Thank you very much, Chairman Moran, Ranking

Member Etheridge and members of the subcommittee. Thank you

for the invitation to testify here...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is great to be here. It is especially nice to see my fellow Nebraskan,

Congressman Osborne, here as well.

It...

I am honored to be here. I am looking up at the

panel, and I see a lot of my old friends: Earl Pomeroy, whom I

served with; I think Frank...

I would also just say, being on the panel with my

two colleagues, I remember during the years of President Reagan

and the first President...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have

all the answers to this, but I am firmly convinced that a vibrant,

successful agricultural...

First of all, on research, I assume that what Secretary

Block was talking about in all those research programs is

he would like them all...

Certainly. I think you need to really look at the

whole energy generation picture, not just ethanol and biodiesel but

everything in rural...

Again, I mentioned the Gates-Rockefeller effort

recently. There is a huge wealth in society, I don’t have to tell you,

you read about it...

If I may, I will make one additional comment on

your last question, and that is, on the public-private partnership

issue, one of the problems...

Just a word on that whole question because I had

said when I spoke earlier that I have got some real doubts about

always going back for...

Thanks, Congressman Osborne. As many Members

know, my farm operations in Nebraska are in Congressman

Osborne’s district so that is home...

You asked several great questions there. In 1996,

this committee wrote the Freedom to Farm bill, which was supposed

to be the end of Government...

Well, what I would add to that is that we have an

international Government Procurement Code which is a U.S. signatory,

and I suspect that...

If the Government was a purchaser, then it is

probably a violation of the International Government Procurement

Code. That is a code, by...

Can I just make one quick comment, Congressman?

I agree totally with you about the importance and significance

of the land grant institutions,...

I am sure not. Certainly not.

You and I can do this afterwards.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Well, in 1981, we had a lot of relatively high price supports, loan

rates. When we moved into 1985, we...

Well, we have had a bit of a roller coaster since

we enacted the 1990 farm bill, in my tenure. As you know, that led

to the Freedom to Farm...

Congressman Peterson, I fundamentally agree

with that. You are too young to remember some of the past history

of these same issues in a...

Thank you very much, sir. I think it has worked,

very definitely, it has worked. Because as I said earlier, in the

early days, when I first...

Like I said, I think, by and large, the 1996 farm

policy bill was positive. I am glad President Clinton signed it.

I would go back to growing...

That is fair enough, I agree. I mean, if the markets

are calling for it, OK, fine.

In principle, I agree, but I have to tell you that

I would not be too anxious to give up this great—these great conservation

initiatives...

Let me just say that I am all for looking for ways

to get young farmers into agriculture, but this issue has been with

us forever. I mean,...

I think it was John Maynard Keynes who said,

for every complicated problem there is a simple or wrong solution.

This is one that, God, I...

In that respect, can I just add one quick comment?

One of the groups that I have been working with in this whole

farm policy arena is the...

Well, having spent most of my life in that arena,

let me say, first of all, that the answer clearly is not protectionism.

I am a strong,...

Certainly they are, and so are we in a number of

areas—more protectionist than we should be, more protectionist

than they should be. That...

Both, both.

I agree.

Nothing has changed if it is still going on, I

would say that. I would say a couple of things. Number one, I think

every one of us have...

I would only say that it is not going to get better;

probably get worse, unfortunately. But everything does. It is not

just bureaucratic...

We have been doing that for a long time, and we

will do it as far into the future as I can see. As you know, we

produce way more than we...