Maston M.Mims, Sr. 2780 Jedao Road 37 Uriah, Alabama 36480 334-862-2001 4-25-00 The Honorable Larry Combest, Chairman Washington, D. C. 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I would like to enter this letter as witness to your hearings on Agriculture. I would like to first qualify myself to your Committee. I am a farmer with direct ag involvement of 50 years. I am the ninth generation to farm in the United States and my Great Grand Father came to this country as an indentured servant who help organize the North Carolina Regulators againist the British Crowne in 1766. My family has been farming general crop and livestock production on the same farm for over 100 years and today I have a brother, a nephew and three sons and two grand sons who are all in the farming business. I have served in the Alabama Legislature in the House of Representatives and the Senate where I served as Chairman of the Ag committees and Rules Committee. I have testified before this Committee on many opportunities in written form and in person. It is my desire to tell you the way it is out here on the Farm. First of all, the Freedom to Farm Legislation needs to replaced and totally done away with! Every aspect of that program is too far behind normal crop production programs. Case in point, Timing! The banks just generally look down their noses at ag financing for famers. They use facts and figures that prohibit Farmers from qualifying for loan and loan guarantees. Unless they can get a mortgage on land, a Farmer is just up the creek without a paddle! This makes it almost totally impossible for some farmers to be approved simply because most land is owned by non-farmers. Next Farmers must wait and wait and wait before any funds are released. This puts him at the mercy of the local vendors of direct items such as fuel, fertilizer and other basic supplies. 90% of all farmers in my area use no bank loans; they use vendor financing programs that charge higher costs on products and interest rates equal to loan sharks! The pure emotional strain on the Farmers not knowing what to do is a public disgrace! This comes daily as the farmers are subjected to t-v and newspaper accounts of a booming finance world out there with new millionaires made daily! This comes as the Farmer is failing at alarming rates and there seems to be no help out there for the Farmer! Page one Now let me touch on a very sore subject with so many Farmers. Changing the Rules of USDA Programs just when the Farmer has been told all looks good on his paperwork! Local officals approve loans only to have State officals change the Rules. Again Timing is a must! June is way to late for loan approval! By this date, the Farmers have been forced to take vendor programs! In several cases the Farmers were approved at the local level only to find out that their papers were never opened by the State officals! In some caseslocal banks will approve a loan guarantee but the State officals never respong back to the request thus the banks won't work with the deal! În several cases some farmers have been approved locally only to be caught up in a maze of new paperwork that takes months and months to process! I know of some Farmers who have not had their loan requests addressed by State Officals going on now for three years! All such pressures add to an overload in the Divorce Court or even worse; to the graveyard! The Farmer has worked and suffered so much he can't take anymore! In one case I know of a life long personal friend who waited anu waitec to hear from the State officals that it caused his untiming death! 90% of all Farmers have no insurance nor any funds to go to the doctor! Again its Timing! These delays and mispresentations to the Farmers by the Agencies that are supposed to help the Farmer are stressful and down right harmful! Time is the most important tool a farmer has ! When he is ignored for a too long a period by the Lenders; then he is to blame for having a weak yield! In several cases, State Officals have told Farmers they must sell the assets down in order to qualify for the new programs only to find out they are then refused because of lesser assets and the Farmer is branded as a poor farmer and poor manager of his affairs yet he did exactly what he was told by the State officals. In some cases, assets have been sold by the Farmer and applied to debt which was lost in the system for years thus causing interest rates to eat up the funds; leaving the Farmer in a worse position; some even have been jailed for doing exactly what the State Officals told them to do with the assets! Too many local banks have huge investments in Golf Courses and Condo Development on the coast and other urban areas. In some cases some bank have setout to force the Farmers out of business by using the delays of the USDA programs as an excuse to take real estate for development projects. In some cases Rural Development loans made to Developers have been used to force out the Farmers. The very same State officals who have turned the Farmers down have approved huge loans for Rural Developers on the very same lend! Recently Senators and Representatives came to town to hold their local meeting with local folks but questions are never addressed as the open meeting are staged events with only questions from a prepared agenda are answered! Our Senior Senator from Alabama had farm meeting but you couldnot attend unless you paid a $50.00 a plate fee! Again this is not right! The Farmers did not attend because money is short! Those who were able to attend were angry that their questions were not allowed! It is very apparent that something is terribly wrong! This type of prearranged event does not help the Farmers! It does not address the questions at hand and only adds to the stress and strain placed upon the Farmers! page two Now I wouldlike to address a very massive problem, CRP. This needs to be stopped! It does not help farmers! It helps absentee land owners. Cut out paying for tree planting on crop land! It takes no whizz kid to figure out that farmland worth an average of $700 per acre is very much down graded to forest landprices of $250 per acre and CRP pines when cut under the problem does not add to ag income; it adds to the Paper companies and IRS gets the value of the timber placed in form of income. Some grassland CRP does not add farm income; 90% of all CRP Grassland is owned now by private investors with hunting