MR. KLOSEY: MR. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the committee, I am a rancher from the Twin Bridges area. I am not only here representing myself but some neighbors down in our area. And I can tell you this with all honesty, that if there isn't something major done in the agricultural community in the next year, you're going to see the demise of several more farms and ranches going down the tube. Two of my neighbors just lost their places in the last six months. This is a serious situation. You cannot produce and sell for less than the cost of production forever and exist.

I heard your comments here about domestic policy. I guess, I'm kind of a C-Span nut. Senator Dorgan from North Dakota has a proposal in the Ag Committee, along with Senator Kerry from Nebraska, and they want to put on some subsidies on X number of bushels of wheat. I don't exactly know how the bill is written, if it's written at all yet, but I did see them discussing it. But the thing I would like you to keep in mind is this: We have went through subsidies and invariably it is the people that get the money that aren't generating -- they're not legitimate farmers and ranchers. They're hobby farmers.

In our area, I have a television magnet across the hill from us. He buys out the Snowcrest Ranch. He gets a subsidy from putting land into soil conservancy, half the cost of the ranch, and now he's competing with us. These kind of incidents are where our subsidy money is going. I can cite you two or three other ones. And I would suggest to you that if you are involved in this, that 80 percent of the income has to come off of the farm and the ranch before they're entitled to any subsidy. They are the people out there that need it, it isn't these hobby farmers. I have a neighbor over there that's an heir of the ConAgra people, it's a hobby.

And another thing that's kind of puzzling to us is how come that the United States Department of Agriculture purchased buffalo meat when you could purchase four steers for the price of one buffalo for the school lunch program? You know who the big buffalo producer is in the United States, I'm quite sure of that. And there's your subsidy money again that I was just referring to. These are the kind of things that you have to see that the money gets out to the farmer and rancher that's trying to make a living off the farm and the ranch.

I don't have any answer to any of the problems, but I'm just here stating the case. If something isn't done pretty damned soon, you won't have anybody left. There's no young people going back into agriculture. I'm sure that Mr. Nelson can tell you this. The cattle are coming across the border. I'd like to know who owns these cattle. I sit there in Twin Bridges and I cut a field of hay along the highway, and I counted 53 Canadian cattle trucks while I was cutting that field of hay. Now, who owns those cattle? And who gets the exchange rate on the money? There's two questions I'd like to have the answer to.

And I guess that's about all, I'm going to yield the balance of my time to Susie Tilton-Chiovaro. Thank you very much.