Agriculture Secretary Discusses Texas Drought
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Sixty-two straight days now of record drought in North Texas, and now 177 counties are officially declared federal disaster areas. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman got a first-hand look at Sammy Irwin's (ph) devastated cotton and watermelon crop in Wise County, just 75 miles north of Fort Worth. Cattle ranchers are not any better off than farmer Irwin. Together, farmers and ranchers are staring at a nearly $600 million loss in this year. Secretary Glickman now joins us from Washington this morning with a report back from his trip. Good morning, Mr. Secretary.</s>DAN GLICKMAN, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: Good morning, Carol.</s>LIN: Well, it must have been a very sad seen on Sammy Irwin's farm. What exactly did you see?</s>GLICKMAN: Well, actually what I saw was an area of the country that has been hit by three or four of the last five years by this kind of drought. So last year wasn't quite as bad for this farm, but the previous year was bad. And so these farmers have seen repeated cases of very, very low rainfall, which is not only hitting that part of the country in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, but also is one of the reasons why we have wildfires in the Pacific Northwest.</s>LIN: You have also said that droughts are more hazardous than floods or many other sorts of natural disasters. Why is that?</s>GLICKMAN: Well, droughts are much more costly: that is the amount of money that is lost as a result of drought far exceeds hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or floods. And they're also very insidious. They're slow. It's not a one catastrophic event. It takes place over a period of months or years. And it's one of the reasons why Congress set up something called a National Drought Policy Commission to take a look at long-term ways to deal with the issue of drought, particularly as it affects agriculture and as it affects the water supplies of smaller communities.</s>LIN: Well, Mr. Secretary, it sounds like at least short term help is on the way with some low-interest loans from Congress and some emergency money coming forward. Is this the solution?</s>GLICKMAN: Well, you know, the fact is that a lot of these folks are facing very low prices as well as these terrible weather conditions. So you know, we're going to do what we can to help. We've declared much of Texas and much of that part of the country federal disaster areas, and there will be low-interest loans. Congress over the last three years working with the administration has in fact responded by these yearly supplemental disaster requests. Perhaps that's going to be needed again. We in the administration don't think the current farm bill is working very well. It's one of the reasons why I think the economic conditions are not as good as they should be. But we've just got to, you know, roll up our sleeves and work on a variety of ways to help these folks through this terrible, terrible dry-weather crisis.</s>LIN: Well, Mr. Secretary, you're talking about the 1996 farm bill. Wasn't that supposed to provide the help that these farmers needed in exactly this kind of situation? Where are the gaps?</s>GLICKMAN: Well, it didn't provide it. What it did was that it basically phased out farm assistance over a period years, and the fact is that farmers and ranchers face very volatile market conditions, very volatile weather conditions. And in fact, that farm bill is just totally inadequate to deal with the current situation. And quite frankly, most members of both political parties agree that it's going to have to be rewritten and rewritten in a very dramatic way. But in the meantime, in the short term, we're going to try to provide these farmers and ranchers with assistance and help to let them make it through this terrible drought crisis.</s>LIN: All right. And we're all playing for more rain. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.</s>GLICKMAN: Thank you. OK.