Date: 1981-03-19
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I ask all Members of the House and. for that matter. all Americans to join in recognizing today as Agriculture Day. This is a recognition of the fact that American agriculture is a basic element in the welfare of every one of our citizens. When agriculture is efficient. progressive. and productiveas ours has beenall of our citizens are better off. When the 3 percent of the population which supplies our food and fiber suffers from economic distress. however. it is a warning signal of potential problems for all the rest of us in the future. We are celebrating Agriculture Day at an appropriate time. In our House Agriculture Committee. we are currently at work on a major farm bill. We hope that legislation will be developed on a bipartisan basis and will point the waT to an economically healthy. profitable agriculture in the future. It is not surprising. Mr. Speaker. that many of our citizens do not think much about the role which agriculture plays in their lives. People normally do not think much about water until the well runs dry. We have a habit of taking for granted many of the things on which we depend for comfort. for convenience. and for life itself. We take food for granted. because American farmers and farmworkers have made sure that we have plenty of it. When we do that. we are making a mistake. When we take things for granted. we may ignore the fact that if we want to guarantee an adequate supply of food and fiber in the future. we will need to assure the continuation of progress in agriculture. The meaning of this day goes far beyond our own borders. American food is a vital element in the lives of millions of people in all parts of the world. The importance of our food in preventing world hunger is very great now. and we know that it will be even greater in the future. With less than 7 percent of the worlds land. the United States is producing about 43 percent of the worlds corn and about 60 percent of the worlds soybeans. This country supplies neary half of the worlds wheat exports and an amazing 71 percent of the corn and other coarse grains which flow into world trade. These are numbers. and numbers are sometimes not exciting. What I think we should do today is to look at what these numbers mean. The simple fact is that if American farmers and their workers were not so amazingly efficient and productive. millions of people would be faced today with malnutrition and even starvation. The fact is that the rest of our economy would be in far worse shape than it is. Our agricultural exports brought in some $40 billion in receipts last year. When you consider the number of dollars we have been sending abroad to pay for imported oil and other products. you must realize that the American dollar would be in sad shape without the dollars which flow back to pay for our farm products. Our farmers amount to less than 3 percent of our population today. But that is not the total of the impact of agriculture on our domestic economy. Overall. more than 15 million Amerlcans today have jobs in some phase of agriculture. Nearly 4V/ million people work on farms. and up to about 10 million more men and women are working in processing. storing. transporting. and merchandising our food and fiber. When you add it up. some form of agriculture or agriculturerelated industry accounts for about one of every five jobs in our econoy. For consumers. there is good reason to celebrate Agriculture Day as a second national day of thanksgiving. American agriculture has given us the worlds best diet at. by and large. a very low cost. Food prices have risen in recent years. But when we complain about that. let us take time to realize that the average Americans food bill has not gone up as fast as his earning power. The average factory worker. for example. can buy about 50 percent more bread with 1 hours labor these days than he could 30 years ago. Facts like that may be blurred at times in concern about todays inflation problemsbut they are facts which demonstrate that the American farmer has done his share and more for the welfare of his fellow citizens. I was glad to be among the sponsors last year of House Joint Resolution 560 which designated today as Agriculture Day. 1981. and which authorized the President to issue a formal proclamation of the day. The proclamation was issued by President Reagan on February 13. and Agriculture Day is being celebrated today in many ways in hundreds of communities and big cities across the Nation. I am glad we are paying this deserved tribute to all of our citizens involved in agriculture. I hope we all keep their contributions in mind all through the rest of the year.e