Stephen Fincher Quotes

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

What our family has done is participate in the farm programs … programs I think essentially almost every farmer in South Dakota has participated in those, and they haven't been bailouts, they have been programs that the United States has put forward for farmers to participate in.

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.

Do we need farm program reform? Absolutely.

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.

I am willing to admit that if the agriculturists are oppressed by peculiar burdens, they ought to be relieved from them, or be allowed a fair and just protection equivalent to all such peculiar burdens.

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.

We do participate in the government programs, like probably 95 percent of farmers do. People who aren't familiar with the agriculture industry, you know, try and make that look like something exceptional.

We are aware that many national farm organizations are putting forth various plans to provide both short- and long-term relief to our nation's agricultural producers. While we believe long-term solutions are essential, the current situation demands a more immediate response.

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

President Lincoln’s biggest blunder was—no not General George McClellan—creating the Agriculture Department. Since 1995, 75 percent of all agricultural subsidies have gone to the largest and wealthiest 10 percent of farms.

Farm subsidies are a waste of money.

It was in the best interests of Zavala and other counties that we move forward with a farm bill and provide certainty to ranchers, farmers, food banks, and other providers.

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 committed to helping our farmers in any way that I can.

The history of Montana has been of the government giving land grants to people that could not possibly turn it into decent farms. And that's destroying their lives. So they don't see the government as something that's out there to help them.

Oh, what could be more delicious than replacing Chuck Grassley on the Senate Agriculture Committee?

I want you to know that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking.

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.

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.

The levels of poverty in 1933's rural America were unimaginable to us now. The 1933 Farm Bill, which introduced unprecedented government control over agriculture, was a reaction to the specific problems facing producers at that time.

We have to change course. And we have to do so now. That is why I worked with my colleagues in Washington to pass the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The labour of the farmers, no doubt is of greater value than the financial capacity of the government and non-government institutions which can only play a supportive role.