Master Cong Smith Senator Eagleton Bob Bergland a

a real farmer congresswoman Virginia Smith from the western area of Nebraska congresswoman Smith thank you very much thank you thank you president's daily for such a generous introduction my colleague senator Eagleton it's a pleasure to be on the platform with you mr. cozy check mr. woodland our special my special friend air diverted the president of nfo in Nebraska and all the members of the Board of Directors and all of you good friends out there you know it's a privilege for me to be here and discuss farm issues with this group of agricultural leaders representing 35 states and I must add in that it's a special pleasure to have a hundred and fourteen Nebraska friends here in this audience I'm gratified to learn what you did to knock last night when you passed a resolution that you wanted to work more closely with other farm and ranch organizations across this country I know you're aware of the great strides that Nebraska made at the state nfo convention on September 17th in Kearney Nebraska when leaders of eight farm and ranch organizations were there and two more later joined to set up joint positions on issues of which in which we all agree that we want to balance the federal budget to cut inflation that we want to have in imported meat inspected by the same standards we face and I know that in Nebraska aid they've had at least four more meetings to get a more close working relationship and you know folks this is needed as never before senator Eagleton and I know so well that there used to be a farm block in Congress now Congress is very urban oriented we have an administration that it is anti farm policy we have only ten million people living on farms one out of twenty two of our citizens is a farmer and so it's more vital than it's ever been before that we join together and work closely toward the objectives to which we're all dedicated now as I look out at you this group of leaders I realize that we are a part and you are leaders in the greatest example of productive success in the history of the whole world American American agriculture under the free enterprise system has provided an abundance of the highest quality most nutritious food in the world for 222 million Americans plus some hundred million other people around the world we in this room love our land I understand this I've been a farmer all my life we're willing to work 16 or 18 hours a day the women are willing to work side-by-side with the man we put our life savings everything we have into our farms and folks when we can't get the cost of production plus a profit then something is wrong no businessman and you and I are all business people can go on very long when you have to pay out more than you take in without going broke the only outfit that can get by with that is the federal government and that's because they can print money and you can't without going to jail they tell a story in Washington you know it about one of these farm economist who was driving out on the country road side near Washington and he saw a sign in front of a farmers home and it says we buy eggs 50 cents a dozen and right beside it was another sign we sell eggs 45 cents a dozen so the economists stopped and said what's the matter with you don't you know you'll lose money if you pay 50 cents for them and sell them for 45 cents why the farmer said of course I'm losing money but I'm not losing it near as fast as I am trying to run this farm you know you know I remember the day when we had people carrying placards out in front of the United States House of Representatives that said milk is for babies not for profit and I want to say to you that if the day ever comes when any sizable portion of the people of this country get the idea that American farmers can provide food for this nation without a profit then the time of abundance is gone and our great free country will also be destroyed thirty years ago the farmer got two and seven ten cents for the wheat in a loaf of bread then that loaf of bread cost thirteen and a half cents today the farmer gets two and 6/10 cents for the wheat in that loaf of bread and I cut an ad from the Washington Post on the plane on the way out here mr. Kozar check that says special sale on bread forty cents a loaf and do you know that it has been 45 years since the farmer got so small a percent of the cost the consumer pays for a loaf of bread since 1975 the price of wheat has gone down twenty-six percent the price of corn as you sell it in the marketplace has gone down 36 percent while at the same time freight rates have gone up 44 percent forty-four percent up and I just clipped a piece from the Omaha paper this morning that says president's rail victory called a loss for farmers well it sure is a loss for farmers and I want you to know that I have protested it with all the vigor I have and I've sent my nfo friends copies of the letters I've written protesting that freight rate increase because there is nobody but the farmer that's going to have to absorb that 7 cent increase on the freight rates now in the meantime the cost of transportation has gone up 31 percent the cost the Consumer Price Index has gone up 27 and 7/10 percent while you and I know that the cost of everything that goes into producing food has gone clear out of sight but still I'm up to still I'm optimistic presidents daily because farm organizations are speaking with a far more effective voice than they have ever done before farmers are doing a far better job than they've ever done before of making the consuming public understand that if agriculture can't operate at a profit everybody in this country is going to suffer and when the consuming public understands that the Congress starts understanding it and I think things are going to get better now we must continue to battle on a good many fronts and I want to discuss with you a few of the areas where I am trying to be an effective spokesman for agriculture and I want to continue to battle with you and for you because the only way we're going to get things done is for all of us to be pulling together in the interest of agriculture first we produce the finest food on earth but I want to say to you that our government does a lousy job of promoting the sale of it overseas we need more voice in the sale of our own products and I want to commend you for what