Proclamation 7252—National Farm-City Week, 1999

As we gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving and to express our gratitude for the many blessings bestowed on ourselves and our Nation, we must also give thanks for the special relationship between America's farms and cities—a relationship that has strengthened our economy and helped to sustain people across America and around the world.

Throughout our Nation's history, America's farmers and ranchers have provided us with an abundant, affordable supply of food and fiber. As we prepare to enter the 21st century, we recognize that rural America will continue to be a cornerstone of our national prosperity. Generating more than 22 million jobs and contributing a trillion dollars each year to our economy, American agriculture is one of our most important and productive industries.

However, farmers and ranchers do not live or work in isolation; the labor of many people, both rural and urban Americans, helps provide the agricultural products so vital to our health, our prosperity, and our quality of life. What connects farms and ranches with urban stores and consumers is a network of farmers, ranchers, agribusiness industries, scientists, inspectors, shippers, retail distributors, and others who work together to grow, process, and share the bounty of our great land.

During National Farm-City Week, let us pause to give thanks for that bounty. Let us acknowledge the efforts of the many hardworking men and women across our country who dedicate their lives to producing the world's safest, most abundant supply of food and fiber. And let us be thankful for the strength and productivity of the working relationship between America's rural and urban communities.

Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 19 through November 25, 1999, as National Farm-City Week. I call upon all Americans, in rural and urban communities alike, to recognize the achievements of all those who work together to promote America's agricultural abundance.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON