to ask that 

we place an emphasis upon conservation in the upcoming farm bill. 

What does conservation bring to the citizens of the United 

States, to the citizens of Colorado? Well, certainly cleaner water 

through buffers, rangelands and CRP. We have arrested the soil 

erosion issues. Yeah, we continue to see soil particulate matter in 

the air, but not like, as I said earlier, what we did in the 1930’s. 

It is a pathway to open space for the habitat caretakers for wildlife. 

We assist in the mitigation of critical species habitat. We can provide mitigation for greenhouse gas issues. We can provide sources 

of energy, both renewable and bio. And, then, bottom line, we are 

the providers of food and fiber. 

Going into the conservation programs, I first want to start out 

with the Conservation Reserve Program. There are going to be 

pressures upon this program, and one of those pressures is the resulting higher commodity prices and the alternative energy demand. Because of the higher prices, it is going to be interesting to 

see how FSA will continue to structure their rental rates to keep 

those lands in the CRP. Certainly in Colorado, in the arid climate, 

I think it is going to be interesting to see what type of role we will 

play in cellulosic energy production. Or, maybe in other words, 

would we be better off looking at possibly transitioning these CRP 

lands to a different type of working land, and that being a rangeland, particularly on Class 4 lands and higher? And transitioning 

those lands into a Managed Grazing Program under easement? 

In consideration of the farm bill, we also need to look at maybe 

utilizing CRP as an emergency-type tool that can be used in years 

of drought to give rangelands rest and utilize CRP lands for livestock production. 

The Conservation Security Program. I believe it is a brilliant program in concept and, certainly, as we look into the farm bill, maybe 

we need to be looking at setting the criteria for standard minimum 

qualifications at a high level and offer a single-tiered approach for 

acceptance into this program. The program needs to be streamlined. 

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program. We need to 

maintain the local work group latitude and area program input to 

adequately and fairly address conservation needs of USDA customers locally, regionally and statewide. This program should be a 

resource driven, locally led effort with sufficient flexibility to identify local priorities. I would ask that we give consideration to 

rangelands and water quantity as EQIP priority issues. 

The Conservation Technical Assistance Program is also another 

area that we need to continue to provide strong support in order 

that we can not only get the conservation programs—those Federal 

programs—on the ground, but also that we can supply that techVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35043.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
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nical assistance to those who go it alone without Federal assistance. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Loutzenhiser can be found on 

page 51 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, very much, Randy. 

And now we will turn to Mr. Terry Fankhauser, Executive Director of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. 

STATEMENT OF TERRY R. FANKHAUSER, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, COLORADO CATTLEMEN’S ASSOCIATION 

Mr. FANKHAUSER. Thank you, Chairman Harkin. Thank you, 

Senator Salazar, for giving us the opportunity to present testimony 

today. 

I am Terry Fankhauser. I am the Executive Director for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, filling in for our president today, 

who is in the midst of calving. 

I would like to point out that I think all ten titles of the farm 

bill do deal with profitability. I am a perfect example of that profitability as I am sitting here today as an executive director of an association, as opposed to a beef producer from Kansas and Colorado. 

We do operate a family farm and ranch in both states, but because 

of profitability, I (inaudible) farm income, it seems. 

The views I express today are based off member-voted and past 

policies of the CCA. We are a 140–year-old organization, the oldest 

cattlemen’s organization in the nation. I believe the 2002 farm bill, 

which continued the ‘‘freedom to farm’’ emphasis, was a step in the 

right direction by allowing ranchers and farmers more leeway in 

choice of management objectives which best suit their individual 

operations, as opposed to what they could or should not grow in 

order to qualify for a government program. 

We have talked about natural disasters. Colorado has experienced significant natural disasters in the form of blizzard, drought, 

wildfire, things along those lines. We do have to answer this with 

a comprehensive-type program that is creative in solutions to assist 

farmers and ranchers in rebuilding their operations following disasters without greatly increasing the cost of government. 

In general, we do not need programs that become an opportunity 

to create inequities between neighbors. They should not become opportunities for a producer to have income over and above the possibility in a normal year. 

In Colorado, nearly one-half of the land mass, 33,000,000 acres, 

is owned and managed by agriculture producers. These working 

landscapes truly are the front lines of conservation. Farms and 

ranches provide vast acreages of wildlife habitat, open space and 

viewsheds. 

When implementing conservation initiatives, consider doing everything we can to keep working lands in working hands. The CCA 

founded the first cattlemen’s Conservation Land Trust in the nature that offers conservation easements that keep working lands in 

working hands. Two of the programs that are used in these voluntary conservation agreements are the FRPP and the GRP programs. We support those programs. There are additional modifications that we have outlined in written testimony that can be added 

22

to those. But they are programs that have worked very successfully 

in this state. 

I also want you to know that cowboys understand that farm policy is not just about cows. We realize there is a bigger picture for 

this committee to paint. For example, CCA is supportive of efforts 

to use agriculture in production of renewable energies. Production 

such as those using farm products to produce ethanol and bio-diesel 

are quite probably good ideas. CCA is supportive of ethanol production, even though it is raising the market price of corn, a major 

feed resource for cattle feeding. 

CCA hopes that the committee will review the entire litany of 

circumstances and implement a holistic program or holistic programs that do not segment agriculture from each other. Significant 

research is available from our land-grand universities and should 

be utilized. 

It would be most helpful if a farm bill would enhance our market 

access and ability to compete internationally by not creating more 

programs that must be reviewed for compliance by the WTO. 

