Feel free to go back to the audience. Let's start with Earl Simes, if that's the way it's pronounced. Earl, if you're here, I'd like you to take the corner microphone and have your 3 minutes of fame.

MR. SIMES: I won't take up too much time here. I'm Earl Simes from Iowa and a family farmer, and I would never in my wildest dreams end up seeing agriculture in the state that it's in. If you tried to write a book back in the '50s or '60s or '70s, you couldn't come up with anything like this in your wildest dreams. As far as world trade, we got domestic trade. We've got to trade to feed ourselves, feed America, do our things, and have a price protect -- yes -- protect our farmers and not do this stupid thing of overproduction. If you only had a year to seed, you've gone wrong. Let's say a year. I mean, good Lord. From last summer to last fall through the winter Christmastime you could have had a farm program in, something with teeth in it, more than 25 to 33 percent. What should we do now? Should we go out and (inaudible) it down? Can't you come up with something slick enough that we don't have to (inaudible) a third of our corn down? And then support us with this post set-aside, let's call it. Post set-aside that would -- we might as well not have it. If you've got too much corn -- you know, I used to think let's trade. Let's, you know, like the idea here a while back where we'll feed the world. We'll do it all. We'll take care of those Chinese like we had on the national forum for agriculture in Des Moines. Well, we had our speakers on, quote, our side come up there and say we're going to blow all these Chinese all away. But when the Chinese can come up and speak, they're going to take care of themselves. They were going to protect their farmers. They were going to have chickens and pigs and cattle and dairy. They were going to take care of it and take care of it well. They weren't going to be dependent on us to fall down and roll around. If we were a trading partner, yeah, okay, we'll do that. So they blew that national forum's idea, you know, the corporate head of Pioneer and John Deere and the sponsors of that junk outfit away. And like Paul Lasley of Iowa State says, a true friend of agriculture, we're rapidly developing Iowa into a state in which none of us want to live. With corporate hog, next thing is corporate land, corporate farm, greed amongst farmers, yeah. The way of life is gone. Iowa State said that years ago. Family farm is gone. They said that 20, 25 years ago. Well, it's gone, all right. And now this next trip-up, if it is, you know, we'll have one farmer between these small towns in Iowa. One farmer doing every town, and what we're going for is one farmer in the state of Iowa, and the only thing he'll want to do is farm in Des Moines. You know, it's sad when you see what's happened to family farming.

What are you doing in there about the farm program? If you want to have a farm program, design it from the bottom up. From the bottom to the first 500 acres. Let's make some numbers. Support corn, support beans, do the same thing for wheat, oats, hay, barley. You know, you know how to do it. You know where the percents are. You can do it better than I can. Let's support it from the bottom up, the first 500, then 500 to a thousand. If you don't like those numbers, go a little higher. If you don't like it, go a little lower. But then that way we'll pick a way so that we will support the first 500, support the 500 to a thousand and say the hell to the rest of it and be farming 10,000 more. That way we can get rid of some of these large farmers because we're going to get rid of something anyway.

Many more farmers, more farmers, mind you, not less, we need. So I think -- page four. You have had a year to do it; nothing has happened. You've failed us farmers big time. And I don't know what in the world you're going to come up with to try to save us this time, but it better be something, and it better be quick. Thank you.