Kent Conrad: “We are faced with one of the toughest downturns in the agricultural markets in the history of our country. We currently…”

“We are faced with one of the toughest downturns in the agricultural markets in the history of our country. We currently have the lowest real prices for farm commodities in 50 years, and we are in a very serious situation as a result. Literally, thousands of farm families will be forced off the land if there is not an adequate Federal response to this crisis. A number of years ago we passed a new farm bill. That farm bill is not working. I think the proof is abundantly clear. The fact is, we have had to write disaster bills every year for the last 3 years to try to deal with this collapse in farm prices. The situation now is even more grave as we have dealt not only with collapsed prices but also with what I call the triple whammy of bad prices, bad policy, and bad weather.”