104 



Russia that would be a benefit not only to their agriculture, but our 

 agriculture as well. 



And I wanted to thank Cooper for his patience, his diligence, and 

 his perseverance. I don't know of anybody who is more committed 

 to these goals or anybody who has been more helpful to them. So 

 thank you, Coop, we miss you on the committee, but I think you 

 are providing an equally valuable service in your current position. 

 And so it is with some degree of affectionate admiration that I 

 want to welcome Mr. Evans back to the scene of the crime in this 

 subcommittee room. There were many long days when we consid- 

 ered Mr. Evans' amendments to the farm bill, most of which if we 

 had the good wisdom to pass, were a benefit to farmers not only 

 in Iowa, but in Kansas and all over the country. 



So anyway, thank you, sir, for coming back. 



Mr. NUSSLE. Would the gentleman yield? 



Mr. Roberts. I would be delighted to yield. 



Mr. NusSLE. I too would add my welcome to my constituent now 

 whose shoes I have tried to fill in the new reconfigured Iowa's Sec- 

 ond District and it is a proud day to have you here to have the op- 

 portunity to get some wisdom on this particular issue. I, luckily, 

 Mr. Chairman, have the opportunity later on to visit with Cooper 

 Evans privately where maybe he can hit me over the head and let 

 me know what really is going on over there and I am looking for- 

 ward to that as well. So with that, I would yield back. 



Thank you. 



Mr. Penny. Thank you. Cooper, both you and Professor Gashler 

 spoke of the need to establish some kind of extension program on 

 the ground in Russia. How would you go about doing that? Who do 

 we work through to provide that information? How would that be 

 staffed? 



Mr. Evans. I think it could be done with essentially no new orga- 

 nization or staff. I mean, it is mostly a matter of selecting appro- 

 priate documents that are available now in our Extension Service, 

 editing them slightly, getting them translated, and then getting 

 them reproduced in Russia where they can be reproduced at essen- 

 tially no cost, very, very low cost. 10,000 copies for $400, boy, you 

 can get a lot of material out. 



The distribution system exists. It exists through their farmers' 

 organization at a national level all the way down to the county 

 level. They would love to have documents to distribute. They can 

 be distributed by volunteers in the farmer-to-farmer program very 

 easily, but the biggest network that exists is the old command 

 structure of Soviet agriculture. It is still in place. The command 

 function is gone. Even though those district offices, that I am famil- 

 iar with, they are wondering what in the world we can do to be 

 useful, and I think, one, by just making the materials available 

 might start the process of a natural evolution of a new Rome for 

 some of these offices £ind these people that they can't really let go 

 and are sitting there twiddling their thumbs in large measure. 



So most any organization that is now in Russia could implement 

 this program at very little cost. VOCA could do it. Others could do 

 it. It is not a problem. A modest amount of money as a pilot effort 

 in 6 months time, would be very interesting to see what might 

 occur. 



