Statement of Sen. Patrick Leahy Committee On Agriculture, Nutrition, And ForestryHearing On Competition in Agriculture

April 27, 2000

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this timely and important hearing.

There are two members on this Committee who also serve on the Judiciary Committee and we both have agriculture competition bills before the Congress. Senator Grassley has introduced an excellent bill, now before the Judiciary Committee, which takes a somewhat different approach from the bipartisan bill that I worked on with the Democratic Leader and many members of this Committee.

Both the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union helped in this effort and I appreciate their assistance.

I think we all feel regardless of party affiliation that family farmers and ranchers should become the key focus of our agriculture competition policies. There is no level playing field in American agriculture today. On one side we have agri-corporate giants that can raise billions of dollars on Wall Street in the blink of a computer screen simply by issuing pieces of paper and calling it stock.

On the other side, we have family farmers with little to no bargaining power.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to work with you on scheduling a markup for S. 2411. That initiative provides for this new focus, and provides new hope for farmers by simply giving them a fair opportunity to compete in the marketplace.

The new focus is on preventing agri-corporate giants from hitting farmers over the head with unfair, discriminatory and deceptive practices it prevents them from taking unfair advantage of farmers.

I am fed up with sign-here-or-lose-your-farm contracts. I am fed up with take-my-price-or-lose-your-farm deals. I am fed up with deceptive practices by processors that cheat farmers out of fair chance to compete on a level playing field. Farmers in each of our regions are faced with particular challenges. In New England . and in my home state of Vermont we have a new bully on the block flush with Wall Street dollars. There is an editorial in the Rutland Daily Herald entitled "Milk Monopoly" and it's about a Texas giant called Suiza Foods.

The editorial notes that Suiza "controls 70 percent of the milk market in New England, which ought to worry farmers and consumers alike."

"Suiza has been buying up milk-processing plants in New England and closing some of them down. The result is a growing monopoly on the handling of milk."

The Commissioner of Agriculture of Massachusetts is also worried. He notes in a recent letter that "Suiza Foods' milk processing capacity approaches 80% of the Massachusetts market. . . ." He further points out that Suiza may have "entered into an exclusive agreement with a major supermarket to exclude [a] competitor's milk . . . from its shelves."

Suiza has all the money Wall Street investors will give it. But at some point, someone has to say "enough is enough."

For this reason, I joined with the Democratic Leader and my other colleagues on both sides of the aisle in introducing the "Farmers and Ranchers Fair Competition Act" two weeks ago to enhance competition in rural America by increasing the bargaining power of family-sized farmers and ranchers, and by giving the Secretary of Agriculture more power to quickly act against unfair, unjust or deceptive business practices by agricultural processors.

These are sensible reforms, and these are fair reforms.