congressional hearings. the 1987 hearings on the iran affair that we will hear about the veil of missiles going to around in exchange for the release of those in lebanon. watch congress investigates saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern. >> c-span is your view of government. for television companies and more, including cox. >> now to a hearing on oversight of the usda secretary tom the affect for the senate

agriculture of nutrition and forestry committee. during the hearing, the secretary talked about childhood hunger, foreign land ownership and crop assurance. n and ownership. n land ownership. ♪♪ called a meeting to order of t >> call the meeting to order of the agriculture committee. welcome everyone this afternoon. i hope you voted already. there are two votes, a vote now and i informed before we would

be coming in at the back end of the second boat. welcome. we are so glad that you are here today. i want to mention two of our colleagues, senator of which are in senator smith from minnesota for a funeral and not able to be with us. we wanted to submit information for the record and just wanted to indicate they are sorry they could not be here with you today. very sad, very important funeral related to officers in minnesota. so they are not with us today. your leadership is essential to our shared goal of keeping farmers farming, families fed and world communities strong. i share the concerns to my colleagues that after recent years of record farm income, new trends show farming continues to be one of the riskiest businesses there is.

this makes it abundantly clear what i have been saying, it is time to get together on a bipartisan bill that supports our farmers, big and small and helps world immunities thrive. a farm bill is always possible. how do we reach bipartisan solutions to the challenges american families and farmers in rural communities face? that requires creativity and i appreciate your willingness, mr. secretary, to work with us to find creative solutions to important needs. together we have already made significant progress. in october, with your leadership, we secured to $.3 billion working with you from the commodity credit corporation that we are double funding for the trade emotional programs of the next five years, and ramp up the donation of american grown food to

address a growing crisis of hunger around the world. so we appreciate your partnership with us. also, in a lead up to the farm bill a year ago we came together on a bipartisan basis to secure $350 million of additional funding to support the rice and cotton industries. november we secured a bipartisan extension of the farm bill that fully funded all of the programs that do not have baseline funding. we work together to keep the farm bill holcomb and i appreciate your partnership in that. all of these actions show it is possible when we work together. i am pleased to have secured a commitment also from our majority leader to address several billion dollars in new resources and two 2014 farm bill to support our efforts to meet the needs of farmers and

ranchers. i should tell you this is no small accompaniment because i remember the first farm bill that i chaired in 2014 with the leadership in the senate that required us to cut $20 billion out of the farm bill, and that was extremely difficult. so it is nice to be in a situation where we can add resources. you need to use all the tools in our toolbox and craft some new ones to help us improve the safety net for farmers. insurance is the foundation of the farm safety net because it has the ability to reach nearly all producers with timely targeted assistance. for some disasters, but we also need additional help. unfortunately, ad hoc emergency assistance can be delayed and inconsistent. in some years, 75% or more of losses are covered and in years, it can be as little as 25% depending upon appropriations.

it is still uncertain if anything will be available for 2023 disasters. the farm bill can be an opportunity to add more certainty and reliability. the farm bills investments in american family, workers in rural communities. snap is the foundation of the safety net for american families who need just a little help to make ends meet, usually just for a while. the bipartisan evaluation that we directed in the 2018 farm bill after 50 years of program resulted in just an additional $1.40 per day per person bringing benefits to about six dollars day to help folks put food on the table. this was enough to lift 1 million children out of poverty. that is 1 million children who will now have the support they need to become happy, healthy, and productive members of their

communities. this is a bipartisan achievement that we should all be proud of. we also made historic investments in conservation, world development and energy to address the climate crisis, which is hitting farmers everyday. that is now being put to work on farms and feel across america. as i said earlier, the farm bill is the art of the possible. it is where we can reach by partisan solutions that help keep farmers farming, families fed and rural communities strong. we can also invest in rural hospitals and childcare, which we have had. last year, more than 5 million rural americans benefited from the biden administration's investment in rural health care through usda programs. usda was the first agency, and i want to thank you for this, the first agency to get high- speed internet funding into rural communities through the

