Moore: We Need To Get To Know New Members Of Congress

Getting to know the new faces in Congress will be one of the chief priorities for the American Farm Bureau in the New Year. Executive Vice President Dale Moore says they’ll also need to get to know the new people in Ag leadership positions.

“We’ve been working with our state Farm Bureaus to put together information packets, so that we can come to a new Congressman or Congresswoman and say, “Here’s who we are and here’s some of our key issues that we’ll be working on.” David Scott from Georgia is going to be the chairman, someone that we’ve worked with a lot. G.T. Thompson, who’ll be the Ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee. As we look over to the Senate side, we have Senator [John] Boozman coming in succeeding Pat Roberts as Senate Ag Committee Chairman.

Moore said a couple of the biggest priorities the Farm Bureau will work on include trade and getting ready for the new farm bill.

“Trade has been a front and center issue, whether we’re looking across the Pacific at China and the Pacific Rim Countries, Japan, South Korea, and so forth. And as we look across the Atlantic Ocean, we’re seeing that Great Britain and Europe have finally got their Brexit agreement put together. We look forward to hopefully making some progress with the European Union. The new farm bill is going to be an interesting one, given all that we’ve been through between the trade wars, certainly with the impact of COVID on farmers and ranchers, livestock producers across the country.”

Ensuring farmers have a steady supply of guest worker labor will be another key priority in the new session.

“The other area that is always a perennial issue, has been ever since I’ve come to Washington, D.C., and that is ensuring that farmers and ranchers have access to a ready, stable, legal workforce, and that’s going to be an ongoing challenge that we’re still trying to find answers to.”

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