Mr. Johnson. The gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Barrett, any 

 opening remarks? 



Mr. Barrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take a mo- 

 ment to welcome a friend of mine personally and a friend of this 

 subcommittee's, Mr. John Campbell from Omaha, now with Agri- 

 cultural Processing and at one time was Under Secretary of USDA 

 and a gentleman who is certainly no stranger to this subcommittee. 



Welcome, John. I look forward to the testimony not only of this 

 panel but other panels. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. Johnson. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Stenholm. 



[No response.! 



Mr. Johnson. The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Volkmer. 



OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HAROLD L. VOLKMER, A REP- 

 RESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI 



Mr. Volkmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your call- 

 ing this hearing at this time, as one who has had thousands of 

 acres flooded not only from the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in 

 my district but also from tributaries and from flash flooding due to 

 the heavy rains. 



In fact, one of them just occurred last week. Questions are going 

 to be asked because some of my farmers out there who want to re- 

 pair land damaged from flooding are now being told by Connie 

 Elson they are not eligible for ECP; and we are going to, I hope, 

 today, get some better answers than my farmers have been getting, 

 and so we can get this work done. 



Hopefully those crops, they didn't get this year, maybe we can 

 get one in next year. We have a long way to go before we get there. 

 We have levees that have to be repaired, and can't be repaired, be- 

 cause we have water going in again. 



So I want you gentlemen who are going to be testifying here — 

 I hope this subcommittee will be a little sympathetic to our plight 

 out there. It is not normal in any sense. 



So I thank the chairman for this hearing. 



Mr. Johnson. The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Minge, do you 

 have an opening statement? 



OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID MINGE, A REPRESENT- 

 ATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA 



Mr. MiNGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



The moisture and crop loss problems that we have experienced, 

 of course, are dramatic as everyone knows; and there are several 

 things which I hope that the witnesses can devote some time to. 



First of all. Federal crop insurance has been the disaster pro- 

 gram of choice, and we have had a great deal of difficulty both here 

 in Congress and within the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation in 

 putting into place a policy, at a premium rate, that has attracted 

 the type of usage that we ought to have. And a variety of reforms 

 are now actively under consideration and, I believe, are being pro- 

 posed or are about to be proposed by the administration. 



I am very concerned that we have used the disaster program 

 with disaster payments as a way to deal with the 1993 losses and 

 we have not, in any way, improved the Federal crop insurance pol- 



