Gilbert Gutknecht: “I thought I would like to take a minute today to talk about what is happening to agriculture here in the United States…”

“I thought I would like to take a minute today to talk about what is happening to agriculture here in the United States and around the world. Because it is easy for some people to say the problem is the farm bill, the problem is freedom to farm. It may well be true that some of the problems we face in agriculture today were exacerbated by the last farm bill. But the truth of the matter is what we are into now is the 4th consecutive year of worldwide record production. Mr. Speaker, I think against that backdrop with any farm policy in the United States, our farmers would be facing a tough year as it relates to our commodities. The second thing we have to appreciate, in Europe we see huge subsidies for agriculture. Beyond that, we have permitted, we have allowed our trading competitors to subsidize their exports to the tune of $6 billion while we limit ourselves to $200 million. We have put ourselves and our farmers behind the eight ball relative to our trade policy and relative to our agriculture policy. Ultimately that is all coming together. There is a desperate need in agriculture today for some kind of help.”