Jerry Moran

I've expressed this concern for a long time, that the RUS and FCC seem to be at incompatible places.

The Universal Service Fund is important to us, as you would guess.

We work hard at caring about all of agriculture.

But a common question of me as a Member of Congress is, why has the input cost not diminished as rapidly as the underlying price of oil?

I think maybe it was you, Dr. Johansson, said that the input costs have not diminished in a comparable way.

A lot of producers remember the 1980s, so as to not want to repeat it.

Is the same analysis true for cash rent?

What you all are trying to point out to me is that I cannot simplify it into this phrase that I am looking for.

The only thing worse than having three economists who disagree each other is having three economists who agree with each other when the outlook is bad.

When a farmer tells me, why don't we just take care of our own selves, take care the United States, kind of my standard reaction sometimes is, what 40 percent of acres in Kansas do we no longer want to farm?

What percentage of the commodity prices in the overall agricultural economy is driven by exports as compared to domestic consumption?

Did you say $90 billion?

Does that translate into success in the communities that Senator Tester described, his hometown, my hometown?

A potential competitor today, a competitor today and a potential competitor in the future, is Brazil.

Colin, last question. I was mentioning about the $500 reduction in the feed yards.

The way you describe it, is it true then that China is interested--they only get out of the circumstance that they are in. This is not a desirable place for them to be?

I remember, Colin, in the days of trying to open the Japanese market to all meat products that the argument, the explanation, the insistence for getting that accomplished was that our highest quality is in great demand to Japan.

I assume that our farmers today are much more--they are hedging. Their risks are reduced as a result of using hedging and other financial techniques.

I think the best thing we can do to help your industry is to have growth of GDP, which is true of agriculture as well.

It is not that there is not demand for CRP acres. It is that they were capped.

As Senator Moran said, we might expect things to change over time.

The comparison between now and the 1980s, the days that we all remember with such disdain, such fear, it is different.

That answer reminds me of the question about consolidation, fewer farmers farming greater acres.

I do not think the Panama Canal is going to be where we move huge amounts of grain.

I would describe it as a much more dramatic decrease in commodities or farm income.