Proclamation 7053—National Farm-City Week, 1997

When Americans sit down to a meal each day, we sometimes take for granted the quality and variety of the food we eat. Our grocery stores, supermarkets, and restaurants offer us an enormous volume and selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, and other food items, but we too often forget the hardworking men and women whose skill and effort put that food on our tables.

Strengthening our economy and providing food for people around the world, American agriculture is a leading global industry and a source of pride for our Nation. While producing an abundance of safe and affordable food and fiber, America's farmers and ranchers also provide a rich source of jobs in the United States. American agriculture employs more than 21 million people today, and agriculture-related industries continue to expand, pumping a trillion dollars into the American economy each year.

During the earliest days of our Nation, most of the crops farmers grew were used to feed their families or local consumers. Today, through advances in technology and marketing and through partnerships with agribusiness industries, research scientists, carriers, shippers, and retail distributors, America's farmers produce enough food and fiber to help meet the needs of people around the globe.

This week, as Americans gather with family and friends around the dinner table to give thanks for their many blessings, it is fitting that we count amount those blessings the vital farm-city partnerships that have done so much to improve the quality of our lives. Rural and urban communities, working together to make the most of America's rich agricultural resources, continue to contribute immensely to the health and well-being of our people and to the vigor of our national economy.

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 21 through November 27, 1997, as National Farm-City Week. I call upon citizens in urban and rural areas throughout the Nation to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of all those who, working together, produce an abundance of agricultural products that strengthen and enrich our country.

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

WILLIAM J. CLINTON