On the recordFebruary 29, 1996
I further would remind my colleagues that one-fourth of this Nation's population live in rural areas, but yet we have more than 80 percent of the land mass. So there is a lot of land going between individual homes. So the sparsity of our population causes even greater need for our development funds. My colleagues also know because they are aware that a higher degree of poverty and disadvantaged opportunities are there, but more than that the trend in agriculture means there are less farmers, there are less farmers doing well, and economic development dependent only on our farmers is not going to happen in our rural areas. So as we consider the farm bill, this is an opportunity to say to rural America we understand that development goes beyond the farm gate: Housing; safe housing; clean water; having infrastructure for sewage. All of these are intimately part of our development in our area.
Source
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