mony from some of the most intelligent, insightful farmers in the country. Having an opportunity to do that is rare.

Let me give you just a little preface of what I think we ought to talk about today, because it is a deadly serious issue in this country.

I have been in agriculture now for about 30 or 35 years and I do not remember a time, at least in my lifetime, in my adult lifetime, when we have had all of our commodity prices depressed to the level that they are today. So I think we have got to make a fundamental decision in this country-are we going to allow our family farms to continue to diminish across this country, are we going to a different type of economy where we have more corporate farmers, or are we going to make the decision that we are going to do everything we can to sustain agriculture and make sure that we always have an agricultural base in this country.

Now that is not just philosophy. That is a critical decision we have got to make. When we have our farmers competing against the European Union where they have 35 and 40 percent subsidies, there is no way you can win. We have got to make a decision of whether or not we are going to play on that level playing field.

Outside of that, what my goal in agriculture is, is to allow you to become totally self-sufficient. We cannot continue to pass these $10-12 billion bills every year. And I think there are ways today that we can get to the point where you have the opportunity to retain some of your profits in the good times, spread it out over the bad times, give you some tax relief. And we have got to start thinking out of the box and not just go back and try to revisit the old policies that we have had for the last 30 years that have gotten us to the point we are today.

I think that is what we want to hear from you. All of us I think understand the problems, but we are somewhat short on the solutions. And we want you to give us your best ideas about how we can change this, how we can change it fundamentally so we can not only protect the American farmer and that way of life, but also how we can make you competitive in the world market. It is going to be a big challenge for all of us, but we have to understand it is like Saxby Chambliss said a moment ago, it is not just farm policy, it is tax policy, it is the ability to have things like income tax averaging, it is things like investment tax credit, accelerated depreciation. There are so many other things out there outside of loan values and crop insurance that directly impact your ability to be successful in what you do. That is what we want to hear from you, we want to hear what your problems are, we want to take it back to Washington and we want to see if we can craft some kind of policy that once and for all gets government out of your lives where you can compete individually with your family farms on a global scale. If we can do that, then I think we will be successful.

So, Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for being here today, for bringing this down here. I think it is going to be interesting. I have read most of the testimony of people that are going to be testifying today and again, I think it offers some real opportunities for solutions and I look forward to it.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Just before I call our first panel, I want to thank my colleagues and fellow committee members for their time they are taking out and coming here. As we spread out across the country, we will at some point have had all of the 51 members of this committee attending these hearings, those that are here today and those that were in Memphis yesterday and those that were in Lubbock, TX are taking time away from their districts and their families and the jobs that they were elected to do, to be here and to be in those places because of their interest in the problem that we are discussing.

Due to that fact, that there are some trying to get to other places as we go on throughout the day, there will be some that are having to depart to catch airplanes that will get them back home at an appropriate time for other commitments. And as they do depart, that will be the reason for that. And I wanted to just notify you of that up front.

I will call our first panel, if they would please come to the witness table: Mr. Ben Bowden, who is a row crop producer from Eufaula, AL—I can say that. Mr. Albert Groves Jeter, a wheat, cotton, peanut producer from Byromville, GA; Mr. Ronny Lawrence, a cotton producer from Fayette, AL; Mr. Jerry Newby, a cotton producer from Athens, AL and Mr. Carl Sanders, a cotton and corn producer from Brundidge, AL.

And if you would, please come and take a seat and we can start and receive the testimony in the order in which I had introduced you. One of the ideas of coming out into the field and getting people is to have people that traditionally would not be testifying in Washington and so I will tell all the witnesses, this little box with the lights on it is a 5-minute timer. If you could summarize as much as possible within that 5-minute period of time, your testimony in total and all of the testimony that would be submitted by individuals to the committee will be entered into the record in its entirety and that will then give the members some times for questions.

Mr. Bowden, please proceed, thank you.