CCA wishes that we could be more helpful in suggesting other 

alternatives to this farm bill, but one thing we can certainly say 

with a matter-of-factness, what should not be included in the farm 

bill is telling producers how to treat animals. It is my understanding that a variety of animal rights organizations are very interested in this farm bill. 

It is in our best interests as producers to keep those animals 

healthy and happy, and to provide them the best of environments. 

It is the only way that we do remain profitable. 

In summarization, I would like to cover just a few more points. 

Keep extraneous issues out of the farm bill. Focus on improving existing titles. Focus the 1907 farm bill toward agriculture, not in trifling with animal rights issues. Increase the efficiency in funding 

of the conservation programs that keep working lands in working 

hands. Promote private public initiatives as opposed to government 

mandates and increased subsidies. Preserve the right of individual 

choice of land management for water and other natural resources. 

And, finally, work to enhance out market access internationally. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fankhauser can be found on 

page 40 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Fankhauser. 

Now we turn to Mr. Doug Zalesky, President of the Colorado 

Independent Cattle Growers. 

STATEMENT OF DOUG ZALESKY, PRESIDENT, COLORADO 

INDEPENDENT CATTLEGROWERS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. ZALESKY. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator Salazar. I 

appreciate the opportunity to be here today to represent the members of the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association and to 

provide comments on the 2007 farm bill. 

In our written testimony, we offered several areas that we would 

like to see addressed in the 2007 farm bill. I am just going to highlight about three of those areas. 

The first is the area of market competition. And Chairman Harkin has introduced legislation that would certainly improve comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35043.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
23

petition in the livestock marketplace and ensure fairness and 

transparency in the sale of agricultural commodities. 

The Competitive and Fair Agriculture Market Acts of 2007 proposes a series of changes that would curb unfair and deceptive 

market practices. Market concentration has systematically undermined the viability and profitability of independent cattle producers by denying them fundamental transparencies in key pricing 

mechanisms that create a healthy competition and healthy markets. 

An accepted economic theory indicates that competitive marketing conditions begin to erode once a four-firm concentration 

reaches 40 percent of the marketplace. Today, just four packing 

companies control more than 83 percent of the cattle processing in 

the United States. 

While concentration has accelerated, the meat packing industry 

is increasingly using non-traditional methods of contracting and 

marketing methods that further undermine the selling power of 

light cattle producers. These anti-competitive practices place cattle 

producers at grave risk, which is evidenced by the continued decline of producers’ share of each retail beef dollar. 

The 2007 farm bill, we hope, would provide for effective and vigorous enforcement of antitrust and competition laws. I would submit to you today that more than evidence has been gathered proving GIPSA’s failure to aggressively enforce current laws and the 

written testimony we submitted earlier cites study after study that 

exposes GIPSA’s dismal performance. 

Chairman Harkin’s bill would certainly address these crucial 

issues and provide for a rolling back of bureaucratic layers, streamlining the enforcement process and it brings competition issues to 

the forefront, which they need to be brought to that point. 

A second issue is on Country Of Origin Labeling. As you well 

know, COOL was mandated by Congress in the 2002 farm bill. But 

despite broad public support, implementation has been continuously delayed and under current circumstances is not scheduled for 

implementation until 2008. 

Senate Bill 4004 introduced by a number of senators from Montana, Iowa, New Mexico and North and South Dakota and Wyoming, would accelerate that implementation. Similar legislation 

has also been introduced in the House and we think that the farm 

bill should include language that would restore labeling by moving 

the implementation date as close as possible to the original date. 

In addition, the 2007 farm bill, we hope, would ensure that mandatory labeling is administered in a simple and most cost-effective 

manner for producers, while providing the full scope of information 

to the consumer. USDA’s approach to mandatory labeling has been 

one of resistance and the agency’s initial plans for implementation 

have been unnecessarily burdensome. 

CICA fully supports immediate implementation of mandatory 

Country Of Origin Labeling and we urge the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee to do everything in its power to ensure 

the law is implemented efficiently, effectively and immediately. 

The last area I am going to highlight is trade. Several others 

have talked briefly about trade and its impact on agriculture. 

While we understand that farm bills do not typically address U.S. 

24

trade policy, we think it is important that during the 2007 farm 

bill debate that we explore more consistent policies for cattle and 

beef trade. 

Current trade policy has significant and lasting impact on cattle 

producers. It is imperative that the health and safety standards be 

harmonized globally in these trade policies and that further trade 

liberalization without implementing safeguards for perishable products like beef and cattle will further erode the markets for our domestic industry. Unfortunately, the safeguards that were directed 

by Congress in the Trade Act of 2002 to protect perishable products 

like beef are being compromised by the U.S. Trade representative, 

putting U.S. cattle producers at more disadvantage. 

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon and 

provide comments on behalf of our members. Thank you. 

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

86 in the appendix.] 

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

Now we turn to our last witness, who is Ms. Kathy White of the 

Colorado Anti-Hunger Network. Ms. White, welcome to the committee. 

STATEMENT OF KATHY WHITE, COLORADO ANTI-HUNGER 

NETWORK 

Ms. WHITE. Thank you, Chairman Harkin and Senator Salazar, 

for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Colorado AntiHunger Network about the importance of the nutrition title of the 

farm bill. 

Our top priority for the 2007 farm bill is a strong nutrition title 

and improvements to the Food Stamp Program in three broad 

areas: adequacy of benefits; access; and eligibility. 

