STAN ROSENDAHL: Thank you, and I would like to say thanks to those people who put this meeting on and made it available for us to come up and testify.

I farm north of Columbus, Nebraska, and we raise grain and livestock through our operation. I'm also the current producer president of the Nebraska Pork Producer's Association. And we feel the upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle will be of great importance to agriculture producers, especially at a time of devastatingly low commodity prices. The ag sector needs to see new hope of opening markets for agriculture products.

Nebraska's economy is highly dependent on a prosperous and thriving ag sector. Nebraska's abundance of open land, high quality ground water, and clean air all combine to produce high quality corn and soybeans. Adding value to these crops whether it's through wet milling corn plants or Nebraska's livestock operations across the State, it benefits all of Nebraska's population by turning dollars through our local communities.

In April, I had the honor of representing Nebraska pork producers on the Governor's trade mission to Taiwan and Japan. I saw firsthand the opportunities for Nebraska agriculture in these countries. Taiwan officials specifically spoke of the need for their country to enter the World Trade Organization and the willingness to keep a positive trade balance. The need for agriculture food products to feed their high population becomes a center of focus for trade negotiations, keeping fair and equitable trades based on sound science must happen in these negotiations. Participation in trade missions such as this one will assure Nebraska producers and products a place in the global picture.

While all the talk of increased exports and opportunities sound great, I would like to inject a world of caution into the mix. One of the biggest complaints and the biggest reason why producers have a hard time getting excited by talks of increased export is the inability of producers to participate in the profits of export sales. Producers are told they need to promote export sales through use of producer check-off dollars, yet seldom do the profits from these exports benefit producers to any big degree.

It seems as though corporations set up to buy raw ag products as cheap as possible which recently has been below the cost of production, add value, and export the product, keeping profits for shareholders and leaving producers with huge equity losses is a problem.

One only need look as far as the pork industry. Here independent producers have lost 30 percent of their equity over the last 18 months. That amounts to $203 million loss for Nebraska producers and $3.7 billion loss for U.S. pork producers with continuing losses today. All the while the corporate segments above the producer level are thriving on record profits. If this is allowed to continue not only in Nebraska agriculture but also in U.S. agriculture as well as of our rural communities, independent ag producers, and the family farms who they represent are deemed to failure. While this is an ag industry structure problem, it needs to be recognized as very possibly affecting the way agriculture products are exported and more importantly how agricultural products are viewed by other countries. Take pride of ownership and take pride of producing a quality product away from the independent producer, and you will change the product we are exporting.

The consolidation and concentration of agriculture will result in increased risk of food safety and disease. Examples are the recent Belgium feed contamination scare and the problems Taiwan has had with hoof and mouth disease. Concentrate and consolidate U.S. agriculture, and we increase the risk of it happening here, devastating our export capability.

Ag producers and their associations, ag corporations, government authorities need to work together so we can benefit from increased exports not only in Nebraska ag products but all U.S. products.

Personally, I would like to say I don't want to sound like an alarmist up here, but the pork industry is in trouble especially after yesterday's devastating hogs and pig report. Independent producers are being forced out of the industry by vertically integrated segment. The Nebraska pork industry is made up of independent producers. We are now at greater risk than some other states.

As producers call for help, it's hard to remain positive when as President of the Nebraska Pork Producer's Association, I can't even stand here today and say for sure that I will have hogs on my place in six months. Yet with heavy hearts we will try to move ahead with a positive attitude to get and keep open markets for our products and producers. The consumer dollar and export dollars must flow down to the producer level.

Thank you for coming to Nebraska to meet and listen with Nebraska producers, and we look forward to working and continuing to dialogue with all interested parties in this industry.

MICHAEL LEPORTE: Thank you.

JAMES SCHROEDER: Just a quick comment. As has been mentioned, I'm a lawyer, and I've only been back in the USDA since '93, but one of the privileges I get is to read a lot of material, market reports. And what I'm going to say again, you guys probably all know this, but the thing about prices and exports is the way little tweaks out here on the margin are so important. The domestic demand in the United States for whatever it is doesn't change that much. And it's fairly easy to predict, but tweaks on the exports margins are what move markets by at least from what I can see. And so when we are increasing exports in particular key markets or when we've gotten a new agreement that promises more exports in a foreign market, that moves the market up. And boy when we lose an export sale or have a problem in an export market, the market goes down. So I would argue that producers do benefit from exports because as the export market moves out there on those margins, that is a big factor in how those prices are being driven.

STAN ROSENDAHL: I definitely would agree with you that producers benefit to a degree, but it's hard when hogs are at $8, now we're at 34, so not even breaking even. For producers to see those benefits is hard for them. Thank you.