you have done and your successful efforts to sell top quality products and I want you to know that I'm working in that same line in this country we export 60% of our wheat 50% of our soybeans 25% of our corn that's why I'm promoting trade missions to my state from other countries and I hope your congressmen are doing the same thing last year I got the trade mission from Taiwan to come to Nebraska and they bought in our state 20 million dollars worth of our corn and I want you to know that I invite ed and other nfo leaders to be there and participate in every kind of an effort of this kind that I can get lined up just last week in my office in Washington I met with its premier agriculture purchaser from Russia to plan a working trade mission to Nebraska and we're gonna arrange this in the spring so that those folks will have an opportunity not only to see the top quality food that we produce but to have an opportunity to buy it while they're there and do you know that when I went out to the Russian embassy some six months ago to talk to those folks about buying more of our fine Nebraska products they told me that I was the first member of the House of Representatives I didn't include you senator ed you may have been out there but they said I was the first member of the House of Representatives that had ever kin cared enough time to go and try to sell our products now I've been working with the Arabian countries we can't go over there right now while Iran is in all this trouble but after all we sent them forty five billion dollars of your hard-earned money last year by an oil and they bought two billion three hundred million dollars worth of our products they need the very things that we raise they need flour meat wheat corn we need to expand our markets over there and I'm working out a trade mission and I expect the representatives of the nfo and Nebraska to be there and to be a part of this trade mission to build more sales to to that country and then we've been working on some other fronts you know that the foreign agricultural service run by the State Department had the nerve to suggest last spring that we cut out cut out entirely our foreign agricultural salesmen in five countries that last year bought two billion three hundred million dollars worth of our products I wrote to my list of 700 good farm leaders in the third District and heed how you did respond and other congressmen wrote and we got a stop put to that silliness and let me tell you to Bob Berg --lens credit and I know he's going to be on your program tonight that he was trying his best to stop it too and I met with him in his office and he said I'm trying to get full staffing of the foreign agricultural service you know cutting down on the foreign agricultural service is just as if you had a big store stocked with the finest merchandise and you said I'll fire all the clerks to save money we have this wonderful agricultural production and those are the people that are promoting it in other countries of the world we'll just before Congress adjourned we passed a new bill which provides that the Secretary of Agriculture can increase our foreign agricultural agencies by 25% and also upgrade the status of our foreign agricultural representatives and that is a real step ahead towards solving this problem of getting our products sold overseas but then we've got other problems the trade negotiations are tremendously important they're going to be up and decisions made right this weekend and I hope you'll be watching very very closely all over my district I hear expressions of concern that Japan is flooding our country with Toyotas and Sony's and motorcycles and all kinds of camera equipment and everything else and that they have practically closed their doors to our beef you know the Japanese people eat only nine pounds of beef a year on an average they like beef just like you do and when I was one of 20 congressmen that met with the Japanese trade delegation in Washington I said to the ambassador now mr. ambassador if you're going to sell everything you've got in our country you're gonna have to buy our beef well he said mrs. Smith you don't understand we're too poor we can't afford it well of course they can't afford it because they put such a heavy surtax on it that it costs between 15 and 20 dollars a pound by the time it gets to their stores the government is going to have to make some change in policy and I'm so thankful senator Eagleton that they have made a small change in policy and increased what they will accept from us by 30,000 tons a year but that's a mighty little bit but it's a step in the right direction and then you know the Russians I was just talking about them they've been buying a hundred and fifty million dollars a year worth of top-quality beef from Australia and New Zealand then they mix it with a lot of fat and grain to make cheap hamburger over there but now they've quit buying beef from those countries and we better be working to get a share of the Russian market for our meat you know that if we could open up the markets of Japan and Russia and Red China where they need meat it would go a long way to solve the problems of the livestock farmer the corn farmer the grain feed grain farmer in the wheat farmer too so much for that I think every last one of us must continue to battle on the front of cuttin down the power of the regulator's because the power of to regulate is the power to destroy and over-regulation by self-serving bureaucrats can destroy our future there are examples of it all over the place you remember a few months ago when MIT commissioner Kennedy of the Food and Drug Administration decided that he was going to ban the use of low-level antibiotics in livestock feed my goodness I went over and testified this at the same hearing where he testified and you know what he said he said I want to ban it for social reasons I had that 1954 law along with me it doesn't say a word about social reasons it says that the government can ban products if they're proven to be harmful we've been using low-level antibiotics in livestock feed for 27 years and we don't have one case of where they have heard an animal or a human being but they had helped us bring healthy livestock under the market quicker and it took you with your letters and members of Congress fighting like I was fighting to get a stop put to that