Agriculture of nutrition and forestry committee. During the hearing, the secretary talked about childhood hunger, foreign Land Ownership and crop assurance. N and ownership. N Land Ownership. Called a meeting to order of t call the meeting to order of the Agriculture Committee. Welcome everyone this afternoon. I hope you voted already. There are two votes, a vote now and i informed before we would be coming in at the back end of the second boat. Welcome. We are so glad that you are here today. I want to mention two of our colleagues, senator of which are in senator smith from minnesota for a funeral and not able to be with us. We wanted to submit information for the record and just wanted to indicate they are sorry they could not be here with you today. Very sad, very important funeral related to officers in minnesota. So they are not with us today. Your leadership is essential to our shared goal of keeping farmers farming, families fed and world communities strong. I share the concerns to my colleagues that after recent years of record farm income, new trends show farming continues to be one of the riskiest businesses there is. This makes it abundantly clear what i have been saying, it is time to get together on a bipartisan bill that supports our farmers, big and small and helps world immunities thrive. A farm bill is always possible. How do we reach Bipartisan Solutions to the challenges American Families and farmers in Rural Communities face . That requires creativity and i appreciate your willingness, mr. Secretary, to work with us to find Creative Solutions to important needs. Together we have already made significant progress. In october, with your leadership, we secured to . 3 billion working with you from the Commodity Credit Corporation that we are double funding for the trade emotional programs of the next five years, and ramp up the donation of american grown food to address a growing crisis of hunger around the world. So we appreciate your partnership with us. Also, in a lead up to the farm bill a year ago we came together on a bipartisan basis to secure 350 million of additional funding to support the rice and cotton industries. November we secured a bipartisan extension of the farm bill that fully funded all of the programs that do not have baseline funding. We Work Together to keep the farm bill holcomb and i appreciate your partnership in that. All of these actions show it is possible when we Work Together. I am pleased to have secured a commitment also from our majority leader to address several billion dollars in new resources and two 2014 farm bill to support our efforts to meet the needs of farmers and ranchers. I should tell you this is no small accompaniment because i remember the first farm bill that i chaired in 2014 with the leadership in the senate that required us to cut 20 billion out of the farm bill, and that was extremely difficult. So it is nice to be in a situation where we can add resources. You need to use all the tools in our toolbox and craft some new ones to help us improve the safety net for farmers. Insurance is the foundation of the farm safety net because it has the ability to reach nearly all producers with timely targeted assistance. For some disasters, but we also need additional help. Unfortunately, ad hoc Emergency Assistance can be delayed and inconsistent. In some years, 75 or more of losses are covered and in years, it can be as little as 25 depending upon appropriations. It is still uncertain if anything will be available for 2023 disasters. The farm bill can be an opportunity to add more certainty and reliability. The farm bills investments in american family, workers in Rural Communities. Snap is the foundation of the safety net for American Families who need just a little help to make ends meet, usually just for a while. The bipartisan evaluation that we directed in the 2018 farm bill after 50 years of program resulted in just an additional 1. 40 per day per person bringing benefits to about six dollars day to help folks put food on the table. This was enough to lift 1 million children out of poverty. That is 1 million children who will now have the support they need to become happy, healthy, and productive members of their communities. This is a bipartisan achievement that we should all be proud of. We also made historic investments in conservation, World Development and energy to address the climate crisis, which is hitting farmers everyday. That is now being put to work on farms and feel across america. As i said earlier, the farm bill is the art of the possible. It is where we can reach by partisan solutions that help keep farmers farming, families fed and Rural Communities strong. We can also invest in rural hospitals and childcare, which we have had. Last year, more than 5 million Rural Americans benefited from the biden administrations investment in Rural Health Care through usda programs. Usda was the first agency, and i want to thank you for this, the first agency to get high Speed Internet funding into Rural Communities through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and jobs act. We can continue to build on the improvements we have made to grow the connections between local farmers, local businesses, local families. So your leadership and partnership will be essential as we seek to find Creative Solutions to a bipartisan path to get the farm bill done and we appreciate you being here and your testimony today. I want to turn to my partner, senator roseman. Thank you for calling this important hearing. A lead from a story in agriculture according to a presentation made by the ag outlook said usda is forecast lower prices for most major clubs this year as input costs remain elevated as farmers face growing export competition. A week earlier usda forecasted that income would decrease by 27. 