Angie Craig: “Is there a farm problem? You bet there is. Is there a farm crisis? Yes. On most farms in America today, if you are below…”

“Is there a farm problem? You bet there is. Is there a farm crisis? Yes. On most farms in America today, if you are below the cost of production, and you have a debt, you have a problem. The Senators on the other side of the aisle are absolutely true to what they speak. And I could have used every one of their charts this afternoon for the very same message. We have a crisis in American agriculture. Is it a result of Freedom to Farm? No. It is a combination of everything coming together, the loss of our markets in Asian countries and tremendous overproduction. Thank goodness, it is a blessing in most countries when agriculture overproduces; it is a crisis in ours because it shoves down the price of commodities. Yes, Mr. President, we have a crisis in farm country. Have we recognized it? Yes, we have. And we started doing something about it before we adjourned here in August. We passed and reauthorized the agriculture research title. We advanced the fiscal year 1999 transition payment. We revoked sanctions on India and Pakistan to try to move some of our product into the market. We approved significant reform in the farm labor program. We established a binational commission to examine the concern that we have with beef prices and with the flood of Canadian meat coming into our market. We required international programs to purchase American commodities.”