Asa Hutchinson: “The reality is farmers are hurting right now. They need a signal from this Senate and this Congress that we are going to…”

“The reality is farmers are hurting right now. They need a signal from this Senate and this Congress that we are going to address the crisis that agriculture is experiencing. In my home State of Arkansas, 25 percent of our economy is agricultural related, either directly or indirectly. In east Arkansas, in the Delta of Arkansas, the entire economy is related to agriculture--the implement dealers, the seed stores, the bankers, or the farmers themselves. So this is a critical issue to my State and one we must address. Because of low commodity prices, because of increasingly high energy costs, because of high fertilizer costs, because of the investments in machinery that are required, all of this compounds to create a very serious situation in farm communities across Arkansas. What we are seeing is the death of American agriculture by attrition. We may be able to point to a rising graph on spending, but we must acknowledge that what farmers are facing today is a grave crisis.”