Agriculture

My cropland north of Grand Island is ready for corn planting the first week of May. I am very concerned about the welfare of all of our farmers and agricultural workers.

Having grown up on a farm and having a life-long interest in agriculture, I have to stand up and be counted on these incredibly serious threats that are coming, not from outside our nation, but from within our own administration.

I think that we have bad policy that is going to have worse consequences. And all this is thoughtless irresponsibility is rubber-stamped without appropriate Congressional oversight or approval.

Government mistreatment of migrant labor and immigrants critical to the running of many aspects of our agricultural industry.
Downstream effects of the cancelling of USAID which allows farmers to send their surpluses to countries that need them, giving farmers an income while making sure that our agriculture production is stable.
Collapse of foreign markets due to tariffs.

It's 2017 again only worse, and our farmers are again going to take the brunt of this. The tariffs on soybeans brought in the last time Trump was in government decimated the massive Chinese market for American soybeans, which has not recovered.

There are vague noises coming from the Administration that farmers will again be bailed out, but there's certainly nothing in the current reconciliation bill that guarantees it.

While action on China's unfair trade practices is certainly necessary and overdue, taking a chainsaw to our agriculture industry and putting farmers out of business is not the way to go about it. These policies do, however, have one effect that this Administration is aiming for: they will serve the interests of billionaires like our very own Pete Ricketts who will be able to buy up our agricultural land at pennies on the dollar.

WE DESERVE BETTER!