To give you a little background about the Food Stamp Program 

in Colorado I think will help you see how it is an important program for families, for farmers, and for Colorado’s economy. Each 

month, more than 250,000 Coloradans use food stamps to help purchase food for a more nutritious diet. Eighty percent of the recipients are families with children; the remainder are primarily seniors and persons with disabilities. 

The average benefit in Colorado is small, like the rest of the nation, about $1.19 per meal. But even that amount helps families 

stretch tight budgets and use other resources for sky-rocketing utility bills, rent, medical care and other basic needs. 

Altogether, in 2006, food stamps helped put over $323 million 

back into local Colorado communities, as recipients purchased food 

from their local supermarkets, farmers’ markets, and neighborhood 

grocers. 

In Colorado we have learned first-hand, unfortunately, the importance of the Food Stamp Program when our new Public Benefits 

computer system went on-line and thousands of families were unable to access food stamps. We saw food pantries around the state 

buckle under the increased demand for food assistance, and that 

experience has taught us that our private and non-profit sectors 

simply cannot do it alone. 

What is more, the Food Stamp Program is a model of efficiency. 

More than 98 percent of benefits go to eligible households, accordVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35043.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
25

ing to the GAO. And while, in Colorado, we have had some problems recently with our error rate, that is mostly due to the computer program that we implemented and not to the Food Stamp 

Program overall. So, we would look to the USDA for more oversight 

in the 2007 farm bill for computer programs in other states. 

By all accounts, the Food Stamp Program is an effective and important anti-hunger and anti-poverty tool for Colorado, but it can 

do more. The following needs must be addressed in the 2007 farm 

bill. 

First, we must improve access to the Food Stamp Program by 

providing additional resources to streamline systems, simplify program rules and expand education and outreach. In Colorado, only 

56 percent of eligible families receive food stamps and the participation rate for eligible working families is even lower. We normally 

hover below the 50 percent participation rate. 

Second, we believe it is imperative that Congress improve the 

adequacy of benefits. The minimum benefit is so low that it creates 

a disincentive for eligible people to navigate the complicated application process. One Food Bank provider serving the Colorado 

Springs area found that the average monthly benefit lasted a family only 2 weeks; but the application took 8 hours and three trips 

to the Food Stamp office to complete. 

Moreover, the benefit continues to erode for many Food Stamp 

recipients due to the unchanging standard deduction. The standard 

deduction should be indexed to inflation so that $1.19 does not lose 

purchasing power every year hereafter. 

Third for the Food Stamp Program, we should build on the 

progress made in the 2002 farm bill, thanks mostly to Senator Harkin, and restore eligibility to certain needy groups such as legal immigrants, and unemployed childless adults. We can and should do 

more for these folks who are playing by the rules. 

Our member organizations also ask that Congress direct USDA 

to revisit how volunteer hours can be used by non-profit agencies 

as a match for Food Stamp nutrition programs. At the present 

time, only public entities, like Colorado State University, can use 

volunteer hours as an in-kind match. While those entities do not 

often take advantage of the allowance, non-profits who are experts 

at recruiting and training volunteers and maximizing public dollars 

certainly could. 

As to other areas, we ask that Congress re-authorize and 

strengthen both the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the 

Commodity Supplemental Food Program. Congress could enhance 

the TEFAP program by increasing food purchases and providing a 

floor for bonus commodities similar to the fiscal year 1901–’02 

level. 

And, finally, the CSFP program is a nutrition program in Colorado that meets the unique needs of many seniors who, typically, 

would not apply for food stamps. Congress should simplify the program by allowing all clients to qualify at 185 percent of poverty 

and develop a senior pilot program to see if our aging seniors 

across the country could benefit from this program in other states. 

Thank you, very much, for your time. And we look forward to 

working with you in the future. 

26

[The prepared statement of Ms. White can be found on page 84 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, very much, Ms. White. And since 

you were last, I will start with you. I just have one question I want 

to probe with you a little bit. 

We had this put on us several years ago and we were going to 

address it in the last farm bill but we did not but we are looking 

at it now. And that is one of the things you mentioned. You state 

that Congress should consider restoring benefits to unemployed 

childless adults who currently are limited to just 3 months of food 

stamp receipts every 3 years. That is in the law now. 

You tell me a little bit more about this group of people that you 

know here in Colorado, what kinds of challenges they face. Specifically, why do you believe we should change the program regarding 

their food stamp eligibility? 

Ms. WHITE. Well, these are primarily individuals who are willing 

to work but have low education and skills. They cannot quickly find 

a job and have not been offered a Work Fair job or training opportunity by the state. It also includes people who have recently lost 

their jobs due to downsizing in Colorado. We have unbelievable job 

loss—one of the highest in the country during the recent recession—and cannot find employment in the area, which we did see 

during the most recent recession. 

So, we would like to see less harsh rules taken to these families 

who are really struggling and are willing to work but just having 

a hard time getting back up on their feet. 

Chairman HARKIN. What would you like to see? Would you like 

to have it 3 months every year? If you were writing it, how would 

you write it? 

Ms. WHITE. I do not really have a specific proposal. I think that 

they should be eligible similar to other unemployed families or low 

income families. But, again, we have not really talked about specific proposals. I can certainly get you information about that in the 

future. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, give us that, because that is one area 

that we looked at a little bit in the last farm bill. We did not address it, but I think there is a lot of pressure building to do something about that group of people. 

Ms. WHITE. Especially since the last—since the last recession we 

really did see a lot of people lose jobs all across the state and really 

have a hard time finding adequate jobs and jobs that pay the same 

amount of money. 

