Opening Statements

Today, House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (PA-15) delivered the following opening statement at today's full committee hearing “Examining the Economic Crisis in Farm Country”:

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the first hearing of the 119th Congress for the House Committee on Agriculture, Examining the Economic Crisis in Farm Country. And a crisis is exactly what hundreds of thousands of farm families are facing as we speak. Across the board, commodity prices have fallen precipitously while input costs remain at or near record-high levels. For some commodities, returns have been in the red for several years. Producers are burning their hard-earned equity and being forced to have incredibly tough conversations with their lenders to just figure out how to hold on for one more year. Unfortunately for some, there won’t be one more year. 

In fact, the Agriculture and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University, which tracks the financial performance of 92 representative farms all across the country, recently stated that in the 42 years of keeping records at the center, there has never been a time where there has been such a bleak outlook over the next 5 years for their representative farms, with every single major commodity deep in the red. Producers deciding what to plant this year aren’t thinking about what rotation is likely to make money, but rather, what crops will cause them to lose the least.

Thankfully, at the end of last year, Congress was able to come together and enact $21 billion in aid to address weather-related losses in 2023 and 2024 and $10 billion to partially offset some of the economic losses experienced in 2024. Obtaining that aid was not easy, but I and dozens of other Members and Senators were prepared to lay down on the tracks to block the Continuing Resolution if economic assistance wasn’t included. That is a threat I didn’t make lightly, but because of extreme concerns from the lending community, the desperation of the agriculture sector, and the threat to the future of farm families across the country – I could not in good conscience allow Congress to ignore the needs of our producers. I want to thank Speaker Johnson and the Members across both sides of the aisle who helped make that happen. I urge the Senate to act quickly to confirm Brooke Rollins – who I think will be the best Secretary of Agriculture of our lifetimes – so that she can expedite getting that assistance out the door. Farmers and their lenders cannot wait.

Downturns in agriculture are nothing new, it is and always has been a cyclical business. But it sure seems like the good times are shorter and not as profitable as they once were, and the bad times are lasting longer and are more severe. The needs of the industry have changed, and this underscores the critical importance of enacting a new farm bill with a significantly enhanced safety net. This won’t by any means make producers whole, but a bolstered and properly functioning safety net will help them weather the storm. I was proud of the work this committee did in the last Congress to advance the Farm Food and National Security Act of 2024 in a bipartisan way. Unfortunately for numerous reasons outside of my control, we weren’t able to get that bill across the finish line, and America’s producers are the ones paying the price. We cannot let this year be a repeat of the last.

I look forward to working with my new ranking member, Congresswoman Angie Craig from the great state of Minnesota, to get the farm bill over the finish line this year. It oftentimes feels like here at the agriculture committee, our job is to enact policies – like the safety net – that treat the symptoms while other committees have jurisdiction over the disease. That is why I will be working around the clock with my fellow Chairmen to address the underlying causes of these record-high input costs, such as burdensome regulations, uncertainty around taxes, and harmful energy and environmental policies that are relics of the previous Administration. I will also be working with the Trump Administration to expand markets and create demand for U.S. agriculture products. I know there is a lot of concern about tariffs and potential retaliation, but as we have seen in just the past two weeks with Colombia, Canada, and Mexico – access to the U.S. consumer provides him powerful leverage to negotiate with foreign nations and he needs to use this leverage to advance the America First agenda. I will be keeping a vigilant watch over these actions and where U.S. agriculture gets caught in the crossfire, I will be the first to speak up on behalf of our producers.

I want to thank our witnesses here today. Each and every one of them has a unique perspective to offer the Members of this Committee that will help us understand where U.S. agriculture is, where things are headed, and what this Committee needs to consider as we work to enact a highly effective farm bill.