There’s a sigh of relief echoing across rural America today, as Congress delivered the American Relief Act that included both the farm bill extension and economic disaster aid farming families need.
The assistance is something Texas Corn Producers Association has advocated for much of this year, according to Jim Sugarek, who farms near Bee County, Texas, and serves as the association’s president.
“We know many of the state’s farming families were looking at the year ahead and wondering if they could make ends meet and secure the financing to get seed in the ground in 2025,” Sugarek said. “The economic assistance along with the farm bill extension are crucial to making that happen and keeping farming families in business.”
TCPA and other agricultural organizations sounded the alarm to Congress earlier this year, noting the need for both economic disaster assistance and a farm bill. Farmers were left to take blows on the chin with an outdated farm bill in place, rising cost of production, increasing interest rates, and low commodity prices – not to mention natural disasters impacting much of the country.
The viability of economic disaster assistance looked bleak over the weekend as negotiations fell apart in D.C.
“TCPA truly appreciates the lawmakers willing to lay on the tracks for our state’s farmers by ensuring Congress did what it could to keep family farms in business to produce the food our nation needs,” Sugarek said. “Down to the wire for a spending bill by the end of the session, their willingness to say it could only get their vote if it included the support our nation’s farming families need means a lot.”
Many members of the Texas congressional delegation indicated their support for economic disaster assistance during the lame duck by cosponsoring the FARM Act introduced earlier this month.
TCPA appreciates the members of the 118th Congress getting disaster assistance and a farm bill extension across the finish line this year. The association looks forward to working with the incoming administration and the next Congress to modernize and pass farm policy that meets the needs of both farmers and the nation they feed, fuel and clothe.
