Sam Farr: “Before anyone votes for this amendment, think what is going on in America. This is the harvest season. This is time we…”

“Before anyone votes for this amendment, think what is going on in America. This is the harvest season. This is time we celebrate. People are eating corn on the cob, having back-yard barbecues, watermelons are being eaten. This is the is time we are celebrating county fairs all over the United States. We celebrate agriculture, our number one industry. Our number one industry needs to find markets. We grow more food in the United States than we can consume. If we are going to keep the prices of agriculture low (and frankly I think in many cases they are too low), we need to keep the markets open for growers to be able to sell their crops. So my colleagues, before voting for this amendment, which is a bad amendment, wake up and smell the coffee. American consumers are being sold by market promotion by foreign competitors all the time and we do not realize that we need to do the same for our crops in this global market. So wake up and smell that coffee. Strike down this amendment. It is a bad amendment precisely because it will not allow the small businesses, that this bill emphasizes, to be able to take advantage of this expanded program.”