U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) landed solidly on the side of farmers and ranchers who testified to the need for Congress to act sooner rather than later to strengthen the commodity safety net in a new Farm Bill.
This past February the Senate Agriculture Committee launched the process for writing a new Farm Bill by getting insights on the challenges facing farmers and ranchers who are still operating under outdated 2018 Farm Bill policies. The hearing, Perspectives from the Field: Farmer and Rancher Views on the Agricultural Economy, Part 1, is the first in a series planned by the committee.
“Input costs are through the roof while crop prices are lower than they were fifteen years ago. The federal farm safety net is not providing adequate support to keep our farmers and ranchers afloat. I have certainly been pulling the alarm on this because I know the seriousness of this. Because of this, producers across the country are going out of business. In short, U.S. agriculture is just in trouble,” says Hyde-Smith. “When farms are in trouble, so are the banks, the retailers, the equipment dealerships, grain buyers, gins, textile mills, transportation businesses – among the many others up and down the supply chain. Rural America is definitely in a crisis mode partly because Congress has yet to come to terms with the fact that commodity support programs under title I of the Farm Bill are inadequate.”