bipartisan infrastructure investment and jobs act. we can continue to build on the improvements we have made to grow the connections between local farmers, local businesses, local families. so your leadership and partnership will be essential as we seek to find creative solutions to a bipartisan path to get the farm bill done and we appreciate you being here and your testimony today. i want to turn to my partner, senator roseman. >> thank you for calling this important hearing. a lead from a story in agriculture according to a presentation made by the ag outlook said usda is forecast lower prices for most major clubs this year as input costs remain elevated as farmers face

growing export competition. a week earlier usda forecasted that income would decrease by 27.1% over the last year. you consider 2022, inflation adjusted dropped by $80 billion. this will be the largest to decline of all-time. we welcome you back to the committee and as we continue our work to reauthorize the farmingville, we are interested in your perspective on the challenges in the farm economy. as part of our efforts to write a new bill, we have been in numerous states across the country and i have visited with hundreds, as has the chair. what i have heard from farmers and ranchers is they are concerned, specifically about historic inflation on and off the farm, separately high interest rates, burdensome regulations, large trade

deficits and agriculture and most importantly, rapidly declining farm incomes that will make these next five years some of the most challenging. compared to last year, all sectors of agriculture in all areas of the country will see lower incomes in 24. some pointed to a 20 year average of farm income as evidence of the farm economy is healthy and we should talk about twenty-year averages because current interest expenses are nearly doubled. likewise 10% above the 20 year average. while we talk of net farm income being near the 20 year average it is often not accompanied by those points that reinforce the origins under which farmers operate. it is not acceptable for other

workers. when there were labor strikes, i don't remember the administration calling 20 year average wage for workers. for farmers, this must be okay. when i'm talking to producers from across the country, they are sharing concerns about other assets used as collateral to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a crop in the ground. knowing they learn less money, many are wondering on if the rate of return is less than 2%. you can get to and half times that earning in any cd. this is particularly true for small and midsize farms, the type of family operations we have put so much emphasis on. i am concerned about their viability as well. when i grew up hello we had more dairies in my home county than we currently have in the entire state of arkansas. the loss of population impacts the local economy, schools,

hospitals and makes life in rural america less desirable. i have seen that as i have traveled through arkansas. if we truly care about rural communities and are wrenching families, farming at all scales must be economically viable and we must provide a safety net that works. that is what i have called for the next farm bill, and i believe that is what i have called for and i believe that is the least we can do for farmers. the administration can be doing more to ease the worries in farm country. the regulatory agenda has made crop was available and added more uncertainty for farmers. things like erp 30 by 30 and the lack of leadership when it comes to us, all of these decisions tell me farmers concerns are not being heard in the executive branch. i do believe in the next farm

bill, $5 trillion farm bill, we have the opportunity to make for farmers. rural communities and those in need, whether it takes a commitment for all of us to work together towards these were the goals, no one in the history of this committee has said that passing farmville is an easy lift. it is something this committee with the help of previous atlas rations has come together to accomplish time and time again. i did not believe this farmville should be different. i hope today's hearing will shed more light on how usda can be a partner to publish these skills. thank you. >> thank you. so i am pleased to officially welcome our secretary tom. he is no stranger to the senate agriculture committee having been the only member of obama's cabinet to serve all eight years and he has reprised his role in the biden administration, and we are very

fortunate to have his study and experienced hand at usda. as a former governor of iowa, former member of the iowa state senate and former mayor of mount pleasant iowa, secretarial sack knows the importance of programs we are discussing today for rural america. so welcome. you are recognized for five minutes of testimony. any other information which you provide for the record? >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. i appreciate the opportunity the committee has afforded to me. i have a portrait of abraham lincoln. i see it everyday. i often read his works and his words, and recently i came across a relatively well-known phrase of his, which is a house divided against itself cannot stand. i suppose there are many applications to repent today in

