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"CAFTA needs to be stopped," Ewen said. "If that passes, it will be hard to stay in the business." Raising sugar beets is a capital intensive business. The machinery used for harvesting is not useable on any other crops.

The loss of export markets and the increased imports of food are points of concern for Clarence Weinheimer, of Lewistown.

He was shopping for a pup Thursday - the tag-along trailer that attaches to a truck to hall grain.

"It's the economy of it now," he said "The truck holds 500 bushels. With the pup, I can pull another 600." Weinheimer hauls his grain to Moccasin where it is loaded onto a 110-car shuttle train. The round trip is about 55 miles, so the pup cuts fuel costs.

If he had a chance to tell the president and Congress directly what to do for farmers, he'd tell them to pay attention to the local economies and less about overseas.

For the past 44 years, the United States has been a net exporter of agricultural products. However, the trend is going the other way. Economists expect food imports to exceed U.S. exports by the end of this fiscal year, Sept. 30. As recently as four years ago, U.S. ag exports were generating a $13.7 billion surplus.

Retired agronomist Julius Pfannenstiel thinks if the government cuts farm subsidies, it should retain them for commodities that go for human consumption and not for those used for livestock feed.

Pfannenstiel was the ag manager for the Coors malt barley elevator at Huntley for 15 years. Malt barley is not among the crops that get federal support. It is usually raised on contract for premium price.

As a general rule, livestock producers do not get price supports. They have in recent years received assistance for forage in areas stricken by drought.

When it comes to international trade, Roy Valdez of St. Xavier is adamant. "Keep the border (with Canada) closed," he said. "We don't need those cattle. Bringing in products drops our price."

Keith VanSetten sells grain trucks out of Choteau. Because of the increased use of shuttle trains, farmers are being forced to haul their wheat longer distances, and that has been good for Bouma Truck Sales.

"Farmers have to hire commercial haulers or buy their own," he said. "Our grain trailers are up."

VanSetten said increased competition from foreign countries comes from the U.S. educating the world on how to produce a product the U.S. once sold them. As for whether federal subsidy payments should be cut or restricted, he said he was unsure, but "a farmer cannot afford not to be in it" because the price of wheat has not improved over the past decade.

The United States has formed a new Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Trade is supposed to bring countries together, but this week Honduras and the Dominican Republic announced they were pulling their small troop contingents out of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Their governments decided they would rather follow the example of the new Socialist regime in Spain than stay true to the commitments they made to their largest trading partner, the United States, which had just granted them commercial preferences.
--William R. Hawkins

What were you saying about steadfast allies?