“This year, February 7th is National Food Checkout Day – the day on which the average American family has earned enough to purchase the year’s supply of groceries.  It’s a great testament to our farmers, ranchers, and everyone in our agricultural community that our national supply of safe, nutritious food is so affordable. 

This day reminds us how lucky we are to live in a land so well-cared for by the producers who toil year-round to feed us, as well as the rest of the world.  Some people, most of them in urban areas, enjoy spouting off about outsourcing American agriculture and importing our food products from overseas.  They overlook the fact that we enjoy a safe and stable food supply that is pretty much paid for by the end of the fifth week of each year.  Americans will spend an average of 10.4 percent of their disposable income on groceries and meals in restaurants.

In other developed countries, it takes four or five months of wages to purchase groceries for the year.  In France, an average of 15 percent of disposable income goes for food.  In China, that figure hits 26 percent and in the Philippines it reaches 38 percent. 

Here in the U.S. we are fortunate to have hardworking producers using state-of-the-art methods and technologies to feed the nation at a fraction of those costs.  Farming and ranching are often thankless jobs, but National Food Checkout Day affords us the opportunity to put into concrete terms the value of their labors.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American spends about $2,400 per year on food consumed at home and in restaurants.  It takes 38 days to pay annual food expenses, compared to 77 days when the average American family has earned enough to pay the federal tax bill.

Our farm, ranch and agricultural communities deserve recognition for the great contribution they make to the health and well-being of every American family.   They also deserve our support and our advocacy.

 
As the reauthorization of the Farm Bill nears a legislative conclusion, debates have erupted over issues like payment limitations and income caps – complex issues that few outside the agricultural community fully understand.  Some members of Congress from urban areas, and even some folks at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are trying to make substantial changes to the basic premises of the Farm Bill.  No one can predict the effect these changes would have, but they would not be good for the agriculture community.

In order to oppose these efforts, we have to stick together.  We must preserve crop-share rental agreements which are good for the men and women who cultivate the land, but do not own it.  We have to fight for the ability to compete fairly in world agricultural markets, whether it’s grain, cotton, dairy or livestock.  We must have a tax structure that keeps family farms in the hands of the families that care for them from one generation to the next.  We need to keep local Farm Service Agency offices open to help farming and ranching operations through the complicated changes that are sure to take place in the laws at the heart of their businesses.

I work hard in Congress to educate my colleagues about the business of farming and ranching.  There are challenges in these fields that some of them never encounter on the city streets of their districts. 

The best advocates for agriculture, however, are those who work with it every day.

The Farm Bill fight is winding down, but it is still immensely important that key lawmakers hear from the constituents of our rural district about how agriculture affects every American – especially those of us in rural America.  I’ll raise my voice, please raise yours, too.”