MR. FICKEN: Mr. Moderator, Panel, and especially you from the USDA. I'm Henry Ficken, my wife, two sons, John and Mark, and I operate a family farm near Kalispell, Montana. Our main crops are peppermint, spearmint, dill oil for the pickle industry, wheat barley, alfalfa hay, and lentils. Many Montana farmers are trying new crops, many of these specialty crops don't succeed for various reasons. Farmers need proper price for what they know they can produce.

It is no secret that much of agriculture in these United States is in serious financial trouble. Montana is no exception. The honorable Senator Max Baucus in his January 21, 1999 newsletter, stated that agriculture is Montana's leading industry. He also stated that 20 percent of our state's employment is in agriculture. Is it any wonder, then, that when agriculture prices are so tragically low nationwide and in Montana that the per capita income in Montana is approaching 50th in the nation?

It is distressful to my farmer/rancher neighbors, friends outside of agriculture, and to me that President Clinton continually expresses publicly how good the national economy is while agriculture prices across the board are at disaster levels. Farmer moral has never been lower in my community.

International trade is vital to the United States and to Montana. I was one of two from Montana to be privileged to attend the International Federation of Agriculture Producers in Regina, Saskatchewan Canada June 21st and 22nd, 1999. Many of the foreign speakers spoke about the very bad agricultural situation in their countries. It was made very clear by many speakers who were representing their foreign countries that international trade is vitally necessary for the economic well-being of their countries. They stressed the need to have what they call a level playing field so as to be able to market some of their production.

These small developing country representatives were complaining about some of the unscrupulous tactics having been used by larger, stronger nations and multinational companies. Somehow, the farmer, worldwide, always suffers the consequences. They emphasized the importance of the family farmer and the need to protect that institution.

The above inequities affect the American farmer, rancher, and timber industry as well. The term "safety net" was used many times. There was a general consensus that a safety net should be provided by each nation to stabilize its farmers' income in times of low income or distress and thereby maintain a strong economy. I have supported the safety net concept for farmers for many years, it should be at a meaningful level. Very few businesses, if any, do not have some kind of support or safety net guaranteed by government, corporate policy, or otherwise. American farmers no longer can be expected to pay operating expenses at United States price levels and sell commodities at Third World prices.

Also a major concern was that any stabilization program developed by any nation should not create or cause the promotion of any commodity which would again create overproduction. I think this is important for you to think about that. It is not my purpose to report the proceedings of the Regina conference. In my opinion, key issues were discussed and will be discussed further in November in Seattle this year. Our American negotiators must be knowledgable and able to negotiate what is best for American producers. That's been said several times now.

The current farm program of 1996 is badly flawed and should be replaced immediately. It has robbed profits from the agriculture sector. It has created a windfall of profits to the middleman at the expense of producers and consumers. If farmers were paid a fair price for their commodities, none of these support programs would be necessary.

In conclusion, let me state that it is necessary to get spendable dollars into the hands of family farmers immediately. A few short years ago the government bailed out the banking industry with government dollars. A logical choice to help family farmers today without creating overproduction would be to allocate tax-free dollars earmarked to pay the indebtedness of the family farmers. I'm talking about responsible, good farmers, I don't mean this as a general handout.

There are many ways to get our family farmers back on a level playing field, fair price for commodities produced is the key. World trade that benefits all trading partners, trade that will compensate producers fairly, whether in America, Africa, Europe, or Australia, for their labors and provide affordable products to the consumer is the key to a better community and world harmony.

Thank you for coming to Montana to hear the testimonies of those concerned about the producers of the world's best foods.

I would also just like to make a comment regarding Mr. Galvin's comment a while back about giving these countries that are in trouble aid. One of the representatives from the country, I'm not sure which country, was complaining about the fact that sometimes countries give a country in distress aid and the other country is taking issue with that because they wanted to sell them what the other country needed. Would you care to comment on that?

MR. GALVIN: Yes, I would. I appreciate the comment. What we try to do with our aid programs, we try to avoid just dumping our surplus commodities in particular countries. What we do is, we go into each country on an individual basis and we try to assess what their current needs are and then we take that into account. We also try to assess what their commercial demand, say, for wheat is going to be, and then we decide how much we're going to donate. And we donate it in a way that hopefully doesn't displace any of that commercial demand that otherwise is going to occur. And, also, we try to divide the aid in such a way that it doesn't knock the underpinnings out from their own farmers in that country as well. So we really try to assess their legitimate food needs and then we provide a commodity donation on that basis.

Another thing that we often do is we allow those who receive the grain in those countries to turn around and what we call monetize those commodities. That is, they sell those commodities for whatever the local currency is and then the proceeds from that local sale are used to help the local economy; whether it's maybe to help them set up an extension service or it might be a coop bank for the local farmers or maybe even something like a health clinic or something along those lines. But we often allow the donated commodity to be sold for the local currency with the proceeds used for the benefit of the recipient country. Thank you.