Byron Dorgan: “The answer to that is clear. The bigger interests win, the littler interests lose. That is why it seems to me that if…”

“The answer to that is clear. The bigger interests win, the littler interests lose. That is why it seems to me that if you follow the philosophy of the current farm policy, you have to give them the flexibility of going to the marketplace when it is in their interest. And they do not have that capability now because most of them are forced to haul that to the market and sell it as soon as they get it off the ground because they have to pay back the operating loans. Anybody who says this isn't about big versus little is just flat wrong. Look, if somebody wants to farm an entire county, they have every right to do that. They can farm the entire county. They can buy 50,000 acres of land. They can plow as far as they can plow in 24 hours, camp overnight, and plow back as far as they can. They have a right to do that in this country. But they ought to join with the good Lord and their banker and figure out how they make ends meet. I am not terribly interested if they want to try to farm the whole county, how we offer price supports for them. But the family out there farming a family-size operation, they are turning on the yardlight, they are doing chores, they are taking enormous risks--do I want to provide some type of continuity and help for them? Of course I do. It seems to me, we ought to construct an approach that says to those folks, ``You really do matter.''”