MS. TAGGERT: I'm going to go. My name is Ellen Taggert and I'm the Executive Director of World Vermont. World Vermont is a family farm and -- group that was founded in 1985 by farmers.

I want to first thank you for the opportunity to present our views. We believe that the evidence to date is clear. Free trade under the World Trade Organization has been a disaster for family farmers of rural communities. According to the Vermont/New Hampshire Policy Institute, the U.S. experience with farm trade balance has lost $13 billion between 1996 and 1998. In roughly the same period, the U.S. lost 42,000 small farms. Increased trade under the WTO and U.S. public farm policy written in 1996 to comply with the WTO dictates has been a move for corporate agriculture business. In fact, the farms, not the family farms, have sustained in rural communities.

Of particular importance in Vermont is the potential for increased world trade in dairy products. Because of the high cost of  production from dairy farmers in New England, our farmers are particularly vulnerable to the kind of price volatility they have experienced since 1996 when the Farm Bill was passed and eliminated the federal farm safety net. The facts are indisputable. Increased free trade in dairy will push milk prices down.

Currently in Vermont, USDA estimates that the average cost of production is $18.51 cents per hundred weight. A recent cost survey by the Northeast Dairy Compact found that costs were even higher for small farms. By comparison, press reports often peg the world's market price at $6 per hundred weight. So, while farmers' costs are currently $18 a hundred weight, they are being paid $13 a hundred weight, roughly.

USDA trade representatives expect farmers to compete with $6 per hundred weight milk and are trying to convince farmers that opening world markets is going to save the farm. The truth is opening up farmers to the world's market is and will continue to put them out of business.

Let's use Argentina as an example where the cost of production is estimated between $5 and $7 a hundred weight. The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute estimates that net exports of dry milk from Argentina will more than double between the decade 2007 while the exports from the U.S. will fall 40 percent. The truth is, created food and dairy benefits to the corporate agriculture businesses that process dairy products and are looking for the cheapest raw material to manufacture their products. Consumers lose, too, when they lose control over the quality and safety of their food, which is increasingly produced in countries with weaker food safety and quality standards.

In addition to our concerns for farmers and consumers, we are very concerned about the use of WTO authority to erode our position as citizens to democratically establish policies that keep our farmers on land and secure and revitalize our world communities.

Again, the record of the current WTO rules is clear. The WTO works in favor of the corporate profits at the expense of the public interest and our democratic rights. WTO, despite unelected, unaccountable appointed fixtures, exercise their support of the current trade to override U.S. laws. What these rulings teach us is that the WTO doesn't believe citizen concern, community values or unknown risks are legitimate bases for policy.

We are particularly concerned about the ability of the WTO to undermine democratic decisionmaking in relationship to agricultural biotechnology. Press reports have consistently expressed the U.S. commitment to use the WTO for you to force foreign markets open to genetically modified organisms. USDA and U.S. Trade Representatives should not use the Seattle WTO meeting to bully the world into accepting the products of U.S. bio-technology expansion or to expand the authority of the WTO in any way, rather it should be used as an opportunity to reverse trends in farm loss, loss of democratic rights and the threat of the health of our rural communities that current world trade rules have created.

Specifically, the USDA and UST should change WTO rules to allow us to rebuild the federal dam --

MR. ALLBEE: Can you summarize?

MS. TAGGERT: Yeah. Two more points -- and take actions to stabilize prices for farmers and consumers. And two, ensure that programs designed to support small farmers and protect food security like the Northeast Dairy Compact are protected, as well as those programs that limit or control the development of family farms and industrial agriculture. And third -- this is my last thing -- ensure that countries maintain the right to ban genetically modified organisms and work in the U.S. to get the growth hormone and all genetically modified -- federal review must be reformed to require long-term health, environmental impacts and the economic impacts of -- on family farms.

That concludes our comments. Thank you again for this opportunity to investigate our views.

(Applause.)

MR. SCHUMACHER: Thank you. One area that we are struggling with, I need your counsel on this. On the slides that we put up, Miss Carol said dairy is for (inaudible) people come to provide us with super models in the counties. One of the things that we have been particularly concerned about, friends at home have a different system of dairy in very, very, very, very heavily subsidized and that's internally -- I guess that's their business. But what is really hurting and killing us is we are next to Canada but people import and how we are together on this, raise a difference of opinion in so many areas. One I think we may share, I want you to help us, is the huge dairy subsidies on exports that has occurred. One of the things that we are very concerned about in Europe is their impact on developing countries because with a weak price, very high a couple years ago, the Europeans put export taxes on it and restricted their wheat developing countries and their terribly distorted world dairy policy, which was extraordinarily high in export taxes. Maybe one area we can work together on. What they do internally would be their business but when they affect Vermont dairy farmers with these export subsidies, is that an area we can build someone out onto?

MS. TAGGERT: I mean, honestly, I don't know enough about it to make a comment on that export subsidy issue.

MR. SCHUMACHER: Can we cover that issue?

MS. TAGGERT: Yeah. I would like to say that I -- you mentioned the issue of opening the Canadian market. That's something that we don't think is going to get us anywhere. We think it's a very shortsighted step to take and will ultimately get us right back to where we are. The reason is that, one, it's a very small market. It's one-tenth of the U.S. dairy market. And the way that, you know, milk is being produced in the western states right now, we think that there is a capacity to easily reflect that market. And that's assuming that milk would only flow north.

In Vermont, I think we are a lot more concerned about the fact that the Canadian farmers are in really good shape right now. They are under a supply management system, they get a good price and they have got great equipment, they have got great land. And we are very concerned about the possibility of milk flowing south and what that would do and the implications for the northeast area compact and our markets here.

It's sort of wonderful to look north and say; look at Montreal. But they are going to look south too, and we are very concerned about that.

MR. SCHUMACHER: We understand that. There is quite a difference of opinion on that. Particularly, a billion dollars worth of American dairy products north of the border. And as we look at their market, it is pretty distorted as well. We went the WTO cases with Canada (inaudible). We are going to work very hard. I think the way they are impacting small farms in our states, particularly the dairy farmers worldwide, is going to be a major issue for us. I'm saying this as much with my friends here. They are subsidizing with cheese. It's a little hard for capital to meet against the Dutch taxpayer.

MS. TAGGERT: Yeah. I mean, we support a national supply management system. And Congressman Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation called the Dairy Nutrition Conservation Act, and that was something that we worked very hard on with dairy farmers across the country to help develop. And so, you know, in the context of us having a system like that, what would these issues be in relationship to export markets, I really don't know. But I appreciate your offer to continue to discuss those issues.

MR. SCHUMACHER: The 8th, maybe we would have a little session on this, some of these important trade issues. On the dairy, we would differ in some areas. But I think there's some areas we could build a little (inaudible) a few bridges as well. So --

MS. TAGGERT: We're used to being different around here.

MR. SCHUMACHER: We want to work with you on some of these issues.