On the recordDecember 12, 2018
I thank the chairman for his leadership and I thank the ranking member for his leadership on this legislation. The conference report provides much needed resources that will help farmers cope with a 5-year, 50 percent collapse in the farm economy, the largest such drop since the Great Depression. During this process, we have acted in a bipartisan fashion to fix broken government programs that have not worked as intended and left farmers with nowhere to turn. In upstate New York, perhaps none are hurting more than our local dairy farmers. New York is the third largest dairy State, and our farmers are hurting. The current dairy programs do not work, and improvements to the farm bill combined with those in the bipartisan Budget Act from earlier this year will help our farmers weather the storm. We have made the dairy safety net more flexible by increasing coverage options, more affordable by reducing premiums, and more enticing for participation by bringing more incentives for those farmers to participate. We have also worked to protect the SNAP program and laid the groundwork for future Congresses to make additional changes. By incentivizing work through better local workforce consultation and reducing the number of waivers that States can bring, we can bring more recipients into the workforce during a time of record low unemployment.…
