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S. HRG. 107–864

THE NEW FEDERAL FARM BILL FIELD HEARING

FROM WORTHINGTON, MINNESOTA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 4, 2001

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

THOMAS A. DASCHLE, South Dakota

MAX BAUCUS, Montana

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas

ZELL MILLER, Georgia

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan

BEN NELSON, Nebraska

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

PAUL DAVID WELLSTONE, Minnesota

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana

JESSE HELMS, North Carolina

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado

TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho

MARK HALVERSON, Staff Director/Chief Counsel

DAVID L. JOHNSON, Chief Counsel for the Minority

ROBERT E. STURM, Chief Clerk

KEITH LUSE, Staff Director for the Minority

(II)

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

HEARING(S):

The New Federal Farm Bill Field Hearing from Worthington, Minnesota ........ 01

Saturday, August 4, 2001

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS

Dayton, Hon. Mark a U.S. Senator from Minnesota ............................................ 01

Kennedy, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from Minnesota ................ 02

Wellstone, Hon. Paul, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota ........................................ 02

WITNESSES

Arndt, Bob, President, Minnesota National Farmers Organization .................... 04

Bederman, Bruce, Grafton, Iowa ............................................................................ 35

Botten, Dennis, President-Elect, Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Association,

St. James, Minnesota ........................................................................................... 16

Christopherson, Al, President, Minnesota Farm Bureau ..................................... 05

Dieter, Robert A., Brewster, Minnesota ................................................................. 30

Elness, Kelvin, Windom, Minnesota ...................................................................... 34

Everett, Les, University of Minnesota Extension and Water Resources Center,

St. Paul, Minnesota .............................................................................................. 22

Frederickson, Dave, President, Minnesota National Farmers Organization ...... 03

Froemke, Mark, President, Northern Valley Labor Council, AFL–CIO, Grand

Forks, North Dakota ............................................................................................ 27

Garver, Paul, Hendricks, Minnesota ...................................................................... 22

Goedtke, Rick, Fulda, Minnesota ........................................................................... 36

Graff, Jerome, Sanborn, Minnesota ....................................................................... 28

Green, Larry, Fulda, Minnesota ............................................................................. 26

Haberman, Pat A., Brewster, Minnesota ............................................................... 28

Hegland, Ed, President, Minnesota Soybean Growers Association ..................... 08

Henning, Timothy A., Lismore, Minnesota ........................................................... 13

Juhl, Dan, Pipestone, Minnesota ............................................................................ 29

Kahout, Monica, Land Stewardship Project .......................................................... 10

Kanten, Anne, Hawick, Minnesota ......................................................................... 19

Kanten, Kent, Milan, Minnesota ............................................................................ 20

Keith, Rick, Omaha, Nebraska ............................................................................... 26

Kibbie, John P., Iowa Senate, Emmetsburg, Iowa ................................................ 35

Kirchner, Bob, Farmer, Brewster, Minnesota ....................................................... 17

Kloucek, Hon. Frank, a Member of the South Dakota House of

Representatives, Scotland, South Dakota .......................................................... 24

Kolsruf, David, Beaver Creek, Minnesota ............................................................. 32

Kuehl, Aaron, Pheasants Forever, Janesville, Minnesota .................................... 17

Liepold, Larry, President, Minnesota Soybean Growers Association .................. 09

Mahlberg, Rolf, Minnesota West community and Technical College,

Worhtington, Minnesota ...................................................................................... 19

Moritz, Bob Rev., Hadley, Minnesota .................................................................... 37

Naurth, John III, Lakefield, Minnesota ................................................................. 29

Olson, Linden, Worthington, Minnesota ................................................................ 21

Olson, Randy, Sunburg, Minnesota ........................................................................ 34

Page

IV

Otremba, Hon. Mary Ellen, a Member of the Minnesota House of

Representatives, Long Prairie, Minnesota ......................................................... 30

Petersen, Chris C., Vice President, Iowa Farmers Union, Clear Lake, Iowa ..... 15

Petersen, Hon. Doug, a Member of the Minnesota House of Representatives,

Madison, Minnesota ............................................................................................. 14

Raedeke, Laura, Nisswa, Minnesota ...................................................................... 18

Romsdahl, Brian, Butterfield, Minnesota .............................................................. 25

Skalbeek, Rodney, Sacred Heart, Minnesota ........................................................ 23

Sobocinski, Paul, Land Stewardship Project, Wabasso, Minnesota .................... 33

Tusa, Loren, President, National Corn Growers Association .............................. 07

Zupp, Richard, President, Minnesota Association of Soil and Water

Conservation Districts, Pipestone, Minnesota ................................................... 32

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Ardnt, Bob ......................................................................................................... 53

Christopherson, Al ............................................................................................ 55

Frederickson, Dave ........................................................................................... 42

Kahout, Monica ................................................................................................. 69

Liepold, Larry ................................................................................................... 63

Mahlberg, Rolf .................................................................................................. 72

Tusa, Loren ....................................................................................................... 61

(1)

THE NEW FEDERAL FARM BILL FIELD

HEARING FROM WORTHINGTON, MINNESOTA

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 2001

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY,

Washington, DC

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m., in the Fine

Arts Building, Minnesota West Community and Technical College,

1450 College Way, Worthington, Minnesota, Hon. Mark Dayton

presiding.

Present or submitting a statement: Senators Dayton and

Wellstone.

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK DAYTON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM

MINNESOTA

Senator DAYTON. We have a great audience here, so we are going

to get quickly to their testimony, and then, we are going to keep

our questions very limited so that we can make sure that we have

not only an opportunity to hear from all of you but also, through

the open mike, give an opportunity for anyone to speak his or her

mind. We are going to try to move rapidly through our panel, asking them to limit their remarks to 3 minutes apiece and asking

anyone at the open mike to limit their remarks to 2 minutes

apiece, and if we get through everybody, then, who wants to say

something, we will have an opportunity, then, to have a dialog following that.

That is our format, and I will save any opening remarks. I will

keep them concise to that point. I was going to say that Mark Kennedy, our representative from the Second District, I am really delighted that you joined with us. It makes it both bicameral and bipartisan. I have learned at least in the Senate that these issues related to agriculture are much more provincial than partisan. I find

in the upper Midwest, we are gathered together and pitting ourselves against some of the Senators of the same political party

from, say, the Northeast in terms of the dairy compact and the

like.

I look forward to working with you this year and the years ahead

on the people we all represent. Maybe you would like to make

opening remarks, Mark.

2

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK KENNEDY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA

Mr. KENNEDY. I would just like to echo those remarks and thank

you for having this hearing; thank you for inviting me, and I applaud you on moving forward on this bill.

For agriculture policy to be successful, we not only have to have

the House and Senate working together; but we have to be bipartisan, just as you said. I am very pleased that on the House ag bill

that we just passed out that it was introduced by not only our

chairman, who is the Republican chairman, but the ranking Democratic member proposed it together, and it was voted by a voice

vote, so that both Republicans and Democrats supported it.

We do not have enough of the country that really cares about agriculture to really take a chance and be fighting about ag policy.

We have to be together to keep that very delicate balance that we

have had for farm support. I look forward to these hearings today

and to hearing from our panel, and thank you for having me.

Senator DAYTON. Now, Senator Wellstone.

STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL WELLSTONE, A U.S. SENATOR

FROM MINNESOTA

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mark. Well, first of all, I want

to thank the panelists, and I want to thank everyone for being here

on a Saturday afternoon, a pretty hot day at that. I love the fact

that we are here at just a wonderful educational institution. That

always means a lot to me as a teacher. I know I see sitting down

here a lot of great people, but one of the individuals who has had

the greatest impact on me in my adult life when it comes to family

farm part of agriculture, which is where my passion lies, is Anne

Kanten. Unless—I do not have my glasses on, but Anne is sitting

right there, and I am just so pleased you are here. Thank you,

Anne.

[Applause.]

Senator WELLSTONE. Kent as well, but I want to just say to both

Marks that I appreciate your comments. I have so much to say that

I do not want to start, because we want to move it along and have

a lot of people speaking. I do want to introduce Sheila, who is with

me, my wife, Sheila, and the only thing I would say is maybe I am

being too dramatic about it, and I will not fill in the specifics, or

I will go over 2 minutes. I feel a great sense of urgency about this.

This is an extremely important meeting. I do not think we have a

lot of time to get it right. I do not think we can afford to have another farm bill that does not work, that does not deal with the

price crisis.

[Laughter.]

Senator WELLSTONE. I really do not. We are going to have the

strongest focus on conservation and land stewardship that we have

ever had, and I want to bring in all the faith community and people in the metro area, seeing the connection between whether we

have a family farm structure of agriculture, and they have an affordable and safe supply of food. I definitely want to have an energy section, and everybody here knows what I mean by that. We

have real potential with renewable energy policy and clean fuels,

and I am interested in the whole rural economic development piece,

3

and Mark, in the last 20 seconds, the one thing I am most interested in of all is I want, in the worst possible way, as a 5 foot 5

inches Senator to have antitrust action and take on these monopolies that have way too much control and power in this industry.

[Applause.]

Senator DAYTON. As I said, we are very fortunate to have a really top-notch panel here, and I want to thank each and every one

of you for taking time from your Saturday to be here, the leaders

of our major farm organizations, and we will just start here closest

to me, Dave Frederickson of the Minnesota Farmers Union, and

then, we will work our way just sequentially across the table.

Welcome and thank you.

STATEMENT OF DAVE FREDERICKSON, PRESIDENT,

MINNESOTA FARMERS UNION

Mr. FREDERICKSON. Thank you very much, Senator Dayton, and

welcome to Worthington, Senator Dayton, Senator Wellstone, Congressman Kennedy; good to see all of you.

I am Dave Frederickson, president of the Minnesota Farmers

Union, and on behalf of our family farmers, it is certainly an honor

to be here and participate in this hearing. Because I have already

given the committee detailed written testimony with suggestions

for a new farm bill, and for those of you who are interested, there

are about 50 copies laying down on the front, let me just take a

little time to share some philosophical or key points, and let me

add that I will do this in less than 2 minutes.

The guiding principle for the Farmers Union, for us, is that farmers want and need and frankly deserve a fair price from the marketplace, not from government. The current Farm bill and the one

that the House Ag Committee approved last week fails on that

basis. They make farmers more dependent on government payments and, frankly, not less. In contrast, here are about four ideas

that the Farmers Union believes would make a better farm bill: establish a better marketing loan structure or program that creates

appropriate floor safety net; the loan should be based on the full

economic cost of production. The program, certainly, should be

countercyclical.

No. 2, create a limited and dedicated reserve to ensure our ability to meet new demands, such as a renewable energy production;

an international school lunch program. These reserves should be

released only for specific purposes such as during times of short

supply. Many of us in this room have lived under the old farm program, the new farm program, and many of us have built bins, paid

for bins and continue to hold grain to take advantage of a higher

market opportunity. Frankly, that is not available today, and it

ought to be.

Three, for dairy producers, maintain or increase the current price

support structure and supplement it with a countercyclical target

price mechanism based on the cost of milk production. No. 4, target

farm programs to those who need it. Big agribusiness corporations

do not need Congressional help; small family farms do.

[Applause.]

Mr. FREDERICKSON. There is already too much concentration in

agriculture; do not make it worse.

4

No. 5, and this is an add-on, continue to support the biodiesel effort. All farm organizations in Minnesota stood shoulder-to-shoulder on that issue in the Minnesota Legislature, and we lost. That

ought to make producers nervous.

Some of the other issues that are important to the Farmers

Union such as stopping unfair trade practices, crop insurance voluntary cost containment through flex-fallow programs are covered

in my written testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to appear

before the committee today and to discuss these important issues.

We look forward to working with all of you in the near future.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Frederickson can be found in the

appendix on page 42.]

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Dave.

Next is Bob Arndt with the National Farmers Organization, Minnesota NFO. Welcome, Bob.