Chairman HARKIN. Uh-huh. 

Ms. WHITE. We are replacing jobs now, but a lot of those jobs are 

much lower-paying than the ones we saw before. 

Chairman HARKIN. How do you feel about food stamp recipients 

using EBT cards at farmers’ markets? 

Ms. WHITE. We support that. And I think there is a pilot program in Colorado to do that and we are fully supportive of that. 

Chairman HARKIN. I think that is one area that we are going to 

look at really expanding, also. 

Just for your information, in Iowa last year, we gave about a 

hundred of these remote controlled reading apparatuses just to 

farmers who bring produce to farmers’ markets. So, people on food 

27

stamps—by the way, it is not food stamps, it is an EBT card 

now———

Ms. WHITE. Yeah. 

Chairman HARKIN [continuing]. They can go and buy fresh 

produce or meat or whatever—chickens, eggs, whatever—at the 

farmers’ market and the farmer can just swipe that card and it 

would deduct it right then. It was remote controlled. And we found 

that the people that use these, once they found out that they could 

go to farmers’ markets, would then go there. So, I am happy to 

hear you say that you would support something like that. Because 

we found it to be very beneficial, in my state, anyway. 

Conservation. Mr. Loutzenhiser. I just want to ask you, on the 

Conservation Security Program. When we first drafted this legislation, we put it in and it was a national program. The administration then put it on a watershed basis. Do you feel that the watershed rotation for enrollment has promoted conservation, or would 

you prefer doing away with it? By the way, I might just add the 

administration’s farm bill proposal now has done a complete 180 

and they want to do away with that. Is that what you would like 

to see happen? 

Mr. LOUTZENHISER. Yeah. I believe that that would probably be 

the best thing to do, because to me the watershed or that type of 

selection for this program can create some different inequities. And 

I might have some people who would disagree with me. But certainly, when you start talking a program that is supposed to reward the best for the conservation efforts that they have done and 

there is a minimum entry level into that program. And then you 

begin to recognize it on a watershed-by-watershed basis and a 

three-tiered basis, as well as put a ranking system———

Chairman HARKIN. Yeah. 

Mr. LOUTZENHISER [continuing]. On that 

Chairman HARKIN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. LOUTZENHISER [continuing]. You could fall into meeting the 

minimum eligibility but not get accepted into the program simply 

because you did not rank as high as someone else. 

Chairman HARKIN. Right. Well, believe me, we are going to work 

hard on changing that and any other suggestions you have on that, 

please let us know. 

Mr. LOUTZENHISER. OK. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Zalesky. I want to ask you about Country 

Of Origin Labeling, which you say you support or your organization 

supports? 

Mr. ZALESKY. Yes, sir? 

Chairman HARKIN. Again, as you know, it was supposed to go 

into effect in 2004. It was put off till September of 2008. Is it your 

organization’s position that you would like to stick with that date? 

In other words, to have it come into effect in September of 2008? 

Mr. ZALESKY. We would certainly like to see it in effect by that 

time, yes, sir. If not sooner. 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. Anybody else have any thoughts on that 

issue at all? Mr. Fankhauser? 

Mr. FANKHAUSER. We would support that as well. We support a 

mandatory Country Of Origin Labeling Program and implementaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35043.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
28

tion as soon as possible, the least cost effective way, possibly claim 

standard based. I know some of those discussions are going on. 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. All right. Well, again, there is really 

probably nothing that we can do in the farm—it is going to go in 

September of 2008. There may be some attempts to put that off, 

but I do not think they will be successful. But there will probably 

be some attempts to do that. 

I see my time has run out. I will yield to Senator Salazar. 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you, very much, Chairman Harkin. Let 

me ask a question of each of you and then we will just go down 

the road and each of you can respond. 

First, Roger, in terms of the specialty crop title. I was impressed 

by the statistics that you had, which is 30 percent of our agricultural production really is related to specialty crops. And I know 

down in our valley, potatoes are a big deal and lettuce and a few 

other things. Then, on the western slope, obviously peaches and 

pears and a whole host of other things that come from the western 

slope. What are the two things that would be most important to 

you that we get done in this farm bill with respect to specialty 

crops? 

That is my question to you. Think about it for just a minute and 

then give me a 30–second response. 

And then, Randy, to you, in terms of the CRP program, one of 

the concerns that I have heard in places like Kiowa County and 

other places is that we are having a negative impact on rural communities because you have absentee landowners in Dallas and Chicago and New York who come in and essentially buy these lands 

and the revenue stream goes to help those communities and make 

people there wealthier and the consequence of that is that the local 

drug store and the local shops really do not have the economic vitality and maybe we ought to make some changes on that. That is 

certainly something I think I have heard from the Cheyenne County Commissioners and the Kiowa County Commissioners. 

So, do you have any thoughts on how we might be able to do 

that, Terry, with respect to the comment that you made on a disaster program and wanting to move forward and try to create—I 

think you said a permanent disaster program but being cognizant 

of the budget issues—how would we move forward on that? 

And, Doug, with respect to you and Country Of Origin Labeling, 

it is a contentious issue. That is why, even though the law mandated it, it has not been implemented. 

So, my question to you is, what are the benefits that would come 

about in terms of a faithful, honest effort in the implementation of 

COOL? 

And then, to you, Kathy, you know sometimes when people talk 

about the farm bill, they do not realize that 50 percent of the approximately $100 billion that we spend on the farm bill will actually go into nutrition programs. 

