46 



that if we sat down a little bit longer we would find that the divi- 

 sions are far fewer than we would otherwise think. 



Yesterday, one of the more important witnesses before the Wash- 

 ington State senate committee was a very astute woman from the 

 trade group promoting meat. If you would compare our statements, 

 they were almost the same. I would think that there were others 

 that wouldn't have believed that that would have happened. It is to 

 all of our benefits to assure Americans that it is a safe, quality food 

 supply. 



When it comes to your statement of who I am, I am who I am. I 

 am someone who cares — from a cotton, soybean, rice, and catfish 

 region — but someone who has participated across the range of com- 

 modity discussions as we crafted the last farm bill, and somebody 

 who knows now that I have to protect all the farming income of all 

 the farmers whatever they grow, whatever they raise, and what- 

 ever they produce. And I am going to do that. 



I am someone who traveled with the chairman and others to 

 these important international trading discussions, someone who 

 cares about GATT and NAFTA, and knows that if agriculture is to 

 be more successful in the future, we have to consider the opening 

 of new markets as the strength and the area in which we must 

 move more strongly than we have heretofore. 



Agriculture is going to be all about market development, wheth- 

 er it is multilateral or even bilateral. I am all about that. 



And then I am all about rural development. You have heard 

 here that I am responsible for a bunch of different things promot- 

 ing rural economies and I am going to continue to do that. 



I am all about hunger. I am also a bipartisan person. I come 

 from a district with many different types of folks. I have been able 

 to represent them all adequately while I was here and I will repre- 

 sent you and your interests as well as others. 



The Chairman. The Chair will recognize very briefly, because of 

 the constraint on the time of the Secretary, Mr. Allard and Mr. 

 Penny. 



Mr. Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. 



I would like to congratulate the Secretary on his appointment 

 and say that I do look forward to working with you. I would like to 

 spend my time, as brief as it is, to invite you to come to visit the 

 district that I represent, particularly Colorado. We have a lot of 

 dryland farming there and we have a lot of issues that are very 

 special. You don't really appreciate the significance until you get 

 on the farm, put your foot on the soil, and see what is happening 

 as far as soil conservation issues, for example. 



We also do a lot of irrigated agriculture, so that does bring up a 

 lot of water issues — Clean Water Act — and how you're going to 

 manage those farms, as well as the Endangered Species Act and a 

 lot of other issues related to irrigated farming. 



Again, I would hope that you would take time to visit districts 

 such as I represent because until you are right there and see the 

 problems, it is pretty difficult to understand exactly what they're 

 talking about. Obviously, I am delighted to hear your comments on 

 rural economic development. I agree that rules and regulations are 

 disproportionately affecting small communities in rural areas. 