washington, but i want to utilize it to address the state of rural america. we just finished the best three years of farm income in the history of the united states. on the other hand, sarah boseman has indicated we are now returning to near historic norms this year in terms of the farm income. it is a combination of input cost as well as lower commodity prices which are a result of bumper crops globally, a strong u.s. economy and a strong u.s. dollar, a weaker global economy and a weaker chinese economy, all of which impacted our ability. it is interesting that the farm income is not equitably divided among all farmers. the top 7% of farmers who represent hundred 50,000 farms, about a third of which are owned by investors received 85% of the income over the last five years, which meant that 93% are 1.7 million farm

families had to share 50% of the income. at the same time the medium farm income for the families was significantly higher than the farm family income across the u.s.. in the 1970s farm income. the 1970s our farm story in the united states is one of tremendous productivity. in the 1970s, we established a directive to farmers to produce, we were told, farmers were to plant friends wrote to since roe and farmers responded. productivity the last 50 or 60 years but at the same time, we saw corresponding consolidation of farmland and farm lost. to put this into proper

perspective, we lost 544,970 farms since 1981 when bob berglund and secretary of agriculture warned about consolidation of farms. we lost 155 million acres of farmland that was at one time formed no longer friend today. to give you a sense of how many farms that is, that represents half of all the farms represented by the committee today. the farmland represents the entire landmass of florida, re georgia, north carolina, south carolina, maryland, and a good part of virginia. this has helped long-term impact on rural communities and have seen over the course of time, reduced job growth, high unemployment and high poverty however, recently, we have seen upturned in the rural economy. jobs have returned to pre- pandemic levels, implant rate down to historic lows, the poverty rate is down and for the first time in quite some

time, persistent poverty is down. 55 counties that were categorized as persistently poor have left that list. those are counties in the past had poverty rate of over 20% for decades we have seen net decline in the number of counties in that persistent poverty category. i think it raises the question we ask at usda and i suspect you do too, are we okay with farm loss? are we okay with farmland in consolidated? are we okay with income being so concentrated, are we okay with the notion expressed in the past about getting big or getting out is the only option for farm families or is there an alternative? alternative where rather than the tfarmer working two jobs, can't we create opportunities for farm itself creates multiple sources of revenue so that the farmer does not have to work two full-time jobs to keep the farm. that is what we're focused on usda, new and more and better bargains on agriculture, better

energy, local regional food systems. creating opportunity for new and additional income sources to provide opportunities for farmers to do what they love to do and do it they wanted it which is to pass that opportunity onto the next generation. i look forward to the questions from the committee and i appreciate the opportunity to be here today. >> thank you very much. for the committee, we will do one round of seven minutes so a little more time for folks because we have the secretary with us. mr. secretary let me start by saying thank you for working with senator boozman and i last fall to create the original agriculture promotion program through the ccc to invest additional $2.3 billion in what has been one of the top two of all the commodity groups during the hearings we have done with crop insurance, number one. wanting to double marketing

assistance in number two. this is very important to us, ut we have seen an increase of trademarking assistance for many years so this is very important. can you talk about the status of this new trade money as well as the food aid money, the commodity purchases which are very important and their ability to help farmers build markets and feed those in need?e >> we have taken the resources, first of all, on the trade side, we are focusing on the trade markets that are not in the top four markets because we already spend and invest marketing resources, significant amount in those topi four markets. starting with japan and moving down the list of market opportunities we are trying to increase presence and promotion and increased people with those alternative markets. this allows us to begin the ea

process of diversifying away from overreliance on one or two markets, china in particular. that process is beginning and will continue the next several years we have allocated resources to a series of cooperators to enhance and encourage and expand opportunity . we created a special opportunity for specialty crop exports, enabling training and education on how specialty crop producers might be able to take better advantage of export opportunities. on the international food aid side, working with usa i.d., the entity that basically directs where those resources are most needed and when they are most needed and we will continue to work with them to get the resources to hunters, commodities to countries as quickly as possible. >> i heard concerns about potential for the funding to be revoked by future congress or the targeted regions might new markets for certain crops. are