So, my question—I assume we are going to have a large portion 

of this farm bill going into the nutrition programs—give me two 

ideas on how we can make sure we are providing the most effective, accountable programs through nutrition in the farm bill that 

we possibly can. 

So, Roger, why don’t we start with you and we will just go down. 

29

Mr. MIX. OK. Thank you, Senator Salazar. I think there are 

three important things that would probably impact the specialty 

things and that would be the research funds for both CSREES, 

which is more toward the breeding programs that is funded that 

we really need. There are programs going on and if that is cut 

back, these programs that have been funded will die out because 

there is no funding. 

Along that same line is ARS research. Co-operators also cooperate with the university systems to do this kind of research. That 

is also needed for research on diseases, insects, different topics like 

that. 

Another part of research would be the increase to keep the funding for the MAP levels. The United States Potato Board scores really high in that area, trying to keep our markets open that we do 

have. And that funding also goes toward opening markets. 

So I think those three topics would probably be the high ones on 

the list. 

Senator SALAZAR. Doug? Randy? 

Mr. LOUTZENHISER. All right, thank you. When it comes to absentee land ownership of a Conservation Reserve Program lands, 

I think there comes a point when we have to look at the program 

and look at what the value to society that program has brought. 

We need to realize that it has to have those protections that have 

been put in place with a method that guarantees those protections 

remain there. But we have to figure out in time a way to transition 

these lands back to working lands. Keep them under cover; keep 

them in a natural resource state that has brought all these environmental benefits, so that those benefits continue to be garnered 

by society. 

I guess when I look at the situation of absentee land ownership, 

those lands might not even be getting managed. And the fact that 

if we can get them transitioned back into a working lands class via 

a transitional grazing program or—maybe the first step to doing 

that—when we look at our drought situation in Colorado, let’s utilize these lands for an exchange-type program that would allow 

livestock producers in traditional cow/calf country to be able to 

come in and give their rangelands a rest and utilize those CRP 

lands and transition them so that over time, these lands can be put 

back into the grazing land structure. 

That way, you begin to see a turn-back into the communities via 

some type of operational structure where you are buying inputs, 

again, within the community and those lands do not just sit there 

and remain stagnant. They have a productive value. Their resource 

base can be tremendous. 

Also, you look at the cellulosic energy aspect of it, can Colorado 

be a player there? Time will tell and, certainly, these types of absentee landowner-type CRP lands need to have a serious look taken 

in that regard, too. 

Senator SALAZAR. Terry? 

Mr. FANKHAUSER. You know disasters are going to take place at 

any—I am going to speak specifically to the cattle industry. At any 

point in time in the United States in any year there will be a disaster in the cattle industry. So, we as producers, have to learn to 

plan for that, in part, and we are accepting that. 

30

As we look through time in Colorado, in 2002 one of the best 

things we had available to us to recover from the drought was 

deferment of that income in livestock that we sold. 

And there is a possibility to look at that creatively. As it stands 

right now, in the IRS Code you have to replace like-type animals 

that you liquidated. Why not allow—at least in the livestock industry usually in a disaster we are going to have increased purchasing 

of feed and things along those lines. Why not allow that funding 

to be deferred, but instead of replacing like-type livestock, be able 

to purchase feed with that deferred money? Then you do not see 

an actual cash outlay from the Federal Government. But what you 

do see is some incentives on a taxation basis. 

Those are the creative type things that we would offer as possibly looking. 

Senator SALAZAR. Mr. Zalesky? Doug. 

Mr. ZALESKY. In relation to the benefit of the implementation of 

Country Of Origin Labeling, I would address two things. First of 

all, and foremost, we think that the consumer has the right to 

know where their food comes from. Unfortunately, at this point in 

time, consumers are misled by the fact that meat carrying the 

USDA label in the supermarket meat case, up to a fourth or a third 

of that is not U.S. grown beef. So, we think that is the first benefit. 

The second is to be able to, as producers differentiate our product 

in the marketplace, which believe because it is the safest and highest quality beef in the world, it would increase the demand for our 

product and, thereby, increase profitability for our producers. 

Senator SALAZAR. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but could 

I have Ms. White go ahead and answer the question? 

Ms. WHITE. Thank you, Senator Salazar. The two things that I 

guess we would recommend is to continue to simplify the program 

rules. The more complicated the program, the more (inaudible) for 

error. And continue to streamline processes. In the 2002 farm bill, 

there was a provision that reduced paperwork and office visit requirements for working poor households, but it failed to extend 

those improvements to households that included the elderly or disabled individuals. So, continuing to streamline and simplify the 

process would be very helpful, allowing participants to file over the 

phone, things of that nature. 

And, second, I think maybe creating incentives to states rather 

than punitive measures, to help them meet efficiencies standards 

and streamline administration. That was they are able to—they 

have incentive to meet greater efficiency standards without harming clients. Merely punitive measures basically just roll forward 

onto the client, so we see greater hardships for hungry families. 

Senator SALAZAR. If I may just—you do not have to answer this, 

but I would be interested in knowing what you mean by efficiency 

standards and examples of efficiency standards. You do not have 

to do that now, but it is something that I would be interested in 

hearing from you on. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Salazar. And I thank this 

panel, very much. We do have a little bit of extra time, so I am 

going to have an ‘‘open mike’’ session. Bob Sturm will take the 

mike from some place here down there. If you have a question, I 

31

ask you to do it succinctly. State your name—let’s see here. What 

are we supposed to say for the record? Oh, yes. 

