We will start today's hearing with opening remarks only from 

 myself and the ranldng Republican on the subcommittee, although 

 we do have the ranking Republican on the full committee here as 

 well, and I would defer to lum for comments in just a moment. No 

 other subcommittee members will be allowed to make opening 

 statements, but we will allow statements to be inserted in the 

 record as requested. 



We will also ask each of the witnesses to summarize their testi- 

 mony. I would hope that none of them would rely on their text, but 

 would instead use the 5 minutes available to summarize as best 

 they can their input to this subcommittee. 



In addition, we will have a period of time in which we will view 

 a video, in which two Russian farmers are expressing their views 

 about the situation within their country, and then we'll have a tele- 

 phone hook-up with one of those individuals and also £in official 

 from the ag ministry in Russia where we can ask a series of ques- 

 tions. From there we will move on to our other panels for the re- 

 mainder of the morning, and we would hope to adjourn this hear- 

 ing by 12 noon. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Penny follows:] 



I 