STATEMENT OF BOB ARNDT, PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA

NATIONAL FARMERS ORGANIZATION

Mr. ARNDT. Thank you, Senator.

Senator Wellstone, Senator Dayton, Congressman Kennedy, I am

Bob Arndt. I am President of the Minnesota National Farmers Organization. I farm near Echo, Minnesota. I certainly appreciate the

opportunity to testify on behalf of our fellow NFO farmer members.

America’s production agriculture is an economic powerhouse. It

affects the economic wellbeing of not only 2 million family farms

but also the tens of millions of families that live throughout the

rural communities of what we call America. I submit to you that

whoever provides the risk capital to produce the next crop will control the destiny of rural America and America’s food production industry for the next year.

That risk capital that we use each year will either come from the

farmer owner-operator’s assets, or it will come from multinational

absentee investors who will fill the vacuum that low farm prices

and a loss of income leaves. The next Farm bill will largely determine who will control America’s food production industry in the

next decade.

For too long, we have listened to the persuasion of multinational

grain merchants and international trade entities, and we have ignored the fundamentals of the benefits of earned income and the

actual statistics of food production versus food use, both domestic

and worldwide. I farmed for 40 years, producing corn and soybeans,

and I have noticed that we have only a 56-day carryover of both

corn and soybeans, and we did not throw any away after 40 years.

We used it all, but at the same time, our parity price has gone

from 71 percent of parity in 1959 to 30 percent of parity this past

year. The following table shows a corn comparison of 10 years ago,

and note the stock use ratio versus the price. I have about 50 copies of it here. I turned my statement in to you, so you can see the

table. I want to point out that on this table, 10 years ago, in 1989,

we exported about 2 billion bushels of corn. In the year 2000, we

exported 2 billion bushels of corn. It did not increase, no matter

what the price was.

Our ending stocks 10 years ago were 1.9 billion. The ending

stocks in the year 2000, 1.7 billion. We have not increased our carVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:43 Mar 07, 2003 Jkt 085323 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 85323.TXT SAG1 PsN: SAG1
5

ryover. The average farm price in the year 1989 was $2.64 a bushel

for corn. In 1999, 10 years later, it is $1.80 a bushel. It is also worthy to note that the U.S. has had four back-to-back bumper crops,

and still, the carryover is barely maintained. The U.S. has had no

strategic food reserve policy in that time, even as our production

struggles to keep upThe National Farmers Organization proposes

establishing a food security system, which means to isolate a 6-

month supply of corn, soybeans and wheat from the market until

trigger levels are reached. Suggested trigger level prices would be

$3.25 for corn, $6.50 for soybeans and $4 a bushel for wheat, national averages. The grain placed in the field in the food security

system would be grain that had been under CCC loan for 9 months

and kept on the farm. Producers would be compensated 25 cents

a bushel annually for storage and quality assurance. Grain could

be rotated annually.

The food security service would secure our food supply. We have

assurance of that now. It would cause the markets to relate positively to the isolation from the market of the 6-month supply. It

would save taxpayers billions of dollars and restore earned income

to production agriculture, something you are all looking for. If we

fill the reserve during the duration of the Farm bill, a flexible fallow program would take effect and allow farmers to reduce the

planting of their normal acres in return for higher loan rates.

Senators I ask that you give serious consideration to this approach. It would save the taxpayer billions of dollars. It would

bring earned income into agriculture that we are looking for, and

it would give the American people a secure food reserve system in

the future. America must answer the question: do we want American farmers producing American food, or do we want multinational

corporate capital controlling the production of food on American

soil for their own corporate profit?

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Arndt can be found in the appendix on page 53.]

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Bob.

Al, I am glad to welcome you here, Al Christopherson, the president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau. We will ask you to keep it to

about 3 minutes of opening remarks, please, and then, we will give

everybody a chance to be heard. We are glad to have you with us.

STATEMENT OF AL CHRISTOPHERSON, PRESIDENT,

MINNESOTA FARM BUREAU

Mr. CHRISTOPHERSON. OK; thank you. I am the late Al

Christopherson—[Laughter.]—president of the Minnesota Farm

Bureau.

Some comments with regard to the Farm bill, the Farm bill discussion as it relates to our organization and as we see it. We certainly believe that the public’s investment in agriculture is key to

the industry’s survival and its ultimate success. American agriculture provides food security for this nation, economic security by

running a positive balance of trade and generating off-farm employment and environmental security by making use of the best management practices to conserve our natural resources.

6

Now, in relation to the commodity title of the new Farm bill, we

support the following concepts: maintaining planting flexibility and

not including mandatory supply management programs; rebalancing the loan rates to be in historical alignment with the current

526 soybean loan rate; continuing production flexibility contract

payments to current contract holders and allowing oil seed production to be eligible for the same type of payment contract; not including a farmer-owned reserve or any federally controlled grain

reserve with the exception of the existing Capped Emergency Commodity Reserve; extending the dairy price support program at

$9.90 a hundred; allowing producers to lock in published loan deficiency payment at any time after a crop is planted, with payment

being made only after harvest and a yield determination.

The intent of the new Farm bill should be to design an agricultural program that provides a solid agricultural base for America.

Payment limits and targeting of benefits will cause a segmentation

of the industry, causing us to be less competitive.

In relation to the trade title, the Farm Bureau believes that it

is extremely important for the new Farm bill to stay within the

World Trade Organization amber box commitment, which is $19.1

billion. While it may be easy to demagogue the issue of global trade

commitments as being innately unfair to farmers and to forego our

prior commitments and appropriate dollars over $19 billion, the effect will be a long-term lack of credibility in our negotiating position with foreign countries, and it will ultimately injure the longterm success of American agriculture.

Turning our backs on global trade and going back to protectionist

policies will not improve our bottom line, neither in the short or

the long-term. Whether we like it or not, we are still faced with

finding a market for over 30 percent of our product. Global trade

should not be seen as a hindrance but as an opportunity. I might

also add that we have a number of trade agreements which are not

working all that great. However, to fix them does require continued

work, continued discussion and that type of thing.

In relation to the conservation title, the Farm Bureau supports

a reformed equipped program and a compensation incentive payment program. Money should be allocated equally between livestock and crops. Given the limited amount of funds available for

conservation available and the need to fund other programs, we do

not support expansion of the current Conservation Reserve Program.

We believe—the Farm Bureau has a vision of a growing industry

that depends less on government payments and more on returns

from the marketplace, but we must implement policies that will

grow our markets. These investments in research, export promotion activities and technologies to derive energy from farmgrown commodities help bridge the gap between where agriculture

is today and where we want it to be in the future.

I would certainly like to thank you for holding this meeting and

dealing with the upcoming Farm bill. I look forward to working

with you on this, and I would be glad to respond to any questions

at a later point.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Christopherson can be found in

the appendix on page 55.]

7

Senator DAYTON. Thank you very much, Al.

Next, we have Mr. Loren Tusa, who is the president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. Loren, welcome, and I guess we

have a traveling microphone here.

STATEMENT OF LOREN TUSA, PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA CORN

GROWERS ASSOCIATION

Mr. TUSA. That is just fine.

Thank you for coming and holding this hearing here in rural

Minnesota. I live just down the road in Jackson, so I am only about

40 miles away, so it is not a whole killed afternoon for me.

Nearly every commodity group has suggested some countercyclical-type components in the next Farm bill, and each group defines these countercyclical payments as different options, but really, the desire for the basic safety net for the farm production is

clear in each proposal. We have other common concerns about

maintaining planting flexibility; to continue basic support programs; conservation incentives and support for value-added agriculture.

The National Corn Growers came with a proposal for decoupling

payments for production flexibility and their countercyclical program. This was addressed somewhat in the House Ag Committee.

It was named a little bit differently but almost ended up accomplishing the same things. The LDP program for Minnesota farmers

has been an important contributor to farm income in the recent

years. We would like to see this program continued but do suggest

two changes to address important issues for Midwest farmers:

First, the late harvest season for the northwest states, our producers often miss out on some of the better LDP payments, and if we

could have an LDP payment or at least lock in any time during the

crop year, that could be a value to Minnesota agriculture.

The payment itself would not be made until after the production

could be proven, but we would like to be able to lock in that LDP

at any time.

Another problem that has occurred with LDPs is that they sometimes vary drastically across our state or even county lines, and

you have to remember that LDP is calculated off the lower of the

two terminal prices or, I mean, the higher of the two terminal

prices for a geographical area plus giving us a lower LDP. If those

two terminal prices could at least be averaged, it would give us a

little more realistic LDP.

You have to remember for Minnesota, my terminal delivery

points would be Minneapolis-St.Paul and Portland, Oregon, 1,700

miles apart.

The Minnesota Corn Growers also recommends an increase for

farmer-owned processing. The support there, like the support that

the USDA has given for Minnesota soybean processors; those types

of grants and loan guarantees are very important for the future of

agriculture. It is clear that this country is beginning to realize the

need for agriculture and renewable energy plan to play an integral

role together for our nation’s energy policy.

Ethanol, e-diesel, biodiesel, they are fuels of the future, and it is

important for farm policy to consider this market opportunity. The

key for farm profitability in the future will be effective utilization

8

and processing of a crop that will continue to grow in size. Viewing

farmers as energy providers in additional to their traditional roles

as providers of food will create opportunities for Minnesota’s farmers, strengthen the environment and revitalize our communities.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tusa can be found in the appendix on page 61.]

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Loren, for very excellent testimony.

Thank you.

Next is Ed Hegland, who is the president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association; Ed, thank you for being here.

STATEMENT OF ED HEGLAND, PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA

SOYBEAN GROWERS ASSOCIATION

Mr. HEGLAND. Good afternoon; thank you. My name is Ed

Hegland, and I am a soybean and corn farmer from Appleton, Minnesota. I am proud to be serving as the current president of the

Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. I would like to express

my appreciation to you for conducting this agricultural hearing

today. The Minnesota Soybean Growers Association looks forward

to working closely with you in developing effective ag legislation.

I would like to address my verbal comments regarding the U.S.

energy policy legislation now being developed by Congress but have

included in the written testimony MSGA’s comments and recommendations on the upcoming Farm bill. Personally, as a soybean

farmer, I am extremely optimistic about the role biodiesel can plan

in a national energy plan. MSGA is very optimistic that the energy

policy should and will include plant-based alternative fuels, including biodiesel. Biodiesel is environmentally friendly and a renewable

alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel. It can be made from soybean oil, recycled fats and other vegetable oils.

Biodiesel should be produced in Minnesota, where agricultural

commodities are at the end of the export pipeline and at the end

of the petroleum oil import pipeline.

Minnesota led the way in the development of ethanol, a cornbased alternative fuel for gasoline engines. Once again, Minnesota

hopes to lead the way in the promotion and production of biodiesel,

designed to clean up the harmful emissions from diesel engines.

When it convenes next February, the Minnesota Legislature will be

reconsidering legislation that would require the inclusion of 2 percent biodiesel in the state’s diesel fuel supply.

MSGA strongly supports and much appreciates Senator Dayton’s

recently introduced bipartisan legislation designed to prompt and

encourage the increased use of biodiesel nationally. We believe that

Senator Dayton’s national legislation will complement our pending

state legislation and positively influence the Minnesota State Legislature to pass the 2 percent biodiesel requirement in February.

I also want to express appreciation for the efforts of Senator Paul

Wellstone and Representatives Gil Gutknecht, Collin Peterson and

Mark Kennedy for their commitment to biodiesel, ethanol and

other plant-based alternative fuels. Working together, with each

day, more of our energy will come from the Midwest and not the

Mideast.

9

That concludes my statement, Chairman Dayton. I want to thank

you for convening this important hearing and for inviting us all to

testify. I will be glad to respond to questions at a later time. Thank

you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Ed. I have never in my career been

able to influence the Minnesota Legislature to do anything, but I

hope this will be the first.

[Laughter.]

Senator DAYTON. Next is Larry Liepold, who is the president of

the Minnesota Pork Producers Association. Larry, welcome.

