Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Folks, I wish you were here under better circumstances, but the committee did think we needed to have, basically, an emergency meeting to hear from you. In all honesty, what needs to be done needed to be done yesterday. The fact of the matter is, for whatever reason, there doesn't seem to be an understanding of how immediate and how serious this crisis is for both industries.
I do think the committee did a good report. But coming to our recommendation one, what do you suggest from both areas that will basically make that work? The reality is, and I think Stephen explained it reasonably well, the programs that are announced basically don't put any more money in your pocket. It transfers money from one file to another. We're losing our most efficient hog producers in the industry right now. It isn't poor producers; there are none left anyway--poor producers. We're losing our most efficient producers, the ones carrying the debt.
On the cattle industry, where I've been, the number of cows going to market, many of them pregnant, is spelling disaster for that industry down the road.
Point number one, what we need to know is what absolutely has to be done in terms of immediate, short-term relief, and I agree with you that it has to be announced right away, to put actual cash in your pockets to handle some of the debt load and carry-over in the cattle industry, but deal with the liquidity problem in the hog industry. We need to get specifics on that.