Bannon and donald trump and the republicans on this fcc roll back on access to the free press. Thank you again very much. Thank you all for being here. And stay woke [ cheers and applause ] thank you, congresswoman. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. That is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Later today on cspan3, canadas National Defense minister talks about his countrys defense policy, support for nato, protecting Canadas Arctic territory, and funding for troops and equipment. Hosted by the wilson center, its live at 5 00 p. M. Eastern. In his first appearance before the house agriculture committee, agriculture secretary sonny perdue testified about the role of farming in the u. S. It economy and President Trumps proposal budget cuts to the supplemental nutrition assistance program. Congressman mike conoway chairs the committee. Good morning. State of Rural Economy. Bow our heads, please. Dear heavenly father, we come before you at the throne of grace to first of all say thank you. We thank you for so Many Blessings that you bestow upon us. Many which we dont even know. On this occasion, we ask a special blessing on our agriculture industry and that your blessings come upon our new secretary of agriculture, sonny perdue. Dear heavenly father, finally, we thank you for your holy spirit, for oftentimes we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but your holy spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. We thank you for that and we ask your holy spirit to enter this room today. These and other blessings we ask in your son, christ jesus name, amen. David, thank you. Mr. Secretary, welcome. You and i have had several conversations before this morning but let me officially congratulate you on becoming our nations 31st secretary of ago. Caller t agriculture. We are excited to be working with you and couldnt be happier with the president s slaex of sonny perdue to be the current ag secretary. Were eager to work with you. We also know that you have a great heart and concern for americas farmers and ranchers. We know that you have both the policy and political beingacume get a lot of these things done. I want to commend you for landing on your feet from the very start. I appreciate you weighing in to the vital importance of our nations trade, particularly regarding nafta. Your work to begin reining in the u. S. Water regulations by putting in place a new rule that respects private property rights, federal itch and no fewer than three Supreme Court rulings. It is critical to help dismantle this attempt at federal land grab. Your successful support of the issuance of an executive order by the president to revisit the myriad of regulations affecting american agriculture could not be more appreciated. Again, thank you for taking on these other challenges. Restoring some common sense to the School Lunch Program and putting brakes on harmful regulations that would threaten long standing Livestock Marketing arrangements and would force organic producers to comply with overly prescriptive Animal Welfare protection practices are also welcome actions. As you begin work of implementing biotech labeling requirements i hope you exercise the same prudent judgment. Thank you for your role in helping ensure the United States fully enforces its trade laws, including those against mexicos illegal shipping of sugar to the u. S. Market and to continue building the case against chinas Domestic Support and tro administration excuse me, trx administration for corn, rice and wheat. If we are to regain americas e confidence in trade we must hold our trading partners accountable. You announced this week you are embarking on resororganization department of offagriculture. I look forward to hearing more about how you plan to implement these practices. The most recent cbo projections show that 2014 farm bill is actually now targeted to new spending by some 104 billion, nearly four times that anticipated. This is achieved and made possible the hard work and determination of this Members Committee and counterparts in the senate. I hope and trust mr. Secretary youll make sure the president knows about this and he makes tough choices as he makes tough choices on allocation of scarce budget resources. As you know, americans and farmers and ranchers have seen their net incomes cut in half the last four years. Times are difficult at farms and ranches across the country these days. And of those who are paid to make forecasts about these things are correct, Economic Times in farm and ranch industry o will not be any better over the next several crop years. It is my experience as a bad farm economy can adversely impact the entire economy while a good farm economy can boost the nations economy and job creation. It is also my experience strong u. S. Foreign policy mitigates adverse impacts of the National Economy and jobs. Thus far weve had a safety net in place thats largely working as intended with the exceptions of cotton and dairy. Do t theyve found a way to mitigate the effects of chinas and indias predator trade practices. We believe that you have the Legal Authority to affectaeffe this policy. Because of the recklessness of some in chamber, it didnt happen. It was reckless and inappropriate. While the dairy industry works on mending its safety net, i believe there is ample opportunity to help them as well as did your predecessor. If we can thread these two needles well be in a much better position to deliver on the president s promise of a strong farm bill passed on time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Very pleased to welcome secretary perdue to the agriculture committee. Took a while for you to get here but it is nice to see you hit the ground running. Now that youre at usda i think i speak for all of us when i say that were ready to work with you. The administration has been a need of someone who understands farm programs and their impact on Rural America. Hopefully now that youre there you will get them to reconsider some of the proposed 4. 