On the recordFebruary 13, 2025
Mr. President, anybody who knows me well knows that I say this a lot, and that is that agriculture is the lifeblood of South Dakota and the lifeblood of our country, and farmers and ranchers are hard at work every single day to feed America and the world. But what I hear lately from farmers and ranchers is not good. Agriculture producers across the country have faced strong headwinds in recent years--higher input costs, high interest rates, lower commodity prices--all leading to declining farm income year after year. Natural disasters have struck many of our farm regions, and the bird flu continues to ravage agriculture across the country. Of course, in the last few years, the Biden administration was hardly much help. It imposed burdensome regulations like WOTUS, or waters of the United States, that threatened to devastate the farm sector. The administration put expanding market access on the back burner while our agricultural trade deficit grew to record levels, and their profligate spending led to inflation that hit farmers and ranchers especially hard in the form of higher input costs. Meanwhile, Democrats here in Congress failed to prioritize a modernized farm bill to support agriculture through these challenges, and we are now more than a year past due for an updated farm bill. America's farmers and ranchers deserve better--much better.…





