FARM SECURITY ACT OF 2001 -- (Extensions of Remarks - October 12, 2001)

[Page: E1887]
---

SPEECH OF HON. EVA M. CLAYTON

OF NORTH CAROLINA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Friday, October 5, 2001

Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, the reauthorization of this country's agricultural policy is an occasion that we should treat with great seriousness and thoughtfulness. If we do not, we turn our backs not only on our agricultural producers, but on all of rural America.

Recent years have been devastating for our nation's farmers. Record low commodity prices, increased production overseas, and pressures from internal markets and agricultural consolidation have combined to depress farm income significantly. In recent years Congress has provided supplemental income assistance to American farmers. While this has prevented mass bankruptcy among our farmers, it has done little to provide them with income stability or to give them an assurance that in future years the market will better serve them.

The Farm Security Act, H.R. 2646, provides American farmers with a secure safety net. With this safety net firmly in place, some of our farmers can plant secure in the knowledge that, while the markets may fail them, America will not. The Farm Security Act sends the important message to our farmers that, because you have supported us for so long, so too will we support you. I support the Farm Security Act because it provides the measures necessary to ensure that agriculture can play the same important role in the 21st century that it did in the 20th.

However, the reauthorization of our farm policy must not be about only agricultural production, but about the long-term viability of our rural communities. The Agriculture Committee has been vested with responsibility for all of rural America. It is therefore appropriate that the Farm Bill should include significant components that speak to the specific non-farm struggles of rural America. While it is true that the farm economy must be strong for rural America to prosper, the farm economy alone is not enough to prevent the ``great hollowing'' out of rural America currently taking place.

The Farm Security Act, by including $2 billion dollars for rural development, recognizes the entire mosaic of our rural communities and takes steps to provide for their long-term health. I am especially pleased that the Farm Security Act provides significant rural development funds for water infrastructure and for rural strategic planning grants. Without a sound public and municipal infrastructure, our rural communities can have no economic base. Without funds for long-term planning and implementation, even the soundest of public infrastructures goes to waste. These two matters fit together for the benefit of our rural communities. I support the Farm Security Act, in part, because of the investment that it provides in these areas.

Finally, I am supportive of this Farm Bill because it recognizes the important connections between American agricultural producers and struggling working Americans who work so hard to put food on the table. This bill makes important investments in the Food Stamp Program that will make the program more user friendly both for those who utilize the Food Stamp Program and for those who administer it. I am especially proud of the measures that this bill takes to support working families who struggle in the low-wage sector of the economy. No longer is it enough just to have a job. In too many cases, a job isn't a ticket out of poverty but simply the maintenance of it. We must do more to support those working families who abide by the rules by ensuring that their children will not go to bed hungry.

This is not to say that I do not have reservations with the bill, some of them serious. In fact there are a number of areas where I believe that we can and should improve upon the bill reported out by the House of Representatives on Friday, October 5.

First, we must do more to pay attention to the needs of small, middle-income, and disadvantaged farmers. It is no secret that US farm policy has long favored large producers
```
[Page: E1888]
```
who are both politically and economically connected to the agricultural community. However, this trend has grown even more pronounced in the years since passage of the ``Freedom to Farm'' bill in 1996. A recent report from the General Accounting Office found that the vast majority of US farm payments go to large producers of a small segment of commodities that are grown primarily in the nation's heartland. This must change. A farm bill should benefit all producers, large and small, in California, in Nebraska, and in North Carolina.

We have done an especially poor job of providing assistance to low and medium-income farmers, producers of specialty crops, and disadvantaged and minority farmers. As the Farm Bill moves forward, we must do more to treat all farmers equitably. Such an effort should involve increased outreach to small and minority farmers and equitable distribution of farm payments, geographically, by farm size, and by commodity type. If we do not accomplish this, we are negligent in our responsibility to producers of all sizes and types.

Finally, I would like to express my disappointment that this bill does not do more for the minority-serving colleges and research institutions. The minority-serving institutions have long played a positive role in advancing the interests of not only the minority agricultural community, but of American agriculture as a whole. The minority-serving institutions, even more than other institutions, are strategically placed to ensure that the American agricultural community enters the 21st century a diverse and vibrant one.

However, the minority-serving institutions have long suffered from lack of resources and historic inequities in research and development funding. As a result, these institutions have fared poorly in competitively awarded research grants. For example, a cursory examination of the grants awarded under the National Research Initiative reveals that, fiscal year 1999, the 1890s obtained just one half of one percent of total funding. Clearly, this situation warrants closer examination and amelioration.

This Farm Bill does nothing to change that situation and I will continue to work to see that it does. The current bifurcation between the mainstream land-grant institutions and the minority-serving institutions is unacceptable and it must change.

The burden now lies squarely with the Senate to draft their version of the Farm Bill. I look forward to their efforts and to working with them to achieve a final product which is not only fair to American farmers, but to all of the other myriad interests that this Congress must represent with the Farm Bill.
END