Celebrate American Agriculture

CELEBRATE AMERICAN AGRICULTURE

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we have an opportunity this week, as we do every year, to celebrate American agriculture. This is the week we traditionally recognize. It is called National Agriculture Week.

Ask any friend or neighbor what is eating them and you are likely to get an earful about rising gas prices, military action in Iraq, the high cost of health care, prescription drugs, or the downturn in the U.S. economy.

In my most recent town meetings, I listened to Iowans express anxiety about job security, retirement security, health care security, energy security, national security, and homeland security. But never once did I have a single person in my State list as one of their concerns the concern of food security. That is because we in the United States are blessed with a rich agricultural bounty to provide more than enough food to feed U.S. consumers and a growing world population. American farmers are the most productive food producers in the world and, as a result, each American farmer can feed more than 120 people at home and abroad.

That is reason enough to give Americans an extra peace of mind. Yet I guess a majority of Americans take their food and how it got to their fork somewhat for granted. That is, in fact, a shame.

American agriculture serves an instrumental role in the life of every American. As George W. Bush has noted:
A nation that can feed its people is a nation more secure.

Beyond the benefits to national security, American agriculture also anchors the economy because the production of food and fiber from the farm to the consumer represents one-fifth of the U.S. economic pie. It props up our balance of trade. Agricultural exports exceed $1 billion per week. It creates jobs. Twenty percent of America's workforce is employed in the food chain from production to processing, marketing, and retailing. It saves the American consumer money because each American consumer spends only 9 percent of their income on food, the lowest percentage in the world.

Every year in March those of us with interests in agriculture join forces to celebrate National Agriculture Week and spread the word about agriculture's affordable, high-quality abundance and its social, economic, and environmental influences on America.

Located in the heart of America's breadbasket, Iowa's agricultural heritage goes back many generations. Iowans appreciate how significant our food system is, not only to basic human existence, but to the State's economy and also to our way of life.

As the leading producer of corn, soybeans, hogs, and eggs in America, Iowa's high-quality agricultural bounty would make George Washington proud. The farmer and our first President, George Washington, once said:

Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment to man.

At the turn of the 21st century, Iowa is working to stay on the leading edge of the research and use its bounty to benefit biotechnology and advances in life science. Whether growing crops for pharmaceutical use or raising cattle capable of producing proteins that can be used for human drug therapies, Iowa has significant potential to create good, high-paying jobs and reap economic benefits in ways unimaginable at the turn of the last century when the production of food was all that was on farmers' minds.

With several farmer-owned ethanol plants up and running, Iowa also is fueling local economic activity and helping to increase our energy independence by turning home-grown corn into ethanol, lessening our dependence upon a foreign source such as Iraq, for instance.

As a life-long family farmer, I take advantage of every opportunity in Washington, DC, in Congress, like now in this Senate Chamber, to serve as a farmer's advocate because I want to make sure that family farmers' voices are heard at the policy tables in Washington. Notwithstanding the need to keep our food production and supply system safe from sabotage, Americans are blessed to live in a Nation where food security does not mean wondering if there is enough food available to feed one's family every day.

National Agriculture Week, March 16 to 22, is a good opportunity to showcase American agriculture and to give thanks to those who work hard to get high quality, affordable food from the farm to our table. I hope every one of those people living in urban America who might think that food grows in super markets rather than on farms would give a thought to the usefulness of the family farm and what it contributes to the quality of life of Americans.

I yield the floor.