and now we're not going to have any banning of low-level antibiotics unless and until there is some proof that they really do damage and then you all remember the sacrament that wasn't long ago they didn't have any real evidence that saccharine hurts anybody but we found out mighty quick that there are 10 million people in this country that have diabetes and they need saccharin and I got to thinking you know it did I believe 5 million of them live in the third District of Nebraska and they nearly all wrote to me well it took Congress to step in and stop the ban on saccharin for 18 months until we can get some real study on whether or not there's any reason to do it and can any of you remember The Cranberries yeah I knew you would you remember it was just before Thanksgiving that the government put out the word Dodie cranberries that might cause cancer and nobody would buy cranberries and then after Christmas when the cranberry crop had rotted we were told that should have to eat 2,000 pounds of cranberries a day to cause you what what the tumors that those little mice got from having that much cranberry shot into them and so what did the government do it paid those farmers up in Massachusetts for the crop that had rotted because the government came out with an announcement and stopped us from eating cranberries when there was no evidence and no reason to do it and now we've got the Secretary of Agriculture and he's my good friend but here he comes out telling people to quit Ray's and sugar beets because it's a dying industry let me tell you folks that we in this country produce only half of the sugar we eat and if we run the beet growers out of business and if we get ourselves in a position where we've got to import all of our sugar we'll be sitting ducks for a cartel just like we're sitting ducks for that oil cartel and they can raise the price sky-high and now we and then we've got Carol Foreman Carol Foreman using your tax money to put out booklets given menus telling how you should prepare your meals using 25 percent less meat and you know what she suggests that you substitute nuts for the meat nuts and now she's carrying on an experiment in our schools whereby they can substitute the total protein requirement and use nuts beans and meat and nuts beans and peas and cut out the meat and I'm getting constant calls from my district for people who say my kids won't eat any more peanuts in our school send them some beef we don't want any more of these nuts you know you know tom we've got a few nuts in Washington and then now we've got the Food and Drug Administration and also the Department of Agriculture trying to buy to banish nitrites we have no solid scientific evidence whatever that nitrites cause harm but we have absolute evidence that botulism kills people and we've got no substitute for nitrites so what do we do nitrites at present levels have not been proven to cause any harm the American Meat Institute says that you'd have to eat 15,000 pounds of bacon a day to get as much nitrites as they shot into those poor little mice and 80% of the nitrites we have in our body we manufacture with our own saliva and it doesn't come from any meat that we eat and then we've got mr. Bosworth to put up with and he comes over and testifies that we don't need a meat import law now that meat import law passed the House of Representatives with only 66 people voting against it we need an improvement in that law and we needed that new law desperately it does two things it provides for a counter-cyclical formula on meat imports so that when we produce more we'll import less so that when we produce less well import more and then it gives the president some protection from pressure to lift meat import quotas when there is no economic reason to do so just as he did last spring you know really folks it's a very sad thing that a member of Congress has to stand up here and talk to an agricultural audience about people who are paid with your tax money some of them paid for the specific purpose of strengthening agriculture and who are really down there selling agriculture down the river now just a word about gasohol let me tell you I'm a hundred percent for gasohol and on the Appropriations Committee I'm doing everything in my power to get more research on gasohol and also to get that farm bill implemented and get those pilot projects going I'm with President Carter on his anti inflation program but let's watch very carefully folks that he doesn't make agriculture suffer far beyond other groups in his efforts to stop inflation I was sitting there on the agriculture Appropriations Committee last year when he came in with a budget that cut agriculture by 40 percent and what would have happen to us if we hadn't gotten that money put back in the United States Congress then I must talk a little bit about my Meat Inspection and labeling bill I think that will go a long long way toward solving our problems in agriculture you know folks it's really absurd that right now we're importing meat from 46 different countries eleven hundred and sixty-seven packing plants scattered all around the world and how many mr. Staley how many inspectors do you think we have going around the world inspecting that meat twelve twelve eleven hundred and sixty-seven packing plants in 46 countries it's ridiculous it's really not being inspected at all and our spot checks made on this meat as it comes into the United States show up enough bits of feathers and hide and malodorous material to make us mighty suspicious of the whole lot now we had a great hearing out in the third District of Nebraska on my bill you were there testifying as was every flower other farm and ranch organization and every business organization and if anybody should tell you folks that Democrats and Republicans can't work together just remember that the Agriculture Committee is 2/3 Democrat and I happen to be a Republican but they willingly came to the 3rd District of Nebraska because they knew of my dedication to that piece of legislation and how important it is to our farmers I think we can get that passed and I pledge to you that I'll put that bill back in the very day Congress goes into session and I will leave no stone unturned to get it passed and don't let anybody tell you that labeling is a problem all it takes in front of the chained hamburger store is a sign that