1 over the last year. You consider 2022, inflation adjusted dropped by 80 billion. This will be the largest to decline of alltime. We welcome you back to the committee and as we continue our work to reauthorize the farmingville, we are interested in your perspective on the challenges in the farm economy. As part of our efforts to write a new bill, we have been in numerous states across the country and i have visited with hundreds, as has the chair. What i have heard from farmers and ranchers is they are concerned, specifically about historic inflation on and off the farm, separately high interest rates, burdensome regulations, large trade deficits and agriculture and most importantly, rapidly declining farm incomes that will make these next five years some of the most challenging. Compared to last year, all sectors of agriculture in all areas of the country will see lower incomes in 24. Some pointed to a 20 year average of farm income as evidence of the farm economy is healthy and we should talk about twentyyear averages because current interest expenses are nearly doubled. Likewise 10 above the 20 year average. While we talk of net farm income being near the 20 year average it is often not accompanied by those points that reinforce the origins under which farmers operate. It is not acceptable for other workers. When there were labor strikes, i dont remember the administration calling 20 year average wage for workers. For farmers, this must be okay. When im talking to producers from across the country, they are sharing concerns about other assets used as collateral to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a crop in the ground. Knowing they learn less money, many are wondering on if the rate of return is less than 2 . You can get to and half times that earning in any cd. This is particularly true for small and midsize farms, the type of family operations we have put so much emphasis on. I am concerned about their viability as well. When i grew up hello we had more dairies in my home county than we currently have in the entire state of arkansas. The loss of population impacts the local economy, schools, hospitals and makes life in Rural America less desirable. I have seen that as i have traveled through arkansas. If we truly care about Rural Communities and are wrenching families, farming at all scales must be economically viable and we must provide a safety net that works. That is what i have called for the next farm bill, and i believe that is what i have called for and i believe that is the least we can do for farmers. The administration can be doing more to ease the worries in farm country. The regulatory agenda has made crop was available and added more uncertainty for farmers. Things like erp 30 by 30 and the lack of leadership when it comes to us, all of these decisions tell me farmers concerns are not being heard in the executive branch. I do believe in the next farm bill, 5 trillion farm bill, we have the opportunity to make for farmers. Rural communities and those in need, whether it takes a commitment for all of us to Work Together towards these were the goals, no one in the history of this committee has said that passing farmville is an easy lift. It is something this committee with the help of previous atlas rations has come together to accomplish time and time again. I did not believe this farmville should be different. I hope todays hearing will shed more light on how usda can be a partner to publish these skills. Thank you. Thank you. So i am pleased to officially welcome our secretary tom. He is no stranger to the Senate Agriculture committee having been the only member of obamas cabinet to serve all eight years and he has reprised his role in the biden administration, and we are very fortunate to have his study and experienced hand at usda. As a former governor of iowa, former member of the Iowa State Senate and former mayor of Mount Pleasant iowa, secretarial sack knows the importance of programs we are discussing today for Rural America. So welcome. You are recognized for five minutes of testimony. Any other information which you provide for the record . Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I appreciate the opportunity the committee has afforded to me. I have a portrait of abraham lincoln. I see it everyday. I often read his works and his words, and recently i came across a relatively wellknown phrase of his, which is a house divided against itself cannot stand. I suppose there are many applications to repent today in washington, but i want to utilize it to address the state of Rural America. We just finished the best three years of farm income in the history of the United States. On the other hand, sarah boseman has indicated we are now returning to near historic norms this year in terms of the farm income. It is a combination of input cost as well as lower Commodity Prices which are a result of bumper crops globally, a strong u. S. Economy and a strong u. S. Dollar, a weaker Global Economy and a weaker chinese economy, all of which impacted our ability. It is interesting that the farm income is not equitably divided among all farmers. The top 7 of farmers who represent hundred 50,000 farms, about a third of which are owned by investors received 85 of the income over the last five years, which meant that 93 are 1. 