7 billion in cuts to usda that were outlined in the march budget. I know you werent part of that. I just dont think that anyone in the white house really understood what these cuts would mean to Rural America. This hearing is focused on the Rural Economy. As you are well aware and everybody is, the Rural Economy is trending downward. We had a pretty good year last year relatively high yields that kept things afloat in spite of the fact prices arent what they should be. But i worry that we could find ourselves in real trouble if we have an ordinary year or somewhat of a down year this summer. So this is why it is so important that the farm bill safety net be settled right. Ill be looking forward to your thoughts on what you think needs to be done in the next farm bill and what your role what you anticipate your role of the administration is going to be in that process. The farm bill is just one of the many topics i expect us to cover today. I know our members are looking forward to hearing from the secretary. So with that, mr. Chairman, ill yield back. Chair would request that other members submit their Opening Statements for the record that our witness may begin his testimony and assures there is ample time for questions. With that id like to welcome the honorable sonny per duperdu. Secretary of department and culture tcul agriculture. Good morning. It is a delight to be up there. I look up on the podium and i see mr. Scott who kind of show o out in my confirmation hearings. Thank you, david, for those very kind remarks there. I see some other georgia home boys there with you today as well. My staff was a little concerned since this was our first date and i hadnt got a chance to meet all of you, they had about 15 pages ever prepared remarks. But im going to not do that to you all. You can read my remarks in the written record. But i just want to really share a few things with you. Youve indicated correctly that 20172018 is a very different Economic Situation for our Farm Community and our Rural Communities across this land than it was when the 14 farm bill was promulgated. Weve got farm bill was promogated. We got some challenges ahead. I am excited of being in the department. What i found is a hardworking group of people. My goal is to make you as the department of committee of agriculture in the house proud of the way usda has run. My goal is to make the most efficient and best management. We begun already in looking at that and i know some of your questions will want to hear about my ideas. I really call it realignment today. I look forward to hearing those and answering those. The challenges we face now, you know, that our formal economy is down from where it was in 2013 as you are looking and contemplating the 14 farm bill. We got members, younger farmers have levelled up in the situation where the revenue is not supporting their debt structure and theyre in some dire straights that way. The safety net that you referred to and working very well, without a couple of situations that we can improve on as been a safety net and our Crop Insurance combined and our programs have been working very well generally. We are in some dire straights out there. The government payments total almost 13 billion in 2016. Based on those great yields, our chairman and Ranking Member peterson talked about we cannot continue to depend on. It is going to be less than that in 2017. The Crop Insurance again has been a good support but the other thing is Rural Development has been a wonderful program, what i learned about usd, is how broad and how helpful it can be in Rural America overall. Thats why i was glad to see and participate with the president in his citing of the executive order and inner Agency Working together determining those barriers to american agriculture and how we can eliminate those. It is not just producers. If farms are not doing well in our Rural Communities, those Rural Communities dont do well. We are look at how we can help those strives as well and i look forward in explaining my vision for Rural Development up on your questions. Usda provided 245 million loans to farmers and ranches. Those are the kinds of things that we think help the safety net out here. I look forward to engaging you today and your offices and phone calls about the issues that contains your constituent in the community so together we can resolve concerns and fears and anxiety over where the future agriculture goes and address those in a way that makes sense for our shareholders and taxpayers of United States of america. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. After that members will be recognized of arrival. I appreciate of everyone understanding. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here and i looking forward to working with you across these issues that we have forward. I represent a lot of cotton farmers. I believe that we had an elegant fix to the issue with respect to cotton and the program that did not work. It should have been in the fill. Our colleague, two of them in the senate reviewed the wisdom of that and did not let it happen. We are left with the same cotton. I hope we can count on working with you of whatever tools that we have. There can be a lot of challenges making it happening and look k forward to work with you either with that and other issues with respect to getting some help and what china and india have done to the markets that does not allow our producers to compete properly. Authorizing the 14 farm bill and thank you very much foreseeing the wisdom of that. Can you talk to us about how you see our under secretary working with the other array trade of other end entties and whoever that may be. Not only in making negotiations going the correct way but making sure that the administration keeping a colonies look on the various things we have out there. Can you walk us through your vision on that . Mr. Chairman and i, before i get to answer that question, you know you and i have conversations, i was pleased at the National Cotton counsel came up with an innovative and mutual idea over their program and it is disappointing that we were not able to get it done. We can look at the resolution in the 18 form bill that you indicated. Your members on the other side of the house and i think trade was on all of their minds really because we are fortunate living in a nation where we can grow more than we can consume and thats essence of trade, doing what we do well and also it is also a noble endeavor to feed the world of our new motto for usda is doing right and feed everyone. Thats what we want to do. We want to feed the hungry here and the United States and our producers and ranchers demonstrated the capacity to share to do that. Thats what trade is all about. I think in the 14 farm bill you all recognize that. I happen to agree with you. It was not an easy thing to do. There were several components coming together in working through those details right now. We felt it was important because trade was almost number one in everyones mind that i spoke with internally and externally, the senate and those of you commenting as well. We got to sell our way out of this supply demand situation thats depressing prices in the u. S. Now. Thats what we hope to do. You have seen early successes of that and well continue. The fact is my opinion is, people do businesses with people. I want someone everyday that woke up with that on their mind, where can i go to sell United States agriculture products around the world, whos hungry and wholl buy and how can we do the deal. Our role is to provide the expertise and content and to secretary of commerce and secretary ross and to our new trade representative mr. Lighthouser in order to be triumph of sales. I have been very impressed with secretary ross and him seeking his teeth into and add products there we are very pleased of the progress we made so far. We believe that the secretary of trades will be at everyones front door. This guy is going to be a million mile in flier around the world. We know foreign interests love to see you in person and it is an honor for them to come on their doorsteps and call on them. Here is my card and we want to do the deal. We can do Conference Calls and videos. The presence is important. That person can not do that when theyre charged with Foreign Service agencies of having all these multiple offices around the country dealing with those customer facing issues everyday. So i felt very strongly that the segregation of that having under secretary for trade was important to get the job done of selling these products. Thank you, secretary for being here and looking forward to working with you. Thank you mr. Chairman. First of all, i want to let you know and i think you know this that i strongly support the chairman and the cotton industry and finding a fix for them so whatever understanding do to help, i will be there to help as well. The Development Issue is causing here and there but i will take you at your words that you will continue to make that as a priority and i think you are the secretary and you decide how the department should be run and the only thing i would say is well watch to make sure Rural Development gets the same kind of emphasis that we have had. You said that and i expect for it to happen. Another issue that i hope you and secretary ross and i think you will keep the mexicans feed to fire of the sugar issue and getting that resolved. You have been doing a great job with that. One of the hingesthings i went h here and the department did a great job responding to it and the state and everybody. I had firsthand look at this and it is clear that the Time Starting the conversations with our partners regarding the use of vaccines to minimize the impact does not need to happen during the course of the out brink. You know it seems like, what do we do but i think it needs to happen at different times. The procedure should begin now. I think it is wise obviously, sometimes i guess to say s yo dont get that opportunity. I think you are wise and considerable. I will comment the fact that while the 15 operating on that, we were slow in response. I was very impressed with the process there and the process of protocols and our producers and usda moving over the medication issues and there was no confusion there. To their credit, that was confined of a very tight and thats the best insurance that we can have. Because of the damage, it is psychological psychologically, we know what happens. You go back to bac and almost 15 years ago. Thats how long it damages the market not just for that period of time but it gives people confidence in our reputation of safety. We know that the vaccination is affected and i think you are wise to consider those efforts. Thank you and i think people learned a lot from what we are dealing. We have waves for some of the under people and you know [ inaudible ] speaking with one voice and one evidence frankly. I think again the opportunity to deal with those kinds of issues, specifically, i know a topic, i look forward to working with you. I think we can have some flexibility to see our people and maybe taking out some of the least productive area and use them rather than holding them of the philosop