(WASHINGTON D.C.) — Senate appropriators argued for more disaster help for farmers while slamming USDA’s positive spin on net farm income during a committee hearing. USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres-Small insisted recent net farm income has been pretty good.
“The last four-years, one has been a banner year, setting record numbers,” says Torres-Small. “The other three have all been within the 20-year national average.”
That was not music to the ears of appropriator and top Ag Republican, Senator John Boozman (R-AR). “The 20-year average doesn’t mean anything, right now,” said Senator Boozman. “There’s no person working in America that wants to be at the 20-year average.”
Especially farmers, when their costs are sky high and crop prices are in the ground. North Dakota Senator John Hoeven added “Figure out your pay for the last 20-years, and you’re getting the average, the 20-year average, and then figure out what your expenses are today, your fuel, your fertilizer and everything else, you’re way below cost. So, number one, across the country, that’s what our farmers are seeing.”
And then, there are disasters like drought. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) said “We have not had a wheat crop this small since 1961, because we can’t grow a crop. You add that to all the other features of high input costs, low commodity prices and high interest rates, and the damage is real.”
President Biden asked Congress for 98 billion dollars, mostly for hurricane victims and infrastructure needs. It’s unclear what Congress can agree on amid uncertainty over all FY ’25 spending. Senator Moran urged colleagues to direct USDA on how to spend available disaster dollars. “This is as dire a circumstance that I can see in my time, in trying to address the saving of rural America,” according to Senator Moran.
Talk of disaster aid for farmers is currently being discussed as part of an end of the year package that would include another one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill. Read more on that here: https://americanagnetwork.com/2024/11/despite-senate-text-it-appears-another-farm-bill-extension-is-coming-soon/
Story above courtesy of NAFB News Service and Berns Bureau Washington/Matt Kaye
