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Legislative Watch: Regional Agricultural Promotion Program; Hawley proposes stricter antitrust rules on meatpackers; new caucus formed to promote agricultural trade.

USDA’s plan to spend $1.4 billion to pay for a new export promotion program will provide the increase in market development funding that commodity groups have been trying to get through the farm bill, says Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Amid the budget turmoil on Capitol Hill, the House Budget Committee is set to consider a partisan, fiscal 2023 budget resolution today, a little more than a week before the end of the fiscal year.

During a 1956 speech in Illinois, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.” Those words still ring true 67 years later as my colleagues and I on the House Agriculture Committee negotiate the new farm bill.

The success of our economy depends on the success of our farmers. Agriculture contributed roughly $1.3 trillion to GDP in 2021, with direct farm output reaching nearly $165 billion, according to the Department of Agriculture. The 2023 Feeding the Economy report also confirms the importance of agriculture to the economy, finding that nearly 43 million jobs, $2.3 trillion in wages, and $7.43 trillion in total food and industry economic activity are tied to agriculture. In other words, nearly 20% of the economy and roughly 30% of jobs are connected to agriculture in some way.