son you cannot live without is the food producer. Without him, we will all die.

Farmers make up less than 3 percent of the population of the United States. However, farming is without question the most important and essential profession. The United States is the only super power left in this world, but without a strong agricultural base, this great Nation could be brought to its knees in a matter of days. If we have to depend on foreign nations to supply our food for survival, just imagine what power those nations would hold over us. They could take us down without firing a shot. Try to relate this with what OPEC is doing today.

The loaf of bread that I brought cost $1.99 at the grocery store. How much would you suppose the farmer gets for his wheat? Can you believe less than 5 cents? This cotton shirt cost $50. Do you realize that the farmer got less than 50 cents for the cotton it took to make this shirt?

This Nation is in a sad state of affairs. We gladly pay million dollar salaries to television and radio personalities, motion picture personalities and sport figures for entertaining us; yet, we do not want to pay the people that are feeding us enough to stay in business. Somehow or other, we are upside down in our priorities. So what can we do to help the American farmer? It is my belief that in the next farm bill, which we need right away, we must have stabilization put back into it. I believe that price protection and controlled allotments are a must in stabilizing agriculture.

I have one simple solution-so simple that you might think it would not work. However, after discussing this with many people, we have yet to figure out why it would not work.

When the consumer pays for this $1.99 loaf of bread at the grocery store, the cashier would add 4 cents as an Agricultural Security Assistance Payment-ASAP. This 4 cents would go directly back to the Farm Service Agency and ultimately back to the wheat producer. This would mean that the wheat producer would be getting $6 per bushel for his wheat rather than $3. Then he would be making a profit.

The same thing would happen for the $50 shirt. A 50 cent Agricultural Security Assistance Payment added at the register would ultimately go back to the farmer and he would be getting $1 a pound for his cotton rather than 50 cents. This could be done on all products produced on the farm.

This simple solution should eliminate many complicated and unworkable farm programs. The amount of the ASAP would be insignificant as to the total cost of the product.

What could be simpler?

The Agriculture Security Assistance Payment would give the American consumer, for the first time ever, the opportunity to have a direct connection with agriculture in securing their future food supply. Join me in saying yes our American farmers are worth more than a nickel for a loaf of bread.

I also think there should be a committee made up of strictly farmers, possibly one from every State, that would be consulted before any provisions are passed in the new farm bill. Ladies and gentlemen, farmers are the only people that would know actually whether or not a provision or policy would work-the only people.

Thank you very much for your attention and I very much appreciate you giving me this opportunity to speak today.

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

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lawrence.

STATEMENT OF RONALD LAWRENCE, COTTON PRODUCER, FAYETTE, AL

Mr. LAWRENCE. Thank you. They were looking for someone outstanding in the field to speak today and they just happened to drive by and there I was. [Laughter.]

I know you have been listening to problems and I hate to bother you with problems. I do have some particular personal things that I have been through and I have tried to work with, but I do not have a solution, I do not. I wish I did.

My father started our family business, my grandfather, in 1927, a little place called Lawrence Mill there, and he started out by grinding corn, had a water mill, ginned cotton and sawmilling and operating a country store.

I returned after finishing college in 1962 and then for 25 years after being in agriculture different ways, I have been in production agriculture and 10 years ago my oldest son Jay came in with me in the operation after teaching for a couple of years. We all have college educations, he has a masters degree. My other son is a pharmacist also, he could not take the farm.

Our operation consists of growing about 1,500 acres of cotton and about 500 acres of corn, operating one gin now and running a farm supply business with almost no farmers left. We are working hard to build a lumber building supply business. We are trying to get out, folks, we are trying to look-we have tried for a long time to get out. And if things do not change, I am hoping that is a way for us because we cannot-I cannot face it any more.

Our business has survived by us being diversified, by working 6 days a week and by managing carefully. Maybe we have been living too high. My wife works full time in the business and drives a 1994 Ford that has got 138,000 miles on it and I am fortunate to drive a 1996 pickup and mine was used when I bought it. The combine we run is 20 years old. I bought one new tractor in the last 21 years and it is a 1991 model. We run our own shop, we build, we repair and for the last 5 years we have gone almost completely to conservation tillage.

We use the latest genetic technology with crop rotation, with very few harsh chemicals, almost no aerial application and almost no profit. We have cleaned up the air and water through the use of genetics and now pressure is being brought to stop the sale of genetically altered grain. Now I do not know where we are to go. Two of the last 3 years, we have had weather-related crop failures and crop insurance has been good to us, it has been a great help in pulling us through. But now our yield base has gotten so low that it is not likely to help in the future. And I am not familiar with your new changes there, so I hope there has been some help there.

When we try to rent land in our area, our greatest competition is the Federal Government. Now we are not talking about just mar

ginal land going into CRP, 50 acres of the better bottom cropland we had rented last year is now in CRP pine trees. We are not big landowners, we rent most of our cropland. Unfortunately the present programs seem to be geared to help the landowner and to shutdown the renter.

I am thankful that we could raise our family in a Christian home, raise them in the country. They learned values that they could not learn anywhere else. I would not take anything for it. But now I am 62 years old and my health is failing, I am tired. My retirement is tied up in the auction values of my land and equipment. It is geared to grow cotton and it is already mortgaged. My gin machinery is worth scrap iron value. I can still work 6 days a week, but I cannot stand the pressure of risking everything I have to put a crop into the ground under the present prices. I will not stand by to see my son continue to face the same pressure in the future.

