Farmers, Ranchers, Foresters, and Consumers Deserve Certainty

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Thompson for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in America, we can almost always count on the grocery stores' shelves being full. Too often, many overlook just how blessed we are to live in a country with such an abundance of food.

Today, as Americans, we enjoy the most abundant, affordable, and safe supply of food in the history of humankind. That is because of the farmers, ranchers, producers, and suppliers who put in the hours and take the risks to produce the food and fiber we count on.

It is also in part because of the farm safety net programs included in the farm bill that ensure that we continue producing enough to feed American citizens.

As an eighth-generation Tennessee farmer and former Tennessee commissioner of agriculture, I can attest that programs in the farm bill, like the Federal crop insurance program, are critical to ensuring we maintain an abundant and affordable supply of food in the United States.

These farm safety net programs provide risk protection and income support for farmers who experience natural disasters, adverse growing conditions, and fluctuations in market prices.

We must remember in these times of rampant inflation and ever -rising prices for farm inputs that our farmers are price takers. They don't have the luxury of passing their rising input costs on in the form of higher prices.

The crop insurance program specifically helps farmers pay their private insurance premiums, which are often too expensive for small family farmers.

In 2021, premium assistance covered 62 percent of premiums, on average, for those who qualified. This assistance is available for most field crops, several specialty crops, and some livestock producers.

However, in their current form, these programs are far from perfect and far from meeting the growing needs of our Nation's producers. Emergency assistance and routine support payments are often determined by arbitrary and outdated formulas. It is why this proposed farm bill makes these programs more adaptive to inflation. Rising input costs continue to burden our Nation's farms, big and small, which is why the enhancement in this bill will improve the farm safety net for our farmers and agricultural producers.

I am committed to improving these commodity programs by increasing reference prices and creating a more robust crop insurance program.

Congress has the ability to update our farm policy by crafting a bipartisan farm bill that aligns the safety net with the needs of producers, expands market access, and strengthens program operations to demand transparency and accountability for the American taxpayer.

In a divided Congress, this would be a major win for the American people and the Tennesseans I represent. Throughout the farm bill process, I have remained committed, as have my colleagues, to delivering for them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his persistence and dedication to ensure our farmers are not left behind.

Rest assured, Republicans in the House Agriculture Committee will not quit working on passing this bill until the job is done. You have our word because it is the very least our farmers who work day in and day out deserve.

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