MR. SIKORSKI: Thanks, Bruce. Thanks, Ralph, and panel for allowing me to speak here.

I'm Jerry Sikorski, I raise wheat, hay, and cattle on a family ranch in the southeastern Montana community of Willard. Our ranch is located 22 miles due west of the point where Montana borders North and South Dakota. I'm here representing Northern Plains Resource Council, in the interest of time, I'll call it NPRC, of which I'm Chair. NPRC is a Montana-based grassroots citizen's organization that deals with conservation and family agriculture issues that affect our state and nation. NPRC has about 3,000 members and is headquarted in Billings; SEMA is an affiliate of NPRC with 50 members and is centered in Baker.

We believe the best way to sustain Montana's values and way of life is to keep individual agriculture producers on the land.

Sometime between now and October, the world population will reach 6 billion people, nearly half of those go to bed each night hungry, many are literally starving. One does not have to be a statistician to understand that population will increase exponentially unless checked by some catastrophic event like disease, war, or famine. Yet every day I read about what a glut of wheat there is and the reason for low livestock prices is too much supply. What happens to this oversupply of food? Is it being stored in huge warehouses or dumped in the sea? Or is it being consumed?

The answer becomes clear when you consider the following facts: Farmers and ranchers are going broke, but consumers are not benefiting with lower prices at the grocery store, nor are the starving of the world being fed. At the same time, American based Trans-global corporations report record profits quarter after quarter after quarter.

How is this happening? Clearly, the likes of Cargill, ConAgra, IBP, ADM, Smithfield, Tyson, and others have amassed market power to the point where they can pay producers whatever low amount they wish and charge consumers whatever price they can get away with.

The world marketing system is broken, the market no longer responds to supply and demand; but it's responding to the whims of multi-national giants who are driven by profit motives for their owners and shareholders. Last spring when live beef prices were at their usual low, the big packers had $114 per hundred weight in the cost and profit in their beef, yet they sold that beef for $123 per hundred weight because they could. On top of this, the few grocery chains that dominate the retail food in America could mark up beef to insure their yet record profits.

These same giants, with their money and resources, are the ones who design world trade agreements to increase their domination of the industry and the profits they reap at the expense of producers and consumers worldwide. Grassroots agricultural producers from all over the nations all over the world are being exploited by what is essentially an international agribusiness cartel. We believe that whatever international trade agreements are negotiated, grassroots producers must have strong representation at the table to insure their interests are heard and protected. I am not talking about the big commodity groups that do not have democratic structures and do not have any accountability to the grassroots producers. Without exception, that I'm aware of, these big commodities fail to represent our interests. They have become apologists and promoters for the giant corporate agribusinesses that are exploiting producers with disastrous consequences to rural America.

It is time that trade agreements put a priority on ensuring that few American corporations that dominate the food industry do not use trade agreements to fill their own pockets at the expense of producers here and abroad. Boy, I'm running too late.

We have some things that we'd like to see done from Northern Plains. One is mandatory reporting and compliance with US antitrust laws must be required for imported captive supplies of meat.

Country of Origin Labeling must be implemented, that includes ground meat.

All imported agriculture products must supply with minimum US food safety inspection standards.

A countervaling tariff must be implemented to ensure tax and currency to equalization for ag products imported from other countries.

Workers manufacturing imported products must have the equivalent protections to US workers.

Imported products must comply with minimum US environmental standards.

Parties prevailing in a successful trade complaint against illegal imports should be entitle to recover legal costs. That's in the R-CALF case.

Since George Washington, the United States of America has had a long history of producing plentiful and safe food for us and the world. The individual ag producer has always been respected worldwide as an innovator of efficiency, let's see that they can continue to provide that model for the world. They must be able to recover their cost for production.

On the way up here, we bought a few snacks for my grandson, a loaf of bread, 24 ounces, $2.10; Wheat Thins, $3.69. I figured out what my share of that retail dollar was, it turns out I got 4 and a half cents of value or 2.3 percent of a value of a loaf of bread. Out of the Wheat Thins, I had 2 and a quarter cents out $3.69 in Wheat Thins or less than .6 percent. Is there justice in this? When I was a youngster, wheat sold for $2 a bushel and bread sold for 25 cents a loaf, something is wrong here. Thank you.

MR. NELSON: Jerry, thank you. And, again, I know you might not have got through all of your statement, but it will be part of the record and these folks are reading all of it. Panel, any questions or comments for Jerry?

MR. GALVIN: Just on your point number 3, "All imported ag products must comply with minimum US food safety inspection standards." I just want to assure you that that is, in fact, the requirement today. The whole question, though, is enforcement and testing of those imports. And it's pretty clear that FDA, for example, is really pressed for resources, so only about 1 percent or so of imported products currently get tested and sampled, but at least the basic requirement is there that imported food as to meet the same standards as US domestic food. And the real question is, I think, enforcement and resources.

MR. SIKORSKI: We were just at a rally up at Sweet Grass, which is a major port coming down here, and I noticed nine hog trucks and they had at least 200 hogs a piece. We were in the airplane so I saw them coming down from Canada. They went through that border so fast, there was no inspection of those animals at the border, they were live hogs. They went through and were fueled up and were out of there, it took nine trucks five minutes to go through there and I saw that with my own eyes. There is no inspection.

MR. GALVIN: Again, my point is that they have to meet the same --

MR. SIKORSKI: Where is it inspected?

MR. GALVIN: At slaughter.

MR. SIKORSKI: Where is the box beef inspected? When we were there, three refers came through, they didn't spend any time at the border. Once across the border, it goes right to the grocery stores in South Dakota. It's in South Dakota that has the deal where they have to have mandatory price reporting, they're importing all their beef products into South Dakota. You can't buy US beef, cut beef, in South Dakota.

MR. GALVIN: But, as I said, not everything that's imported is inspected and tested. I think that's really the issue, that only about somewhere between 1 percent and 3 percent of imports are actually sampled and tested because of the whole issue of resources for agencies like the Food and Drug Administration that are there to do the enforcing.

MR. NELSON: Jerry, I think he's agreeing with you.

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you.