The farmer spends $27 to $28 billion a year for goods and services to produce crops and livestock. and another $15 billion a year for the same things that city people buy and these are American prices the farmer pays. which is the reason he needs a little bit more than the farmer of foreign lands who achieves his production at a much lower cost. Our farmers purchase more steel in a year than is used for a years output of passenger cars. We consume more petroleum products than any other industry in the country. and our inventory of machinery exceeds the assets of the steel industry. Importing beef to America and breaking the farmers market makes about as much sense to me as importing tens of thousands of Chinese coolies to provide cheap labor and break the laboring mans wages. Yet the American farmer is virtually unprotected when it comes to imports. We have the lowest import tariffs on food of any nation.