STATEMENT OF BEN BOWDEN, ROW CROP PRODUCER,

EUFAULA, AL

Mr. BOWDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to speak at this meeting.

I have been working many years outside of my farm trying to improve agriculture prominence in the United States. I realize that I have failed miserably because today we are at the lowest profitable condition ever, and this covers all commodities. Our problem has been we have always sold cheap labor through commodities and we do not have it now. In the past-that was before chemicals and mechanical farming took over.

For an example, it used to take 187 hours to produce a bale of cotton. Other commodities required proportionately the same number of hours. Our only cash input was fertilizer and it was about $25 to $27 a ton. Cotton then sold for 38 cents a pound and 7 bales would buy a pickup truck. This year's cotton sold for 38 cents a pound with no program benefit-it would buy nothing. In the past, if we lost a crop, we only lost our labor. Today on my farm, it takes

31⁄2 hours to produce a bale of cotton. Machinery, chemicals, fuel and fertilizer at today's inflated prices have replaced the remaining 183 hours. Now we have very little labor in a bale or bushel or pound of any agriculture commodity. Instead, we have a huge cash investment. Now when we lose, we lose our equity. Today, we are in a world market competing with that same cheap labor that we used to have. Today, outside the United States, subsidies are greater than they are here. Even China guarantees 85 to 91 cents a pound for cotton. European common market, $9 to $10 for a bushel of wheat.

You have before you there Auburn University's Agriculture Enterprise Analysis. This is over 5 of the last 6 years. It shows-there is an insert in there that is a summary of that whole book. It shows there is little or no profit in any commodity raised in Alabama. We cannot survive if we do not have greater support on these commodities. The only profitable farmers I know of today have a real estate development selling parts of their farm.

Free markets. We do not have competitive markets any more. All commodity markets have consolidated until two or three, four maybe, large companies control it. They set the prices wherever they want to and supply and demand has very little effect on the market.

Production research. That is what moved this country ahead of the rest of the world when we were aggressive with research here. We started cutting back on research money about 30 years ago and started giving it to the foreign countries. Now they feed themselves and become our competition. And still today, we are spending more money outside this country than we are inside. Additional Government support is one of our hopes for better profits in the future. Private research makes farming easier, but it does not add a nickel to the bottom line. They charge what it costs.

Conservation. The 1996 farm bill messed up a good conservation program and it is under-funded. Now we are trying to micro-manage these programs from Washington with formulas, numbers, policy, rankings and priorities. We have taken management from the local people who are farmer-elected or governor-appointed. They have served on these committees free because they are dedicated conservationists. WHIP, EQIP, FIP, WRP, CRP-they are all a confusing tangle of unnecessary paperwork resulting in unproductive use of our professional resources. If these programs were working, we would not still be changing them every year.

The environment. Everyone wants clean water and air and farmers are the most environment conscious people in the world. If you help agriculture make a profit, you will see the difference. You do not have to have these hearings, talk to a farm credit supplier, a bank, a machinery or chemical dealer to recognize the economic condition of agriculture. And you all have already said this. When you ride down the road, you see it. If you ride down the roads in Europe where the subsidies are greater, the buildings are old but they are in good repair. Fences are good, equipment is fairly new and the land is manicured almost. In this country, it is just the opposite.

But right here in Alabama, there is an example of profitability. If you go to the catfish country where they make a little money,

that community looks profitable. When the farmers have money, they are going to take care of the environment.

Future. We are doing exactly the same thing in agriculture we did to the oil industry. Because of rules, regulations and economic incentives, we have developed other sources of oil outside the United States and today it is costing everyone a pile of money and driving inflation. This is what is so pitiful here, people do not recognize it, we have already lost agricultural support industries-the chemicals, the machinery, the fertilizer and the fuel that we use are not produced by American companies, they are controlled by foreign governments. I wonder what is going to happen when we recognize we cannot control our food supply.

