Tom Harkin: “There is a good proposal in there on the bioenergy. But when you get to the heart of it, and what we are going to do to…”

“There is a good proposal in there on the bioenergy. But when you get to the heart of it, and what we are going to do to get away from this mindset of the Government supplying the income to the farmers--that is the heart of what the problem is--and get to the mindset of how do we get the prices up at the farm gate, this is where the administration's proposal falls short. I am hopeful as we move ahead we can convince the administration to get off of that mindset, to provide for perhaps some increased loan rates for farmers, to provide for storage payments to farmers, and to provide for a shorter-term paid set-aside program. Again, as the administration said in their proposal: Rising crop surpluses, continued low prices, and declining incomes will contribute to increasing farm financial stress in 2000, indicating a need for further Federal assistance. We have to get off of that mindset. We have rising surpluses. Well, let's get them down and provide for the kind of programs that will get the surpluses down. Continued low prices--get those low prices back up at the farm gate--that is the mindset we have to get on, and I hope we can take the good things in the proposal, but get to the heart and soul of it, which is getting farm income up--not from Government payments, but from the prices farmers receive for their products. That is what we have to do.”