Baron P. Hill: “Mr. Speaker, when I am home traveling in my district and talking to farmers in southern Indiana about this farm crisis…”

“Mr. Speaker, when I am home traveling in my district and talking to farmers in southern Indiana about this farm crisis that we are in, they always tell me that they do not want any handouts. What they do tell me is they want access to credit. I think it is just common sense to provide farmers access to enough credit so they can plant their crops, market their products, and pay their bills. It does not make any sense to me that this has not been a higher priority for this Congress. Every day families across the country are losing their farms. I am especially concerned that this crisis is taking a hard toll on our next generation of farmers. I think it is important that the American people understand how great the need is in rural America for this emergency money. The situation in my home State of Indiana is not encouraging. For one thing, many of our loan programs in Indiana are exhausted, or close to it anyway. Our direct operating loan money is, for the most part, exhausted. We are completely all out of guaranteed farm ownership loans. We are short nearly $800,000 for beginning and non-beginning direct farm ownership loans.”