For its first hearing of the new Congress, the Senate Agriculture Committee invited the leaders of the country’s biggest farm groups to Capitol Hill to share their perspectives on the state of the U.S. farm economy.
During the main panel, National Farmers Union president Rob Larew and American Farm Bureau Federation president Zippy Duvall painted a picture of struggling American farmers facing a multitude of challenges. Net farm income hit a high in 2022 and then dropped significantly in 2023 and 2024, but it is still far above average compared to previous years.
Senators on both sides of the aisle asked repeatedly about the impact President Trump’s proposed tariffs might have on farmers. Larew said farmers are already seeing suppliers of goods like fertilizer raise costs in anticipation of tariffs (although tariffs on Mexico and Canada have been paused). Duvall said he trusted Trump to pay farmers if they were hurt by the tariffs but that farmers would prefer to make the money through trade. “One of the concerns we’ve expressed is the potential of shrinking markets,” he said.
But in his opening statement, Duvall said the number one worry he hears from farmers is about finding workers. “It’s important that the committee recognize that the greatest domestic policy threat to American agriculture is an outdated guestworker program and the labor crisis farmers are facing across the country,” he said. Several Democrats then made connections between Trump’s promises of mass deportations and the large number of undocumented immigrants working on American farms.
“What happens if 40 percent of the workforce for farmers and ranchers disappears?” asked Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico). “It would be devastating to agriculture,” Duvall answered. “You would see farms go out of business and we could see interruptions in our food system.”
Both Larew and Duvall also expressed worries over the still-rising age of the American farmer and said a modernized farm bill passed this year could lay the groundwork for stability that appeals to younger growers. They asked for expansions of crop insurance and higher subsidy payments for commodity growers. Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Arkansas) said his “highest priority for the next farm bill is to improve the farm safety net,” but while that’s a popular plan in the Committee, other Republican lawmakers have proposed cuts to farm programs in order to slash spending. (Link to this post.)
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