interests! Again assets taken away from Farmers; sold to private investors who have placed the land in the CRP and drawing the payments! We must stop or limit all foriegn cotton coming into the United States The importers are given better treatment than the U.S.growers! Cheap foreign cotton has killed farm equipment sales and the local warehouses are full of imported cotton.Some Farm Groups that we organized to speak for the Farmers seem to have turned into something else as they seem to be interested in their investments not the business of farming! Packers, Processors and importers should not be allowed to sit on the Boards of the Check-off Programs and those in charge of the Boards as well as those hired should not have conflicts of interests! These programs were setup to help promote the farmers and ranchers not the importers, packers or processers! We currently have a transfer of wealth in the rural farm areas. Young farmers as well as good capable farmers must be given a chance to produce and provide a good living for their families. USDA loan programs need to be on time and within the guideline of good sense! Everybody needs to be working off the same page and total concern should begiven to addressing the needs of all Farmers; young farmers, middle age farmers and oldfarmers as well as all minorities and women. Rural Development shouldgo to advance the Farm sector not the Golf Couse Developers! Rural housing needs to be addressed for the eldery not the Nursing Home. investors! People need to be encouraged to start up rural businesses such as food stores and ag supplies; We need to bring a halt to the WalMarting of America and help local folks out in America. We need to help the local co-op not the Massive Chicago Grains Companies and local growers need help to promote their pork, beef and lamb products. We need to bring a halt to megers and stop turning agriculture into a Smithfield and Tyson playground that totally destroys the farm sector! Last I would like to say that I am extremely proud of my farm hertiage and background. I live in the same house that my Mother was born in some 100 years ago. I want this land to be here for my great grandchildren and want them to be able to feel the same pride in our hertiage and farm background as I do today. spank I thank you oneandall for hearing my plea for agriculture. Repeifusy Submi Maston M.Mims, Sr. Pagethree FROM WINSTON & STRAWN 202371 5950 (THU) 2. 24' 0 11:56 ST. 11:35/NC. 4860064885 P 2 FOR THE RECORD: MR. JIM SMITH DRAFT JOINT STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN HONEY PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION AND FOR THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE This statement is presented in behalf of both the American Honey Producers' Association and the American Beekeeping Federation. The two organizations represent virtually all the nation's beekeepers who are members of a national beekeeping organization and have joined together to seek legislative relief. Economic crisis in the beekeeping industry These hearings of the House Committee on Agriculture have come at a very opportune time. The beekeeping industry is in dire straits as a result of an economic crisis that is in danger of forcing many of our nation's beekeepers to go out of business unless help is forthcoming in the near future. If this should occur, it would be a tragedy for the economy since so many of the nation's crops are dependent on commercial beckeepers for pollination services and it would mean the loss of family owned small businesses that have survived through two or three generations. The beekeeping industry is one of the few industries that predominately consists of family owned enterprises. We would like to detail the reasons for the problem. In the past, prices have fluctuated between 88.8 cents per pound in 1996 and 68.5 cents per pound in 1998. Prices have fallen precipitously beginning in 1998, and in 1999 they have averaged slightly above 50 cents per pound. Recent prices are substantially below the cost of production for many beekepers. A study just concluded by Dr. Roger Hoopingarner, Professor emeritus from Michigan State University, provides evidence that the annual operating expenses for the average beekeeper based on used equipment is about $1.15 per pound assuming an annual yield per colony of 93 pounds. Many beekeepers are surviving by living on their equity which is fast diminishing. The low prices are attributable to a surge in imports which in the first eleven months of last year amounted to about 183 million pounds. The nation's beekeepers produce about 200 million pounds annually and domestic consumption currently amounts to between 325 and 350 million pounds. The record imports last year principally from Argentina coupled with a large carry-over from 1998 have flooded the market and seriously depressed prices for U.S. produced honey. Recommendation for legislation The solution to this distressed situation would be a change in legislation to provide for a marketing loan program for honey producers. The American Honey Producers Association and the American Beekeeping Federation jointly recommend that the loan rate be set at 80 cents per pound, a rate that would provide a safety net of about 70 percent of the average beekeeper's annual operating expenses. At the same time, the marketing loan would enable redemptions from loan to be made at the market price so that our nation's beekeepers could compete successfully with imported honey and avoid Government takeovers. We are concerned that if help is not forthcoming in the near future, not only would it affect the survival of many family owned enterprises, but it would be magnified to impact much of U.S. agriculture. As the Department of Agriculture has stated, honey bees pollinate nearly $10 billion worth of crops annually. Some crops, such as almonds, are entirely dependent on honey bee pollination for their production, while in others production is greatly enhanced because of honey bee pollination. The recent infestation of honey bee colonies by the tracheal and varroa mites have practically eliminated pollination by wild bees so that American agriculture is now dependent on the services of commercial beekeepers. We believe that the beekeeping industry's recommendations are conservative and in the interest of American agriculture. 164996.1 Jim Smith 3280 Spice kd Chunchula, Al. 36321 (354) 675-4129 |