LARRY LIEPOLD, PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA PORK PRODUCERS

ASSOCIATION

Mr. LIEPOLD. Thank you. In the interests of time, I will abbreviate some of the things I read. I will read the total titles. You do

have the full copy in front of you.

My name is Larry Liepold. I am a pork producers with a 120-

sow farrow-to-finish operation in Jackson County, Minnesota, about

20 miles from here. I am the current president of the Minnesota

Pork Producers Association. I am pleased to discuss with you this

afternoon the critical issue of agriculture concentration and its impact on pork producers and consumers.

Agricultural concentration is a difficult and emotionally charged

issue. Many pork producers are concerned about their ability to

continue to compete and maintain market access in a hog market

experiencing increasing levels of concentration. Until information

systems that can help pork producers compete in the marketplace

are developed, and producers such as myself have the ability and

access to use this information, I am concerned the concentration

and its potential to create noncompetitive business practices will

remain.

Concerns such as these led producer delegates to the National

Pork Industry Forum to consider several agricultural concentration

resolutions from member states and pork producers. After considerable discussion and debate, producer delegates agreed to support

the following positions on agricultural concentration and market

regulation issues: USDA hog market structure and competitiveness

study: the U.S. Department of Agriculture should conduct studies

on hog market structure and competitiveness issues within the

pork industry, outlining present realities, future scenarios and the

implications for producers’ economic wellbeing on our nation’s food

supply.

Price discrimination: the definition of price discrimination should

be clarified. A prohibition on price discrimination should be established, and the Secretary of Agriculture’s authority to challenge

price discrimination should be strengthened. The USDA study of

justifiable price differentials: the Department of Agriculture should

study the factors that comprise economically justifiable price differentials, including factors such as volume, time of delivery and

carcass specifications. A study of the Department of Justice concentration threshold levels: adherence to antitrust laws; continued

scrutiny of the packing and processing industry on the national

level to assure adherence to Federal antitrust laws; new antitrust

10

laws should be considered that assure opportunities for independent hog producers.

The USDA merger-acquisitions review: the Department of Ag

should be given new authority to recommend to the Department of

Justice approval or disapproval of agricultural mergers, acquisitions and consolidation of agricultural input suppliers and processors. The USDA corporate structure report: a deputy attorney

general for agriculture; a deputy attorney general for agriculture

position should be created at the Department of Justice. Packers

and Stockyards Act enforcement; packer ownership; the National

Pork Producers Council is neutral on the issue of packer ownership. However, the Minnesota Pork Producers Association does not

share in that same view. We are supportive of a ban or, more practically, a limit on packer ownership. I do urge you to be careful,

though, not to infringe on the ability of Minnesota pork-producing

families to move further up the pork chain.

Producer bargaining rights: endorse the concept of legislation

that requires processors to bargain with producer cooperatives. Finally, the new Farm bill should help address some of these issues

through aggressive funding. Under the rural development section

of the Farm bill, there is an opportunity to assist producers by providing grants to startup farmer-owned value-added processing facilities. During the past few years, economists of all stripes have

pointed to the need for farmers to become more than commodity

producers and capture more of the consumer dollar. Value-added

enterprises may provide an exciting alternative for those producers

willing to pursue them. In order to accomplish this, we recommend

increasing this funding to $370 million over 10 years.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Liepold can be found in the appendix on page 63.]

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Larry.

Our next panelist is Monica Kahout, who is here representing

the Land Stewardship Project. Welcome, Monica.

STATEMENT OF MONICA KAHOUT, LAND STEWARDSHIP

PROJECT

Ms. KAHOUT. My name is Monica Kahout. My husband and I and

our children farm near Olivia, Minnesota area, and as Senator

Dayton said, I am representing the Land Stewardship Project.

I would like to make three basic points: first, we are on a terrible

path in American agriculture. For too long, too many farms and too

many elected officials have followed the lead of the checkoff-funded

commodity groups and corporate agribusiness. These groups gave

us the terrible freedom to farm policy, helping to drive prices down

for most of us farmers while shelling out major payments of our tax

money to the largest producers.

Earlier this year, the president of the National Pork Producers

Council testified in Washington for a 20 percent reduction in the

soybean loan rate. That means lower soybean prices; cheaper feed

for the largest hog factories; and ultimately, fewer farmers on the

land and further extraction of wealth from rural communities. We

must change policies, and we must reject the self-appointed leadership of the commodity groups.

11

As a hog farmer, I am proud to day that I am part of the majority in the swine industry that has rejected the NPPC and the mandatory pork checkoff, and as a farmer, I say now for many of us

in this crowd is that you do not speak for us.

We believe in democracy, and we, the family farmers and prosperous rural communities and healthy environment, so we want

our vote back, and honor our votes.

Second, we must recognize that farming America’s land is about

more than maximizing production of raw materials for corporate

America. Farming in a free and strong country is about producing

feed, feed and fiber, yes, but it is also about caring for the land,

contributing to the community with time and money and holding

our nation’s most precious asset, our land, in trust for future farmers.

There is no better way than to help sustain the family farmer.

We need policies that recognize all the benefits—all the benefits— that farm families bring to their communities and the nation. We

cannot continue our current policies that feed the expansion of agribusiness and consolidate factory farms.

My last key point is that many of our forebearers settled in this

land in the 1800’s under the Homestead Act to help promote the

passing on of the farm and to homestead it; the Packers and Stockyards Act; helping farmers to have a higher price. What has happened? Tiger Woods gets 10 cents for every box of Wheaties with

his picture on it, and the farmer gets three and a half cents for the

wheat in the same box. Something is seriously wrong.

When Smithfield can buy up John Murrell, then Dakota Pork

and proceed to shut it down; then, buy the services of the head of

the antitrust division of the United States Department of Justice

just weeks after he stepped down, something is drastically wrong

in rural America.

First and foremost, we need a moratorium on large corporate

mergers and acquisitions in agriculture, whether it is at Smithfield,

Land’o’Lakes, Monsanto.

We need it now. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kahout can be found in the appendix on page 69.]

Senator DAYTON. I want to thank all of our panelists for excellent

presentations, and I want to see, since we are running in good

shape on time; you all were very succinct, if any of our members

here want to have a question of any one of the panel or all of the

panel.

Congressman Kennedy.

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you for all your good testimony, and it is

always great to hear the perspective straight from Minnesota, because as it has been pointed out, sometimes the national organizations do not always have the same point of view as the local organizations, and I am very happy not only to hear your views but very

happy that the Second District, that every member of the panel has

Second District roots, recognizing the importance of agriculture

here in the Second District of Minnesota.

One of the things I would like maybe to have a couple of you

comment on is many of you talked about the importance of valueadded production and keeping more of the earnings and the dollars

12

with the farmer, and we have a perfect example of that right next

door here with Brewster, with the Minnesota Soybean Processors

moving forward on a plant, and I was happy to be able to be there

when we awarded a USDA grant of a half a million dollars to

them. Several of you have mentioned those in your testimony. We, in the House agriculture bill that we just passed, have $500 million over the next 10 years, $50 million a year, to work with

continuing those types of grants. Maybe if I could get a couple of

you—I know Bob, this was something you mentioned and whoever

else might want to talk about some of the things that that could

mean and where that could maybe take agriculture.

Senator DAYTON. Bob or anyone?

Mr. TUSA. On behalf of the Minnesota Corn Growers, we see the

potential for ethanol as a national market, and if I need to point

out what work you three have done on energy; Senator Wellstone,

we nagged on you long and hard to help us when President Clinton

was in, and you came through for us. Senator Dayton, we and the

soybean growers have worked on your biodiesel thing, and it is like

ooh, you are bringing that forward.

Senator Kennedy--or Congressman Kennedy; I guess I did not

want to promote you today——

[Laughter.]

Mr. TUSA [continuing]. The work you have done on value-added

agriculture for Minnesota has been important. I know you helped

secure two grants for us.

We see somebody going to make money on ethanol and renewable fuels, and we want it to be farmers. That is why it is going

to take some help in helping us get those set up. It is not only in

the energy of ethanol and biodiesel and e-diesel but the wind energy that we could be harvesting and the methane gas down the

road here, when we can join that from the livestock energy; and

also, livestock itself is another basic, value-added opportunity for

farmers, and we just do not want to slam the door on any of those.

Aanything that you can do to help on those types of programs

would be very much appreciated.

Senator DAYTON. Well-said; well-said; thank you.

Anybody else want to comment on that?

Mr. ARNDT. Only one comment I want to make for the same of

time: I agree.

Mr. FREDERICKSON. Well, on the issue, Congressman Kennedy, of

value-added, Representative Doug Peterson is in the room and kind

of wrote the book on ethanol development in Minnesota. I had a

small amount to do with that back in the mideighties, and I believe

that we have the model here in the nation. We made some mistakes as we went through that process in that we did not ensure

that every farmer had an equal chance, and you may say, well,

they did; they could write the check to join the value-added cooperative or the closed cooperative, and in many cases, they could not.

If we move ahead, we need to remember that every farmer or

farm family should have an equal opportunity to participate in this

new wonderful concept of value-added agriculture, and you might

be able to do that through the U.S. Department of Agriculture

through rural development to assist in those producers who

choose—actually encourage them to participate.

13

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Senator Wellstone, do you want to say anything or ask anything?

Senator WELLSTONE. No, Mr. Chairman, I will just—there are so

many people I know are going to want to speak, so I will hold until

a little bit later on.

Senator DAYTON. OK; let us open it up, then, to anyone in the

audience. We have two microphones, one on each side there. Would

you like to make a statement? Again, we would ask if you could

limit your remarks to 2 minutes, please, so we give a chance for

everybody to be heard. We will just go from one side to the other.

We are going to start with you, sir.

The panelists are welcome to stay and listen and respond with

us. You are welcome to leave, too. If you have other appointments

on your schedule, please leave.

Let us give our panel one more round of applause for everybody.

[Applause.]

Senator DAYTON. You are welcome to stay, and if you need to

leave, please, now or at any point, please.

Mr. FREDERICKSON. If we leave, can we come back?

Senator DAYTON. Well, that is twice the admission.

[Laughter.]

STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY A. HENNING, LISMORE, MINNESOTA

Mr. HENNING. Senator Dayton, Senator Wellstone, Congressman

Kennedy: Senator Wellstone, you have referred to freedom to farm

as freedom to fail. I could not disagree with you. However, freedom

to farm has worked perfectly, just the way it was designed. It took

the money from the government; gave it to the farmer; allowed the

processors, be it meat, grain, to steal our product and make us look

like the welfare leeches to the rest of society.

When you are writing this next Farm bill, you must first realize

who is representing who. These commodity groups think they represent us. The only way that that can be proven is by a vote on

their checkoffs. These gentlemen up here should be either—resign

and say——

Senator DAYTON. OK; sir, I am going to intervene here. You are

welcome to state your views, but I do not think we are going to get

into attacking people who are here participating. I am going to ask

that you refrain from doing so. Thank you.

Mr. HENNING. We need to have a vote on the checkoffs. It must

be done.

Second, the farmer wants price. He does not want government

payments. If we look at the 1995 prices that farmers received, corn

of $3.14; today, I get $1.61. The rest has to come from the government. The LDP program has not worked, and we must have payment limitations in order to keep the expansion of large-scale

farms from going wild.

Supply management: General Motors does not produce all the

cars in the world. We have a Wal-Mart approach here. We are

going to produce slightly over wholesale and try to do it on volume.

Nobody else in business does that, so why should the farmer be

asked to?

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

14

Could I ask each of you, when you start, to state your name for

the record.

STATEMENT OF HON. DOUG PETERSON, MEMBER OF THE

MINNESOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MADISON,

MINNESOTA

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you, Senator Dayton. I am Representative

Doug Peterson from Madison, Minnesota. I also represent the western counties in rural Minnesota. I want to thank Senator

Wellstone, Senator Dayton for doing the work here today to bring

forth some of the testimony.

