Political Quotes

“Mr. President, Benjamin Franklin said it best: a stitch in time saves nine. If we invest in crop insurance, it will significantly lower the costs associated with agricultural disasters. The choice is simple: give farmers the tools they need to plan for catastrophic weather, or risk emergency, after-the-fact spending that impedes our ability to preserve social security. Of particular interest to my state of Florida are the provisions in this legislation dealing with the needs of specialty crop producers. Agriculture in Florida has many different faces. There are 40,000 commercial farmers in the state. In 1997, Florida farmers utilized a little more than 10 million of the state's nearly 35 million acres to produce more than 25 billion pounds of food and more than 2 million tons of livestock feed. Florida ranks number nine nationally in the value of its farm products and number two in the value of its vegetable crops. Florida agriculture is not only valuable, but also diverse.”