The Seattle World Trade Organization ministerial meeting beginning just two months from now will be extremely important to our nation’s farm families, rural communities and agriculture-related industries.  Agriculture is slated to be center stage in the next round of WTO negotiations, and a lot is at stake.

 So I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing on the various issues that will be involved in the Seattle WTO meeting and on our government’s preparations for these important discussions.  I also want to thank Kyle Phillips, a corn grower from Knoxville, Iowa, for appearing this morning on behalf of the National Corn Growers Association.

 As our panelists will testify today, there are huge barriers in international markets to U.S. agricultural exports.  The Uruguay Round made significant steps, but a lot of work remains to be done in knocking down tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade and in eliminating the use of export subsidies.  All of these mechanisms employed by other countries work against U.S. farmers.  Equally important, the next round will be forced to deal with a range of new issues that have taken on far greater importance since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round.  Chief among these are the barriers to trade in biotechnology products.

 Now, before we get to the issue of foreign trade barriers, we need to look at the barriers we put up at our own borders that prevent U.S. farmers from selling to customers overseas.  Of course, I am talking about the economic sanctions that we put on food and agricultural exports.  We could take down those barriers immediately, without having to go through long negotiations with other countries.  I am disappointed and dismayed that this Congress is bypassing an opportunity to reform our sanctions policy to allow food and agriculture exports.

 I also want to underscore that while trade policy and domestic agriculture policy are closely linked, a failure of one policy is virtually impossible to remedy by resorting to the other.  The 1996 farm bill is a classic example.  That bill jumped far ahead of any realistic prospects for U.S. farm exports.  It took away the farm income safety net and told farmers to find their incomes in the world market.  But the markets have not been there.  And no matter how hard we try to increase exports, that is not going to solve the current farm crisis or lessen the need for a good farm policy with an adequate farm income safety net.