The work that you gentlemen and your colleagues are going to

do on the next Farm bill is really about managing change. The

structure of agriculture is going to change. The question is how we

shape that, or do we just let it happen? Do we just simply let it

happen? I am going to outline a voluntary proposal hopefully that

will let us direct some of the change. First, before I do that, I want

to say that I strongly support the major overhaul that exists in

freedom to farm. Freedom to farm has clearly failed. We need to

raise all of the commodity loan rates; restore the on-farm storage

program. You have to have a stronger conservation reserve; increase dairy price supports, and we also have to have an increase

and a new direction in agrienergy development and also open new

markets.

Collin Peterson has some pretty good proposals in front of Congress, and I wholeheartedly support that. Those reforms are essential to our food production system, and that has been developed

over the last 100 years, and it does not mean that we cannot think

in a new direction in a new market and new options for farmers.

What I want to do to talk to you today: when I talk to farmers,

many of them want to get off this financial merry-go-round of capital-intensive farming. They do not want the headaches, and they

do not want the hassles of running huge farms with mounting

debts, mental anxiety and also keeping up with the corporate concentration and the competition from the mega-corporate farms.

Our next Farm bill should provide producers with a voluntary

opportunity, and I want to stress voluntary. Let us give farmers a

new market agriculture. Let them choose the tools they need to

practice a different kind of agriculture. This simply may be specialty crops, specialty crops that are targeted for consumers, and in

conjunction with these crops, we also want to target the markets

to help these people market directly to consumers and retailers;

give them access to experts and connect them to state, local and

worldwide markets. This is an essential element of also probably

bringing high-speed access to rural Minnesota on the Internet.

In my proposal, I would let farmers get off the Federal commodity programs, and I would give them 3 years of payments to allow

them to find their own way on a new alternative path for agreement. We can set the payments at the same traditional—I understand that. We can set the payments at the levels that they have

received if they stayed in the traditional farm program, and instead

of moving 10 to 20 farmers, to 10 to 20 farmers per county, we will

hopefully see more successful family farms producing for international markets.

15

Now, this program is not for everybody. Many will choose to stay

on their own program, something they have been successful with,

traditional programs, but that is fine, and we need those kinds of

farmers. We need to give the opportunity and availability for other

farmers to have a real choice.

Senator DAYTON. You are out of time.

Mr. PETERSON. I will try to sum up.

Senator DAYTON. We have your materials here. We asked everybody to stay to 2 minutes. We have so many people lined up.

Mr. PETERSON. OK; I will just leave it. Thank you very much.

Senator DAYTON. Sum up, then; sum up.

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you very much. What I am saying is simply, if we go to alternative markets and give people a transition

away from the capital-intensive farming that they have been told

that agribusiness and the corporate concentration is hitting us in

the head, we are not going to have any success; we are going to

fail.

I am saying there should be a voluntary program to already use

the existing implemented programs that we have out there, extension, those people, the marketing, and move those people who voluntarily choose a new path. Let us give them the tools to do it. Let

us keep people in rural Minnesota while they are doing it, and let

us pay them to do it.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

There are 24 people waiting to speak, and so, at 2 minutes

apiece, that is 48 minutes. I would ask you to keep your remarks

to 2 minutes, please.

Sir.

STATEMENT OF CHRIS C. PETERSEN, VICE PRESIDENT, IOWA

FARMERS UNION, CLEAR LAKE, IOWA

Mr. PETERSEN. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Petersen. I am

vice-president of the Iowa Farmers Union, and I am not too happy

about much of anything to do in agriculture. With freedom to farm,

it is called freedom to fail in a lot of circles. With their low darn

prices and their limited death payments; we should do away with

the LDPs; get rid of them; raise the loan rate to cost of production

or close to it. Let us make corporate America pay for our price and

these darn animal factories pay for their price to feed their junk

which they are feeding this country. Family farmers can raise it a

lot better and more efficiently, and it is more quality food.

A couple of other things: the EQUIP program; I understand there

is a lot of talk going on to open this up to large-scale animal factories. This needs to go to small livestock producers. We need to

keep that money funneled to the small family farms. We need farm

policy based on and targeted to the family farm based around conservation, period. The corporations, I am sure they will find a way

to make money.

My last comment is about commodity groups. I am waiting for

the day when we have some testimony like this; every person up

there will be a family farmer. Let us put the commodity groups out

here; let us make them defend themselves for a change. I am tired

of their garbage. Most of them do not represent us.

16

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir.

Mr. PETERSEN. Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Yes, sir?

STATEMENT OF DENNIS BOTTEM, PRESIDENT-ELECT,

MINNESOTA STATE CATTLEMEN’S ASSOCIATION, ST. JAMES,

MINNESOTA

Mr. BOTTEM. I am Dennis Bottem, president of the Minnesota

Cattlemen, another one of them darn commodity groups, I guess.

Senator DAYTON. Welcome.

Mr. BOTTEM. By the way, our particular group does not get one

penny of checkoff funds, so do not pick on us for the checkoff problems.

It is a real illustration of democracy in action here today: people

lined up; anybody who wants to come and speak can talk to our

two Senators and our local Representative, and I do not know how

you can get more democratic than that.

Minnesota cattlemen or cattlemen in general, I have always been

an independent group, and maybe we still are today, and that is

why I am glad to associate with them. We do not ask the government for a whole lot of help, but we are coming to a point where

we have such different rules in this country than so many of our

competitors that the day when we could be completely independent

is probably gone. From the livestock perspective, I would especially

encourage that the EQUIP program be funded. Contrary to what

was mentioned earlier, it should be a certain payment level, and

every producer should be eligible for a small amount. Just because

you are large; because you are three brothers, two brothers and

their kids farm, should not rule you out for these programs.

As far as the present farm program, three things that I would

certainly like to see kept: the marketing loan LDP concept provides

a price to the growers; moves the product into consumption, be it

for ethanol, for feed production or whatever. We as an industry do

not like to see setasides. When there have to be setasides for conservation uses, I would argue that these uses, this land could be

better used for grazing. We hear people, county commissioners and

so on in this area complaining our tax base is going, and then, we

constantly add programs to take more land out of production. If we

would just allow grazing, for example, on these lands, we would at

least keep some production on these lands and at virtually no cost

to our Federal Government.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you for your excellent comments. Thank

you.

Senator WELLSTONE. Could I just a quick interruption, just a

point of quick privilege for a second? I just wanted to, because I

will forget at the end, Chairman Dayton, I wanted to thank the two

signers that have been here. I notice how hard you all are working

as everybody is speaking. I am glad you are here. Thank you very

much.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

17

STATEMENT OF BOB KIRCHNER, FARMER, BREWSTER,

MINNESOTA

Mr. KIRCHNER. My name is Bob Kirchner. I am a soybean and

corn farmer from Brewster, Minnesota. Good afternoon, Senator

Dayton, Senator Wellstone and Congressman Kennedy and other

panel members. I am currently serving as president of the Board

of Directors of the Minnesota Soybean Processor Cooperative. This

is a farmer-owned, closed cooperative. At the present time, we have

1,100 farmer members, and we have gained just under $13 million

in equity commitment toward building a soybean processing facility

near Brewster, Minnesota.

The present plans are to include biodiesel when we have a viable

market. I appreciate the opportunity to give testimony here today

and have input in the formation of the new Federal farm bill, especially in the role that biodiesel can play in a national energy plan.

Besides submitting written testimony, I would like to verbally

highlight the role biodiesel and the Minnesota soybean processors

can play in giving farmers a better economic future.

Minnesota soybean processors support and appreciate Senator

Dayton’s recently introduced legislation to promote and encourage

the increased use of biodiesel nationally. We believe that Senator

Dayton’s bill will complement our pending Minnesota 2 percent biodiesel bill, and the two bills working together will have a dramatic

impact on farmer profitability.

Here are just a few of the facts to emphasize the impact that biodiesel can have on our farmer profitability. In the United States,

soybean oil has been the oil of choice, representing over 80 percent

of our vegetable oil market. At present, two and a half billion

pounds of soybean oil are in storage in the U.S., resulting in historic low soybean prices and depressing the soybean market for the

last 2 years. The U.S. consumes approximately 30 billion gallons of

diesel fuel annually. A 2-percent biodiesel requirement would use

4.4 billion pounds of vegetable oil. If a majority of this could come

from domestic soybean oil, it would virtually eliminate the 2.5 billion pounds of soybean oil that is presently in storage.

With that, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to give

testimony here, and I appreciate—thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I just want to say if anyone has additional written testimony,

give it to one of our associates here. We will make it part of the

hearing record.

Yes.

STATEMENT OF AARON KUEHL, PHEASANTS FOREVER,

JANESVILLE, MINNESOTA

Mr. KUEHL. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name

is Aaron Kuehl. I am a regional wildlife biologist for Pheasants

Forever, living in Janesville, Minnesota. Thank you for the opportunity to come here today and discuss with you the conservation

title of the 2002 Farm bill.

Pheasants Forever was founded in 1982 here in Minnesota. We

have grown to a national organization with 90,000 members. In

Minnesota, we have 57 chapters working hand-in-hand with landVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:43 Mar 07, 2003 Jkt 085323 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 85323.TXT SAG1 PsN: SAG1
18

owners and farmers to get wildlife benefits on the land. Last year

alone, we completed 874 projects on 7,000 acres in the state and

over 32 projects nationally. Many of our projects are completed in

association with Federal farm conservation programs, and we believe the cornerstone of the new Farm bill conservation title should

be based upon improving successful programs.

At Pheasants Forever, we support the expansion of CRP to the

initial 45 million acres based on soil, water and wildlife conservation objectives. If new program objectives are added, they should be

authorized on acreage above the 45 million acre level. Expansion

of the Wetland Reserve Program to accommodate 250,000 acres of

enrollment per year; expansion of the Wildlife Habitat Incentives

Program to 100 million in expenditures annually; and establishment of a new grassland protection program of at least 1 million

acres.

Here in Minnesota, we are working to implement the CRP buffer

initiative and the newly available Wetlands Pilot Program. We

would encourage you to make the Wetlands Pilot permanent in the

next Farm bill. This practice is proving to be a win-win situation

for both farmers and for wildlife. Farmers benefit from a nonregulatory, voluntary, incentive-based way to deal with the problems associated with farming in and around small wetlands. Pheasants and other wildlife benefit from the habitat provided by this

program. We are strong supporters of the Minnesota Conservation

Reserve Enhancement Program Project and support continued authority for CREPS nationwide.

Mr. Chairman, at Pheasants Forever, we look forward to working

with you in the coming months to craft a strong conservation title

for the 2002 Farm bill. Thank you for the opportunity to appear

here today.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Aaron.

Thank you.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF LAURA RAEDEKE, NISSWA, MINNESOTA

Ms. RAEDEKE. Hi; my name is Laura Raedeke. I am from Nisswa,

Minnesota, formerly of Worthington.

The current emphasis on large-scale industrialized agriculture

not only siphons wealth away from most farms and rural communities, but it also results in serious food safety issues that affect

every American. Many of these issues center around gigantic confined animal feeding operations which generate huge amounts of

waste that are filling our lakes, our rivers, our groundwater. The

heavy use of antibiotics, of growth hormones; the fact that we use

500 different pesticides in our chemical-intensive grain production

are indicated as factors in cancer formations; in degenerative brain

and nerve tissue diseases; in immune system dysfunctions; in Parkinson’s Disease; and it creates antibiotic resistance in foodborne

bacteria.

In the genetic engineering debate, we find that multinational biotechnology corporations, backed by predatory intellectual property

laws, are hopelessly polluting the global food supply with

crosspollination and contamination with their transgenic seeds.

19

This results in permanently altered genetic codes. It creates new

traits that have results that are unforeseeable and unknowable.

Yet, at the same time, the fastest-growing sector in agriculture

are the organic, sustainable ecofarming models; thus, a truly beneficial and visionary farm bill would assist farmers and consumers

in unhooking from corporate control, moving to local control with

locally available food supplies by supporting farms and businesses

that rely on local support. This could be done, for example, by promoting marketing cooperatives that link consumers with farmers

who can provide them with the products that they want.

