Mark Kennedy: “I rise to support this bill but to express my disappointment that the House Committee on Agriculture voted last week to…”

“I rise to support this bill but to express my disappointment that the House Committee on Agriculture voted last week to reduce the supplemental aid to farmers in the supplemental farm package last week. I opposed the amendment by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) to reduce the supplemental aid to $5.5 billion and supported the chairman's proposal to provide $6.5 billion in support; the same level as in prior years. Our farmers are struggling, and we must provide them with the aid they need. This funding bill is better than no assistance, but we really needed that additional billion dollars to help our farmers. I consider this a first step towards ensuring that we provide our farmers the support they need. We continue to wrestle with historically low prices, and yet this year, in our part of the country, we are having very poor planting conditions and are expecting to have lower yields than in prior years. So we need more aid to maintain the same level as prior years, not less. Now is certainly not the time to cut it, particularly with energy costs driving up the cost of fertilizer and everything else.”