I'm the fifth generation of my family with ties to agriculture in Montana. My children are the sixth. But in trying to help my children make decisions about their futures, I cannot, in all conscience, encourage them to enter the field of agriculture. Why? It's not because I don't love the way of life. I've long felt being a steward of the land and the creatures of the earth was a soul satisfying occupation, though seldom remunerative.

I watch as my family, friends, and neighbors struggle against enormous odds to survive in a field that pits man against incredible odds. It's not enough that a rancher should have to contend with the ordinary obstacles today, whether disease, market foibles, interest rates, and increasing pressure from urban sprawl. Now, thanks to the benevolent Great White Father, we can watch as truckload after truckload of imported market livestock enter the country to drive the prices down even further.

About 15 years ago, most of you would remember we went through a sort of a cleansing of so-called marginal producers, most of which was accomplished with a "voluntary" liquidation. It took a class-action lawsuit to stop that or slow it down. All the indications I see today are that we are beginning another cycle of elimination of producers. As an example, my brother-in-law has a ranch which was once a place where a family could make a living. He sold his cattle to pay off part of his mortgage, and he is currently diversified into lumber enterprise, pasture enterprise, and outfitting. He is barely surviving and pounds his steering wheel in frustration as he drives to town to give music lessons, which, by the way, he uses to live on, because he watches four or five cattle trucks a day come into the country from Canada. How many more of our neighbors are going to go down the tubes this year when there is no market for our livestock because of the imports?

God forbid, the solution rests with giving up. I dare say there's no one in this room who is willing to do that with a smile on their face. For me, my options are to continue to with my teaching job, which I'm very fortunate to have, continue to subdivide my land, and brush up on my Chapter 12 skills because I think those are the only options that are being left to us.

Anyone that has survived this long has undoubtedly explored all the possibilities for diversification, exhausted most likely sources of credit, and spent hours trying to find solutions. The solution don't rest with us, the producers. It's a problem we didn't create. The problem of massive quantities of imported market livestock is a direct result of an economic policy that is designed to destroy American agriculture. We have cheap food in this country, and until there is a concerted common sense approach to closing the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, the best suggestion I have is to sell your livestock, go to truck driving school, and move to the Canadian boarder. Oh, oops, that will interfere with the Canadians, wouldn't it? Sorry.

In closing, I want to emphasize that it is vital to halt the flow of imported livestock from continuing to flood our markets, and at least give our producers a level playing field. I remind you that the most powerful symbol in this country, next to the cross, is a question mark. Ask questions about these trade agreements, demand answers to why we are driving our producers out of business and continuing to make our country vulnerable. We're a debtor nation and now we're losing the basic means of production. It's simply got to stop. Thank you.

MR. NELSON: Wally, Susie, thank you. Panel?

MR. SCHROEDER: I'll let Tim take that buffalo question.

MR. GALVIN: We're certainly aware of that, but it's not an issue the Foreign Ag Service is involved in. I just want to throw that in. But we're certainly aware of the concern about those purchases. As you know, additional purchases were made in the beef and pork sectors, as well, over the past year to try to help things out as well. But your point is well taken.

MR. KLOSEY: I just wanted to stir up a hornet's nest.