We should insist that all genetically modified seeds, feed, food,

fibers be—there should be a moratorium on it.

[Laughter.]

Ms. RAEDEKE. I have more, but thank you very much.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF ROLF MAHLBERG, MINNESOTA WEST

COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE, WORTHINGTON,

MINNESOTA

Mr. MAHLBERG. My name is Rolf Mahlberg. I am the ag teacher

here at Minnesota West Community and Technical College.

You know, I was not going to admit that if the temperature was

85 or higher in here.

[Laughter.]

Mr. MAHLBERG. I am pleased that we could host this forum, and

it is just a wonderful tribute to our society when we can come forward like this.

One of the concerns, and I have delivered written testimony is

I have not heard the word youth mentioned one time. I guess I

have a concern because as I go out and recruit young operators, I

literally have to sell through their grandparents. I brought my father here today, and he is sitting here at 80 years old, and he has

passed on the 240 acres that I currently farm. It is a tragedy that

I have to sit here and defend this industry as an ag teacher, because we cannot sustain a price that will allow the parent to even

support that young person to come forward.

As you draft a farm bill, I hope that you consider the sustainability of not only the earth and enhanced CRPs. We have plenty

of corn and bean acres. Let us pass on a stewardship of the soil,

the water, the land but also the stewardship of the family farm.

Let these kids go forward with productive careers in agriculture.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mahlberg can be found in the appendix on page 72.]

Senator DAYTON. Welcome, Anne.

STATEMENT OF ANNE KANTEN, HAWICK, MINNESOTA

Ms. KANTEN. I am Anne Kanten. I am from that family farm at

Milan, Minnesota, and I have my son with me today who is that

farmer. I am very proud of him, but the tragedy is, relating to the

last speaker, that his son, James, who we always thought would be

the next generation is walking away, and that is hard to deal with.

20

Thank you, Senators and Representative Kennedy for being here

today. Certainly, Senator, I am old. I am tired. I am angry. I have

been angry for a long time. Monica, you raised that up in this

crowd. We all need to be angry.

I have two suggestions today, quickies, I hope. One is a farm bill

that, Paul, is everything that we ever wanted in a piece of legislation. It comes from farmers, farmers from Montana to Indiana have

written this farm bill. They say price first and foremost, but they

also talk about conservation, dairy, livestock, credit, marketing concentration, food security. It is an all-inclusive farm bill.

My son, who has to crunch the numbers on that farm, is going

to relate to the numbers.

STATEMENT OF KENT KANTEN, MILAN, MINNESOTA

Mr. KANTEN. Well, what that does is economically will put me on

the same footing as my friends who are not involved in agriculture,

and that would take on about the same financial risks. It is not the

barefoot hillbilly bill that we see too many of that if I had 40 acres

and a mule, it might fit. This is modern agriculture, and it takes

more than that to make a living for a family.

One thing quickly: I am a member of the Farm Service Agency

state committee, and whatever shape the new Farm bill takes, we

have to quit some of these drop-dead penalties that we are looking

at right now. A farm family from northern Minnesota is not in agriculture anymore because they had an $80,000 penalty for growing

edible beans. It was simply a mistake of not combining two farms

together. I can go through a long, long list of many people that

have lost thousands and thousands of dollars because of simple

paper-pushing mistakes at the FSA office, and the new Farm bill

needs some relief granted through state committees, county committees, whatever, thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Since there are two of them, we can give—Tom,

if we can give them another 2 minutes here.

Ms. KANTEN. Another 30 seconds, maybe. The second idea that

I would like to bring forth today relates to the power of our church;

that we ought to get rid of some of the labels that we carry as NFO

and Farm Union, Farm Bureau and come together in those church

basements—that is why God created them—to debate and work out

what we need to have.

The way we are going to help do that is that we are organizing

bishops, ecumenical bishops: five Lutherans, five Episcopalians,

five Roman Catholics, five Presbyterians, Methodists, evangelicals

or whatever to stand in front of that Senate committee and say we

need justice. We need some morality in what we are doing with

people not only in this country but people all over the world. With

the Farm bill, that basically is almost evil; and the church has a

responsibility to also address that.

Thank you for your hard work.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Ms. KANTEN. We will keep you on task.

Senator WELLSTONE. Just a point of personal privilege, and I will

do it in only 20 seconds, I promise you all.

Anne, one of the small—I have two dreams, a little dream and

a big dream. The little dream is that we have this hearing; this is

21

a formal Ag Committee hearing here in Worthington, and we have

another one in Stuartville. We should have a third one, and the

third one should be right in the heart of the metro area. The faith

community should be there. We should bring farmers and rural

people in there, but we should have all the people who live in the

metro area, and we should say this is not just for us; this is for

you as well. I really believe we ought to have one of those in the

metro area.

The second thing is, and then, from there, I would like to see a

whole lot of people involved in this process this coming fall, because this is going to be—probably what would you say, Mark?—

over the next 5 months or 4 months, and we really need to figure

out a way of having the voice of a lot of people directly linked to

what we do. All of us would agree with that. We can.

Senator DAYTON. Yes, sir. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF LINDEN OLSON, WORTHINGTON, MINNESOTA

Mr. OLSON. My name is Linden Olson. I farm just three miles

exactly straight south of here, and with all due respect to the people that are here before me, I represent no particular group today,

and probably, that is one of the few.

What I would ask you gentlemen this afternoon is to be very

careful not to get caught up in the emotionalism of short-term solutions to a long-term problem. I have heard here repeatedly this

afternoon we need a higher price, a higher LDP. The only thing

that higher prices and higher LDPs does is benefit the landowner.

The landowner gets so he can get loans on a higher value piece of

property, or he can charge higher rents to the people he rents it

to.

The beginning farmer must rent to start out. They get caught up

in the higher rents, and they wind up catching with the higher

end. If we do any setaside in the higher loan LDPs, we wind up

asking the farmers in South America to put more land into production to go on the world market to compete against us. Let us be

very careful about these short-term solutions to long-term problems. We have proved that it has not worked in the past to do

those kinds of things.

The one thing that has some merit, and several of you have mentioned it, Senator Wellstone, Dayton and Representative, is the

value added. Within the next 30 to 40 years in this country, we are

going to have to replace and add a large amount of infrastructure

in the food system. For another 25 percent investment of what a

farmer already owns, he can control and own that whole chain

from the farm to the market. With the value added in loan guarantees and low-interest loans that this infrastructure can be owned

and controlled by farmers for consumers and the feedback down

the chain.

That is the type of farm program that we need to provide longterm sustainability to these particular entities in the local areas.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, sir, welcome.

22

STATEMENT OF PAUL GARVER, HENDRICKS, MINNESOTA

Mr. GARVER. I am Paul Garver, Hendricks, Minnesota. I am glad

to be here to try to help the family farmer and to look at a new

farm bill. I am probably the third or fourth generation farming.

After nine children and 17 and a half grandchildren, if we do not

get a different farm bill, a different outlook, none of them are going

to be able to farm. You know, that is a lot of people out of one family that are not going to be able to farm.

The new trends in agriculture have lowered the market price for

commodities; they have forced the family farmers out of business;

it is called the generation of the environment; the decline in quality

of life in our rural America. 400,000 hog producers have gone out

of business from 1982 until 1997. The number of hogs produced has

remained the same. You are getting rid of the small people; the big

ones are taking over. They just keep pushing.

After that, the hog producers come to realize that the commodity

groups were not for the small farmer. We put together a referendum; we had the vote; and we won. Anne Veneman came back and

said no, I do not think so; let us just go on and keep giving them

money, taking the money out of the small producers. Is this what

we call democracy? Is this why you guys are up there? What if we

had said hey, we did not vote for you; get out? Is that what you

want?

Well, this is what is happening. We have lost 4.1 American farmers since 1940. That is why I would like to see a new farm bill that

is going to be for the family farm.

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, and unfortunately, I am going to take

a point of privilege here to say that I have another ag forum that

I had previously scheduled up in Sibley County in Arlington scheduled, so I am going to have to leave. I want to thank the Senators

for inviting me to join them. I want to thank our panelists for their

excellent testimony, and I want to thank all of you for being involved, because it is people who are involved in the process and expressing their points of views that really makes our democracy

strong, so thank you for being involved, and I encourage you to continue to do so, and I will look and follow on to the discussions afterwards and the testimony.

Thank you again for all being here and all the good work you do

on behalf of agriculture.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Mark, for rearranging your schedule today to be with us. Thank you.

Next, sir.

STATEMENT OF LES EVERETT, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

EXTENSION AND WATER RESOURCES CENTER, ST. PAUL,

MINNESOTA

Mr. EVERETT. My name is Les Everett. I work for the University

of Minnesota Extension Service and the Water Resources Center.

I live in St. Paul and work throughout the state.

It is clear to all of us that conservation must be central to the

next Farm bill if we want to continue public support. The public

does not read the price of corn in the paper every day, but they do

read about hypoxia, erosion; they read about nitrates in drinking

water and so forth. Conservation has got to be central in the next

23

Farm bill, and farm support payments need to be tied to conservation.

However, I would like to speak to one small part of that program, and that is conservation education. The last Congress—for

the 1996 Farm bill, they recognized that conservation education

had to be part of conservation. If you are going to put in practices,

have incentives, practices like nutrient management, grazing management, things that are a bit more complicated than just putting

in a terrace or hiring an engineer; so there was a very small part

of that program, EQIP was put in for education.

Here in Minnesota, NRCS partnered with Extension and with

state agencies. We went out and worked with some water conservation districts and put on 62 local conservation education projects.

In addition to that, we had a program that dealt with nutrient

management, grazing management and many other things.

This was an interagency team that was brought together solely

because of EQIP education. We had not done that before. It takes

a central funding pool there to bring everybody to the table and

speak with one voice with regard to conservation education. Recently, OMB almost zeroed out—they slashed that program in half. It was already only $4 million nationwide. Now, it is down to $2

million, which pretty much zeroes it out at the state level. That

needs to be reinstated. Conservation education must be part of conservation programs.

Senator DAYTON. Yes.

STATEMENT OF RODNEY SKALBEEK, SACRED HEART,

MINNESOTA

Mr. SKALBEEK. My name is Rodney Skalbeek, and I am a farmer

in Sacred Heart, Minnesota, and I just want to talk to you briefly

about some of the things I would like to see in a new farm program. It would be a farm program that would not be for the

Cargills and the Monsantos but for the farmers in the rural communities.

Briefly, what it would be is let every farmer seal 25,000 bushels

of corn at $3 a bushel; 10,000 bushels of beans at $8 a bushel; or

something like that. Anything over that that he produces, he could

do one of two things on: sell on the open market or put in a reserve

that he could use in a lean year, that way eliminating the need for

crop insurance. It would also give the farmer or the Nation a grain

reserve held by the farmers.

You know, someone else has got to work all the figures out, but

it would also move a lot of people, a lot of young people, back on

the farms. I have three sons. One is farming with me; the others

would love to if they could afford to. Sad to say, they are married,

and they cannot. My son who is farming with me is single. He can

afford to farm.

[Laughter.]

Mr. SKALBEEK. There is one other thing that I would like to

bring out, and that is I certainly support ethanol and biodiesel.

There is another product that I would like to call your attention

to, and that is soy oil. It is used in the manufacture of polyurethane. It can be used today. The technology is there. There is

a carpet company down in Georgia that is looking to use it. John

24

Deere just announced that they are going to use it in their tractors

and combines.

This is a 4-billion pound market every year for soybean oil.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Yes.

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK KLOUCEK, A MEMBER OF THE

SOUTH DAKOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SCOTLAND,

SOUTH DAKOTA

Mr. KLOUCEK. Honorable Senators, distinguished panelists, my

name is Frank Kloucek, and I am a state rep from Scotland, South

Dakota, and I am here today to say thank you——

Senator DAYTON. Welcome; a special welcome.

Mr. KLOUCEK. Thank you—to thank our Midwest Ag Coalition.

