Washington, Thursday, July 26, 2007

Floor Speech

WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2007

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Madam Chairman, I rise today in opposition to the Kind-Flake amendment, and in support of H.R. 2419, the Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007.

Madam Chairman, the Kind-Flake amendment is nothing more than a veiled attempt at pulling the rug out from underneath of this nation's hardworking family farmers and those in the rural South who till the land of our nation to provide us with a safe, healthy, and robust food supply--often with little or no profit for themselves.

Increasingly, we are relying on our farmers on many fronts--namely, to clothe, feed and, now, fuel our nation. The Kind-Flake amendment would divert us from reaching that goal by discouraging domestic crop production, dismantling our hope for energy innovation and independence, and increasing the trade deficit with countries that threaten our economic competitiveness.

Indeed, the Kind-Flake proposal would take away the farm safety net and put U.S. farmers and ranchers in unfair competition against heavily subsidized foreign producers, many of whom are protected by much higher import tariffs than those imposed by the United States.

In recent months, we have heard horrific accounts of how agricultural products are grown and how food is manufactured abroad, especially in China, whose rapidly growing, already behemoth-sized economy now imports $2.26 billion worth of food into this country each year. Do we really want to reduce the incentive for our domestic producers to grow their own, and rely more from these foreign countries with proven histories of lax food safety standards and tendencies to include poisonous additives into their products? I surely hope not.

Furthermore, in lowering the AGI limitation to $250,000, the Kind-Flake proposal is not drawn narrowly, as its supporters claim, but instead casts a wide net--it would eliminate over 38,000 current recipients from being covered by a farm safety net.

The Kind-Flake proposal also misrepresents itself by touting its revenue-based counter cyclical payments as revolutionary, and as a superior alternative to the traditional counter-cyclical program. This completely ignores the fact that the Agricultural Committee's markup includes a revenue based counter-cyclical payment option!

In the Agricultural Committee's proposal the producer gets to choose whether or not the current payment system or a revenue-based system is right for their unique operation. This allows individual producers to decide on their own what is best for their operation.

Kind-Flake also cuts direct payments and, quite foolishly, assumes that by cutting direct payments, landowners will lower the price of rented land. In reality, cutting Direct Payments would leave farmers who rent land in a terrible lurch. It is highly unlikely that landowners will feel sympathetic to a producer and compelled to lower land rental rates.

Much of this debate is focused on cost--that agricultural subsidies are out of control, are disproportionate to the agricultural industry's value to United States GDP, but let's focus on the facts: U.S. farm policy today costs less than one half of one percent of the total federal budget and comprises just 13 percent of the total U.S. Department of Agriculture budget. I believe that proportionately small cost is well worth what is returned to the American people in terms of a safe, affordable and robust food supply, a base on which to become energy independent, 20 percent of this nation's jobs, and $3.5 trillion in economic activity.

My colleagues offering this amendment today are misguided about rural interests, about rural America, and about the overall cost of a bill that is expected to keep U.S. farm policy costs low and be good for taxpayers.

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