On the recordJuly 11, 2001
today we passed an appropriations bill for agriculture. Let me first spend a second giving my impressions of the predicament that American agriculture is now facing. On a level playing field, American agriculture could compete favorably with most any other country in the world on most any of the commodities that we produce. Part of the challenge in our Federal agricultural policy is the fact that other countries subsidize their farmers much more than we subsidize our farmers in this country. So, for example, Europe subsidizes five times as much as we do, and the consequences are that the additional production from those farmers and in those countries that are heavily subsidized often take what would otherwise be our markets to sell our particular agricultural products. Farmers today face some of the lowest commodity prices they have seen in the last 15, 20, 25 years, depending on the particular commodity.
Source
govinfo.gov
