Senator CONRAD. Now we will hear from Dr. Max Glenn, executive director of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches and coordinator of the Oklahoma Ag-Link Coalition. Welcome and proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF DR. MAX E. GLENN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE OKLAHOMA CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES AND COORDINATOR OF THE OKLAHOMA AG-LINK COALITION

Dr. GLENN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to summarize quickly in the interest of time. I am a fifth generation farmer, minister and long-time rural advocate, born and raised in rural Oklahoma where my grandfather homesteaded in the Cherokee Strip. In March of this year, I stood by in the county courthouse while the county sheriff, my best friend during high school, was forced to sell my homeplace and the same day sell out an uncle and a cousin.

My connection with the Oklahoma farm crisis is not just this personal vignette. As the executive director of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches and coordinator of the Ag-Link Coalition, conference is a statewide ecumenical organization representing 18 denominations in Oklahoma. The Ag-Link Coalition is an effort which brings together farmers, ranchers, bankers, business people from some 35 different groups. It has been a real catalyst to bring together everyone in Oklahoma concerned about the rural communities in agriculture to deal directly with individual farm family challenges, to raise awareness of the agricultural farm crisis, and to utilize every means available to help the farmers stay on the land.

The coalition's programs include the maintenance of a statewide hotline since October 21, 1985, over which 15,000 distressed callers have told of the crisis in their lives caused by the ever-worsening financial reality of Oklahoma's agriculture and energy depression. This crisis has brought a tragic and premature end to the lives of 51 Oklahomans who have committed suicide in the last 12 months. From the housewife whose family heritage was being foreclosed by a relentless Farmers Home Administration as she threw herself on a burning trash heap, and say parenthetically that the county supervisor after her suicide said they had no intention of foreclosing on this couple, and within 30 days after her death, they had a sheriff sale and sold them out. And also, the land bank president in Oklahoma whose personal agony over policy he was required to effect left him, he felt, no course, and he too took his life. This crisis has also spawned a growing sense of anger, of outrage, and of betrayal by trusted advisers at lending institutions and land grant colleges. As the 47th State to join the Union, we in Oklahoma are close enough to our frontier to deeply dread the bizarre voices among us who brag of 2,000 armed men available at a moment's notice to "right the wrongs" at the point of a gun. In March, Sheriff Sam and his deputies wore flack jackets at the county sale that I just mentioned, and many of you probably saw the recent national coverage of a potential confrontation in Oklahoma thwarted by a cool-headed banker and a wise county sheriff.

Through our 24-hour Ag-Link hotline, we have heard the individual voices, the individual tragedies which are lived out in silence in their communities, 15,000 strong, however, saying the same thing over and over and over again. They command an audience, demand a response. As we have linked those 15,000 Oklahomans to a host of counseling, retraining, support groups, and legal services, we have seen certain trends develop that I am compelled to elevate to you today and through my written testimony.

Your debate may soon center on dollars involved in Farm Credit Service bailout. As Mr. Huff, it has been my privilege to work with him, the Credit Committee, has offered our specific program of true farm credit reform_by_highlighting our endorsement of the corresponding changes in Farmers Home Administration colender or guarantor of many FCS loans. My focus is on the lives of the people who are the end recipients of every decision you Senators make on our behalf. I want to turn the spotlight on a few of them in hopes that their experience will help you shape a much needed reform in farmer/creditor dynamics.

In the interest of time, I will not share all of the case studies here, but just highlight.

Item: debt settlement and deficiency judgment problems of FmHA quickly call to mind the young farmer whose father, a Lutheran minister serving several rural parishes, has been sensitive to and active in helping resolve Oklahoma's farm crisis. Right out of high school, this youngster took part in FmHA's young farmer program and started building his lifelong dream of his own farm. After several years of struggle and on the strong advice of the county supervisor, he liquidated the farm and all of his assets. Some debt remained, but the supervisor repeatedly assured him all would be forgiven. He had completed his part of the bargain. Starting his life anew from scratch and with his wife working, he went back to Oklahoma State University, and this year, his fifth year, on the verge of graduation, the county supervisor sent his portfolio to the Capital Credit Corporation of Fairfield, NJ, for collection, and he was one of those over 6,000 who received that untimely collection letter and his indebtedness had tripled in this 5-year period from interest. Through our intervention, we were able to get that changed.

Another item: the need for specificity in the release of living and operating expenses calls to mind the plight of the undersheriff of an eastern Oklahoma county who was completely shutdown, frozen out, and bad-mouthed by FmHA because he had an unauthorized heart attack and his wife had an unauthorized baby.

Now these are not isolated cases. We are hearing these over and over and over again, and there is nothing that makes me more angry than to hear the kind of insensitivity that you have experienced before your committee this morning.