We had the opportunity to form a group of over 50 Midwestern ag

legislators, including Doug Peterson, Ted Winner, Mary Ellen

Otremba here in Minnesota, and I want to thank those three for

their unselfish efforts to help family farm and small ranch agriculture.

My opening statement, I would say anybody who supports lowering the loan rate should in fact themselves take a pay cut by that

same percentage.

I was very sad to see Mr. Kennedy leave early; sadly to say, the

Congress adjourned early without addressing those issues on

Thursday night. We had the update last night by Mr. Geebert.

Alan Geebert gave us the wherewithal on that, and it put the Senate in a terrible situation. They have just begun—we need to address those issues that they have let sit on the table, including

raising funding and targeting that funding.

It would support the 360 repeal, the 372, whatever you call it.

We must get rid of that to make mandatory price reporting more

effective. We must ask the Senate to do the meat labeling program

despite what their colleagues in the House have done. We must

stop the pork checkoff tax and abuse of pork producers now.

The gentleman who said we cannot have fair loan rates is wrong.

We can have them with fair payment limitations that target our

family farmers. In fact, we should be raising those loan rates.

A man named Bernie Hunoff said we must build within. On our

exports, we will not export our way out of this. I endorse Doug Peterson for Congress or Governor or whatever he runs for. I do

think—and this is unsolicited—see, he is not even here to endorse

it—we need people like him. I want corporate America to make a

fair profit, but corporate greed must end now.

We are having an organic hog farm meeting in Tindall, South

Dakota on August 16, and we are asking if anybody is interested,

we will be at Teddy Winner’s, if you want some information on

that.

Good luck in your noble work. We wish you the best.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

[Applause.]

25

STATEMENT OF BRIAN ROMSDAHL, BUTTERFIELD,

MINNESOTA

Mr. ROMSDAHL. Greetings to both Senators. My name is Brian

Romsdahl. I am a diversified farmer from Oden Township, and I

would like the Senators to know that one farm organization and

some of the commodity groups do not speak for family farmers. We

need higher loan rates. All cheap grain does is to make cheap livestock, and I do not feel like subsidizing these factory feedlots and

large hog outfits with any more of my below cost of production

grain. This has to end. We need $3 for corn and $6.50 for soybeans; no more LDPs and

maybe have some payment caps on individual farmers. Second, we

need to limit imports of agricultural commodities into our alreadydepressed farm economy. I do not care what the WTO and NAFTA

might say. We are an independent, free, sovereign nation and need

to take care of ourselves first. We have cemeteries full of brave

men who have fought and died for these basic principles, and this

is just a slap in their face.

Finally, let the vote on the pork checkoff stand. It was a legitimate, legal vote, and just because it did not turn out the way one

certain commodity group wanted it to does not mean that democracy should not prevail.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you. Thank you.

Senator WELLSTONE. Larry, just real quickly, I wanted to respond to what Frank said, who travels all around the country. He

is from South Dakota; he and Jack, another legislator from Iowa,

they are just everywhere with people. On Pheasants Forever, really

quickly, just could I make—before you leave; thanks for your testimony, and I will do this in the most judicious way. I mean, I really

will. I will be very mellow in the way I say it, but we should have

had a better—the emergency financial assistance package, and that

is what it was; it was not the Farm bill—that came out of the

House was at about $5.5 billion, and we were about $7.4 billion.

By the way, when Mark Dayton says—I will just say it; he cannot

stop me—when he says well they let me chair because I am 100,

he is really—I have never seen anybody in such a quick period of

time dig in with such effectiveness as he has done on ag policy. You

need to know that.

He worked on this; and he was key to this package. Oh, give that

back.

[Laughter.]

Senator WELLSTONE. He was key to this package, and what I

wanted to say is that the shame of it is that for Minnesota, who

knows? It could have been another $100 million more; some of it

were the AMTA payments, which I am not in love with, but it was

additional assistance for people.

Above and beyond that, we had so much by way of conservation,

and I am telling you: I really count on Pheasants Forever and all

of you guys, because you have been great on this to really help us,

because that should have never been cut. What happened was the

House adjourned—I am not knocking Mark Kennedy on this; this

was not Mark’s decision. The House adjourned. They left, and then,

on the Senate side—and this is true—it was filibustered. We could

26

not get 60 votes to move it, and therefore, the only choice that we

had was to do the $5.5 billion.

I just want to say: there was more in there for Minnesota and

more in there for the country, and I am sorry it did not happen.

That is the best way I can put it.

The only other thing, and then, I am not going to do any more

comments at all, but Colleen Lankhammer, whoever is running for

office, Democrat or Republican, ought to be introduced, and she is

running for the Congress in the First Congressional District and

came over here, which does say something about her commitment

to family farmers and agriculture. Thank you for being here, Colleen. You should stand up.

[Applause.]

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF LARRY GREEN, FULDA, MINNESOTA

Mr. GREEN. Yes; my name is Larry Green. I am from Fulda, Minnesota, and I welcome the Senators here today. As Anne Kanten

said, I am angry, too. I am very angry. Most of the people on the

panel up here; when Anne Veneman was announced for Secretary

of Agriculture, there is not one of you groups that fought her confirmation. If you go back and study her history, she worked for

Ronald Reagan. She was George Bush’s patsy in the Uruguay

Round that got us to these prices.

The commodity groups, the pork producers, about a million bucks

a week to get you $8 hogs. The soybeaners, about a million and a

half a week to get you $4 beans. I am mad, damn mad.

[Applause.]

Mr. GREEN. One of the articles that I would like to see in the

new Farm bill that is no cost to the taxpayer is that if we want

a checkoff, it is voluntary at the point of sale. I am tired of these

parasites sucking me to no end.

As a little example, in Worthington here a few months ago, there

was a bank robbery. The guy got $5,000. The gentleman from the

pork producers suggested in their testimony a 20 percent cut in the

loan rate. We raised 9 million bushels of beans in Nobles County.

That is $9 million less money. Which business places in Worthington want $9 million less coming in their tills? I do not see anybody

jumping up.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Welcome, sir.

STATEMENT OF RICK KEITH, OMAHA, NEBRASKA

Mr. KEITH. Thank you.

My name is Rick Keith. I am with Producers Livestock Marketing Association, and I wanted to talk today a little bit about the

360 rule. Last fall, when that was put together, the packing industry had the 360 rule implemented that is also used in several government agencies to allow confidentiality of market reporting.

Yesterday, the USDA announced a proposed change of the confidentiality standards for the mandatory price reporting from the

27

360 standard to a less-restrictive standard known as a 370–20.

This new standard will go into effect on August 20 of 2001.

This new, most recent Band-Aid, the new 370–20 rule, replaces

the 360 rule because it is overrestrictive. Narrow application of the

360 rule resulted in substantial withholding of data to the public.

The new rule is expected to allow more data to be released in a

timely manner. If you want to talk about consolidation and merger

mania, the packing industry asked that the 360 rule be implemented. They are so tightly held in such a small group that the

rest of the country’s rules that work for them, this is the only time

that the 360 rule has not worked, in the packing industry, because

it is so concentrated. Now, it has to turn to another rule. This 370– 20 is brand new; never been used in the United States before. It

shows you how totally held in just a few hands the packing industry is.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF MARK FROEMKE, PRESIDENT, NORTHERN

VALLEY LABOR COUNCIL, AFL–CIO, GRAND FORKS, NORTH

DAKOTA

Mr. FROEMKE. Hi; my name is Mark Froemke. I am president of

the Northern Valley Labor Council, AFL–CIO, and for you all, that

is in the Grand Forks-East Grand Forks all the way to the Canadian border. I have been through three states today, and they are

all hot so——

[Laughter.]

Mr. FROEMKE [continuing]. A little weather report.

Senator Dayton, it is good to see you and Senator Wellstone. I

am a union person. I have been a union person my whole life. I

work in a factory in East Grand Forks for American Crystal Sugar,

which is a farmers’ owned coop. I believe very strongly in agriculture. I believe very strongly in value-added factories like American Crystal Sugar. I believe very strongly that we in rural America have to stick together, or we will die.

I believe what I want in the Farm bill is I want to save family

farmers. I want to save our rural communities. I want to save our

rural jobs. I want value added factories in our communities with

union wages. I want a stop to ADMs, Cargills, Monsantos destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in this country.

I am sick and tired of NAFTAs. I am sick and tired of WTOs,

and I am sick and tired of fair trade of the Americas area. I am

sick of these deals that destroy America and our jobs and our

farms. The same companies that destroy this country like ADMs

and Cargills and the meat packing industry, they grind the worker

into the ground.

If we could come together as workers, farmers and rural people,

what we can do is save our farms, save our communities, save our

schools, save our churches and save our families and have a life for

ourselves in this community.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

28

STATEMENT OF PAT A. HABERMAN, BREWSTER, MINNESOTA

Mr. HABERMAN. I am Pat Haberman from Brewster, Minnesota.

I, too, would like to see the farmers’ income derived from the market. However, in our government’s attempt to babysit the world,

the United States has trade sanctions or grain embargoes with

more than 40 different countries that all our competitors sell to.

This is just one significant reason that necessitates the legiti- mate government subsidy, and the current $1.72 ceiling price is not

it for corn. Americans deserve to earn a fair wage, a minimum

wage. In 1985, minimum wage was $3.35, and today, it is $5.15.

In 1985, our ceiling price for corn was $2.35, and today, it is $1.72

per bushel. My break-even price using average yields is over $2.25.

A legitimate ceiling price should be a break-even price plus a minimum wage for your efforts to produce it. I challenge anyone to find

someone who can show me they can grow corn for $1.72 a bushel.

Any other industry can adjust their prices for rising expenses

and inflation. Why is it the burden of babysitting the world is

placed on the U.S. farmer? As I see it, our government is forcing

the U.S. farmer into bankruptcy.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you very much. You are really very well

spoken; very well spoken. Thank you.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF JEROME GRAFF, SANBORN, MINNESOTA

Mr. GRAFF. My name is Jerome Graff from Sanborn, Minnesota,

and I guess the gentleman before me took a lot of the words out

of my mouth, but I guess two things or a couple of things here I

would like to express my concern about. Since exports are not a

quick cure for farm economic problems. Consumer demands are determined by four variables: the size of the human population; the

income distribution of the human population; the tastes and preference of that human population; and the rules and laws of each

nation governing the handling and distribution of finished products.

I would like to say that the big corporations are really getting

their way on this NAFTA and GATT, and it was their way, the big

international businessmen, you go back to the sixties, the assassination of Kennedy; they were using the CIA to get involved in

these covert activities to destroy governments that were not friendly to these big corporations.

Well, if you go back and follow that, Garrison’s, when he had

that trial, he was the only one that tried the case against anybody

trying to plot to kill the President. Garrison was the only one that

ever tried to prosecute the case of a plot to assassinate Kennedy.

These international businessmen, the one he was trying to get was

Clay Shaw, and he told them we are going to make money off of

society and have free trade.

I feel that this was the beginning of it, due to the fact that he

was trying to hold him down by having this order to restrict the

power of the CIA, and we want Fast Track; the Secretary of Commerce, Donald Evans, says that the price spread between what the

producer receives at the farm gate and what the consumer pays at

the counter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the

highest it has ever been in history.

29

He said he just got back from a conference, a global conference,

and he said that the global market belongs to the low-cost producer; so, where is the profit? Not just in economic terms but in

sustaining cultural, social and environmental issues.

I guess these are the—we tried talking about what we are going

to do with the Farm bill and raising the support price; if we are

going to follow NAFTA and GATT, our hands are tied with it. We

have to decide if we are going to put America first, and I hope we

do.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF DAN JUHL, PIPESTONE, MINNESOTA

Mr. JUHL. Welcome, Senators. My name is Dan Juhl from

Pipestone, and I have a small farm over there. It is not your traditional farm; it is a wind farm. I would just like to mention a few

words that we have a tremendous opportunity in this part of the

country to develop a new diversified crop for our farmers in the

form of wind-generated electricity. The technology is there. There

is huge farms being built as we speak all over this area, and we

have a potential for the farmers to get involved with this and develop a new cash crop that can help sustain them through these

times of up and downs of the traditional commodities.

