By Brooke S. Appleton
Fall has almost arrived, and along with it comes marathon season. You would expect to see everyone moving at a slow steady speed as a result. Yet, the nation’s elected officials and political candidates are sprinting toward election day while official legislative work on the farm bill and other matters is largely stuck and not moving forward as urgently as needed.
The competitive presidential and congressional races are making Washington hyper-partisan while injecting a great deal of uncertainty about the political landscape in 2025. No matter the outcome, we’re going to have many new leaders with many competing priorities come January.
That, coupled with the incredible economic stress on farmers right now, is why we are pushing for Congress to act to pass the farm bill before year’s end.
We have one last bite at this apple before the election, and we plan to take it. To that end, NCGA and our sister ag groups are coordinating a joint fly-in this month to get farmers from across regions and crops into congressional offices to talk about getting the farm bill done this year.
As part of this effort, we will meet with members of Congress, including those representing states and districts outside the Corn Belt. Our message is clear: Farmers are facing worsening economic challenges, and we need Congress to pass a stronger farm bill now.
We are also running advertising in the Washington, D.C., market directed at Congress and the administration. In the ads, we talk about the value corn growers bring to the national economy and call on Congress to act. We are running these ads online, at Reagan National Airport and on television during national news programming on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, etc.
We are also actively encouraging our network of farmers and advocates, many of whom can’t make it to Washington to meet with Congress, to encourage their senators and representatives to pass a robust farm bill. This is all layered on top of the intensive and aggressive work we’ve been doing on the farm bill over the last two years. If we’re to be successful in these latest efforts, we will need your help, particularly when it comes to the call-to-action. If you haven’t already, please text COB to 52886 to receive our action alerts. And when you receive them, act!
When https://www.iowacorn.org/news/ears-in-washington-september-2024/ it comes to farm bill passage, we’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there. We all must pick up the pace.
Appleton is vice president of public policy at the National Corn Growers Association.
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