Imports grow every year. Last year, it was some $40 billion I was told in Washington last week. Our number of farms are getting smaller, acres of land are going under concrete and subdivisions, prime farmland is lost forever. Young people do not feel farming has a future. My own sons did not want to farm, they are not. Today, my farm is the last dirt farm depending on row crops for a living in Russell County. Last December, we lost our last dairyman. Most farms today are part-time farmers that enjoy country life. They do not play golf, they do not take extended vacations. Farming is kind of a source of recreation. We have to change the personality, the profitability and the direction that farming has taken in the United States.

In summary I say we cannot compete with cheap labor and huge agricultural subsidies without more support.

We cannot survive without free markets.

We have to invest in agriculture research.

Conservation responsibility needs to be returned to the local level and funded.

Environmental excellence can be accomplished through additional funding through NRCS and not the EPA. The EPA is trying to recreate one of the most productive programs ever designed, this P.L. 566, Watershed Program. It is already in place. Land protection, land treatment, water quality and water quantity sections are in place and could be administered by an agency that is respected and accepted by landowners.

Future subsidies should be limited to actual producers of the commodities.

We need to invest in irrigation and we need some incentive payments to help farmers. And I would like to speak to that later. I know my time has run out.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bowden appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Everett reminded me that is "Bowden." We are going to get there.

Mr. BOWDEN. That is getting close. You are not the first.

The CHAIRMAN. I will bet that is true. I have had fun made with mine too.

Mr. Jeter.

STATEMENT OF ALBERT GROVES JETER, WHEAT, COTTON, PEANUT PRODUCER, BYROMVILLE, GA

Mr. JETER. Crisis in America. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Albert Groves Jeter. I am 55 years old, I live in Dooly County in southwest Georgia, and I am an American farmer. I am a 5th generation farmer on my land, and could very well be the last. I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1967 and have been farming and involved with agriculture for the past 33 years. My main crops are cotton and peanuts, but I also grow wheat and soybeans.

My wife, Mary Jo, and my daughter, Mary Margaret, are both teachers. My son is a pharmacist. Three years ago when my son, Walt, graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in pharmacy, I talked him into farming with me and doing substitute pharmacy work on the side. Last November, when we had completed our harvest, Walt said, "Dad, I know how you love this farm, but I do not see any future in it for me." It broke my heart, but down deep, I knew he was right. Today, with our present farm policy, there is no future for a young person in farming.

Farmers often work from daylight to dark, sometimes 7 days a week. When it is hot and dry, we work many hours during the night tending to irrigation systems. When the year has ended and the harvest is completed, we very often are left with nothing to show for our effort. Many prices for commodities are less today than they were 20 years ago, but our input costs have continued to rise.

With the present farm policy and the Freedom to Farm Act, the American farmer has been thrown into a global economy without a level playing field. We are asked by Congress and the American people to produce food and fiber at a price less than the cost of production. We are expected to compete with other less developed countries who have a lower standard of living and whose production costs are much less than ours. While the American farmer is the most efficient producer in the world, we are not the cheapest producer.

In the 1930's, the ASCS, American Stabilization and Conservation Service, was formed to stabilize agriculture and I emphasize stabilize. In 1996, the ASCS was changed under the new farm bill to be know as the Farm Service Agency. The key word missing in the new agency is stabilization. Without stabilization in agriculture, the American farmer will cease to exist.

To most people, the outward appearance of the American body looks great. We are springing uphill at a record pace, but if the real truth be known, the arteries are clogging and the heart is failing. Ladies and gentlemen, the American farmer is the lifeblood of this great Nation.

If I were to ask you to list in order of importance the people in your life that are the most important to you, you would probably say your wife or your husband, your mother and your father, children, maybe your doctor, minister, neighbor or best friend. Can you think of any others? I dare say that when asked this question, the great majority would fail to mention the most important person, and that is the farmer. You could live without your husband or your wife, mother and father and even your children. The one per