[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 25, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H284]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             FOOD SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. McCormick) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCORMICK. Madam Speaker, today I address something that is near 
and dear to everyone's heart, and that is food security.
  One of my biggest concerns right now, as I have become educated on 
the things that concern Americans, is the fact that all around the 
world right now, we are facing food shortages. A lot of this is created 
by our own actions.
  If you look in Ukraine right now, you have food rotting in bins 
because of a war. The breadbasket of Europe is not going to be 
producing crops in the next year because of the war.
  In China, you have massive pollution which is contaminating their 
agricultural output.
  Meanwhile, you have countries like India that are reliant on foreign 
fertilizer that are going to be choked off because of the environmental 
movement.
  You have the Netherlands and Germany reducing their nitrates in their 
fertilizers, which they haven't done since World War I, which created a 
famine back then.
  In the United States, we have a third of our chickens and our eggs 
that are being reduced because of Avian Flu.
  Meanwhile, we are allowing Chinese nationals and billionaires to buy 
up millions of acres of farmland. This is concerning for many reasons. 
If we thought that the pandemic was a reason for government to 
overreach, if we thought that that was going to be a crisis, imagine 
what it would be like if we ran out of food, if we have food shortages.
  When you realize that we had people panicking over toilet paper, 
imagine what they will do when they panic when our cupboards are bare. 
This could be a worldwide reason for war.
  It is also another reason for government to increase their control. 
There is always a reason for people to turn to the government to solve 
the problems that the government created; and that is my main concern 
today, to be something proactive rather than reactive.
  We see it coming. We can see that any foreign national country could 
come up with a virus to contaminate our livestock or even our crops; 
and yet, we are doing nothing to proactively make sure that Chinese 
nationals can't buy farmland in America; that billionaires can't buy 
millions of acres of farmland and artificially increase prices during a 
food shortage.
  We, as Congress, need to be proactive. We need to reach out and make 
sure we are doing things to strategically protect our food resources, 
both here and abroad.
  We need to fight back this idea that the environmental movement 
shouldn't use fertilizer, shouldn't produce agriculture; shouldn't be 
having foresight to protect human life over all else.
  Madam Speaker, I propose that Congress is realistic in the way we 
allow people to purchase. I am all for a free market. I am all for 
allowing people to sell to who they want to; but always with the idea 
that America still comes first, and Americans are protected in the 
process; that we don't turn to the government to solve the problem that 
we are creating, and that we don't allow foreign nationals to affect 
our food supply because this would be catastrophic, both here and 
abroad, and would lead to wars, as we have seen over and over through 
the history of this world.

                          ____________________