March 20, 1980
Page 6065
USDA TURNS ITS BACK ON MAINE FARMERS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, today, March 20, is National Agriculture day. In recognition of the importance of American agriculture, the producers of Maine potatoes have presented each Member of Congress with a 5-pound bag of Maine potatoes. I am sure my colleagues will find these potatoes of excellent quality and nutritional value. I hope each of my colleagues enjoys them as if they were his last. Because without exaggeration, the Maine potato industry is in danger of extinction.
Imports of subsidized Canadian potatoes are forcing prices down and keeping unsold inventories high. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture has offered this solution. It has recommended that 25 percent of the industry go bankrupt.
For the third consecutive year, Maine potato farmers face crushing financial losses. Canadian imports of potatoes into the Eastern markets are 70 percent higher than a year ago. Because of this tremendous increase in potato imports, there remain 19.8 million hundredweight of potatoes in storage in Maine — 66 percent of the total Maine crop for 1979.
Packaging, transportation, fertilizer, labor and energy costs are all on the increase. The total cost to the farmer to produce a 5-pound bag of potatoes is approximately 25 cents. For his effort, a Maine producer could get about 9 cents for a 5-pound bag this week — a loss of 16 cents for every 5 pounds of potatoes harvested.
The bottom line is that unless markets can be found for the potatoes still in storage, the potato industry in Maine will lose $84 million.
On February 7, in an attempt to minimize the loss, the Maine potato industry asked their Government for a diversion program. After all, a diversion would be financed by a tariff on agricultural imports under the USDA's "section 32" program. Canadian imports are harming Maine agricultural goods. The program is designed specifically for this purpose. There is now $210 million in the section 32 fund. A Maine diversion program would have cost only $15 million.
Nevertheless, on March 14, Secretary Bergland informed the Maine potato industry that the administration would not establish a diversion program for Maine. This decision is a staggering blow to the potato industry of Maine. It will cause severe economic consequences to the largest county in Maine. And I fear that the economic repercussions will rival the difficulty of the Great Depression.
Conservative estimates are that without a diversion program one in four Maine potato growers will not be able to harvest next year. This means that the growers will decline in number from just less than 1,000 farmers to 750. Twenty-five years ago, in 1954, when I was Governor of Maine, there were 5,000 potato farmers.
Moreover, Maine is the only area of the country which has substantially reduced its potato acreage during the past 25 years.
For example, North Dakota, acreage up 28 percent; Washington State, acreage up 186 percent; Idaho, acreage up 96 percent; and Maine, during the same 25-year period, down 18 percent.
Maine has done more than its share to reduce the national production of potatoes.
Further, I might add that this dramatic increase in potato acreage in the Western States is primarily due to federally funded irrigation projects. Similar projects have not benefited my area of the country.
And so this last week potato farmers in Maine's northernmost county began acts of civil disobedience. They are frustrated and worried. Most of these people are small family farmers who do not want a Government handout, but a chance to make a profit, and hopefully pass their farm on to their children.
Instead, approximately 250 farmers may lose their farms because of the unfavorable decision on the diversion program. The Farmers Home Administration, which finances approximately 70 percent of the growers in Aroostook County, Maine, may stand to lose $25 million in defaults. There will be increased welfare, food stamp, and other costs as these independent people are forced onto the dole.
One agency's costs may not be the concern of another, particularly when all agencies are being asked to cut back. But they ought to be of concern to the Congress.
Maine potato farmers sought help from the Government because governmental policies have contributed mightily to their problems. New trade policies have made it possible for Canadian potatoes — grown under Government subsidy — to undersell our own product in the Boston market. Relief under the Trade Act is at least 3 months away — too far away to save this year's crop. Our trade policies are of benefit to potato farmers in Western States. They hurt Maine.
Yet the USDA had the gall to tell Maine farmers that their request was denied because farmers in other States did not want a diversion program this year. USDA had the gall to suggest in a letter to me that acreage reductions were the answer. In other parts of the country where huge agribusiness corporations operate, "acreage reduction" does not mean bankruptcy. In Maine, in these lean years, it does.
The Department of Agriculture has offered only one solution: In its informational literature, it is telling food buyers that potatoes are cheap. At the same time, it is buying processed Idaho potatoes for use in Maine school lunch programs.
Maine's farmers deserve better treatment from their Government. I will work to see that they get it.