Thank you. As we call our next panelists up, I probably was amiss to not reintroduce our panel for those that are new to us this afternoon and may not be able to see their name tags. So starting on my right and your left we have Ambassador Marc Baas, the Department of State. He’s the Director of the Office of Agriculture and Textile Trade. Seated next to the Ambassador is Teresa Howes. She’s from USTR, Director of Asian Agriculture Affairs. Then we have Jim Schroeder, the Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services. Our host for the day is Commissioner of Minnesota Agriculture Gene Hugoson and seated next to Commissioner Hugoson is the Commissioner of Agriculture for North Dakota, Roger Johnson. Our next speaker this afternoon is Allan Skogen. He’s from the North Dakota Grain Growers Association. Welcome.

MR. SKOGEN:

Thank you. Good afternoon, my name is Allan Skogen. My family and I farm near Valley City, North Dakota. I’m here today representing the North Dakota Grain Growers Association which is a membership organization of 2,000 wheat, durum and barley producers. I serve as vice-president of that association and chair its Trade Committee. The North Dakota Grain Growers applauds the administration for its recognition of agricultural trade issues and for hosting these listening sessions. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today and offer -- and to offer our members’ position on the forthcoming negotiations. I must emphasize the other dissatisfaction of the farmers that I represent that the negative impacts previous trade agreements have had on our industry. Trade agreements which allow state trading enterprises to operate in secrete competition with U.S. producers, agreements -- agreements that the U.S. participates in that tolerate obscene levels of direct farm and export subsidies of wheat and barley by the European Union, trade policies that allowed U.S. share of world wheat market to decline from over 50 percent 25 years ago to 30 percent today of the five major wheat exporting countries and allowed the barley market share to decline from 11 percent to 5 percent in the last six years. North Dakota barley, wheat and durum farmers are extremely unsatisfied with the trade agreements that have hurt us in the past. We are actively monitoring this negotiating session to continually assess the impact of North Dakota -- to North Dakota wheat and barley producers. We will adamantly oppose any agreement which does not appear to enhance our world market share of these commodities. The North Dakota Grain Growers Association urges the USTR to take conclusive action to eliminate the unfair trading practices by state trading enterprises, particularly the Canadian Wheat Board in the marketing of wheat, barley and durum. The exporting of these entities both in the United States and to our export customers around the world has the identical price manipulative power subsidies as subsidies provided by other competitors. Once again our Canadian neighbors have displayed their unwillingness to cooperate in meaningful negotiations over these trade issues. We firmly believe that the Canadians do not trade fairly with us, but we are left unable to prove it because we are not provided with the access to the details of their grain procurement and marketing system. As in the past, it appears that the Canadians have carefully controlled the information needed to properly negotiate a fair trade relationship for these grains. We believe that at the heart of the problem in negotiating sound agreements with Canada is their lack of willingness to allow us to assess -- allow us access to the information which can be used to determine fairness in these issues. The world price manipulative power of the European Union must be addressed. The scenario is challenging enough when the Europeans compete directly with us in markets that we have developed, but only last year the Europeans has the audacity to ship a load of heavily subsidized barley directly into our own domestic feed market. The price distorting impact of these export subsidies must be tamed in these WTO talks. We cannot tolerate any longer the remarkable situation of past negotiations which have allowed the Europeans to incrementally lower their domestic and export subsidy levels compared to U.S. reductions. The ratio of reductions in subsidies have left the Europeans with substantial export subsidies and the U.S. farmer with the ability to use only $550 million in export enhanced money, and we haven’t used that since 1975 for fear of European retaliation. European subsidies must be lowered to a level equal to that in the U.S. and not simply lowered in a corresponding ratio. Nothing less will be acceptable. The United States negotiators must protect the decoupled domestic programs that help U.S. -- help assist U.S. farmers. Efforts to target federal management tools like crop insurance and conservation programs that do not affect world price should not be discussed in a WTO setting. Moreover, farm program transition payments or disaster assistance payments that are not tied to production should be protected in the negotiating arena. We must not give away programs that are beneficial to our own producers yet have no impact on world grain supplier price. Harmonization of regulations and available crop inputs must be addressed by the negotiators. Discrepancies in the availability of crop protection products and other inputs between the competing countries. Producers are expected to compete in the world marketplace, yet the regulations affecting their business operation costs are very different. In summary, North Dakota producers are feeling the effects of surplus production, world economic crisis and Canadian exports of grain into our country, as well as unfair sales to our customers. While Canada and Europe are often referred to as trading partners by the overall trade sector, make no mistakes spring wheat, durum and barley producers recognize them clearly as competitors. We can no longer be used as a sacrificial lamb in the name of trade balance between our countries. We have said it many times but it rings true and merits repeating, North Dakota farmers are amongst the best in the world and compete with anyone on an equal level, but we cannot be expected to compete with the power and the resources of foreign governments. Disciplining the involvement of our competitors’ governments in their trade of small grains must be a primary goal in the WTO summit. Thank you.