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share continues to decline and the consumer's purchasing power is 

 not keeping pace as well. 



Kraft, Incorporated, big in the dairy industry, controls the Green 

 Bay Cheese Exchange. There is no doubt about that, as recently 

 documented in the Milwaukee Sentinel investigative report. Mr. 

 Chairman, if you want a copy of that report, ask me and I will see 

 that a copy of that report by the Milwaukee Sentinel is sent to 

 your office. 



The Chairman. We would appreciate that. 



Mr. Rohland. I will see to it that you get one. 



This imbalance in where the consumer's dollar is going in agri- 

 culture directly impacts the consumer and the producer in every 

 place we live. The dairy prices — I am, of course a dairy farmer — 

 are again dropping and the existing Dairy Program as well as the 

 other commodity programs need emergency attention. The squeeze 

 continues to be on us both as farmers and as consumers. 



But where are we today, then? The subject of this hearing — 

 again, as has been mentioned, I am more optimistic now than I 

 have been for 12 years — it will provide Congress a new and re- 

 newed USDA with a unique window of opportunity to develop ac- 

 tions and to push policies to change the face, the structure, and the 

 basis of rural America. Change it not in some sort of radical, wild- 

 eyed sense of the term, but to change it back to where we were 

 when the agricultural economy was solid and stable and was the 

 basis for a solid national economy. 



There needs to be a new commitment in leadership by the Agri- 

 culture Committee. Real issues, trends, and changes in the country- 

 side need to be dealt with and not ignored or left to some illusory 

 free market. 



We urge review of congressional oversight and investigative 

 hearings that have exposed and documented the myriad of agency 

 problems. These concerns range from low farm income, lack of civil 

 rights enforcement within USDA, lack of enforcement of the Pack- 

 ers and Stockyards Act, failure of the USDA appeals process, 

 among a myriad of other concerns. 



For farmers and farm advocates, these hearings have been an op- 

 portunity to state the problems, yet the solutions have been con- 

 sistently ignored. I am referring to the hearings that have been 

 held over the last number of years. Attention has been called to 

 these things and we know what this committee was up against 

 when it came to trying to find out what was really going on in the 

 implementation of the laws and the programs that you put togeth- 

 er with a lot of difficulty. 



There is now a chance to put these reams of hearings into action 

 and see improvements in the delivery of existing programs and 

 new programs that have been consistently ignored. We urge the 

 House Agriculture Committee to join with us in urging the new 

 USDA — perhaps I should say that we will join with you, sir — to im- 

 plement policies that begin to revert the devastating losses facing 

 our Nation's farmers and rural communities. 



Some of the specific suggestions we have made are in an attach- 

 ment to my testimony, sir. 



The first challenge is to use the discretion within the 1990 farm 

 bill to provide flexibility that will start to promote changes for 



