Tom Harkin: “I hope the Senator from North Dakota makes the point time and time and time again here in this debate on this farm bill.…”

“I hope the Senator from North Dakota makes the point time and time and time again here in this debate on this farm bill. That is that the family farmer is at sort of the end of the whip out there. If we don't have a good competition title and if we don't have something that helps those family farmers to have more bargaining power, they are lost. They are lost. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for pointing that out. I hope he continues to do that. I say to my friend from North Dakota also, actually the amendment by the Senator from Indiana would be less than Freedom to Farm. There would be less support there for agriculture than Freedom to Farm. I did want to correct the statement I made. I said the Lugar amendment would phase out all of the loan rates. I guess that is not quite right. I guess I didn't read it closely enough. Actually, by 2006 they would phase it down to 1 percent. I guess that is about nothing, now that I think about it. But there is 1 percent of the previous 5-year average, which really is kind of laughable when you think about it. But it was pointed out to me it wasn't zero, it was 1 percent of the previous 5-year price. Right now we are at about 85 percent, if I am not mistaken. So you go from 85 percent of the previous 5 years to 1 percent.”