There’s no easy way to put it: America’s farmers are in trouble.
Our farmers lost more than $30 billion this year. A new Farm Bill to help them is stalled in Congress thanks to Democratic stonewalling. Four years of rising input costs and Biden-led regulatory overreach have put many family farms on the verge of extinction.
The good news is that America is going to have a friend to farmers back in the White House soon. President-elect Trump scored win after win for our farm families during his first term and I know that’s one of his top goals for his second. But as the old saying goes, personnel is policy.
That’s why we need Brooke Rollins, President Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of agriculture, to be confirmed as soon as possible.
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I worked with Brooke in the White House, where she and I were part of a group of women empowered by President Trump to fight for his America First vision. As director of the Domestic Policy Council and the Office of American Innovation, Brooke mastered policies across issue areas and helped the president unleash the greatest economy in American history.
She worked especially hard to roll back onerous red tape like the Waters of the United States policy, which President Obama wanted to use to regulate every stream, creek and puddle in America.
Farming isn’t just intellectual to Brooke. She grew up in a small, agricultural community in Texas and comes from generations of hardworking American farmers. She studied agriculture at Texas A&M and spent the early part of her career fighting to protect farmers’ interests. She was part of 4-H and FFA and raises steer with her four kids.
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Not long ago, I joined Sen. John Boozman, Arkansas’ senior senator and the incoming chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, for a tour of farms in the Arkansas Delta. At the end of a long day meeting with farmers, we sat down for a roundtable in McGehee, Arkansas. I’d known for a while that our farm families were struggling but this event made it crystal clear.
One by one, the farmers at the table told me how their neighbors and relatives were dropping out of the agriculture industry and having to scramble to find jobs elsewhere. They talked about how the price of everything from fuel to seeds was going up, but that the price that their row crops fetched in the market wasn’t keeping up. They described it as a generational crisis.
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I’ve always believed that farming is more than just a business. Especially in places like smalltown Arkansas, it’s a way of life. It’s our state’s culture, our history and what knits communities like McGehee together. If our farmers disappear, something critical to the spirit of Arkansas – and America – would disappear along with them.
Brooke understands that fact – and she’s prepared to do something about it. I know that the first item on her to-do list is to work with new Republican majorities in the House and Senate to pass an updated Farm Bill – legislation that hasn’t been thoroughly revised for ten years. I know she will work to undo the regulatory red tape that hamstrings our farmers and turns a difficult job into an impossible one.
I know she is committed to improving broadband and connectivity in our small communities, helping rural Arkansas connect with the world. And I know she will fight to realize President Trump’s vision of a dominant America – in food, in energy and in everything else.
My dad used to say that if a country can’t feed itself, fuel itself or fight for itself then it can’t survive. It’s not dramatic to say that we’re getting very near to that point – and we need a dramatic change in leadership to right the ship.
Brooke Rollins is that leader. Confirm Brooke as secretary of agriculture. Stand up for America’s farmers. Preserve our agriculture industry – and our nation’s way of life.
