[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 6] [Senate] [Pages 8963-8964] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]FAMILY FARMERS Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor briefly today to talk about two issues. First, tomorrow the appropriations conference begins between the House and the Senate on the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. That includes specifically the President's request for emergency appropriations to be made for some agricultural spring planting loans, some emergency appropriations to be made for the purpose of helping the victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America, and then since that time the President has made new recommendations on emergency funding for the Defense Department needs as a result of the actions in Kosovo. The House of Representatives took a request by President Clinton for nearly $6 billion in added funds for the military especially, but including some humanitarian relief for the actions in Kosovo, and added to that $6 billion of emergency funding nearly $7 billion more, to reach a total of close to $13 billion in emergency funding. A number of us believe that, while we are on the subject of emergencies and in a supplemental appropriations conference, it would be inappropriate to add $7 billion to the defense budget for emergency needs relating to Kosovo--although some of it has very little relationship to Kosovo, it has a relationship to what is called ``readiness'' in defense accounts and other things--that it would be inappropriate to consider that without considering other emergency needs here at home on the domestic front. One of those is agriculture. The plight of the family farmer in this country has been pretty well described by myself and others on the floor of the Senate in recent months. The Congress did some emergency work last fall to provide some income support to family farmers above and beyond the current farm bill. But it is not nearly enough. We now come to May of 1999, at a time in which prices for many commodities in agriculture, in constant dollars, are at Depression level, and we are going to lose thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of family farmers if we decide to do nothing. Tomorrow's conference between the House and Senate may be the only opportunity that exists this year to provide support for emergency funding, to add some income price support to family farmers, which they desperately need. This chart shows what is happening in rural America. This map shows counties marked in red which are being depopulated in our country. These are counties that have lost at least 10 percent of their population in the last 18 years. You can see on this map the large red area that shows the middle of this country--the farm belt--is being depopulated, people are leaving. Why are people leaving the farm belt in droves, and especially now in more recent years? Why are people leaving their family farms, leaving the farm belt, and leaving rural counties? The answer is, family farmers cannot make a living when they produce grain and then have to sell it at a price far below their cost of production. It does not work that way. You go broke. Bad trade agreements, concentration in agricultural industries--there are a whole series of reasons--but the central reason, it seems to me, is low prices. If you do not get a decent price for that which you produce, you are not going to be able to make a decent living. The question for this country is, What kind of price supports are available to farmers when market prices collapse? Every one of us in this Chamber would prefer that farmers received their prices from the marketplace. But when the marketplace collapses, farmers load a couple hundred bushels of wheat on their trucks, drive to the elevators, are told that wheat has no value, or has very little value, then the question for Congress is, Do we want family farmers in our future? And, if we do, What kind of income support are we willing to offer to create a bridge over that price valley when prices collapse? The largest enterprises, the big agrifactories, will make it across that valley. They are big enough, strong enough, have the financial resources to make it across that price valley. It is the family farmer who will not make it. So the question for the Congress is, Do we care about family farming? And, if we do, what can we do to provide some income support when prices collapse? A number of us will offer, during this deliberation in the conference between the House and the Senate on emergency needs, a proposal to restore some emergency funding to family farmers. There are lots of ways of doing that. I have my own feeling about how to do it. Senator Harkin and I, along with Senator Conrad and others--Senator Harkin and I, incidentally, will be in the conference tomorrow, are prepared to offer some proposals to deal with emergency needs, it is not just the Defense Department that has emergency needs, family farming is in a full-scale emergency in this country. This Congress must take steps to save it. Tomorrow, again, Senator Harkin, myself and some others in the conference on appropriations, of which Senator Harkin and I are conferees, intend to raise this question in a very forceful way and push very aggressively for action on an emergency basis with our colleagues. Republican and Democrat colleagues here in this Chamber understand that we face a very serious problem. All of my colleagues who come from the farm belt have said the same thing. Family farmers are in trouble. There is no disagreement about that. There might be some disagreement about the mechanism by which we address this question, but I think everyone here, with whom I share the long-term interests of the welfare of family farming, believes that we need, during periods of [[Page 8964]] collapsed prices, to provide some income price support. The question is how do we do that. My hope is the first step will be tomorrow during the conference that we have with the House of Representatives. ____________________