DIANE DANEHEY: My name is Diane Danehey. My husband and I have three children and farm south of Hastings. We raise corn, soybeans, wheat and have a cow/calf operation. And I would like to speak to you a little bit today about sanctions and embargoes, but I'm going to a little bit of a different approach to it than what's been heard.

So far today we've talked mostly about how those things affect us, but last year I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba, and I would like to just mention some of my observations from that trip.

First of all, we met with Senor Pedro Alvarez who is the head of the agency in Cuba that imports all their food, that feed grain and food stuffs. And he explained to us that in the past few years especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union that there's been a 37 percent drop in the economy in Cuba which many of you are aware of the conditions there. And in 1992, what was called le pertuda in Spanish, the opening became part of their constitution and this allowed for some changes in the basic structure of agriculture in Cuba. And so now whereas before the collapse of the Soviet Union, about 80 percent of the farm operations were state owned and operated, now it's 80 percent privately owned and operated. Some of those private groups are cooperative, so they're groups of producers who have gotten today with their land and formed cooperatives, and we were able to visit one of those cooperatives.

Another change that has happened in Cuba is that now instead of all the produce being sold through the government, they have opened what are called mercados agropecuarios which are free, open agriculture markets. So the cooperative that we visited after they have sold the amount of goods that they have contracted with the State, then any excess production can be sold in the free market.

And these I thought were interesting innovations in Cuba. We -- another observation that we made was the -- to the extent that other countries are becoming involved in the Cuban economy. And we witnessed at Havana Harbor we saw two French ships unload wheat. We visited with the director about joint ventures that are taking place in Cuba by the Israelis, European Union countries and so on.

Cuba imports much of their corn from Argentina. They get a lot of wheat from Canada. So all of this was impressed upon us. And, of course, they said they were eager to trade with the United States, but in the meantime, they will do the best they can. And, of course, the rest of the world is involved in their economy now as they pursue this opening.

One of the major points that I -- that impressed me personally was when we found out about the ration system because the Cuban people since there is a shortage of beef and dairy products and other food stuffs, they have a rationing system. Cubans received coupons, and they can get for their coupons -- if these things are available, they can get them at a ration store. But they get one pound of beef per year. They get two pounds of chicken per year. It's hard to imagine people surviving. They do get rice -- five pounds of rice a month and a bun of bread a day. Dairy products are extremely short supply, so the only people who are rationed the liquid dairy products are children under seven and pregnant women.

So looking at this from, like I said, the other angle, how sanctions and embargoes affect the people on the other end, as you said this the Cuban market is not huge, it might just be a tweak in our export picture, but to the people that live in Cuba, it might mean a better nutrition.

Thank you.

JAMES SCHROEDER: Thank you very much. I do want to comment on the sanctions because it's been mentioned several times. I think that led by the agriculture community, we are on the threshold of major changes in the U.S. sanctions policy. As you know, the President earlier this year made a strong statement that food and medicine should not be used as a foreign policy tool. And the administration itself is working now on regulations which will establish the presumption that food and medicine are not to be included in U.S. sanctions policies.

In the Congress, we have steps that were started last year by Senator Luger, Congressman Hamilton.

There's at least a dozen bills that in some way or in some section try to eliminate food and medicine from sanctions policies.

Now frankly, today there are only about six countries that are subject to sanctions on food and medicine. And a couple of those are unilateral -- I mean, excuse me, multilateral.

The Iraq sanction regime, for example, is going on under the United Nations, and this does have this oil for food exception. North Korea although it's under our Trading With the Enemy Act, we are sending North Korea food through the World Food Program. Frankly, in some very substantial amounts because people are literally starving. So this change, there's really only a few countries that we're talking about now Sudan, Libya, and Iran I think are the three major countries. But there is a consensus now in Washington, in Congress, the administration, that food and medicine should not be included in these sanctions policies. Why? Very basic humanitarian reasons that I think Diane has talked about with respect to Cuba and the other is the economic reasons. We do this stuff and who is there to sell the wheat and the corn? The Australians, the Canadians, the French. So I do think we've got this change going now, and that's the good news.

Now in Cuba, I must tell you there we're looking at legislation, the Helms-Burton law. Senator Helms, this is no longer up to the President, but the Congress has legislated the current regime of sanctions policies addressed at and to Cuba. The President has tried to tweak that a little bit. We've tried to liberalize that as much as we can. We can send some food and medicine down there in limited quantities which has been done to non-state controlled entities. But Cuba is a very special case for all the political and historic reasons which I don't have go back through. I'm sure you're all aware of it.

My question -- my personal question whether you're left, right, green, or red, who would follow a policy for 45 years that doesn't work? If Jack Kennedy came back from the grave tomorrow and we'd say, President Kennedy, you won't believe what has happened, the Wall's down, the Soviet Union has disappeared, the whole world is off trying to figure out how to deal with the market capitalists, and he would say fantastic. Oh, by the way, there's one policy that we're still following that you started in 1962. And guess what, Fidel is still down there. I don't understand it. I'm not sure anybody does. I look forward to the day when we can open up down there.

It seems to me the lesson of modern history with the Soviet Union, China, everybody else is, when you open up, the guys behind the walls, they last about six months. And the sooner we get more baseball games down there and more trade going, we're going to have a much better situation. That's my personal view.