Thank you Mr. Chairman.  I am pleased to be here today for the third hearing on agricultural research.  Last week we heard from an interesting array of witnesses on the structure and value of the federal research and education system.  Their testimony provided much food for thought about how we should approach the re-authorization of research programs.

Today I am especially delighted because the Committee will hear from farmers and farm groups, the primary beneficiaries of the information generated by the agricultural research system.  Farmers and ranchers are the first users of the vast majority of plant and animal research conducted by our federal labs and land-grant experiment stations.  Indeed, because this system is so important to farmers and ranchers across the country they support this research financially with through various check-off programs.

As investors and stakeholders in the research system, I believe farmers should have more say in what research is pursued and how research priorities are set.  We should also ensure that agricultural research develops technologies to help producers improve both their productivity and profitability.  By keeping our family farmers on the land our research system can contribute to the overall economic prosperity of rural communities.

Today the Committee will hear about experiments done by farmers on their own land to improve their profitability.  We will also hear about grass-roots efforts to develop value-added enterprises and alternative markets for commodities.   The federal research system can and should back up these efforts with scientific and technological research.

Our farmers already invest their sweat and labor in producing food and fiber.  Today they are investing their own dollars to improve their economic futures.  We owe it to them to put the muscle of the agricultural research system behind their efforts.