Sam Farr: “Mr. Speaker, this is a rule about the agricultural appropriations bill. The underlying bill is about America. It is…”

“Mr. Speaker, this is a rule about the agricultural appropriations bill. The underlying bill is about America. It is about its land and its people. It is about the farmers that grow our food. It is about how we treat that food, how we deliver it, how we give it to poor people, how we give it to the school lunch program, school breakfast program, how we give it to women and infants, how we deal with poverty in America. That is what this bill is about. The people who produce that food came to this committee and they said, why can we not sell that food and sell our medicines to other countries? Why do we have sanctions against the products that we do such a good job in raising? Why do we not lift those embargoes that we have created in our country, embargoes against Sudan, against Libya, against North Korea, against Iran and, yes, against Cuba? Yes, these countries have been problem countries; but we have never, as the richest, most powerful Nation in the world, used the food as a weapon to hurt women and children. So this bill is about people. It is about food, and it is about medicine.”