Byron Dorgan: “I thought I would bring a poster that shows a picture of two parts of North Dakota: One State, two extremes. This top…”

“I thought I would bring a poster that shows a picture of two parts of North Dakota: One State, two extremes. This top picture shows a farmer/ rancher down in the southern part of our State standing in an area that looks very much like a moonscape. There is no vegetation left. This is completely dry and pretty well dead. This is a drought area that has consumed a significant portion of the southern part of our State, and it has been devastating to those farmers and ranchers trying to make a living down there. This bottom picture was actually taken on the same day in the same State, but this is a different part of the State. This is an area that received 12 inches of rain in 1 day. This is a farmer who lost everything. These pictures are representative of a wide group of producers in our States. We call them producers, but they are family farmers. They risk all they have to try to raise a crop and have a livestock herd that can make it through good and bad times, and then try to take the crop or the livestock to market and make some money.”