For its first hearing of the new Congress, the Senate Agriculture Committee invited the leaders of the nation’s greatest farm teams to Capitol Hill to share their views on the state of the U.S. farm economic system.
Throughout the principle panel, Nationwide Farmers Union president Rob Larew and American Farm Bureau Federation president Zippy Duvall painted an image of struggling American farmers dealing with a large number of challenges. Net farm income hit a excessive in 2022 after which dropped considerably in 2023 and 2024, however it’s nonetheless far above common in comparison with earlier years.
Senators on either side of the aisle requested repeatedly concerning the affect President Trump’s proposed tariffs may need on farmers. Larew mentioned farmers are already seeing suppliers of products like fertilizer increase prices in anticipation of tariffs (though tariffs on Mexico and Canada have been paused). Duvall mentioned he trusted Trump to pay farmers in the event that they had been harm by the tariffs however that farmers would favor to make the cash via commerce. “One of many issues we’ve expressed is the potential of shrinking markets,” he mentioned.
However in his opening assertion, Duvall mentioned the primary fear he hears from farmers is about discovering staff. “It’s essential that the committee acknowledge that the best home coverage risk to American agriculture is an outdated guestworker program and the labor disaster farmers are dealing with throughout the nation,” he mentioned. A number of Democrats then made connections between Trump’s guarantees of mass deportations and the massive variety of undocumented immigrants working on American farms.
“What occurs if 40 % of the workforce for farmers and ranchers disappears?” requested Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico). “It will be devastating to agriculture,” Duvall answered. “You’ll see farms exit of enterprise and we may see interruptions in our meals system.”
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