Ron Kind: “This farm bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation before this Congress in this session because it truly…”

“This farm bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation before this Congress in this session because it truly does affect us all. It affects our family farmers. It affects consumers in America. It affects our wildlife and natural resources. It affects people who are hungry, both in this country and abroad, and it affects economic development opportunities in rural America but also in the developing world, and it affects my home State in Wisconsin, where agriculture is still the number one industry. I know, I have a 200-acre farm in western Wisconsin where we rotate corn and soybeans. I've got beef cattle on it from time to time. But for too long farm policy has resulted in billions of dollars of subsidies going to a few, but very large and very wealthy entities who then gobble up family farms around them, drive up land values and make it virtually impossible for new beginning farmers to enter the business. These subsidies have distorted the marketplace, and they distort our trade policies. Too many farmers have planted for the government paycheck instead of the marketplace. This has got to change.”