Supporting American agriculture and rural communities is a lot more than about funding levels or even policies.

I have been very much looking forward to the opportunity to hear from you about what we can do to support agriculture in Kansas.

It was my pleasure a while back to have the opportunity to host Senator Roberts in Michigan at Michigan State University.

Our way of life is worth fighting for.

We look forward to working with you as we put the pieces together for the Farm Bill and recommendations and how we focus on risk management.

We need to be evaluating everything the Government does, measuring every program, streamlining and consolidating programs.

We know we need to tackle it. We know everybody in farm country and every rural community understands that they have to do their part like everybody else.

The House of Representatives passed a bill earlier in the year that would have cut $48 billion in production agriculture's baseline.

It is my great pleasure to be here in Kansas with all of you.

the Farm Bill is a jobs bill. 16 million people in this country work because of agriculture.

We know we have a lot of challenges in front of us, probably the toughest Farm Bill to write since the first one was written.

Agriculture has already taken substantial and, in my judgment, disproportionate cuts in the current budget.

I rise during this very critical debate about the deficit crisis to talk for a few minutes about what this means for Michigan and for the families and the businesses I represent. I grew up in a small northern town of Clare, MI, where my…

I am proud to say these important crops are a part of the Farm Bill discussions and their place in the Farm Bill is here to stay.

I think Senator Stabenow has seen how valuable they are to this country as a whole, and some the goals that our nation has.

Thank you very much, and I want to thank both Senator Leahy and Senator Lugar, who are very distinguished former Chairs of this committee.

Sales of U.S. specialty crops top $65 billion annually with nearly 2 billion of those sales coming from Michigan alone.

The role you play in reaching our goals, both for jobs, success in rural America, as well as the health of the country, is very important.

Organic sales also contribute to an overgrowing--reaching nearly 29 billion in 2010.

this is an area, I think, of really exciting opportunity for our country and certainly for rural America

the farm bill is a jobs bill and there are other ways in which we can leverage what we do

Agriculture and manufacturing are at the heart of any economy.

our agricultural economy is leading the nation's economic recovery, which is, in fact, true

We want to make sure that we are doing the right thing to be able to be your partners.

I continue to talk about the Farm Bill as a jobs bill because that is exactly what it is.