Thomas Mott Osborne: “Mr. Speaker, we talk about the new farm bill, and many times people hold out great promise on the farm bill, and it is…”

“Mr. Speaker, we talk about the new farm bill, and many times people hold out great promise on the farm bill, and it is not the whole answer. It will hopefully provide a safety net which will allow people to continue in farming. We have been losing 10 percent of our farmers every year. Sometimes people say you are keeping the inefficient people in business, but all the inefficient people are long since gone. All of the people left have skill and ability. As I talk to the farmers in the Third District of Nebraska, so often I hear the statement, we do not want a subsidy, we want profitability. We want to make our living in the marketplace. I think other than a safety net, there are some things that we need to focus on. Of course, Freedom to Farm had some good ideas behind it. One is basically the philosophy of Freedom to Farm was that the farmer would produce all that he could. The farmers produced fence row to fence row, and the government's part of the bargain were that they were going to provide the markets, make sure that we had free trade, fair trade. And I am sad to say that part of the bargain was not kept.”