7 million farm families had to share 50 of the income. At the same time the medium farm income for the families was significantly higher than the farm Family Income across the u. S. In the 1970s farm income. The 1970s our farm story in the United States is one of tremendous productivity. In the 1970s, we established a directive to farmers to produce, we were told, farmers were to Plant Friends wrote to since roe and farmers responded. Productivity the last 50 or 60 years but at the same time, we saw corresponding consolidation of farmland and farm lost. To put this into proper perspective, we lost 544,970 farms since 1981 when bob berglund and secretary of agriculture warned about consolidation of farms. We lost 155 million acres of farmland that was at one time formed no longer friend today. To give you a sense of how many farms that is, that represents half of all the farms represented by the committee today. The farmland represents the entire landmass of florida, re georgia, north carolina, south carolina, maryland, and a good part of virginia. This has helped longterm impact on Rural Communities and have seen over the course of time, reduced job growth, high unemployment and high poverty however, recently, we have seen upturned in the rural economy. Jobs have returned to pre pandemic levels, implant rate down to historic lows, the poverty rate is down and for the first time in quite some time, persistent poverty is down. 55 counties that were categorized as persistently poor have left that list. Those are counties in the past had poverty rate of over 20 for decades we have seen net decline in the number of counties in that persistent poverty category. I think it raises the question we ask at usda and i suspect you do too, are we okay with farm loss . Are we okay with farmland in consolidated . Are we okay with income being so concentrated, are we okay with the notion expressed in the past about getting big or getting out is the only option for farm families or is there an alternative . Alternative where rather than the tfarmer working two jobs, cant we create opportunities for farm itself creates multiple sources of revenue so that the farmer does not have to work two fulltime jobs to keep the farm. That is what were focused on usda, new and more and Better Bargains on agriculture, better energy, local regional food systems. Creating opportunity for new and additional income sources to provide opportunities for farmers to do what they love to do and do it they wanted it which is to pass that opportunity onto the next generation. I look forward to the questions from the committee and i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Thank you very much. For the committee, we will do one round of seven minutes so a little more time for folks because we have the secretary with us. Mr. Secretary let me start by saying thank you for working with senator boozman and i last fall to create the original Agriculture Promotion Program through the ccc to invest additional 2. 3 billion in what has been one of the top two of all the commodity groups during the hearings we have done with Crop Insurance, number one. Wanting to double marketing assistance in number two. This is very important to us, ut we have seen an increase of trademarking assistance for many years so this is very important. Can you talk about the status of this new trade money as well as the food aid money, the commodity purchases which are very important and their ability to help farmers build markets and feed those in need . E we have taken the resources, first of all, on the trade side, we are focusing on the trade markets that are not in the top four markets because we already spend and invest marketing resources, significant amount in those topi four markets. Starting with japan and moving down the list of Market Opportunities we are trying to increase presence and promotion and increased people with those alternative markets. This allows us to begin the ea process of diversifying away from overreliance on one or two markets, china in particular. That process is beginning and will continue the next several years we have allocated resources to a series of cooperators to enhance and encourage and expand opportunity. We created a special opportunity for specialty crop exports, enabling training and education on how specialty crop producers might be able to take better advantage of export opportunities. On the International Food aid side, working with usa i. D. , the entity that basically directs where those resources are most needed and when they are most needed and we will continue to work with them to get the resources to hunters, commodities to countries as quickly as possible. I heard concerns about potential for the funding to be revoked by future congress or the targeted regions might new markets for certain crops. Are you willing to work with us to look at the possibility of offering longerterm contracts and adjustments to targeted regions and future rounds of funding . Absolutely. The key is to diversify Market Opportunities so we are not overreliance on a single market, we saw what happened with the trade war several years ago, Commodity Prices tanked and there was substantial amount of s. E. C. Money used to bail farmers out, im sure people dont want to see a return to that. Absolutely. I want to thank you for putting 100 million into initiative to focus on unique export challenges of specialty crops, specialty crops dont qualify for everything with the farm bill, not the commodity title, working on Crop Insurance to make sure that continues to be affect. They certainly have special challenges. I would ask that you work to ensure any application process is streamlined and workable for those farmers. Happy to do that. Ge in Crop Insurance, we know that selling and servicing a in whole firm Revenue Program and other policies that serve specialty crops and smaller operations can vary significantly. This has been a real challenge. The standard reinsurance agreement includes flexibility for the fcic board t