Policymakers are telling us that they're not hearing enough from their constituents about Farm Bill reform. Despite the advocacy and outreach by so many NGO's, the message is just not getting through to Congress. Powerful pro-subsidy farm lobbies have dominated the advocacy field in Washington. Yet, an unreformed 2007 Farm Bill will negatively effect the lives of African farmers for the next five years - so call your Senators. Write to them. Tell them farm subsidies mean profits for no one except large American factory farms. If you need more persuasion, perhaps this statement, presented last week in Washington, will incite you to action.

"We are grateful for the opportunity to be here today, as the United States Senate begins discussion of the next Farm Bill. As John Carr has just said, this legislation affects not only the people of the United States, but many people around the world. Many of those people who are impacted by the farm bill live in our parishes and our diocese, where extreme poverty is our daily bread.

Bishop Dioiff from Senegal, Monsignor Cyprian from Mali and I are not economists or politicians. Nor do we have specific comments on the various proposals being considered before the Senate. That is someone else’s role. Rather, we are bishops and pastors from West Africa who know first hand the reality of millions of Africans who depend on farming and who struggle everyday to make a decent living to support families, raise children and provide some chance for a better future.

As pastors in a global Church, we share a call to work for the common good. This call invited us to find common solutions to common problems. That is why we are here. We want to add our experience and the voices of our poor farmers to the current discussion on the farm bill. We ask Senators to hear these voices – far from this place – that want nothing more than a fair chance to grow their crops, to sell what they produce and to make a living for themselves and their children.

For a long time, our people in Africa have relied on financial assistance from the richer countries of the world. And we are grateful for such assistance as it provides essential food and resources for the most vulnerable. But now we ask the United States to take a further step by writing a fair Farm Bill not only for the U.S. Farmers, but for the poorest of the poor who live in Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Mali.

By subsidizing some of the most prosperous U.S. farmers, the Farm Bill affects the meager livelihoods of 10 million of our fellow Africans. We know that the United States is not the only developed country to subsidize his farmers. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), my own country of Burkina Faso loses more money in export revenue for cotton because of US subsidies than it receives in US foreign aid. We are grateful for US generosity, without which many of our brothers and sisters would die of hunger or disease. But we would be more grateful if we could also stand on our two feet and join farmers and workers elsewhere who enjoy the fruits of their labors and the work of their hands.

If our African farmers didn’t have to compete with heavily subsidized crops from the US, we would be able to send more of our children to school, we could provide better diets for our families, and we could actually reinvest in our farming sectors.

The United States has nothing to fear from our farmers and from our exports. In fact, God should be so good to our countries that our exports would ever be a threat to anyone! We want to compete in a fair market place. So we are asking the American people to support Members of the Congress who are writing a Farm Bill that creates a level playing field for our farmers. Meanwhile we will do all we can among our own governments and other international institutions so that the needs of the most vulnerable take first place in their policies and their decisions.