ROBERT HENDRICKSON: I'm Bob Hendrickson. I'm a diversified farmer from Shickley, Nebraska. The American farmer can compete globally, but it's still going to be much tougher. If we're going to have a global market, then we all need to have the same rules so that global agribusinesses cannot play South American farmers against North American ones.

America cannot accept the cheapest goods irregardless of how they are produced. If the United States doesn't allow certain goods, certain chemicals or production practices to be used here, then why are we willing to import products that have been produced that way? The same goes for labor practices and environmental practices.

Currently the American farmer's main advantage has been technology. Now technology is exported as well as goods. Argentine farmers pay less than half for Roundup and have no technology fee to pay on seed. Do American farmers subsidize our Argentine counterparts? Obviously American farmers pay to develop the technology which is then exported worldwide. Our goods are then the high-cost products that can't compete globally.

In the global market, we need to listen to the customer. The Europeans would no doubt be shocked to learn they have been uneducated. They have made it abundantly clear that they don't want genetically modified crops. Therefore our government should never have given the go ahead to GMO's, genetically modified organisms, without requiring a separate distribution channel. Another instance where the American farmer pays so global agribusiness can benefit.

We must also have a competitive transportation system. This cannot be accomplished by the consolidation that has been allowed to occur in the railroads or the proposed Cargill-Continental merger. On an Omaha financial radio show, the hosts recognized the monopoly position the UP has and the amount of dollars it will put in its coffers.

Also, the river system needs improvements to be competitive not just with the railroad but with Brazil. Brazil can bring big ships 1,000 miles up the Amazon akin to loading big ships at the southeast corner of Nebraska.

We must have a competitive market system both domestically and globally. Mark Drabbenstott, an agricultural economist for the Federal Reserve in Kansas City has said it was unnecessary to have a number of companies competing. Rather we just need to prevent meetings in hotel rooms. An impossible task that overlooks the core problem. Agribusiness ogilopoly in key commodity markets.

Will America drop to the world standard of living? Will the rest of the world rise to our standard? Without an edge like technology, our land price must go down. Land in Brazil that produces similar crop is approximately a third the cost. Land in the United States is worth much more for houses and other non-productive uses. To make us competitive, labor costs must also go down. A minimum wage law in the United States cannot be enforced if we are perfectly willing to import cheaper goods made with no such restrictions. In such a trading system, it is truly a race to the bottom for American farmers and their counterparts around the globe. And a race to the top for global agribusinesses like ADM, Cargill, ConAgra, Monsanto, Novartis and others.

If American farmers are competing on a world market yet the U.S. government has been unwilling to try and force other countries to follow the WTO. The tariffs on products in response to the beef hormone issue has become a cost of business to the EU instead of changing their behavior. I want the producers to benefit from the trade that we hope to have.

Thank you.