39 



very important. We can bump up, though, by the end of the century 

 and be in a far better position than we are now. 



Mr. Stenholm. Carol, I would agree with your bringing in these 

 other questionable countries, for example, where the former Soviet 

 Union is going, obviously what happens in China. The North Ko- 

 rean conflict, there are a lot of things that can change this over- 

 night. But for long-term planning purposes, you have to look at 

 that as an opportunity. 



And my final question to you is this: I long believed that the crit- 

 ical point, part of our 1995 farm bill, is going to be making certain 

 that we give our producers, and not just agricultural producers, but 

 for this committee, primarily agricultural producers and those that 

 produce agricultural goods and services, the technological tools to 

 compete in this world marketplace as it is. Not as we wished it 

 were. 



So often the rhetoric here is how we wish it would be when we 

 talk about free market. But many things come to mind right now 

 of the kind of tools that we should be thinking about putting in the 

 farm bill that will give our producers of agricultural commodities. 

 Also, Carol, as you say on page 5, we can sell not only agricultural 

 products, we can finance the transfer of U.S. food processing tech- 

 nology. 



I think all of this is critical to the long-term development of a 

 world market in which American producers can look forward to 

 participating in, in a profitable way. What are some of the tools 

 that we need to be thinking about giving our producers to make 

 certain whatever the Europeans do, we are able to do with them, 

 to do that which is in the best interest of our producers. We need 

 to give us that level playing field that we all talk about, some poli- 

 cies, anything? 



Ms. Patrick. We would like to see far greater emphasis put on 

 the technology side, on research in the kinds of areas that increase 

 profitability to producers, that expand new uses for products, that 

 make products available to a wider range of people. These are very 

 important and they are important in an export sense, because they 

 instill the kinds of faith that producers need to go on. And it does 

 level the playing field. It creates opportunity and it is very impor- 

 tant. 



Mr. Stenholm. Before the others answer, there has been one 

 project that I have taken on in the Department of Operation and 

 Nutrition Subcommittee in visiting with the hunger community, 

 both domestic and foreign, is making this observation, that if you 

 are hungry, you could care less whether your food supply is 98 per- 

 cent safe or 98.2. You are interested in volume, and you could care 

 less how it gets there. 



Markets do not matter to a person who is hungry and has no 

 money, regardless of the circumstances of how they get there. And 

 it has seemed to me that we need to be more careful, particularly 

 if you come from the hunger and nutrition community, need to be 

 more careful how we attack technology in the United States. Be- 

 cause where we can produce food at higher prices for a limited 

 number of people by eliminating technology, we cannot feed the 

 hungry in America or certainly in the world if we eliminate tech- 

 nology. 