State your name, city and state. And if you represent an organization, say that. And just make your question as succinct as possible and we will try to respond. Or, if you have a statement, make 

it very succinct. And, again, I will limit it to just a couple of minutes to each one. But we do have about 10–15 minutes that we can 

entertain some comments or something from anyone in the audience that did not have a chance to say something. 

Before we get to that, and before we close up, again, I want to 

thank some more people. Two valuable members of Senator 

Salazar’s staff, Grant Lesley, your (inaudible) director who is back 

here; and also Valanna Wallach, who is the Denver office manager 

and scheduler for Senator Salazar, for getting us around and making sure we met our schedules. And Bob Sturm, who is right here, 

who is our Chief Clerk of the Senate Agriculture Committee for 

getting everything set up here, Bob. 

With that, like I said, state your name, city, state and if you represent an organization. 

Mr. FOY. My name is David Foy. 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. You had better spell that for the recorder. 

Mr. FOY. F-o-y. 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. 

Mr. FOY. Washington County Commissioner, and also the Chairman of the Progressive 15, which is a 15–county organization out 

in northeastern Colorado. A couple of things. No. 1 is: Under the 

CRP program there is the CRP program having wells retired along 

and adjacent to some of our streams. Those acres could have gone 

into a CRP-type program, except in Washington County, at least 

and surrounding counties, we are maxed out on those acres. 

So, some sort of a program to compensate those farmers that 

have to shut down irrigation wells, not necessarily to retire the 

acres but to transfer those acres into dry-land production or cattle 

production. 

Second is, thank you, very much for USDA rural development. I 

think that small units of government need to have a less match 

that they have to meet so that we can bring some of those society 

benefits that were talked about by the panel back into small communities. Some of those grants, we have to have matches for and 

we have to take a look at the match size so we can work—easily 

qualify for larger dollars. 

And last, being from Washington County, I want to emphasize 

the USDA ARS Research Center at Akron. We gave a greenhouse 

that has been under construction for a long time. That greenhouse 

has not been fully funded. We need a plant breeder to talk about 

developing crops that we can environmentally inject into our local 

environment out if eastern Colorado to maximize that cellulose production. 

Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Mr. Foy. 

Mr. SLUSSER. James Slusser from Colorado State University, the 

Ultraviolet Monitoring Program. I have a question directed to Senator Harkin. What do you think are the three most important reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35043.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
32

search areas that we ought to be looking at in terms of crop 

stress———

Chairman HARKIN. I am sorry. The three most important research for what? 

Mr. SLUSSER. Crop stress. 

Chairman HARKIN. Crop Stress? 

Mr. SLUSSER. Yes. Abiotic factors and biotic factors that might 

affect plant growth. 

Chairman HARKIN. I do not know that I am qualified to answer 

that. I mean, I am not a plant scientist. I do not know that—do 

we have some scientists around here to answer that question. 

Senator SALAZAR. James, it would be good, given all the work 

that Colorado State University as an agronomy school, as an aggie 

school, in terms of what it has done, what your thoughts are in 

terms of what we might be able to do with that? What are the top 

three from your point of view? 

Chairman HARKIN. Yes. You are the expert, not me. 

Mr. SLUSSER. I think 

Chairman HARKIN. If you do not know the answer to that question, I sure do not. 

Mr. SLUSSER [continuing]. Extremes in climate, temperature, 

drought, ultraviolet light—I think we have to be aggressive in developing genomic modifications that will allow us to continue productivity. 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. OK. I understand that. 

Mr. SLUSSER. I did not mean to make this a loaded question 

without an answer. 

Chairman HARKIN. No, I am just honest. I do not know the answer. But, I see what you are getting at, now. Yeah, we are doing 

research into plant genomes and how to—I mean, one thing that 

has already intrigued me is that there are plants in the world that 

utilize photosynthesis and use saltwater to do so, mangroves being 

one of the most prevalent. They grow in saltwater; they produce 

leaves. Coconut—palm trees—use saltwater, produce coconuts. So, 

if we can find the gene in those plants that tells that plant to separate the salt and everything else out and take the water—think 

about taking that gene and using that for plants that might grow 

crops in brackish areas, for example. Things like that in southeast 

Asia and places like that. Anyway, enough of that. 

MR. Weibel. Hello, I am John Weibel. I operate a (inaudible) beef 

operation in northwest Colorado near Bags, Wyoming. In rural development, I know the U.S. Government is looking at shipping beef 

from state-inspected plants across state lines. That would greatly 

reduce our shipping expenses, our transportation costs, for beef and 

also enhance the local community. There are very few beef plants 

left around the country. 

Also, another thing, we utilize interns to help with our labor pool 

and if the USDA could potentially set up an account for those interns that you pay them $1,000 per year for working with us, that 

can go to fund in the future when they decide they want to buy 

a farm. That might be something good for them. 

Chairman HARKIN. That is a nice, good, valid suggestion. Thank 

you. 

33

Ms. HENDRICKSON. I am Callie Hendrickson, Executive Director 

of the Colorado Association of Conversation Districts based in 

Grand Junction. The one thing that we would ask for is that we 

just be able to keep the locally led concept in the conservation title. 

One size does not fit all at the Federal level, so we would certainly 

like to keep that flexibility at the state and local levels. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, I think we both agree on that, and that 

is what we did in the CSP program, too, was to set up local levels 

on that, too. You are right about that, Ms. Hendrickson. 

