I would like to encourage our trade representatives to fight for fair and equitable trade in the next Round of negotiations. Future trade agreements should work to help U.S. growers compete against foreign farms which don't adhere to our standards. I think we need to ask a couple of questions about how our trade agreements can impact the social conditions or our less-developed trading partners, such as are good agricultural practices being observed like ours? Are labor conditions in these countries consistent with our standards? Is the environment being protected in these other countries? Are the pesticides they use recognized by the U.S. as of the U.S. authorities to be safe?

You and I both know the answer to these questions is often no. Developing nations do not have the commitment or resources to produce fresh fruits and vegetables according to our standards, standards that U.S. consumers come to expect. Regrettably, those same consumers assume that imported fruits and vegetables are grown under conditions that are comparable to ours. Little do they know.

To underscore the disparity between U.S. farms and those in Mexico my boss, J. Taylor, President of our company, hired a camera crew -- with a bunch of our money that I made for him on my little farm -- to document the conditions under which tomatoes are grown in Mexico. We looked at growing conditions, labor management, pesticide use and sanitation.

The crew had to travel in secret going to farms without official permission from the government or the Mexican tomato industry. The video that the crew produced revealed shocking disregard for worker safety and environmental protection in Mexico. Young children were shown working side-by-side with adults to pick tomatoes. In one scene, girls were shown covering their faces while a worker sprayed pesticides on top of them.

The video showed the highly toxic farm chemicals, some no longer legal or registered in the United States, are still used in Mexico. The video also showed farm worker sanitation and howling conditions that American people would find deplorable. One part of the video showed where the people get their drinking water is also where they have their sewage and also where they clean the tomatoes that they pick.

The video entitled, "The True Cost of Winter Vegetables," convinced a CBS television crew to go to Mexico and document and broadcast it themselves. I would be happy to give you a copy of the CBS program as well as the video that we shot, or probably Lane Stuart from the FFDA has more copies than I do.

Are conditions in Mexico indicative of farm conditions in other developing nations? I can not say for sure, but I think it's probable. We can all remember that the FDA had to restrict importation of raspberries from Guatemala until farming conditions there could be improved to prevent further contamination by a parasite called cyclosporin. In that case, it took hundreds of U.S. consumers to get sick before anything was done.

Because protecting the environment, worker safety and wholesome produce are important to U.S. consumers, I believe they need to be -- all consumers in the United States need to be aware of where their food is grown. The simplest way to do this is through country of origin labelling.

Many of our trading partners, notably Japan, United Kingdom and most European nations, require country of origin labelling for importing fresh produce. Here in the U.S. only Florida has a comprehensive labelling law that ensures imported fresh produce is identified at the retail level. Why should we continue to allow other countries to require labelling on our crops when we don't require the same of theirs?

I respectfully urge our nation's trade representatives to seek harmonization of labelling requirements with all of our agricultural trading partners. Country of origin labelling can go a long way towards educating U.S. consumers about where their food is grown and will help them make informed choices about their food.

Our industry has much at stake in the next Round of negotiations. Please work to establish a fair trading environment for our farmers. Thank you.

(Applause.)