Rep. Lemmons offered the following resolution:

            House Resolution No. 379.

            A resolution to memorialize the Congress of the United States to adopt new agricultural policies that maximize food production, and to call for the United States to withdraw from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement and return to bilateral trade agreements.

            Whereas, The world is undergoing a food crisis of unparalleled proportions, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. The Managing Director of the Asian Development Bank recently stated that one billion Asians are at serious risk of starvation. In addition, 33 nations dependent on food imports are now engulfed in riots and political turmoil, including Somalia, Egypt, and Niger; and

            Whereas, Free trade policies, as promoted by the World Trade Organization, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Dominican Republic - Central America - United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and other institutions, are responsible for the United States and other nations possibly losing the ability to feed their populations; and

Whereas, Agricultural and energy policies that promote the conversion of farmland worldwide from food production to biofuel production exacerbate the food crisis, prompting the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to indict the use of food for fuels as a "crime against humanity"; and

            Whereas, The result of these free trade and agricultural policies is that the United States and the rest of the world are in the grip of a hyperinflationary price spiral in food commodities, which is disrupting the daily lives of people throughout our nation; and

            Whereas, A return to national policies that prioritized feeding our nation and helping starving populations throughout the world is desperately needed. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy called upon the government of the United States to continue the good neighbor policy of President Franklin Roosevelt and launch a Food For Peace program to help starving nations around the world; and

            Whereas, Doubling U.S. food production, ceasing payments to farmers and others that encourage the production of corn for ethanol rather than food, and paying farmers parity prices to carry out these policies would both feed our own people and could be used to help feed many other parts of the world. It is estimated that more than 80 nations would immediately benefit from the resumption of this added corn production; now, therefore, be it

            Resolved by the House of Representatives, That we memorialize the Congress of the United States to adopt emergency measures that would double U.S. food production and to cancel immediately its membership in the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement, and instead, move to initiate normal bilateral trade agreements with other sovereign nation-states, consistent with past national policy; and be it further

            Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of the Michigan congressional delegation.