Jerry Moran: “I rise to oppose, strenuously oppose the amendment that is being offered here today. The House Committee on Agriculture…”

“I rise to oppose, strenuously oppose the amendment that is being offered here today. The House Committee on Agriculture has spent months, years now, beginning in Kansas at the Kansas State Fair 2 years ago September, taking input from farmers about what we can do to address the crisis that we face in agriculture. That crisis is real. We face the circumstances in which the farmers of this country will not be farming. The economic conditions that American farmers and ranchers face are serious and getting worse. My farmers talk about what they do to serve to the next week, to the next month, to the next year. They talk about if things get any worse they have no option but to sell the farm and move to town. The average age of a farmer in Kansas is 58½ years old. There is no next generation waiting to take over the farm because there is no profitability in agriculture, and the idea that we can remedy this situation by putting more money elsewhere than into farmers' income is terribly, terribly flawed. There will be no farmers as stewards of the land absent an income in which to continue farming.”