I just have one specific proposal that I would like to throw at you

for you to contemplate, and that is access to the RUS financing

mechanism similar to the way the coal plants were financed. If the

farmers had access to that rural financing mechanism, they could

get into this cash crop and help diversify their farms and make a

decent living.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. That was an excellent specific suggestion. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF JOHN NAUERTH III, LAKEFIELD, MINNESOTA

Mr. NORTH. My name is John Nauerth. I am a farmer and a

rural country boy over here at Lakefield. I have not heard anything

said about currency exchanges, and that seems to be a real problem, where Canadians can come down here and dump the hogs off

here and make 30 percent more than their own producers. We have

to get something tied to currency values, unless we go on a one

world government, which there seems to be support of trying to

push. Now, how that is ever going to work is beyond me.

I had a little call this spring. A guy came over to see me, and

he said, he said hey, what do you think about me quitting farming?

I said gee, I do not know; I said I guess you have to kind of make

your decision. He was really in a turmoil on that. We had 11 farmers quit in my area within a 10-mile radius, all under the age of

40. The average kids in the household was about three. That is 33

kids. A couple of them are content to be moving, but it just ain’t

worth it anymore.

We are in a real sad state of affairs. Freedom to farm is not fair.

I have a son who works for a manufacturing plant; corporate America is running people into the ground. If you cannot keep up, there

30

is always an immigrant that we can pick up to take your place, and

that is not right.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT A. DIETER, BREWSTER, MINNESOTA

Mr. DIETER. Thank you, Senator Wellstone and Senator Dayton.

My name is Bob Dieter, and I am a farmer in Brewster. I have

farmed for 56 years and am still farming. I cannot get out of debt.

[Laughter.]

Mr. DIETER. I guess I will make some comments that probably

you people will not like to hear, but it bothers me, and so, I guess

that is why I am here. One of the main things that our Federal

Government has sold us down the drain, because the cost of farming now is due to all of the regulations that we have. Do you realize that 27 percent of that combine that we buy is due to government regulation? That is $62,000 to $75,000 or $80,000 for that

combine that I buy is just government regulations, and that is not

including taxes.

Our Federal Government has gotten out of line, and they are just

spending too much money, and that is part of our problem. As far

as the farm program goes, freedom to farm was OK, but the government did not hold up on their end. We lost exports when we

should not have, and it is going to take many years to get those

exports back again. That is part of our problem, that we have more

production, and we cannot get rid of it.

When you put sanctions on these countries, you cannot get them

back again. You cannot get them into your program to import

again. These are some things that we have to work on, and I hope

that you people on the Agriculture Committee, now, you can work

on some of those things.

One thing: China exports 40 percent of their production to the

United States. They are using our dollars to buy all of their military equipment from Russia. Think about it. Think about what is

going to happen.

Sugar program: I know we might have some sugar producers in

this auditorium today, but a whole $130 million it cost the Federal

Government to buy sugar, and it is costing $52 million just to store

it. There is something wrong there.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

Mary Ellen. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. MARY ELLEN OTREMBA, A MEMBER OF

THE MINNESOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, LONG

PRAIRIE, MINNESOTA

Ms. OTREMBA. Good afternoon, Senators. My name is Representative Mary Ellen Otremba from Long Prairie, Minnesota, which is

in the center of Minnesota, and I am going to talk today a little

about the dairy supply management, which needs to be done at the

Federal level, because we have chronically low and unstable milk

prices. In Minnesota in particular, the dairy industry on the family

farm is eroding by the loss of three farms per day, which means

31

about 200 and some farms have disappeared since the beginning of

the year. Our purchasing power as dairy farmers has deflated to $6.96 a hundredweight from its real value of around $23 a hundredweight,

and the average production to a dairy farmer cost is $14 a hundredweight.

There are currently about 6,700 dairy farms in Minnesota, and

at three a day, that will quickly bring us down to just a few. Without a financially secure base of producers, the rest of the industry

will collapse, beginning with the processors, who need a reliable

supply of milk; the wholesalers; the retailers; and ultimately, the

consumers in our small communities.

To save our state’s dairy industry in Minnesota, which is bigger

than Northwest Airlines and Target combined, we need a dairy

supply management act to stabilize these prices for producers. Everybody wins: farmers, processors, sellers, consumers and local

businesses. Although we have a free market in dairy, it is not fair

and open to the producers who are in the dark about inventory in

the plants, milk pricing practices, movement of product into the

state or the country and other factors affecting their pay.

We have a shortage of milk in the United States, so the imports,

questionably legal, keep the farmer’s price low. This board would

consider the balance between the production and the consumption

of milk; the costs of production and distribution so that prices are

fair to both producers and consumers.

Senator DAYTON. Go ahead. Take another 30 seconds.

Ms. OTREMBA. OK.

Recently, in the 1999 Farm bill, the processors were guaranteed a percentage in a formula. Right now, it is about $1.64 to $1.75 per

hundredweight that they take out of the farmer’s check to make

sure that their cheese plants cannot fail. That amounts to somewhere between $10,000 and $40,000 for my average dairy farmer

under 100 cows. Also, there are many other compacts that are

working, and just recently at the Council of State Governments,

which included 11 Midwestern states, we passed a resolution which

was bipartisan from all of these 11 states asking Congress to

please look at a compact for the upper Midwest dairies. If a compact does not happen, we are committed to do an alliance. Because

there are states’ rights involved, we would be able to pass a milk

marketing act in each of our states and do an alliance which Texas

and New Mexico have already done; Washington and Oregon have

already done; Montana has their own; Pennsylvania has their own;

New York has their own. We would move forward.

I would just like to remind everyone on the panel, our Senators

and the people in the audience, that throughout world history, all

the major powers in the world fell through their food policy, beginning in Genesis, where Pharaoh’s food policy made farmers slaves,

and Joseph came along and developed a marketing program to save

the farmers. Rome fell because of its food policy. Europe, specifically, I know a lot about Germany and how entire villages were

starved to death because of the concentration of food. This is my

warning to us in the United States because of our concentration of

food that we may and could easily fall.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mary Ellen.

STATEMENT OF DAVID KOLSRUF, BEAVER CREEK,

MINNESOTA

Mr. KOLSRUF. Chairman Dayton and Senator Wellstone, I am

glad to be here today. I am David Kolsruf, a farmer from southwest

Minnesota and a manager of one of the new generation coops which

is majority owner of an ethanol plant. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

Senator DAYTON. You testified in Washington.

Mr. KOLSRUF. I saw you two days ago in Washington.

Senator DAYTON. Right.

Mr. KOLSRUF. I am testifying here today, too, because, a lot of

things are going on in rural America, and we are in a transition

period. Being involved in new generation coops, I see the real value

of farmers working together to build processing plants, and these

plants are getting bigger all the time, like the soybean plant here

in Brewster.

I would like to see some of the funds targeted toward equity financing, so they can help invest in these plants. They have a huge

economic impact in the area. They help farmers sustain their livelihood, and it is just a win-win situation for both the farmer and the

government.

One of the other things that I have found in my journeys around

is that in the ethanol industry, we have what we call a small producer ethanol tax credit to help out the small producer. While you

guys are debating billions and billions of dollars for the big oil companies, here is a program that was specifically designed to help

ethanol producers back in the eighties, and we have yet to utilize

them. It was designed for everybody but. It was not designed for

everybody; it was designed for the farmers, but the farmers have

not been able to utilize them yet.

One of the things I caution you against was we go down in

Cerina, where we are taking surplus commodities, wind energy and

all of these things, and we are using them to fulfill our energy crisis, which, by the way, could be an energy opportunity for us in the

Midwest. Make sure that when you look at these tax breaks for big

oil and that that the farmers are not left out. Like in wind energy,

it would be a tremendous, tremendous impact if we were able to

utilize these tax credits so farmers could own the wind turbines;

we could own our biodiesel, ethanol plants and have the same credits that are available to the other big oil companies.

With that, I thank you. By the way, Senator Wellstone, I want

to thank you for your work with the veterans on all the work you

did. Being a veteran, I sincerely appreciate that.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD ZUPP, PRESIDENT, MINNESOTA

ASSOCIATION OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION

DISTRICTS, PIPESTONE, MINNESOTA

Mr. ZUPP. Welcome.

I am Richard Zupp, farmer from Pipestone, Minnesota. I am also

chairman of the soil and water conservation districts in Minnesota,

33

and I am also sitting on the national board of the NACD, National

Association of Conservation Districts.

Several things I want to discuss today is the EQIP program and

its funding of it. It seems that the technical assistance on that is

falling very short. Our local office goes out and does the work, gets

the projects lined up. It takes up to possibly a year to get these

things fully in gear; get the producer all lined up to do the work

and everything else. Then, we find we have no money to carry out

the practice. We are at a loss.

We also are very much in favor of the conservation incentive program that is being promoted. We are definitely very much 100 percent in favor of that.

The other thing that I guess I wanted to talk about, too, is our

energy things; we are very much in favor of those, and we will be

presenting written testimony at your Stuartville meeting over

there, and I hope to see you there. Thank you so much.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Richard. Thank you. Well said.

STATEMENT OF PAUL SOBOCINSKI, LAND STEWARDSHIP

PROJECT, WABASSO, MINNESOTA

Mr. SOBOCINSKI. Paul Sobocinski, Land Stewardship Project,

Minnesota. I am also a livestock farmer besides working for the

Land Stewardship Project.

I first of all want to say very clearly, Senator Dayton, Senator

Wellstone, as you are deliberating in terms of farm policy, do not

buy any of the commodity groups’ or farm organizations’ analysis

to reduce loan rates for any of our crops. I urge you to look at the

situation the same way that you look at workers. If workers deserve a minimum wage, so do farmers deserve a fair and minimum

loan rate for the crops they produce.

I was quite disappointed yesterday when I saw $2 billion cut on

the Senate side in terms of emergency funding, because that directly affects farmers all across the state, and it is very real, just

the same as workers who would see that type of reduction.

In the upcoming Farm bill debate, I believe that you need to

draw a line on the sand particularly around three issues: first of

all, around the issues in terms of we need to have a moratorium

on these large agribusiness mergers.

That moratorium needs to include coops like Farmland,

Land’o’Lakes.

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, my grandfather worked to

help organize REAs. He said back then Land’o’Lakes was going in

the wrong direction. He would turn over in his grave to know that

coops today are now competing; farm coops are competing with

farmers and producing livestock. This needs to be stopped.

The next area that needs to be done in terms of the Farm bill,

it needs to have a strong conservation component. The Conservation Security Act that Senator Harkin is behind needs everyone’s

support. It needs to go forward. All farmers, regardless of the crops

they produce, should not be discriminated against.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Paul. Thank you.

Welcome.

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STATEMENT OF RANDY OLSON, SUNBURG, MINNESOTA

Mr. OLSON. Honorable Senators Dayton and Wellstone; other respected officials, my name is Randy Olson. I am a 23-year-old exdairy farmer from Sunburg, Minnesota. I am here to address the

U.S. Government and the speculators who market and transfer our

farm products around the world.

I have five Bible verses I want to read: James 5: Come now you

rich. Weep and howl. Fear miseries that are coming upon you. Your

riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold

and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness

against you, and you will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped

up treasure in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the laborers who

mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the

cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of the Sabbath. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury. You have

fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned,

you have murdered the just. He does not resist you.

I want to farm. I also want to raise a family. Working the soil,

working with animals, raising children are all heavenly, magical

experiences. The problem is that it all takes money. Now, if you as

a government pass any farm legislation that will not put more

money in the pockets of independent farm producers such as my

father and mother, in my eyes, you are committing a sin. I am here

asking you to help me, because alone, I cannot fight our coops and

food processors.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Randy. Thank you.

Welcome.

