BILL KALIFF: I'm Bill Kaliff, and I'm from Grand Island, Nebraska. The thing that I would like to ask or bring to your attention right now is that I want to know who is in charge of inventory control for this magnificent farming operation that we have going for us. To show what lack of inventory control has done to us, I took and pulled some numbers off of the net last evening. And the end of 1997, the corn supply in the United States was 24 and a 4th percent of the world supply at that time at the end of the year. And that created a price of $2.70 per bushel. At the end of '98, the United States had 38.5 percent of the world's supply of corn. The corn that had not been used in that year. And that in turn gave us a $2.45 per bushel price. In 1999, the figures that I pulled off of the net indicate that the United States is going to have a 45.6 percent of the world's corn surplus. The corn that hasn't been consumed at the end of that time. And that is projected to give us a price of approximately a $1.85 a bushel.

In addition to the price of corn having gone down, the price of hogs last year basically evaporated. It just went down to nothing. We've had -- our beef people have been in trouble for the last several years, and what I want to know is who is it that's in charge of the inventory control for this great nation that we have? Admittedly we can produce the stuff. But we produce it to excess and this excess diminishes the value that we get per unit.

Let me carry on here and just give you another shot. The farm income stabilization that is projected to be for 1999 is $18 billion, 405 million dollars. This is the money that's going to come out of the treasury, the federal treasury to basically go to these half a million farmers that are still engaged in the business to keep them in operation, to keep them from falling apart. They can't make it on the prices that we're getting paid for the market, and surprisingly enough that $18 billion boils down to a stipend for each person in the United States, man, woman, and child of $69.07 per capita. I would much prefer that we got that out of the market. I don't want it coming out -- being paid into the treasury and then sucked back out by farmers that need it to continue in existence.

The -- it's interesting to see what's happened, where do these profits go? Obviously Cargill got some of them. The Iowa Beef Packers got some of them. The Iowa Beef Packers fourth quarter dividend at the end of last year in 1998 was .92 cents per share. That was four times what the dividend had been for the previous year. So as we create additional items to be expended or to be sold by our processors, it's their income that goes up and ours that goes down.

I would like to address this to both of the Jims over there. Are you aware of the mission statement or the vision statement that USDA has? Either one of you, do you know what it is?

JAMES SCHROEDER: USDA?

BILL KALIFF: Yes. USDA has both a mission statement and a vision statement.

JAMES SCHROEDER: I'm sure that's right. I don't have it in front of me. We've been working on this vision statement and mission statements.

BILL KALIFF: Well, somebody has diluted you because it's on the net. And the mission statement as I copied it last evening is "to enhance the quality of life for the American people by supporting production of agriculture." I can give you a copy of this when I'm through.

The vision that USDA has is of a healthy and productive nation in harmony with the land and whatever semblance of harmony there was at one time is totally gone. The farmers are probably in the worst shape that they have -- excuse me, I guess I used up my time.