Agriculture

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I say to my colleague from North Dakota how much we appreciate his leadership. He is a relentless advocate for the farmers and ranchers of North Dakota and across this country. We share a border, but we also have a lot of commonality in the people whom we represent. They are hard-working people who work from dawn to dusk to feed not only this country but the world.

It has been no easy task being in agriculture during these last few years for lots of reasons, as my colleague from North Dakota has pointed out, whether it be from, of course, most recently, COVID, but also from chronically low and depressed commodity prices, coupled with bad weather, coupled with trade disputes, and difficulties with markets here and around the world. Farmers and ranchers have had a tough and difficult road these past few years, so it is critically important that we continue to be there for them.

As my colleague from North Dakota pointed out, there was a concern because what we had heard initially would be in the continuing resolution that was coming over from the House--that will fund the government and that we will pass, hopefully, later this week in the Senate--was not going to include funding for agriculture and for all of those programs that keep ag running that we authorized in the farm bill.

A key Member of the House Agriculture Committee, Senator Boozman, of Arkansas, who is also a key member of that committee--in fact, he is somebody we hope to be the next chairman of that committee--and the current chairman of our authorizing committee, Senator Roberts, of Kansas, who, I think, will be down here in just a few minutes, all played an important role, along with the ag community. All of the organizations that Senator Hoeven is going to talk about engaged right away when they realized what was happening, and we were able to work together to solve that.

Now we will consider on the floor of the Senate the continuing resolution to fund the government that does include funding for the Commodity Credit Corporation, which provides the funds that keep all of those agricultural programs that we authorize when we do a farm bill. The last farm bill was in 2018, and we were all involved with that. It would keep all of those programs funded, and that is critically important. It has never been more important than it is right now in our coming out of the pandemic. Food security is an absolutely essential priority. It should be for our country, and it certainly should be for the Members of Congress in both the House and the Senate.

I thank my colleague Senator Hoeven. As I said, he is a strong, strong voice for our agricultural producers. When he and I and those from Arkansas and Kansas and Nebraska--those of us from farm country-- work together and put together coalitions at times like this, it is only due to that advocacy we have heard from Senator Hoeven and others that has enabled us to be successful.

I am glad that we have gotten the right outcome here, and it is something to celebrate. Obviously, our farmers and ranchers across the country are going to be, I think, enormously grateful that we have been able to get this problem resolved.

I thank the Senator for his leadership, and I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on those issues that are important in farm country that will help our farmers and ranchers not only survive but, hopefully, prosper into the future.

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