Current economic conditions and Trump administration policies could lead to “a widespread collapse of American agriculture,” a bipartisan coalition of former Agriculture Department officials and leaders of farm groups warned in a letter on Tuesday.
The letter to the heads and ranking members of the House and Senate agricultural committees was signed by 27 influential figures in the farming sector, including former heads of powerful associations representing corn and soybean farmers and officials from the Bush and Reagan administrations. It expressed dismay at the “damage done to American farmers.”
While there are many reasons for increasing farm bankruptcies and decreasing profits, “it is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction, have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical ag research and staffing,” the letter warned.
The signatories called on Congress to relax tariffs for the agriculture sector, expand international markets, pass a new farm bill and restore funding for agriculture research and staffing.
“Our farmers and ranchers can compete with the world, but they can’t compete with the world with a chaotic set of policy circumstances,” one of the signers, Jon Doggett, the former chief executive of the National Corn Growers Association, said in an interview.
The letter began as informal conversations between retired colleagues about the Trump administration’s economic policies harming the farm economy, Mr. Doggett said. While many farmers share those concerns, Mr. Doggett worried that “we’re not having those conversations in an open and meaningful way.”
“We really want to see more open, frank conversations with room to disagree, so that we can move forward on policy initiatives that are in the best interest of farmers and ranchers across the United States,” he said.
Linda Qiu is a Times reporter who specializes in fact-checking statements made by politicians and public figures. She has been reporting and fact-checking public figures for nearly a decade.
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