STATEMENT OF KELVIN ELNESS, WINDOM, MINNESOTA

Mr. ELNESS. Good afternoon. My name is Kelvin Elness. I am

from Windom, Minnesota. I grew up on a dairy farm and wanted

to continue farming. As I got older, my mother and I farmed together. When I graduated high school, she told me to go on to college, to get out.

I went on to college; I graduated; I taught for a couple years.

Now, I am back here in Minnesota, where I want to be. I am starting to take over the farm, but it is very, very difficult starting out.

Most of our ground is now old CRP ground which I am using for

pastures and grazing. I guess I would just like to see more opportunity for young farmers to get started without the large quantities

of money needed to buy the land to continue on or take over their

family farms.

Also, I would like to address—I started raising buffalo, and some

of the disease issues in buffalo, and my neighbor has elk, in the

exports to other countries: we need to make sure that there are

some standards set so that these countries can be assured that we

are producing quality products.

I would like to thank you for your time and give you these letters.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

You are our last witness, sir. Thank you for your patience.

35

STATEMENT OF BRUCE BEDERMAN, GRAFTON, IOWA

Mr. BEDERMAN. You bet. My name is Bruce Bederman. I am from

Grafton, Iowa and a farmer and an agribusinessman. I sell grain

bins and grain dryers, and that business has been very slow because of the economy. I basically agree with the National Farmers

Organization’s cut on the Farm bill. I have a copy of my proposal.

One point I was waiting to see was covered in it was not quite adequately. The farming communities or livestock raisers should have

to be raising at least 75 percent of their own feed. If they do this,

they have a place for the manure. Concentration is relatively bad

no matter where it is, if it is people or animals or whatever. If you

have a sustainable agriculture where you actually raise your own

feed, and if you raise feed for crops, you are a farmer; if you do

not actually farm or raise crops, you are not a real farmer; you are

just a manufacturer of animal products or whatever.

The other basic principle I have on my deal is if you raise more

than 50 percent of your land on one crop, you cannot rotate, and

therefore, you will degrade the land. Thank you for your time.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Three more gentlemen waiting to speak, and we will draw the

line there.

STATEMENT OF JOHN P. KIBBIE, IOWA SENATE,

EMMETSBURG, IOWA

Mr. KIBBIE. Thank you, Senators, for having this hearing. My

name is State Senator Jack Kibbie from Iowa, and Senator Paul

and I have talked about these issues in the past.

The conference that was held in Lincoln, Nebraska, recently with

11 neighboring states; 52 legislators attend ag committee that I cochaired with a legislator from Michigan, but we passed eight resolutions and then took them to the full body, which is 500 people,

and either passed them unanimous or with a good majority vote,

and they dealt with everything from concentration to the Justice

Department, Packer and Stockyards and a whole raft of things

with biotechnology. I will see to it that you get copies of those.

A couple other issues that I see in this whole trade affair: we

have 130 countries that we have American troops in them, 130 of

them. The gentleman that talked about the veterans; those people

are going to be veterans. Many of those countries, we are trading

with that do not have any human rights laws; do not have any

labor laws; do not have any environmental laws, and they either

ought to have some kind of a standard, or we ought to not trade

with them.

The other thing that I feel, before all this thing is going to

change, we have to get some control over campaign finance. The

corporate America——

Corporate America is buying and selling our government. You

people are there; I am there on the state level. Read the reports.

Read the reports. Make them public on where all this money is

coming from for these campaigns. It is hurting us in being able to

pass a decent farm bill.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you, Jack. Thank you for being here.

36

STATEMENT OF RICK GOEDTKE, FULDA, MINNESOTA

Mr. GOEDTKE. I am Rick Goedtke from Fulda, Minnesota. I raise

corn, soybeans, and I am also a turkey producer.

What I would just kind of like to do is run over a few things that

I kind of agree with. I agree the loan rate should be raised. I do

not think there should be a deficiency payment paid when you sign

up for the farm program. You should only have a higher loan rate

that justifies cost of production and a cost of living, something to

pay for your labor.

There should be a marketing LDP with that loan. That is a good

idea. As a livestock producer, that fits the mold really well.

That the payment should be based on bushels. You should pay

on bushels. You should limit the amount of bushels. The payment

limitations that you have in the farm program right now are a

joke. They are an absolute joke. They do not make any sense. They

are unenforceable. They always have been. I remember sitting in

an FSA office, and a guy came in, and he farmed a rather large

amount of ground and said gee, what am I going to do about this?

I am going to be way over this, and I am not going to be able to

cash in on this deal.

The director just said come back with me. I will show you how

to get around that. That is the way it works.

If you do it by bushels, you limit the amount of bushels, it is a

much easier, simpler way of dealing with it. The farm program

should be simple. Simple things are hard to abuse, OK? I also

think that you should do your payment in line with the CER values

of land; should be bushels times the CER value, the crop equivalency rating. That is fair. Some of these are not fair right now.

More long-term conservation programs with dollar limits; 5 or 10

years; I like the gentleman’s idea with grazing some of these acres.

It is good.

It is better to be out of production. It is also better to be using

it as well.

Incentives for less tillage, maybe to be applied to loan rates as

an incentive for conservation. I would also like to talk to you about

the wetland rule specifically; the abandonment rule. There is a 5-

year abandonment rule on wetlands. Even if you have drainage in

there, you are not allowed to go in there and fix that if you have

not used that for 5 years. That is a way of stealing a farmer’s

ground. That is not right.

I also would just like to briefly, since I am a turkey producer, we

are not—we do not do any of the other stuff like—our checkoff is

a voluntary program and stuff. I do volunteer to that. It is a pretty

good program, and I am very small in that industry. I want you

to realize that in that industry, which is mostly a corporate-controlled industry, this farm bill that you are going to have probably

that I see right here that you handed to me and the past farm bill

that you have been having have been a real windfall for those people.

I love buying corn at $1.42 or $1.50 to feed to my turkeys. That

works great. You know what? My grain and soybean operation? It

is running in the negative. It does not make sense. It should not

work that way. You need to change that so the people that are out

37

there on the farm that are raising the stuff take advantage of it,

not the others, not the corporate entities.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Well-said; very well-said.

You get the last word, sir.

STATEMENT OF REV. BOB MORITZ, HADLEY, MINNESOTA

Rev. Moritz. OK; I have known Senator Dayton and Senator

Wellstone for over 20 years; a good friend of Anne Kanten and

other people who have spoken here today, and you need a benediction. I happen to be a clergyman who is here to get educated,

and also, I have served in the parish where I serve at Hadley and

Chandler for almost 30 years, 29-plus, and I have stayed there because I wanted to fight for the farmers, and I am past retirement,

and the fight is slowly leaving me. Those who have said they are

angry can count another person here. When I have seen what has

happened to our beautiful farm land and when I have seen what

has happened to our churches, the numbers have gone down, and

they continue to go down, and it is very, very distressing.

Tomorrow, I will share with my parish using a text about the

farmer who wants to tear down and build bigger granaries, and

Jesus is not a happy camper when he hears what they are saying,

and the whole thing has to do with greed. That is what the text

is about, and that is what life itself is about. There is so much

greed out there, and all of us, all of us, are guilty. It is not that

person or this person or whatever. We need to deal with those

kinds of things.

When I see what has happened to the farmers, I can only weep

and weep with them. I do think that it is important for the government to continue to try to help the family farmer. I mean, I in a

sense implore you, plead with you, and I know that you have been

working in that way. I ask that you continue to do that, and certainly, as we leave here today, we know there are people that are

going to be working for us, but we need more like you two, and we

want you to represent us as you have, and we simply say may God

bless both of you. Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you very much. Thank you.

This has been just a terrific hearing and very, very informative

for me. I want to thank the members of our panel again for your

participation, for your being here. I want to thank all of our audience for your patience and your eloquence, and there is no question

that we need a farm bill which shifts direction fundamentally and

puts price and profit back into agriculture in the marketplace. Getting there is going to be the subject of debate, but from everything

I have heard today, that has got to be the key underpinning. I

pledge to you we are—both Paul and I now, being members of the

Senate Agriculture Committee; we have three members of our Minnesota House delegation: Representative Kennedy, Gutknecht and

Peterson are on the House Agriculture Committee, so I am very

hopeful that we can make sure that this bill represents the best interests of Minnesota, and I pledge to you that I am committed,

working with Senator Wellstone and others, to that end.

Again, on my behalf, thank you very, very much, and I will turn

it over to Senator Wellstone for any concluding remarks.

38

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you, Senator Dayton.

I want to also thank the panel. I want to thank Ted Winner and

Jim Vickerman for getting us going here today and all the work

you do. There are a lot of people, a lot of legislators here today

from our state and Iowa and South Dakota and also a lot of farm

activists and people that I have known, that I have come to know

and to love.

The way I will finish up is by just saying two things. One is a

little bit more by way of some people who are here who work with

me. I have to mention Connie Lewis, because she is from Jasper.

She is the head of our Minnesota office. She is an incredibly skillful

person, and this conversation has great personal meaning to her.

It is what her parents are about and what she is about. Connie

Lewis, right there, please stand up.

I also want to thank Tom Meium, who is out of our Wilmer office, who is just great to work with.

[Applause.]

Senator WELLSTONE. Brian Baining, who came out here from

Washington, DC, who is working with Brian Allberg. Brian is right

behind us.

Brian, please stand up.

Then I have to also thank Sheila, because we do all this work

together, and she is way in the back of the room. Sheila, will you

please stand up?

Sheila is my wife. Sheila Wellstone!

I cannot help it.

The other thing I want to say to everybody here is I have been

listening, too, and people have different views. The panelists have

presented some different viewpoints, and I thank everybody here

for being here. For my own part, when there was a vacancy, I really jumped on this committee, because I thought God, Anne, a lot

of us have known each other for many years. We have been

through these struggles. I will repeat what I have said before: I

just do not think time is neutral. I do not think we have very many

more chances to get it right with a farm bill. I thought if I could

get a chance to be there on the committee and dig in in every way

I know how, I am going to do it now, because this is the time.

Senator Harkin as chair of the committee gives us a much better

chance than we have had for awhile from at least what I believe

in most, which is very focused on family farm, very focused on

price, very focused on competition that gives our producers a decent chance, very focused on conservation and stewardship, very focused on value-added products, very focused on the potential for—

boy, wind energy, biomass to electricity, small business, clean technology, boy, rural America we have part of the answer. Biodiesel;

we have a big answer for our country, and I said to Al

Christopherson: we all agree on that. There is a real potential of

agreement.

That is the good news. The only bad news is—I thought Mark

was putting a 2-minute sign up here. He is getting worried. I have

to go on and on.

[Laughter.]

Senator WELLSTONE. The only bad news is that—it is not bad

news, but I just was thinking there has got to be a way that—the

39

House has got a bill out of committee. We are working on it now.

There has got to be a way, and I have to think about this, and I

would ask you—that over the next three, four, 5 months that we

figure out ways of really kind of cranking it up, really putting the

focus on that Ag Committee, starting to make this much more public, starting to get people in the country engaged in this.

You know, this is a big value question. That is really what it is

about. This is a spiritual question. I mean, if you want an agriculture that increasingly is dominated by conglomerates, someone

will always own the land. Someone will own the animals. The question is that is a different kind of agriculture. Or do you want a family farm structure of agriculture? Do you want an agriculture that

is respectful of the land and the environment, that is respectful of

communities, where the people who work the land, they live on the

land; they make the investment decisions; they care about the community; they support the churches and the synagogues; they support the schools; they buy in the community; they support local

businesses.

I mean, that is really, kind of what we believe in the most. If

these are our values, and these are our families, and these are our

children, or these are our grandchildren, then, I do not think there

has ever been a more important time for all of us to give this every

single thing we have. The only promise that Mark and I can make

for sure is that we are going to give it everything we know how

to do. We will fight this out every way we know how, and we will

do it with you.

Thank you.

Senator DAYTON. Thank you all very much. The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:17 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

(41)

A P P E N D I X

AUGUST 4, 2001

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