Item: We have also been denied participation in the voluntary farmer-creditor mediation program in our State by Farmers Home Administrator.

My spoken testimony today is limited in time, but we must focus primarily upon supporting the integration of Farmers Home Administration amendments into the Farm Credit Service's bailout legislation. I cannot encourage you strongly enough to take a holis

tic view toward reform of the entire system of financing agriculture. Of necessity, though, I also elevate for this committee record the urgency of the need for moving this legislation as quickly as possible.

The human tragedy that results from current FmHA and Farm Credit System policy continues to mount as evidenced by the voices we have represented today. They are not the persistent complaints of a single, malcontent farming or ranching constituent. They represent the strength of our rural churches and schools, the fabric of our rural society. There must be a national statement by Congress that the bloodletting must stop, that the farmers and their creditors working together, can find ways to assure the survival of both. We cannot wait for the systems to correct themselves.

In anticipation of this opportunity today, I have recently sampled the FCS callers on our hotline and our coalition has conducted an intensive focus on FCS borrowers in one county of northwestern Oklahoma. It is my hope within the next week to deliver to Senator Boren with name, rank and serial number all of those farmers who are now ready to stand up and be counted and set forth in their own handwriting the experience that they have received. You, the committee members, must intervene by law because "their horses have the bit in their teeth," and the runaway system is out of control.

I spent over half of my professional life working in Appalachia, fighting the strip mining issue, and also the broad form deed in Kentucky, which you are probably familiar with. This was minor compared to what I am seeing and experiencing in the farm crisis now. The outrageous actions and inaction by those responsible for dealing the farmers the economic and social injustice is unmentionable. I believe that it is very appropriate, Mr. Chairman, that this hearing conclude with what is happening to people. Agencies deal with individuals in silence and in confidence, but sitting on a hotline and listening to over 15,000 farmers gives us a picture that needs to be shared and that we know of your commitment and your concern, and we commend you for that, and other members of your committee, but we must urge that the time is now to intervene and change.

I do not like to be a cryer of wolf, but I can assure you that today farmers are listening more carefully to those who are peddling violence and extremist philosophies, and it is a matter, as I talked with the FBI and the OSBI in our State, they assure me that it is not a matter of if there will be a major bloodletting and confrontation; it is a matter of when. It is my hope and prayers that you all will move fast enough to alleviate that kind of major revolution in this country. Thank you.

Senator CONRAD. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Glenn follows:]

TESTIMONY OF DR. MAX E. GLENN

on behalf of the

OKLAHOMA CONFERENCE OF CHURCHES

and

THE OKLAHOMA AG-LINK COALITION

before the

UNITED STATES SENATE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE

JUNE 9, 1987

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Dr. Max E. Glenn, I am a farmer, minister and long-time rural advocate: born and raised in rural Oklahoma where my

More than 200

grandfather homesteaded in the "Cherokee Strip." In March of this year, I stood by as the county sheriff, my best friend in high school, was forced to sell my "homeplace" and the same day "sell-out" an uncle and cousin. neighbors, relatives and friends stood by as a CBS News crew filmed the proceedings and a 70 year-old aunt sat passively in her wheelchair as her home was auctioned and the Farm

Credit System added another 1,400 acres to its growing inventory of American farm land. (CBS News did not air the story because it was the same drama that had become an "old" story now.) My connection with the Oklahoma farm crisis is not just this personal vignette.. I am the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Conference of. Churches and Coordinator of the Oklahoma AG-LINK Coalition. The Conference is a state-wide ecumenical organization representing 18 participating denominations. The AG-LINK Coalition is an outreach effort of the Conference to respond to the now chronic problems facing farmers, ranchers, bankers and businessmen and their families throughout rural Oklahoma. It is a collaborative action and service oriented effort regularly involving 35 public and private agencies, organizations and alliances, with strong participation of farmers, rancher, and agribusiness representatives, whose goals include:

1

I.

II.

III.

To deal directly with individual farm familes'

challenges;

To raise awareness of the agricultural/farm

crisis;

To utilize professionals to enable farm families the opportunities to maximize their return on viable farming operations; to relocate by matching opportunities with available skills, or to give direction for retraining and placement; and IV. To develop funding mechanisms that will provide the revenues needed for full operational plan development..

The Coalition's programs include the maintenance of a state-wide hotline since October 21, 1985, over which 15,000 distressed callers have told of the crisis in their lives caused by the ever-worsening financial reality of Oklahoma's agriculture and energy depression. That crisis has brought a tragic and premature end to the lives of 51 Oklahomans in that time who have committed suicide: from the housewife whose family heritage was being foreclosed by a relentless Farmers Home Administration as she threw herself on a burning trash heap; to the Land Bank President whose personal agony over policy he was required to effect left him, he felt, no