you willing to work with us to look at the possibility of offering longer-term contracts and adjustments to targeted regions and future rounds of funding? >> absolutely. the key is to diversify market opportunities so we are not overreliance on a single market, we saw what happened with the trade war several years ago, commodity prices tanked and there was substantial amount of s.e.c. money used to bail farmers out, i'm sure people don't want to see a return to that. >> absolutely. i want to thank you for putting $100 million into initiative to focus on unique export challenges of specialty crops, specialty crops don't qualify for everything with the farm bill, not the commodity title, working on crop insurance to make sure that continues to be affect. they certainly have special challenges. i would ask that you work to ensure any

application process is streamlined and workable for those farmers. >> happy to do that. ge >> in crop insurance, we know that selling and servicing a in whole firm revenue program and other policies that serve specialty crops and smaller operations can vary significantly. this has been a real challenge. the standard reinsurance agreement includes flexibility for the fcic board to adjust reimbursements for delivery expenses that vary significantly. using this flexibility, it seems like it could allow an adjustment without opening up agreements and avoiding other appropriations issues or farm bill issues. can you have rma look into this and put this item on the fcic board agenda to consider adjustments to reimbursements for delivery expenses? >> we would be happy to work with you, madam chair, on that

issue especially since our number of new projects and products offered the last couple years, 12 new policies and 50 modifications to existing policies. in some cases, that may have increased the workload so it is fair to ask the question of whether or not there ought to be additional reimbursement. >> rate, thank you. last week, usda announced all of the 2023 i.r.a. conservation funds were out the door, congratulations in the hands of farmers. 11 out of the top 15 practices across all of an rcs among the practices being supported. can you talk with us about these practices, how farmers are using the money and what has it meant for traditional funded programs, equip which is a popular getting conservation on the ground for other purposes and all the areas, we have seen

the new nrcs data, the top 15 practices sought increase of funding when looking across both the i.r.a. conservation money and traditional farm bill money. i wonder if you could speak about that? >> there was record number of nrcs contracts entered into as a result of the i.r.a., over 45,000 i believe, between 45,040 8000. having said that, there were significantly greater numbers of people applying for those ca resources which is why we are excited about the opportunity this year to meet the additional need. to give you an example, equip had $250 million available but 8000 applications for the resources for total of $405 million. the rcp b program, which you helped to craft with the previous farm bill, received $250 million of i.r.a. money, the request was 2 billion, almost eight times the

amount. this is incredibly popular opportunity for us to utilize all of the practices we know from science will make a difference in terms of increased productivity, better soil health, water quality, more efficient use of resources and inputs which is really the purpose of this. we are excited about the opportunity, we added additional people at nrcs because of the i.r.a. resources and we are streamlining the processes as well, to make it easier for people to apply for multiple programs at once so all of that is taking place. >> thank you. finally, different topic, how does spending on farm bill programs interact with spending on nutrition programs? for example, when usda, we evaluate the thrifty food plan after 50 years of operation, did that process or the outcome at all affect spending commodity

programs, disaster programs, or crop insurance? >> no. >> you said quickly. >> yes, thank you very much. senator boozman. >> thank you, madam chair and mr. secretary for being here. the reality is the farm economy will expense the steepest two year decline of all time, down 20 billion from 2022. i have the opportunity to be with a lot of farmers, as we all had the last year and a half, invariably, the first thing mentioned is the need to have better risk management tools including reference prices, making sure crop insurance will do the job right now, march corn futures are 430, last week $4.00. the situation now is more difficult out in the field so much. you have come on the challenge congress faces direct funds

with numerous competing parties with the farm bill. you offered the secretary can commodity credit corporation to address our -- farm safety net shortcomings that may rise in the future, can you tell us about the guidance you receive from the office of general counsel, management and budget, or others that describes how the ccc could be used to provide new resources to title one and increase statutory reference process? >> actually, what i said is not what you indicated. i said i would be happy to work with congress to find creative way to utilize the resources of the ccc to try to address some of the concerns you all have relative to reference prices. as i did, when you requested t assistance and trade and international food assistance, i'm more than happy to do, sit down with you, the team is happy to sit down and explore creative ways we could use the ccc. i think there's a tendency on

