Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., joined ‘Mornings with Maria’ to discuss war as the Biden administration continues to push an emergency aid package for both Israel and Ukraine.
American farmers have been plagued this year with drought conditions and heavy-handed government, and now a standstill on the federal Farm Bill is leaving their livelihoods with more questions and uncertainties.
“We need a Farm Bill. We need it done right,” Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins told FOX News Digital on Friday. “Done right in the sense that we have a safety net that’s there only when farmers need it, that ultimately leads to food security for this country. Food security is national security,” he expanded.
“The excessive regulations, the nonstop pace of all these agencies, some of which people in real America have never even heard of, but that can wipe out an entire industry and put farmers and ranchers out of business,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., also criticized while speaking to Digital.
“The farmers and ranchers of Missouri and across the country know what’s best for their land. They’re the original conservationists. They’re great stewards of the land,” the senator continued. “They want to feed America and feed the world, and we ought to get government out of the way so they can go do that.”
U.S. FARMER WARNS ‘CHINA IS QUIETLY TAKING OVER’ FOOD SECURITY
Joined by Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman over the weekend, the two senators gained an on-the-ground perspective from leaders of the agricultural industry by touring local Missouri farms and partaking in a roundtable discussion for the upcoming reauthorization of the Farm Bill.
U.S. farmers and ranchers who rely on the federal Farm Bill as a “safety net” have been left with uncertainty of when revamped legislations will get passed, Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins told FOX News Digital. (Getty Images)
The federal legislative package, which provides programs and support for family-owned farms, was approved for a five-year term in 2018, and just recently expired on Sept. 30. However, a revamped Farm Bill can’t be passed until a House speaker is chosen.
“We need to make sure that Congress sees the priority of making sure that we have a Farm Bill done,” Hawkins said. “We love being able to share resources on the ground, knowing that the environmental benefits that we provide on our farms and ranches benefit all Americans. So we want a farm bill that reflects and invests in conservation, gives us the tools that we need to protect our air, our soil, and our water.”
The senators put the onus on poor legislative decisions that have hurt farmers and their businesses most, including state-specific regulations and not making amendments to the outdated national Farm Bill.
National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. discusses how wild weather is impacting U.S. farmers and their crops on ‘Cavuto: Coast to Coast.’
“The AG Department has come back and just kind of rewritten what they did in the past. So that makes it such that it gives farmers great uncertainty, pesticide regulations, all of the things that make it more difficult for farmers to be efficient,” Boozman said. “Our farmers are doing a good job. It’s just the uncertainty of various rules. You can play with bad rules, you can play with good rules. If you don’t know what the rules are, it makes it difficult. That’s where we are now with USDA.”
“Prop 12 in California. I think there’s a deep concern among the people we heard from today [that] it’s going to spread across the country,” Sen. Schmitt noted. “And that puts our farmers and ranchers, quite frankly, out of business and in violation, I think, really fundamental issues of interstate commerce, and these sort of radical trade barriers that states like California want to put up are a real danger.”
Farmer Todd Olander drives through his grain crops in Colorado. | Getty Images
