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House Ag Committee member says need for substantial emergency farmer aid rising
A member of the U.S. House Ag Committee says lawmakers need to get more serious about providing additional emergency relief for farmers.
Michigan’s Kristen McDonald Rivet tells Brownfield, “The restriction of markets, the rising input cost, and now diesel in the cost that we have, there is becoming a moment of crisis.”
“I’m talking to farmers all the time who are running generational historic farms who are worried about closure,” she shares.
Shawn Arita with the Ag Risk Policy Center at North Dakota State University says farmers have been facing multiple years of economic pressures.
“We haven’t seen these types of challenges for years. The calls have been bipartisan for additional aid. The high fertilizer prices have really amplified the problem, but I guess we’re going to have to see,” he explains.
McDonald Rivet says Congress needs to be better prepared if the ag economy doesn’t stabilize and the political will to keep farms in business.
“Having the tools in Congress to get that done is not an obstacle,” she says. “We could do it in the farm bill. We could do it in the reconciliation process. There are many, many ways that we could do that. A very small amount of money has been put forward at the end of last year for our farmers, but nowhere near enough.”
McDonald Rivet says there needs to be a layered approach to lowering costs for farmers and consumers, including passing E15 legislation and ending the war in the Middle East.
She points to her recently introduced Lower Prices at the Pump Act, which would also prohibit price gouging during periods of market disruption or energy instability.
Eliminate the tax loophole for capital gains is the right thing to do. The only way to keep farmers farming is to Eliminate tax evasion. Agriculture should not be a means to investment for the wealthy.