What is particularly distressing about the farm issue is the lack of honesty in the public dialog. Constructive solutions will only come when leaders have the courage to discuss their views candidly.

Since 1950, the number of farms has declined from 5.6 million to about 2 million today. This has occurred in spite of hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies flowing from the federal government to farmers during the last 50 years. This trend will continue, and we ought to acknowledge that. To attempt to counter this trend is to waste resources, resources that could be used to soften the adjustment, or to help develop rural America in other ways.

Freedom to Farm was passed in 1996. It was an attempt to phase out farm subsidies. Fixed transition payments, not tied to production, would be made for seven years. I support the goal of Freedom to Farm, but not the results.

In order for Freedom to Farm to succeed, other steps that ease the burden of transition must occur simultaneously. These include:

• Providing practical private sector risk-management vehicles so that farmers can know at the beginning of a growing season what price they will receive for the crop at harvest time. A farmer can then base planting decisions upon a known market. Risk would be borne by private sector speculators rather than the farmer.
• Expanding foreign markets through specific initiatives such as the recent agreement with China.
• Expanding foreign markets through broad economic policies that encourage trade surpluses rather than trade deficits. Chief among these are policies which encourage higher national savings.
• Making progress on reducing subsidies offered by the European Union.
• Creating and expanding business and job opportunities in rural communities.
• Terminating programs such as the Northeast Dairy Compact and the Federal Milk Marketing Order System, which work to the advantage of farmers in one region of the country to the disadvantage of farmers in another.
• Allowing alternative crops, such as hemp, to be grown.
• Refraining from using agricultural goods as a weapon.
• Ensuring competitive markets.

To the extent that subsidies continue, and to the extent that these subsidies are promoted with the goal of saving the small family farm, subsidies should be tightly targeted to those in need. Last year's $8.7 billion emergency-relief farm bill was sold to the public as help for the struggling family farm, but was distributed without regard to size of farm or financial need. Such policy produces a cynicism among the public, and ultimately undermines support for even targeted financial aid.

Looking over my DFL opponents' agricultural stands, I could not help but notice a common thread, namely, we need to subsidize the family farm in order to "save" rural America/Minnesota. Folks, this is pandering to a constituency that the DFL itself created. I could not disagree more with the conclusion that subsidies to struggling small farms are the requisite cure for rural America. In fact, I believe that this climate of dependence may very well be the poison that is draining the life out of rural America.

Now, I am fully aware that my last statement is incredibly controversial, yet I believe we must be honest about this. We had 5.6 million farms in this country in 1950; today we have just over 2 million. In other words, we have lost more farms in the last 50 years then are currently in existence. In that time, we have invested HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars in farm subsidies. My question to my DFL opponents is simply, if subsidies are what is needed to "save" the family farm, then why have we lost so many farms in this era of subsidies? How many more billions of dollars would it have taken to keep these farms in operation? Most importantly (and I'm not hearing this addressed), is keeping failing farms temporarily in existence by propping them up with taxpayer money the smartest way to spend funds earmarked for the revitalization of rural America?

Many farmers are struggling, but the aggregate numbers do not indicate an across-the-board crisis. In the 1980s, net farm income averaged $28.8 billion per year. In the 1990s, that number increased to $45.4 per year. And in 1999, net farm income was $48.1 billion, the fourth largest net farm income on record. Click here to see the numbers for each year.

So why are so many farmers struggling, while others are doing well? Simply put, economies of scale.

According to a 1998 USDA study, this is not about corporate versus family farms. It is a struggle of large farms versus small, and most large farms are successful family farms that have simply grown larger over the years. To suggest that this is between corporate versus family farms is pure demagoguery.

In spite of the subsidies that flow to farmers, the number of small farms continues to decline. To my DFL opponents, I ask the question, "How much money will it take to save the small family farm"? I've never met a person who considered themselves "saved", by becoming dependent. In my experience, the inverse seems to be the case. If our goal is the health of rural America, wouldn't that money be better invested in education, technology and infrastructure for these struggling communities?

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