Q&A: National Agriculture Week

Q: How does your life experience influence your work for Iowans in Washington?

 A: As a lifelong family farmer, I’m proud to serve as the voice for Rural America and farm families in the United States Senate. While advances in science and technology have improved productivity and lessened the number of workers needed to put in the crop and harvest it, Iowa farm families carry on a heritage that continues from one generation to the next. A century ago, the United States had 6.5 million farms with 32 million people living on them, according to the U.S. Census. Today, the number of farms in the U.S. is just over two million. As one of only two crop farmers currently serving in the Senate, I work tirelessly to champion the values and policies that impact the lives and livelihoods of rural Americans. Only two percent of the entire U.S. population grows and produces the food and fiber that feeds, fuels and clothes the rest of us. 

 The Russian invasion of Ukraine created a humanitarian crisis and underscores what I’ve long said at the policymaking tables in Congress. Food security is national security. Ukraine is the Iowa of Central Europe so as the war prevents planting, many countries will be scrambling to meet their demand for grain. The same goes for energy security. Boneheaded decisions by the Biden administration have damaged American energy independence. President Biden needs to take his foot off the brakes and unleash U.S. energy producers. America needs an all of the above energy strategy. That includes pumping, drilling and fracking our own fossil fuels and harvesting and producing biofuels grown in America’s heartland. I’ve introduced the Home Front Energy Independence Act with Sen. Joni Ernst that would open up biofuel production and reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The current excess ethanol capacity domestically is nearly the same as the amount of Russian gas the U.S. had been importing: roughly 83 million barrels compared to 87 million barrels. Let American farmers prime our energy pump with homegrown energy. It’s a bad look and bad policy for the president of the United States to go hat in hand to OPEC countries and beg them to pump foreign oil to lessen pain at the pump for Americans.

Q: What are you hearing about from Iowa farmers heading into the spring planting season?

 A: Inflation and supply chain disruptions are packing a one-two punch to farm input prices. Across our state, farmers are watching energy prices climb and fertilizer prices soar. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will create another ripple effect and drive up the cost of food for Americans already being hammered with inflation. Consider the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agricultural Marketing Services. The prices of key fertilizer sources have jumped 203% for anhydrous ammonia; 162% for liquid nitrogen; 125% for potash; and 95% for farm diesel. I’ve joined a chorus of farm state senators to press the Biden administration to take action that would help bring down these costs, such as increasing U.S. gas production and eliminating the cross-border vaccine mandate for truckers carrying essential commerce. I’m also pushing the U.S. International Trade Commission to reconsider its decision to place duties on phosphate fertilizer products imported from Morocco and to suspend the current process to impose new duties on urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer from Trinidad and Tobago. Farmers are champing at the bit to get in the fields to plant. As on-farm expenses ratchet up since ITC tariffs were implemented, farmers are facing exorbitant costs to put in their crops. Eliminating these duties on fertilizer imports would provide an immediate avenue for a near-term partial remedy before the spring planting season gets underway.

 As an inflation fighter since Iowans first elected me to Congress, I will keep fighting to restore fiscal discipline in Washington. The Biden administration’s reckless spending and borrowing spree fueled the fires of inflation. As the Federal Reserve seeks to tamp down 40-year high inflation that the Biden administration insisted was “transitory,” Iowa farmers are keeping close watch on interest rates hikes that push up borrowing costs and bite into farmers’ bottom lines to finance operations or purchase land.

 The Biden administration also put trade agreements on the back burner at the expense of American farmers and exporters who are losing market share to competitors, especially China. I’ve called on the Biden administration since last summer to fill roles at both USTR and USDA that are critical to facilitating agricultural trade and yet the positions remain vacant. As long as I’m in the U.S. Senate, I’ll keep putting my shoulder to the wheel and give voice to American agriculture at the policymaking tables.