JIM WEBER: Thank you for the chance to be here. The last time I was in Kearney I took a silver medal home with the high jump. I guess I won't do that today. Let's try for the gold. Okay.

Everybody is saying we have too much farm production. Worldwide. World prices are low on farm products. Why not tax the oil people when that fuel is brought into this country.

Well, let's take it back even a littler further. My granddad rode a saddle horse from North Platte to Rapid City where he worked in the Homestake Goldmine to support his homestead.

My dad said the biggest improvement of all, when the wife asked him what she had seen, that was right after they put a man on the moon, getting rid of those horses. Lot faster to farm, didn't have to stop and rest every little bit and sure didn't eat nearly as much of what was raised.

So let's put a tax on that imported oil based upon gross national farm product and the exports of the country. Right now America is up to 4 percent of its gross national product and imbalance of trade. Can't last too long like that, can we? Okay.

The other issue I've done a year of researching on it, when the Congressional aides asked or I asked what we could do to improve right quick cattle prices, he looked around and nobody was watching him and he says call in EPA, stop all the growth hormones and all the chemicals brought in. Cattle be a little less efficient, take a lot -- not a lot more feed but a little bit more, and we were probably some of the very first to try the chemicals. Found out later on we could produce just as good with better genetics. Don't need the chemicals.

Our grass management is enough better, we don't need those growth hormones.

Our food crops are enough better, fertilizer. Even, as he said, we have organic farming. We're producing better crops. We don't need those growth hormones in America now.

And let's give Dan Morgan a big round of applause for his help in proving that you can sell what the customer wants.

Okay. A third area, do I need to put glasses on? Why are we pushing World Trade Organization to accept our genetically modified crops? We can produce all the food the world needs now without those genetic modifications. However, you give us the right environment, we can also produce all the lubricant, all the power, all the fuel you need, all the medicine you need off the farm products.

Once the soybeans people start producing world oil, I don't think they're going to object to diesel fuel produced from soybeans even if they are modified. We use genetically modified corn last year. About all I can say for it is "wow". It produces.

Even on sand and gravel it was fantastic, and not a weed available.

Also like to go back to Joe again. We got to get back away from spending too much money and go back a little bit more to organic farming. We've made the circle, we've tried them all.

Back when I started farming, and we were only a second owner on that piece of land which is north of the forest at Halsey, Valentine sands on one side of the river, and we kind of organically farmed that. I had rye flowing on it every single year. That was back in '73 and '83 when that horse rolled over me.

And that organic or cover crop or whatever you want to call it, or as dad says, corn always grows better following rye. Also held up the moisture, made things a lot better. So don't be afraid to try new things, and let's see if we can't stop some of this -- or capitalize on the people who do have the money, who will hurt us the least. Oil producers, right? Most money. Least amount of people to be hurt.

Thank you.

MICHAEL LEPORTE: Thank you, Jim. Rex Woollen we'll call on next.

JAMES SCHROEDER: Let me make one comment. Mr. Murphy has made some comments on GAO's, hormones.

The first question whether these things are safe, whether they're safe to eat, whether they're safe for our animals, whether they're safe for our environment, that's a basic question that I am interested in and you're interested in and everybody in the world is interested in. And there we're looking to our scientists, the Food and Drug Administration, the EPA and others--I'm not a scientist, I have no idea--to tell us is this safe? Is it safe for our environment? Is it safe for our animals? Is it safe for me to eat? That's a question we're all concerned about. We all want the answer to it.

Now, if it is safe, if our scientists -- our best scientists, sound science, good science whatever you want to say yes, yes, it's safe, then the question is, am I going to use this stuff as a producer for example? I don't know. That's a question of economics and preference and a whole lot of other decisions go into that.

Likewise as a consumer, and I've told this to my European friends, I'm not asking that you must buy a Colorado lamb chop or Nebraska steak or whatever. If you don't want to buy an American steak, fine, nobody is going to force you to buy an American piece of meat.

But then the third issue is and this is what offends me and offends others, and this is the principle that we -- that we thought we established in 1994. We all got together and said, okay, on a trade barrier, if you're going to say, no, you can't export that, you can't sell that in my country, you must do that on the basis that it is not safe. You can't say that, no, we're not going to sell or accept American meat even though it's safe, but we just don't like the idea that it might have hormones or GMO's. The answer to that is, look, if you don't want to buy it and if your people don't buy it, fine. But at least you cannot shut or don't shut your market to that because guess what, when I'm down in Florida, I got to tell you the steakhouse is full of Germans and Frenchmen, and they're all getting those big steaks. We think the Europeans or some Europeans would love to buy American meat if they have the opportunity. They ought to have that choice. So that's the way I see the GMO hormone issue.

On the other hand, for Mr. Morgan and Mr. Coleman out in Colorado who want to produce organic, non-hormone beef, more power to them because then the people that want that can get it and pay for it and enjoy it.