says we use imported meat or we use only United States meat and then the consumer can make our choice and I think the consumer gals I think the consumers in this country are smart just like you're smart and I think they'll opt for our top quality meat and it'll go a long way towards solving our problems now I must say a word about the bill we passed just before we adjourn to provide that foreigners buying our choice land across America must file within a hundred and eighty days a report with the Secretary of Agriculture and if they don't they'll get a stiff penalty up to 25% of the value of the land I think we've got to do something to stop too much foreign purchasing of our land that that land is being purchased with money that we have sent overseas to buy oil and other products it forces the price up so our young farmers can't compete when they buy that land they're not stewards of the soil like you our data aren't devoted to the community like you are we need to keep our land in our own hands and you be thinking about whether we ought to go any farther had we ought to make more regulations that it ought to be at the state level or had it ought to be at the national level now folks I'm ready to wind up as I look at you out over this big crowd you a people who are willing to put everything you have into the land people who are willing to put your knowledge your love your wealth into it who feel about the land as I feel people of moral responsibility of faith a backbone I have the feeling that all of us working together can reach whatever goals we set our minds to to preserve this great agricultural industry of ours and to preserve this great free country and only 20% of the people of this world have freedom such as we have always known but I believe we can do it because you are the finest people in the world you have the heritage of good principle of faith in God and you've got the knowledge and the experience and the organization and the understanding to make yourselves a power in the direction our country is to take as I said we've got to battle on many fronts I'm battling in Washington and I want to battle with you and for you you know and just the other day I had a letter from a good friend of mine 97 years old out in the third District of Nebraska he said to me Virginia there ain't no such thing as The Lone Ranger anymore all of us farmers have got to pull together we've got to really sell our farm products like any good businessman promotes his products we've got to work every day at communicating with the consumers of this country we've got to force our government to be aggressive in the promotion of the sale of our products and we've also got to force our government to maintain the quality of our products as they're sold overseas and moreover to stop bad-mouthing our farm products as we know have been done on some occasions then we've got to get the government off of our backs because we pay through the pocketbook for every unnecessary regulation and we've got to battle for a bigger share of the food dollar you know that now it costs far more to market the food then we get out of it last year we got 57 billion dollars for all that went into the production of America's food supply but it cost seventy two billion dollars more to get it into the hands of the consumer I'm on the job every day and I pledge to you that I will continue to battle with you and for you and now I'd like to conclude with these lines that I think fit all of us in this room be strong we are not here to weep to wail tomorrow our fate we're here to keep our country great say not the days are evil who's to blame and fold your hands and acquiesce O'Shane stand up speak out fear not preserve our land and bravely in God's name be strong thank you it's a personal friend but more important a senator that you will continue to hear more and more about because of the great influence he's exerting on all issues in this country as the senior senator from the state of Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton thank you thank you thank you very much thank you or Elise daily distinguished platform guests congresswoman Smith and my good friend and colleague from the ninth congressional district Harold Volk mur ladies and gentlemen attending this fine convention of the National Farmers Organization I was reminiscing for a moment or two with aurélie about when this organization your fine organization last met in st. Louis and if my memory serves me correctly it was ten years ago in 1968 we didn't have this fine convention hall you were meeting over at that time and what is called Kiel auditorium and again if my memories correct it was about at this same point in time namely it was after the election but prior to the new Congress taking office and I had just been elected to the United States Senate in that election of 1968 my home is this city of st. Louis and I came up here as a prosecutor and later was attorney general disdain and what-have-you and they say that public confession or any form of confession is good for the soul and I've got to confess to you when early staley knew full well back in 1968 that I knew about as little about agriculture as any city-slicker graduate of Harvard Law School could orally help me very much in that 68 campaign as indeed he did in my reelection campaign in 74 not because he knew I was deeply well versed in the intricacies and complexities of agricultural productivity but he supported me on the faith that I would at least be willing to listen and to try to learn and he and Chuck Fraser and your fine organization in Washington have been my very indulgent and very patient tutors and I've learned a little not a lot I've learned a little and then by the fortuitous circumstances of a senator being unexpectedly defeated in a recent election I fell heir to the agricultural appropriation subcommittee and I must say to be somewhat balanced politically in my remarks I've had another good tutor in that assignment because the ranking Republican on that committee is Senator Henry Bellmon of Oklahoma a wheat farmer and one who in his own day-to-day life knows an awful lot about agriculture and the problems that beset it and I've held that assignment now for a few years and 910 to pursue it because I found it a challenge and a great opportunity this year's appropriation bill that is the for the 95th