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U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. recently joined Sirius XM Rural Radio, Agriculture of America, to discuss his EATS Act legislation and provide an update on the Farm Bill. During the interview, Senator Marshall expressed his concerns about the lack of priority given to agriculture by the current administration.

In regards to the Farm Bill, Senator Marshall stated, "Agriculture has just never been a priority for this particular White House. And I think the Farm Bill is a great example of it. We can spend hundreds of billions of dollars all across the country across the world, but there’s not time to fix a Farm Bill?"

He also thanked Speaker Mike Johnson for getting the current Farm Bill extended but expressed concerns about the upcoming bill, saying, "So we’re pretty far apart. Obviously the Democrats’ efforts are always centered around the food stamp programs, we think a Farm Bill should be centered around the American farmer and making sure that we have, you know, good price points for whether it’s wheat or corn… I think it comes down to money right now. And right now this Farm Bill that we’re facing right now is just strictly a nutrition bill. And it’s not enough for the farmer."

Senator Marshall also highlighted the financial challenges faced by the agricultural industry, stating, "I mean, in many cases, I feel like I’m part of a company that’s broke. And that’s because we are, that we’re going to spend $900 billion on interest this year, $900 billion on interest, that’s more than what we’re spending on the military. So just like any business, when you start paying the banker too much, there’s no money left at home."

He further explained, "For the nutrition programs, Pat Roberts’ Farm Bill from 2018, they budgeted $60 billion a year, but we’re spending $180 billion a year on food stamps, the nutrition programs, and of course, I want everyone to eat, I don’t want anyone to go home hungry, but my goodness to go from $60 to $180 billion a year."

Regarding the impact of high interest rates on farmers, Senator Marshall emphasized, "We spent hours and hours, weeks and weeks up here talking about these one-off government programs. But the number one thing the White House could do for the American farmer is to get the interest rates back down where they were when they took office, that you know the average American farmer maybe has a million dollar operation loan each year."

He added, "And they were paying 2%, now they’re paying 9% interest on that. You can do the math, but that’s $70,000 more a year in interest that those folks are spending and guess what the average income for a farmer was prior to this President, it was about $70,000."

In addition, Senator Marshall discussed his EATS Act, which aims to protect state rights and farmers' ability to produce according to their own best practices. He explained, "The EATS ACT was in response to California’s Proposition 12 Act, which was really an animal welfare and animal rights activists are the ones that push that through, that California wants to tell Kansas producers how to raise hogs."

He further expressed concerns about potential further regulations, stating, "If we let them tell us how to raise hogs, they’re going to next tell us how to raise chickens, and they’re trying to do that, they’re going to tell us how to raise cattle, they’re going to tell us what type of fertilizer we can put on our wheat as well."

Senator Marshall concluded by highlighting the importance of raising awareness about animal welfare, stating, "So to me, it’s protecting Kansas’ state rights, it’s protecting the rights of our farmers to be able to produce what we do in the way we think is best. And to combat this, I just challenge your listeners, make sure that we’re sharing with everybody we can, how much we care about animals. That’s really what this comes down to."

In this interview, Senator Marshall expressed his concerns about the lack of focus on agriculture by the current administration and emphasized the need for a Farm Bill that prioritizes the needs of American farmers. He also highlighted the financial challenges faced by the agricultural industry, including high interest rates and increasing costs of inputs. Additionally, he discussed his EATS Act, which aims to protect state rights and farmers' ability to produce according to their best practices. Senator Marshall called for raising awareness about animal welfare and the importance of supporting American farmers.

For additional details, please follow this link: https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-senator-marshall-joins-agriculture-of-america-agriculture-has-never-been-a-priority-for-this-white-house/