I know I am not an isolated case, and you have talked about these problems, and I know you understand the problems. But I do not apologize for what I do, we are good at it. We produce food and fiber for what has been the greatest nation on Earth. But I think we are worth saving, I think these young people are worth saving, and I think you people are doing the best you know to try to find an answer. I wish I had the answers-I do not have them. I wish we could share in this booming economy that we hear about on the media all the time-I wish we could share in it.

I am troubled about America as a nation. We seem to be so concerned about the problems in our school families while we feed our children a constant diet of immorality and violence on the screen. We are ostracized if we mention Christian values. Many of the farm problems today are really a symptom of a greater problem in our country. Maybe I do not have the answer and maybe the answer is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14 which says:

If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land.

Maybe that is the ultimate answer. But I wish I could help you more, fellows in the nearby situation.

I thank you for your time.

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

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Newby.

STATEMENT OF JERRY NEWBY, COTTON PRODUCER, ATHENS,

AL

Mr. NEWBY. Gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that I am a member of a diversified family farm operation in north Alabama. Also at this time, I am serving as president of the Alabama Farmers Federation and on behalf of the 400,000 members that we represent, I would like to thank you all for taking your time in being here today and listening to us.

My testimony will deal primarily with policies. I will talk a little bit about some of the commodities that are not going to have anybody speak about today, but you will be receiving written testimony

about all the major commodities in the Southeast and you will have a lot of testimony on those today.

We are at a crossroads in America. We have to decide whether agriculture is really worth saving or whether we are going to be in the future depending on other countries to raise our food and our fiber. I do not think the American people really understand the situation and I hope and pray that they do not decide that agriculture is not worth saving, because we could be in the same situation with our bread in the grocery stores as we are with our fuel today with the high prices. I know that you all do not want that and we certainly do not want that.

There are four basic things that I would like to talk to you about today. One of those is about a safety net. Second, we would like to talk to you about risk management, coming up with a crop insurance program that would be fair and equitable for everyone. I want to talk to you about trade and I want to talk to you about investing more money into our research here at our land grant universities in Alabama and across this Nation.

You know as well as I do that we could not have possibly survived in agriculture, a lot of us today would not be able to plant a crop in the year 2000 if it had not been for the tremendous help that you all have given us with the emergency programs that you have passed the last 2 years. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for that help that you have given us. I think we all appreciate it very deeply. But we really need to find a long-term solution. And I think when we do find that long-term solution, that it will be more economical for our Government and our taxpayers and our consumers in this country than having a disaster program like we have had to have over the last few years.

A financial safety net is important to us because we cannot grow crops for less than the cost of production. And I am sorry, I do not have the mechanism to do it, but we are going to have to ensure that we have a floor under the products that we grow so that we can continue to farm during the bad years.

We also need to ensure that our producers are the ones that receive the AMTA payments and whatever payments that do go out to our farmers. That is very, very important.

Our young farmers in the State of Alabama have gotten a lot more into cotton because of the great success of the Boll Weevil Eradication Program and they have begun to plant a lot of cotton, but they do not have any acreage, base acreage, that they can participate in the programs that we now have today. And this is really a problem for those young farmers that are trying to get established in agriculture. And we hope that you all can do something about that in the future.

We need affordable risk management. And I want to thank you all for passing H.R. 2559, it is very good. And we hope that the Senate will be able to come up with the same solutions that you all have come up with. I think it is a good start. We are going to hear some more today about some recommendations for crop insur

ance.

A lot of you talked about having a level playing field or a fair playing field. We certainly need that. If we cannot correct those trade inequities, we are always going to be struggling and behind

the 8-ball. But I think that we need to play by whatever rules our competition in other parts of the world are playing with. If they will not play by our rules, we need to play by their rules and not let their products come into our country if they stop our products with high tariffs, or like the European nations are doing today, over environmental concerns, growth hormones and things like that. That is just another trade barrier that they put up to stop us from being able to trade.

I think that our Nation has always been so successful in agriculture because of the hard work of the folks that are on the farm and because of the tremendous research programs that we have had. And we need to continue to fund them and fund them at a higher level than we are funding them today. I think that is very important for the future of agriculture.

I want you to know that we need to have fair regulatory-and we appreciate the Regulatory Fairness and Openness Act that was H.R. 1592. It has a common sense approach and it uses real world data and we ask you all to consider that.

There are a lot of things that I would like to talk to you about today that I am going to run out of time on. My testimony has it written in it. But I do want to point out that we need to make sure that the USDA ARS does not have this $2.4 million taken away by OMB. We have research here at Auburn University, very important for catfish.

We very much need in the Southeast the Southeastern Dairy Compact. It is essential to stabilize milk prices and supply.

We need an 80 cents per pound marketing loan for honey for our beekeepers, that is very important for them.

And our pork producers are facing increasing costs because of environmental regulations and we hope that you all can assist them with more cost share.

I am encouraged by this hearing today. I thank you so much for being here. I do realize though that this year, because of the low prices and bad weather that we are expecting, that we are going to need some more assistance like we have had over the last 2 years. And we certainly appreciate your effort on that part.

I will remind you again, gentlemen, that we are at a crossroads. A lot of our young farmers are getting out of the business, a lot of our parents are not encouraging their children to come back into the business. And I do not think our Nation really wants to be in the position they are today with energy, with their food supply. Thank you very much.

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

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sanders.

STATEMENT OF CARL SANDERS, PEANUT PRODUCER,

BRUNDIDGE, AL

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am Carl Sanders, a peanut farmer from Coffee County, AL and president of the Alabama Peanut Producers Association. I am also representing the Southern Peanut Farmers Federation that is composed of our organization, the Georgia Peanut Commission and the

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