Congress the one that just recessed appropriates about excluding the commodity Credit Corporation some 13 plus billion dollars for the Department of Agriculture a significant amount even for the free spending federal government and we think we did a pretty good job in this bill especially especially in the area of agricultural research prior to becoming chairman of the Agriculture Committee I'd also served on the what's called the H E W health education and welfare subcommittee and on behalf of Senator Magnuson I chaired some of the hearings with respect to the National Institutes of Health the National Cancer Institute for example the National Eye Institute heart kidney lung etc and ladies and gentlemen just as it is vital to the health needs and the health problems of this country that we put in a maximum investment in health and human nutri search for the human being so - for the future and for the progress of American agriculture is it necessary that we have a research program second to none in that area as well and I think that's exactly what we have a research program in agriculture that is second to none in fact not to brag but just to state the blunt truth it is the ending is the envy of the entire world mrs. Smith mentioned the trade missions that she had brought to her third district in Nebraska a group of us were recently on a mission both for trade and in connection with the salt treaty to the Soviet Union in fact we just returned about two weeks ago and we raised a number of serious and important issues with the Soviets in the international sphere and the one area that intrigues in the most second only perhaps to salt the strategic arms limitation treaty has expanded trade with the United States and most assuredly the acquisition of American research capability and technological know-how that's what the Russians want above all else and although they brag about how they invented this and they invented that most of it fictional writing I might add they do know in their heart of hearts that American agriculture is preeminent and they are but a pitiful and a pale not even second but far down the line and with their burgeoning consumer needs that are even being felt within the closed environment of the Soviet Union they desperately need the kind of research genius and the kind of agricultural technology that we take for granted in this the most productive lands on earth in business and government and agriculture have a common destiny so much as it said that there are these divisions these antagonisms between the consumer and the farmer farmers are consumers there's some of the finest consumers spend as much money in the consumer market as any other sector of our economy and there are many many more things that we share in common and have as a common identity ladies and gentlemen then there are those things that divide us apart and it's our job those of us who are in government to try to devise an agricultural policy that guarantees an adequate return to those who've invested their personal wealth and their capital and in producing off of our nation's bountiful land and the secretary Bergland points out and we'll address you tonight at one of your evening functions somehow we've got to avoid this bloom and bust cycle of incredibly high prices for a brief period of time in one year and then 12 months later disastrous red ink bankruptcy prices and in the succeeding years thereafter and I think as does he with the farmer held grain reserve which is in its early in growing stages that maybe we have not the total answer but a significant step towards an answer we're in periods of high productivity and in bountiful conditions around the world the farmer can store on his own land that which is surplus to be held for the future year when weather conditions and growing conditions change either domestically and around the world and then to be determined by the farmer when to be in the market I think that this is the idea that may lead us out of this constant cycle of boom and bust that has infested American agriculture for decades and I guess for a century or more so I'm delighted to that you've selected my home city of st. Louis as the situs for your current convention and I'm always delighted when or Elise Daley and others from n FOC v to invited me to participate in any of their affairs and all those I say I've been in the business of being educated I still need a little further help I need the good solid and sound prudent advice that can come from you as members of this organization that you transmit through your very capable leadership so my office is open our committee is very attentive to the presentations that come from the various farm organizations and from individual farmers as well and I look forward to discussing larly on next year as we plan our our year's hearings on the agricultural appropriations bill I look forward to meeting with orally and Chuck and others to get their input as to what we should have in next year's budget next year's budget will be tight ladies and gentlemen it doesn't really serve much good to come before one organization such as a farm group and say we're going to spend a just as recklessly as we can because we're gonna play up to that farm audience and then run the next week and go to a bunch of educators and tell them oh we're gonna put the clamps on agriculture but we're going to turn the spending loose on education and then perhaps the next week go to the health and hospital administrators and say well we're gonna put the clamps on the AG department and on the education part of hgw but we're going to really turn the spigot on for help and run around pandering to the bias of each little audience and saying I am a fiscal conservative except with respect to you I'm for a tight budget I'm for a conservative spending program out there in the third District of Nebraska I'm for doing away with government waste but as far as you folks are concerned I'm gonna spend everything that we've got in the bank I don't think a farm organization or a group of educators will fall or should fall for that kind of baloney how do you become a big spender in front of one audience and a fiscal conservative behind their back with another audience so all I will tell you and just straight out American candor the federal budget next year please turn the tape over to side number two