Joseph Hume Quotes

What in the hell would they do with the farm program without us?

The farm subsidy program is something that was put into place over 60 years ago, and it was put into place to do one thing, and it's turned into something else.

On the Agriculture Committee, I will be an ardent and strong champion for our farmers to ensure that they are treated fairly, particularly in regards to how their products are priced.

Do we need farm program reform? Absolutely.

Farm policy and food stamp policy should not be mixed. They should stand on their own merits.

American farmers and ranchers deserve a USDA that will pursue supportive policies rather than seek their further harm.

Never in my life would I have expected USDA to be opposed to farmers and ranchers.

Mr. President, it may surprise my colleagues, but I am no fan of federal disaster programs for agriculture. They are difficult to pass and often a disaster to implement.

Programs that pay farmers not to farm often devastate rural areas. The reductions hurt everyone from fertilizer companies to tractor salesmen.

The only way to keep food prices down is to keep them [farmers] down on the farm after they've seen the parity.

Whole towns, communities and forms of agriculture with their homes, schools and churches have been built up under this system of protection [tariffs]. The grass will grow in a hundred cities, a thousand towns; the weeds will overrun millions of farms if that protection is taken away

Let’s help farmers when they need it; let’s not, when they don’t.

Sugar protectionism is government planning, It is industrial policy—government picking winners and losers—applied to agriculture.

Farm subsidies are a waste of money.

Free trade is good but not as good as fair trade.

See, technology can advance yield and productivity, but only public policy can advance the income of farmers. There has to be a synergy between technology and public policy.

I am happy to announce that to provide remunerative price to millets-growing farmers and to improve the nutritional security, state government will procure millets and utilize them in government schemes.

As I've long said, the farm bill is in need of major reform. At first chance, I voted to remove direct payments. Both the House and the Senate passed bills that end direct payments, and as we move forward, I hope we can work out the rest of the issues to implement the necessary reforms.

When politicians talk of loan waiver, they are accepting that agriculture is not economically viable. They are giving a wrong signal that farming is not economically viable. It's true. That's where the loan waiver comes in.

Farm policy, although it's complex, can be explained. What it can't be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, D.C., videotaped in flagrante delicto has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.

I'm a big free trader. But it has to be fair.

Why should the cotton growers suffer if there is shortage of wheat?

As one of the nation's top agricultural states, Nebraska has a great opportunity to provide input that will help shape the 2007 Farm Bill, .. This legislation will help determine commodity price supports, priorities with regard to conservation programs, as well as rural development, renewable energy and beginning farmer initiatives for several years to come.

Justice is not a flexible tool. Unless we all do our part to ensure that justice is applied equally to all human beings, we are a party to its abuse. We must stand together to protect the rights of others.

Laws that require equal protections reinforce the moral imperative of equality.