[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 103 (Thursday, June 18, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2926-S2927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Farm Bill
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I want to talk about a real crisis in
America that we are not talking enough about. We have a farm crisis
going on in the United States of America. It is facing our entire
country. It is facing our rural areas, and it is facing some of the
most noble Americans in our country who are part of a great tradition
and a great heritage that is vital to all Americans.
We are in the midst of a farm crisis, and we are in the midst of a
nutrition crisis. And despite the need for Congress to step up to this
moment, to meet this crisis, and pass a bold farm bill, it is not
happening right now.
Since we passed our last farm bill in 2018, we have lost over 150,000
farms--most of them small farms. That is an average of 51 farms we have
lost every single day for the past 8 years. And the farmers who have
managed to hang on are telling me that the economics of farming simply
do not work for them anymore, and they fear that we are on the brink of
another 1980s-type of farm crisis.
I am hearing more and more now from farmers about the reality that
most of them have to seek off-farm employment just to be able to keep
their families afloat.
Now, this trend has been going on for years. It is a trend that we
saw under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents. It demands a
bipartisan response. I know the policies of this administration,
though, are making the situation worse for farmers--not better. They
are acting as an incendiary to this horrible fire.
We see this President's reckless tariff policies have driven up costs
for farmers; President Trump's reckless war in Iran, which closed the
Strait of Hormuz, drove up costs for our farmers; USDA's decision to
cancel critical programs that farmers were relying upon such as local
food purchasing programs for schools and food banks--these are all
things that have severely hurt our farmers. USDA's staffing cuts and
field office closures have further injured our farmers, and I could go
on with that list.
But the heart of this problem that our farmers are facing, the heart
of the problem is the massive amount of corporate concentration that
has taken place in our food system over many decades as both Republican
and Democratic administrations stopped enforcing our Federal anti-trust
laws.
Farmers are now being squeezed by monopolies on all sides. A handful
of companies now control the inputs that farmers need like seeds and
fertilizers and drive up those prices. And at the same time, farmers
now have very few buyers for their products, and so they are not being
paid a fair price for their crops and for their animals.
Back in 2018, as I worked on my first farm bill here in the Senate, I
went on a tour to meet with farmers--not just in New Jersey but also in
Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas. Some of the farmers I met with were
Democrats and some Republicans, but what I heard consistently from all
of them was that our current farm system was not working for farmers.
Farmers and ranchers told me about how decades ago they would have
many buyers competing and bidding up the price for their livestock, but
now, today, they often only had one buyer who was able to dictate a low
purchase price undercutting them as they made more profit.
I heard heart-wrenching stories about farmers whose land has been in
their families for many generations but were now on the verge of losing
their farm.
Farmers told me about how the current system was created to keep
farmers growing commodity crops like corn and soy for animal feed
rather than healthy foods to feed their communities they cared about
because nearly all of our farm bill subsidies and safety net programs
are designed to benefit big farmers growing a handful of commodity
crops but not to support the farmers that grow the food that people eat
like fruits and vegetables.
And these farmers were right. While our Federal dietary guidelines
tell us that 50 percent of our diet should consist of fruits and
vegetables, less than 10 percent of our farm bill agricultural
subsidies actually go to farmers that grow fruits and vegetables.
And that has led us to the second crisis I mentioned: The nutrition
crisis in the United States of America.
Diet-related chronic disease is now the No. 1 killer of Americans.
Every single day in America, 2,700 people die from diet-related
diseases. That is nearly a million Americans dead every year from what
we eat.
Half of adults are now prediabetic or diabetic--one in four of our
teenagers are. Half the children alive in this country today are
projected to be obese by the time they are 35. Cancer rates in young
people are climbing. Dementia rates across our country are climbing.
And a chorus of doctors and researchers are now tying this explosion of
diet-related diseases directly to the ultraprocessed foods Americans
are eating every single day.
And so what our farmers need right now--and what all Americans need--
is for Democrats and Republicans to come together and pass a much
bolder bipartisan farm bill that provides immediate assistance to our
farmers--the assistance that they desperately need.
We are losing farmers every day, and this body and the House and the
President are not rising to meet this crisis.
Farmers are wondering: Who is fighting for us? We need to show them
that we are--in concrete policies that address their issues, that
address this farm crisis, and for the millions of Americans suffering
from preventable diseases that affects the nutrition crisis too.
Farmers in America--our fellow Americans that farm--need a farm bill
that provides substantial emergency financial assistance to all of our
struggling farmers--and especially our specialty crop farmers who have
so far been shortchanged in this administration.
Farmers need a farm bill that puts more money into conservation
programs and begins to reform those programs to better serve farmers
and help them diversify their farms.
And farmers need a farm bill that makes other policy changes to help
our farmers and ranchers--policy changes like restoring mandatory
country-of-origin labeling, reforming our Federal checkoff programs
that are so broken, strengthening the Packers and Stockyards Act to
protect our farmers and ranchers from abuses by big meatpacking
companies creating a real farm safety net for specialty crop farmers in
America.
Farmers need a bold farm bill that reinstates funding for healthy
food purchases from our local farmers for schools and food banks.
Farmers need a bold farm bill that scales up programs like SNAP
Double Bucks that purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from small
farmers and gets those healthy foods to families that are participating
in the SNAP program.
Not only would a bold farm bill like that be a lifeline to our
farmers, but it would be an example of using food as medicine and
provide healing--healing--to Americans suffering from diabetes and
other diet-related diseases.
But unfortunately, how did the House of Representatives--the
Republican-led House respond in this moment? Well, they passed a farm
bill that fails to meet this crisis, that fails to lead when
[[Page S2927]]
people are looking for help, that fails to meet the needs of our
farmers and our families. They passed a farm bill that would hurt our
farmers by preempting State laws such as Prop 12 that create new
markets for our farmers.
The Senate now has to do better. Democrats and Republicans in this
Chamber must come together. We must put aside poison pills such as Prop
12 preemption and pesticide preemption and negotiate a bold farm bill
that helps our farmers and families and meets this crisis that has been
growing and growing and growing.
And at a time when we are seeing President Trump's policies causing
food crisis to increase at an alarming rate, that bold farm bill must
reverse the destructive Republican SNAP cuts that already left nearly 1
million of our children today going to bed hungry.
I hope that we rise to this occasion in the Senate. I hope that we
are a nation that knows our fundamental health and well-being rely on
American farmers. They protect our heritage. They are stewards of our
land. They are the hope for a better, healthier future.
Let's stand together, join together, and be bold, be strong, and
bring about a better deal--a new deal--for our farmers.