House Ag Committee Goes to Kansas

September 14, 1999

The House Agriculture committee holds a field hearing Sept. 18 at the Kansas State Fair Grounds, Hutchinson, KS. Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS) had asked the committee to hold the hearing.

"Lost market values and adverse weather have hurt producers across the country, and a timely response from Congress will be based on crop and regional needs on the record before the House Agriculture Committee," said committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX). The Kansas hearing "is well timed with what we will have heard earlier in the week from farm and commodity groups as well as from the Secretary of Agriculture."

Moran wanted members to hear what Kansas producers have been telling him. "With farmers and ranchers enduring the worst farm crisis since the 1980s," Moran said, he wanted members of the committee to "see first hand how the low prices are affecting rural America. The current agriculture crisis is more than numbers and estimates; it is about real people. I hope this hearing will impress upon my colleagues the need for immediate action to assist with the survival of a generation of farmers and ranchers."

Scheduled to testify at the hearing are USDA chief economist Keith Collins, Kansas City Federal Reserve Board agricultural economist Mark Drabenstott, representatives from the Kansas Farm Burea, Kansas Farmers' Union, Kansas chapter of Women Involved in Farm Economics (WIFE) and producers from Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Back in Washington, Secretary Glickman will testify on the farm economy tomorrow, Septmber 15, following testimony by national farm groups given today, September 14. Glickman will appear before the House Agriculture Committee.