Mr. LOPP. Hi. My name is David Lopp. I am with the National 

Wildlife Federation and live in Boulder County. We have heard a 

lot of things today about how agriculture is one of the things that 

makes Colorado a great state. That certainly is true. Another thing 

really connected to agriculture that makes us a great state is our 

fish and wildlife populations and the great hunting and fishing opportunities associated with them. 

That being said, I just want to urge you to really prioritize the 

conservation titles and funding for the conservation titles in these 

programs. We have heard great testimony about the benefits that 

that has had for farming practices. I would like to throw in there 

for wildlife and hunting and fishing opportunities as well. 

Another specific thing I want to talk about is, we are on this 

leading edge of the bio-fuels and renewables. Revolution, I think 

you called it. And we certainly endorse that research into that. We 

want to make sure, though that in a rush to develop those opportunities that we do not sacrifice some of the conservation programs 

from a soil perspective and from and wildlife perspective. 

So, that is just one thing that the National Wildlife Federation 

and a whole host of hunting and fishing groups we have been working with want to make sure that we would tell you. 

Chairman HARKIN. I will just respond to that—I am a big supporter of the National Wildlife Federation, a hunter and fisherman 

myself—and I think there are some win-win situations out there 

with cellulose. For instance you can have things like prairie grass, 

switch grass, things like that that provide good nesting areas for 

wildlife but still, they are cropable and they are conserving in nature. So, there might be something there that everybody wins on 

this one. Thank you. 

Mr. TRAVIS. Hi, I am Galen Travis. I am a farmer—part-time 

rancher and full-time farmer—from Burlington on the eastern 

slope. I have got three things I would like to bring up. 

First of all, I would like to see any commodity-based payments 

or payment limitations, if so imposed—I think they should be indexed to inflation. I have not heard that. And as we continue 

through the years, as inflation increases, it is going to be very critical to us. Three dollar corn 20 years ago was a big deal. Three dollar corn recently has been good, compared to the last few years, but 

now, $3.00 corn—it is going to take that just to break even anymore. And I really think any monetary adjustments need to be 

made on indexing to the inflation factor. 

Chairman HARKIN. Good. 

Mr. TRAVIS. Second, in response to your question about how to 

keep young people coming back in and the overall answer was profitability—well, I agree with that, but from the aspect of guaranVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:35 Jun 06, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\35043.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
34

teeing profitability, I am afraid once you do that, the biggest operations, the big producers are going to come in and snarf up on that 

even more, still keeping it hard for young people to get in. I would 

like to see something in a tax incentive or some type of incentive 

for someone that is retiring to sell out to a new, young producer. 

Those sellers, I think, should have some tax incentives. 

Chairman HARKIN. All right. 

Mr. TRAVIS. And, third, just a question. What is the current status of the 1905–’06 disaster payments? 

Chairman HARKIN. OK. Current status of the disaster payments 

is that we are working on a disaster package that, hopefully, we 

will put in the supplemental appropriations bill that we are going 

to be taking up very shortly, sometime within the next couple of 

weeks. And hopefully, we will have addressed that in the supplemental appropriations bill. 

Now, I told—I guess I misjudged the time. I guess we have to 

be out of here in just about a couple of minutes. So, I am sorry—

really quickly. 

Mr. ELLIS. OK. Hi, I am John Ellis from Greater Metropolitan 

Niwot in Boulder County. I just wanted to give you an update on 

the farmers’ market-EBT program that we have here in Boulder 

County, Colorado. We got a grant from the USDA last fall and we 

have been able to purchase 30 EBT machines for 30 different farmers’ markets. We had a training session last Saturday and we are 

online. So far we have 21 markets signed up. 

One thing I would like to get some support for is the farmers’ 

market nutrition program, which has been cut at, I think, 30–some 

states. Colorado would like to get involved, but we cannot. So, if 

there is some way to get some more funding for that, it would be 

great to get the rest of the states involved. Thank you, very much. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you. Next. 

Mr. THORN. Hi, my name is Robert Thorn. I am an administrator 

at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley, Colorado. First, I 

want to thank Senator Salazar for all his hard work last year in 

soliciting us to see how the Federal Government and the USDA can 

provide greater access to healthcare in rural communities. I heard 

on Panel I particularly today the healthcare issue brought up and 

I am encouraging both of you to please consider any future funding 

to the DLT program for Tell medicine to allow greater access to 

healthcare for rural communities. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, very much. 

Mr. BOWMAN. Good afternoon, I am Mike Bowman from Ray, 

Colorado, National Steering Committee for 25X1925. We thank 

you, Senator, for you and Senator Salazar’s support of 25X1925. 

We are particularly interested in seeing Senate Concurrent Resolution 3 move through committee as soon as possible. I would also 

echo, from the National Steering Committee’s perspective, a couple 

of things heard today: broadband deployment in rural America. It 

is the root of all opportunity. Both from a distributed generation 

perspective and bringing those social values back to the rural 

areas. And the increased funding for our land-grant universities. 

We believe that we have an opportunity to re-invent and help 

languoring universities become very significant as we create this 

21st Century energy economy. 

35

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you. I just want you to know, we put 

that broadband in the last farm bill—I put it in there and they 

goofed it all up and we are going to straighten it out. 

Mr. EHRLICH. Hi, I am Jim Ehrlich from the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee and I really want to thank you for being 

here today. 

My question is: What can we do, collectively—we are all here as 

a group representing agriculture. What can we do collectively to get 

more money into the farm bill? Because we are all competing for 

the same piece of the pie. What can we do to grow the pie? 

