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American Agco has been in the business of purchasing, blending, 

 and distributing agricultural products in South St. Paul since 1936. 

 And like everyone else involved in agriculture, we have seen a tre- 

 mendous change in the past 60 years. We have also, like most busi- 

 nesses, looked at these changes only from the standpoint of how 

 they affect our business and how they directly affect our own firms. 



Coming into the meeting room this morning, I was struck by the 

 irony of the mural behind you. I am sure that after all these years 

 it has become just another fixture, but I can't think of a better de- 

 piction of what is going on in the United States with our natural 

 resources. 



Larger and more intensive farms, increased concentration of live- 

 stock operation, bigger and better highway systems to transport 

 our products, and the continuous growth of our urban areas have 

 had a major impact on how we manage our operations today. Un- 

 fortunately, as we as a company struggle to deal with these 

 changes, we lose sight at how these very changes are impacting our 

 country's most precious asset, and that is our nongame wildlife. 



In recent years, the fastest growing sector of American Agco has 

 been its Nature's Seasons birdseed division. This facet of our com- 

 pany brought us into contact with the Minnesota Department of 

 Natural Resources. And through a coalition of business and the De- 

 partments of Natural Resources and Agriculture, we developed the 

 Wild Bird Conservation Program that was established in 1995, and 

 this program assists in the funding of nongame wildlife in the 

 State of Minnesota. 



It was through this program that we learned about the deterio- 

 rating conditions of nongame wildlife in the United States. The 

 fragmentation of natural habitat, increasingly polluted streams and 

 ponds, and the dwindling budgets for nongame wildlife research 

 are all contributing to this problem. 



American Agco has studied this proposal and this initiative enti- 

 tled "Teaming with Wildlife." And we are very, very much aware 

 of the obvious objections to this plan by the other members of our 

 industry. Yet, after careful consideration, we believe the objectives 

 of "Teaming with Wildlife" to be of the utmost importance, that the 

 scope of the proposal is very reasonable and that with but a few 

 exceptions, the user fee approach for the funding is fair. 



Our support for "Teaming with Wildlife" is based in part on two 

 very basic business principles and one civic responsibility. Number 

 1, we support the program because it expands our marketbase. Our 

 Nature's Seasons bird food is sold to thousands of customers who 

 enjoy feeding and watching wild birds. 



So although our customers are bird-watchers, our end users are 

 wild birds. The future growth of our market depends not only on 

 the increased popularity of the hobby, but also a sustained and in- 

 creased growth of the variety of wild birds in this country. 



We recognize the expertise of the biologists, naturalists, and 

 wildlife specialists who work in wildlife management with govern- 

 ment agencies across the country. Many of the witnesses here 

 today in support of this initiative are far more qualified than I to 

 address the present State of nongame populations. While I don't 

 present myself as an expert in this area, I do feel very comfortable 



