Dick Lugar: “The reason the Senate allowed the farmer-owned reserve to lapse was that essentially it was a very expensive storage…”

“The reason the Senate allowed the farmer-owned reserve to lapse was that essentially it was a very expensive storage business with 26 rac{1}{2} cents per bushel to a farmer who wanted to store grain. But eventually over half of the money was paid to elevators and to large grain merchandisers, not to the individual farmers we are talking about here. We finally got rid of it because farmers understood it was a hangover of wheat, corn, and beans over the market. It depressed prices. I am a farmer. I have storage. I do not need 26 rac{1}{2} cents a bushel to store for my own purposes. I market it on the basis of price. That is the way the country proceeded, and we saved $100 million for taxpayers for another subsidy that is unnecessary and unneeded for farmers.”