Chairman HARKIN. Can I put you in charge of the Budget Committee? 

Oh, let’s take a last question, yes. 

Ms. WALKER. Hi. I am Shirley Walker from Wheatridge, Colorado, and, being here for agriculture, I did not hear one thing—and 

maybe it is not part of this—but the National I.D.? Animal I.D.? 

Chairman HARKIN. Animal I.D., sure. 

Ms. WALKER. Is that part of this bill or is that something totally 

separate? Because that is going to affect everyone with their animals and all that. 

Chairman HARKIN. It might be a part of the bill. I just do not 

know yet. I do not know what the House is going to do and I do 

not know exactly how it is going to fold into our bill. But, it is a 

problem—if nothing else from a National Security standpoint. 

Some kind of a comprehensive I.D. system is coming down the pike. 

I do not know how it is going to be. 

My position is quite clear. It is that if we are going to have a 

comprehensive I.D. system, it is for the benefit of our country. It 

is for the benefit of National Security. If that is the case, then the 

cost of it should not be borne by the farmers. It ought to be just 

like the inspection service that we have now in our meat inspection 

plants and stuff like that is paid by all the taxpayers. So, if we do 

have that, it ought to be borne by the taxpayers of this country. 

Thanks. 

Senator SALAZAR. We are going to the airport and have a wheels 

up here in about an hour and a half. We have to go to the airport, 

go through security, get on a plane and get back to Washington to 

represent you on the farm bill and a whole host of other issues. 

But, let me just take a quick stab at just a few of these issues that 

were raised. 

I know the issues on the South Platte and shutting down of the 

wells has caused a tremendous hardship here in northeast Colorado. It is an issue that we continue to work on and, hopefully, 

there will be some way in which we can find some relief. I think 

the EQIP program and other programs that are out there will, in 

fact, be able to—we will be able to find an avenue to help all those 

farmers that have been hurt by the shout down of the wells in that 

area. 

Too, I think a number of the questions that were asked had to 

do with research. Whether it is on renewable energy or it is on how 

you maintain warehouse conditions and temperatures and lights in 

order to be able to preserve your potatoes or crops during the winter season, those are all based on how much research you are putting into agriculture. And, obviously, as we deal with this farm bill, 

36

that is going to be one of the big questions. How much money are 

we putting into research? I am one of those people that believes if 

we are going to find solutions to the new frontiers for agriculture 

and for rural America, we ought not dis-invest in the research that 

is going to help us find those keys. 

Let me just also say, I fully agree with Senator Harkin. On the 

conservation title, local-led is what makes the most sense. Obviously, the people on the ground are the ones who know the ground 

better than some bureaucracy in Washington or some place else. 

Jim, you asked a question about dollars on the farm bill, that is 

something that is going to be negotiated out here, probably in the 

next several weeks, and we will know then what the size of the 

next farm bill is going to be. And then it is going to be work for 

the next several months as we try to move forward as some markup on the farm bill that then will be introduced. 

Let me finally just say, I am very, very delighted that I am on 

the committees that I serve on in the U.S. Senate. There is not a 

day that I am out on that floor that I do not consider it to be a 

great privilege. In the entire history of this country, there have 

been only about 1800 people who have served as U.S. Senators—

only 37 in Colorado—and I can tell you that among the 100 colleagues that I have, there are a handful of people who are really 

known as ‘‘senators’ senators.’’ These are not people who are—let 

me just say they are ‘‘senators’ senators’’ because they are so good. 

And when you look at someone like Tom Harkin from Iowa—

maybe it was because he came out of some tough times. He raised 

five children in a two-bedroom home. Probably as he was growing 

up in Iowa, he probably never imagined that someday he would be 

a U.S. Senator and, yet, somehow his life has taken him to be a 

U.S. Senator and to serve all of this country now for 30 years in 

the House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. 

And he is known among my colleagues as a ‘‘senator’s senator’’ 

because of the high interest and expertise that he brings to agriculture. What he has done for this country in terms of healthcare. 

What he has done for education and educational opportunities for 

all people. What he has done with respect to dealing with some 

very difficult issues, like issues of disability. 

And so, as your junior Colorado Senator here today, I would like 

you in joining me in giving a good round of applause to someone 

whom I respect from the bottom of my heart and that is my colleague, Senator Tom Harkin. 

Chairman HARKIN. I have to adjourn this thing. Thank you. 

Thank you, very much. Thank you. Thank you all, very much. 

Thank you all, very much. 

Of course, as chairman, I get the last word. And the last word 

is: Thank you, Colorado, for having the good judgment and wisdom 

to send such a caring, compassionate and tough fighter to the U.S. 

Senate like Ken Salazar. I cannot tell you how proud I am to serve 

with him and have him on the Agriculture Committee. He is just 

a valuable friend and a valuable resource for getting us to shape 

this new, forward-looking, bold farm bill that we are going to have 

this year. 

37

Again, I want to thank Ken for inviting me to Colorado today. 

I am told every day is like this in Colorado. He tells me that. It 

hardly ever snows out here, he says. 

But, it has just been a delight to be here. And thank all of our 

witnesses. I thank everyone for being here today. The hearing 

record will remain open for five business days for anyone who has 

additional views or comments to put into the record. 

Again, I thank my good friend, Ken Salazar, for his leadership, 

for his friendship, and look forward to working with you, Ken, in 

getting a really good farm bill through. 

Thank everyone who is here. Have a safe journey back home. 

The Senate Agriculture Committee will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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MARCH 12, 2007

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