Kent Conrad: “we ought to get straight world agriculture economics. The Senator from New Hampshire, for whom I have high regard, has…”

“we ought to get straight world agriculture economics. The Senator from New Hampshire, for whom I have high regard, has been a consistent opponent of a national agriculture policy, one that has produced for our country the lowest priced food in world history, measured by a share of our national income. Not only do we have the lowest cost food in the history of the world as a share of our income, we also have the safest supply, the most stable supply, the most abundant supply. Something is working. Beyond that, he does not deal with world agriculture as it is. Our major competitors are the Europeans. We have about equal shares of the world market. But here is what they do to support their producers versus what we do to support ours. They are spending $134 billion to support their producers while we spend $43 billion. That is more than a 3-to-1 ratio. What happens if you pull the rug out from under our producers? Mass bankruptcy. It is one thing to ask our producers to go up and compete against the French farmer and the German farmer. They are happy to do that. It is quite another issue to compete against the French Government and the German Government as well. That is not a fair fight. That is why it is essential we have a farm policy in this country.”