Agriculture

Floor Speech

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Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. Mr. President, as a former commissioner of agriculture in Mississippi, this is so vital and so important. In Mississippi, agriculture is the No. 1 industry. One in every four jobs is related to agriculture. So this is very vital for my State.

With the end of the fiscal year fast approaching, we must act to ensure important agriculture and conservation programs administered by the Department of Agriculture do not come to a screeching halt on October 1.

The 2018 farm bill, which was supported by 87 Members of the Senate, authorized important safety-net programs to protect producers against sharp price and revenue declines; provide short-term loans and interim financing to help producers meet cash flow needs; assist dairy producers affected by low milk prices and high feed costs; compensate landowners for taking fragile land out of production and implementing conservation improvements to help the environment; and assist producers when natural disasters destroy feed for livestock, cause above-average livestock mortality, and damage commercial orchards and fruit trees.

Current law requires many of these program payments to be made annually after October 1, which highlights the importance of this matter on this day.

As Congress discusses measures to keep the government open and Federal programs operating beyond the current fiscal year, it is essential for any continuing resolution to include a provision allowing the USDA Commodity Credit Corporation to continue financing these programs. Failure to include such a provision would pose a serious risk to America's farmers and ranchers in these already challenging times. It would cause harmful delays in program funding and benefits at a time when many producers across the country simply cannot afford to wait months to recover for these losses.

This issue is not just about supporting American agriculture; it is about Congress living up to its promises. More than 1.7 million producers signed contracts for the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage Programs. Millions of private landowners have signed conservation contracts to take their land out of production. These are contracts, and the terms of those contracts must be met.

I remind my colleagues that this is not a situation to be taken lightly. In recent years, America's farmers and ranchers have experienced unfair foreign tariffs, depressed prices, catastrophic flooding and other natural disasters, market disruptions, and now COVID-19.

I applaud my fellow Republican colleagues on the Appropriations Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee for raising awareness on this issue. It is our job to feed this country. We need to be allowed to do that.

Thank you.

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