MR. GENE PAUL: I'm Gene Paul, President of the National Farmers Organization headquartered in Ames, Iowa. I just want to thank the panel for taking the time today. We have a prepared statement which we will make available, and I just want to touch on a few points.

We believe it's really a myth that the United States is going to export its way to prosperity. If this free trade that we're in is simply a race to lower our prices to capture more export sales, my only question today is, are the prices low enough yet?

U.S. producers by and large sell their grain, livestock, and dairy into a domestic market, and those companies are basically multinational corporations that do the actual export and trading. The economic benefits at the farm gate from international trade to producers is trickled down, at best.

Fair trade should benefit the producer, the consumer, and the entity that does -- handles the export. As our trade agreements are being carried out today, our members see very little if no benefit to the producer, very little to the consumer, and yet we continue to see gains in the profit lines for the larger companies.

There is a statement made that the customer is always right, and yet that doesn't seem to hold true as far as our trade is concerned. If our customers, particularly the Europeans, don't want GMO grains and hormone-treated beef, why don't we simply make non-GMO grain and hormone-free beef available to them and charge them accordingly? We do not challenge the use of GMOs. We're simply saying if there's a customer that wants it, wants non-GMO, let's make it available to them and charge them a price that covers the cost.

We would also question the motives of some of our trade negotiators. For example, we have been told that the Europeans recently offered to expand (inaudible) imports to our country, if it would be hormone-free. Our officials turned it down saying we did not want that kind of a market.

So I think, again, we simply need to take a look at what our customer wants. We need to be concerned about what producers need to have for a price in this country.

I found it interesting today as I heard representatives, particularly of agribusinesses who buy from farmers, call for open, free, and transparent export pricing and markets; and yet when there were groups and organizations calling for open, free, and transparent domestic pricing, we found those groups and those companies on the other side of the fence.

National Farmers Organization supports any reasonable effort to expand export to farm commodities, but those agreements must adequately address labor and environmental issues, country-of-origin labeling, dispute resolutions, and proper reporting of agriculture import and export data and food safety standards.

As you carry out your negotiations in Seattle, we simply ask you to keep in mind, is this going to help the producers in this country with the problem they're facing today, and that is price.

Thank you very much.