Thank you very much. Our next presenter is Niel Ritchie with the Institute for Ag & Trade Policy. Again, Charles Ottem is next and then Beth Nelson.

MR. RITCHIE:

We are going to have an interesting day, the panel is, sorting through the various opinions On behalf of the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, I’d like to thank the USTR and the USDA for giving us the opportunity to testify about our U.S. objectives for Seattle. IATP is a private non-governmental non-profit research and education organization with 32 staff headquartered here in Minneapolis. Steve Supan (ph) our research director and Sophie Murphy who is the senior policy analyst for international trade are both here with me today if folks have questions. IATP has closely followed and analyzed the development of the NAFTA trade agreement, the GATT Uruguay Round and the WTO and their effects on domestic agriculture policy, including the so-called Freedom to Farm legislation. Our testimony will be followed by written documents to substantiate some of our positions. The combined effects of NAFTA, GATT and Freedom to Farm have helped push farm gate prices to record lows, far below the cost of production. The rapid consolidations in the food processing, agrochemical and seed companies have fostered anticompetitive practices that further erode the capacity of our independent producers to market their crops and livestock for a profit. Non-enforcement of U.S. laws has allowed corporate advocates of U.S. -- current U.S. agriculture trade policy to reap record profits while farmers and ranchers go out of business or work second jobs to subsidize their operations. IATP is deeply concerned that the foundations of our domestic food and fiber system, the independent family farmer, is being destroyed in order to bring down prices far enough to enable agribusiness to capture export markets. IATP along with a growing number of U.S. farm and commodity organizations believes that farmers and ranchers will be economically and environmentally viable only when competition is restored to the marketplace. Our position contrasts sharply with the view implicit in a May 5 USTR press release which stated that sessions like this one today will provide them the opportunity to, "Learn firsthand which issues are most important to farmers, ranchers and the ag industry as a whole and what trade policies would be most effective in helping to increase U.S. agricultural exports." With 70 percent of our agricultural production consumed here at home, it is illogical for the USDA and USTR to postulate exports as the main determinant of farm incomes and of commodity prices. We need to develop agriculture policies to sustain our producers based on the bulk of our market, not the markets of last resort. Without fair farm gate prices, that is prices above the cost of production, free trade is a deceptive euphemism or economic exploitation of our farmers and the degradation of their land and water. The USDA National Commission on Small Farms is one of many that have made recommendations to revive U.S. agriculture and our rural communities. While the USDA has adopted few of these recommendations, U.S. agriculture policy is largely driven by the dictates of exporters, processors and input companies, the main beneficiaries of current U.S. trade policy. The pursuit of export led development in the U.S. agriculture has been justified on the basis of USDA worldwide estimates for demand that a 1999 study by the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute, FAPRI, has said are chronically overstated. Countries will always strive to produce as much of their own food as possible, as indeed they should. Our economists advise developing countries to rely on imports for food security while devoting their human and natural resources to producing goods that will earn them greater revenues. Unfortunately, the collapsing terms of trade for most developing countries that’s been documented by UNCTAD and the World Bank for much of the last two decades refutes this advice and also belies the argument that the U.S. should be trading to "feed the world." IATP believes that rather than pursuing further liberalization in agribusiness trade it’s time to take stock of the impacts of the last round of WTO agreements both here and abroad and to repair the agreements where they do damage to our independent producers and to sustainable economic development. To continue agriculture policy on the promise of higher prices through greater exports is to ignore both the statistical evidence and the experience of every farmer who sells to processors or exporters at below their cost of production. There’s a whole host of issues that are facing you and here’s a summary of our position on a few. We support proposals to incorporate antitrust and procompetition policies in the next WTO round that would apply to all sectors including agriculture. Furthermore, we’d like to reiterate our support for an immediate implementation of a USDA Justice Interagency Task Force to investigate and discipline anticompetitive agribusiness practices here in the U.S. We support the proposals to eliminate export subsidies, including export credit guarantees that allow corporations to dump ag products on world markets at below the cost of production. We support proposals to change WTO rules to encourage farmer owned reserves and government owned emergency food stocks. And we support proposals to restore previously successful GATT rules that permit import controls to protect small-scale producers which are responsible for the greater part of global food security. I see the time has gone. There’s a couple more, but we’ll get back to them. On behalf of IATP, I want to thank you for your time and your attention and we look forward to further interactions with you before and after the ministerial in Seattle. Thank you.