the part of folks to think the farm bill is the only thing we should be focused on. there is the budget, the farm bill, the i.r.a., there is the o ccc. i think all of those can work collaboratively together to try to address the issues that divide you all in terms of a farm bill today. >> even though your testimony fails to mention that s.n.a.p. program, important topic for today's hearing with the backdrop of living farm bill reauthorization, usda estimated thrifty food re-evaluation net cost of 20 billion in 2022 alone . has usda determined the total cost of the 2020 thrifty food plan re-evaluation across all nutrition programs such as the emergency food assistance program and others whose costs are based on the tsp? >> i'm not sure we made that

regulation, i would be more than happy to ask our staff to look at it. having said that, i think what we did was justified and appropriate because the whole point of the s.n.a.p. program is to provide help and assistance to families based on the reality of what they live in. what we had not done in s.n.a.p. , what we did a couple years ago was actually asked the question, how much does it actually cost at the grocery store and what in fact are people buying? not assuming what they are buying but what in fact they are buying. from that, we obviously calculated an increase which for families, meant opportunity to avoid serious consequences, especially when the emergency allotments were lifted off. i'm more than happy to take a look at this and happy to take into consideration anything else you want us to consider. at that end of the day, there are many ways at the s.n.a.p.

program, one thing is we see fewer people using it today so the expectation is cost will come down a little bit. >> the gal made eight recommendations for the future of tfp evaluations and usda implemented four. could the next tfp re- evaluation began before usda closed out the recommendations made by gao? >> we made concerted effort to work with gao to close audits and reports so i'm certain we will do this in a timely way. you talk to gao, we are very cooperative, much more so than previous administrations to >> when you think you will get it done? >> i don't have a specific timeline but i will be happy to get it for you. i'm sure it is not, i'm sure it is before we have to re-evaluate the thrifty food plan. >> you could re-evaluate without doing it, is that what you're saying? >> no, we will take the actions

gao requested prior to any re- evaluation of the thrifty food plan because we are focused on making sure we work collaboratively with gao on recommendations of audits as we do also with oig. >> thank you. in may of last year, usda initial study planets tfp evaluation, i understand usda is awaiting additional data to reform the evaluation such as il scanner data on food prices and the recommended 2025 dietary guidelines for americans, do you have any insight on how this information will impact the cost of the tfp to taxpayers and when you do expect usda will begin the process for the 2026 re- evaluation of the tfp? >> august we don't know because we don't have the information. i think it is appropriate for us

to ask this information, gets back to the point i made earlier, we have to deal with what is actually happening in the marketplace in terms of actual cost. we have to have a better understanding of what families actually use and need. i can go into great detail about the way this was done before in terms of the assumptions about family struggling financially but they were not lined up to the reality of families. the amount of time preparing t food from scratch, the amount of beans and other items purchased that are not aligned with everyday american life today. it is important for us to have that information to make an informed set of decisions. >> i'm concerned, a lot of us are concerned about california's prop 12 and the impact patchwork of state laws on animal housing will have on producers, particularly at a time our producers are in the midst of a problem period of crisis prices below even pick

you say congress should intervene to prevent chaos in the marketplace resulting from prop 12 and other similar initiatives. can you describe the marketplace disruption you for see if congress does not choose to address the prop 12 and similar initiatives? >> you have 50 states can make decisions based on their own individual value system and based on their own agricultural economy. literally, the country try this at the beginning, articles of confederation giving states basically the ability to make decisions and the reality was chaos which is why we have a constitution. i totally understand why telephones would want to regulate what happens within the four corners of their state in terms of their own producers, i don't think the supreme court, when it decided pork producers had a choice to participate in the california market or not, understood the pork market. dealing with 12% of the pork

market in one state, there is not a choice between doing business in california and not in california. you will essentially drive, it will be driven by the requirement which will make it very difficult. i think at some point in time, somebody has to provide some degree of consistency and clarity otherwise you are inviting 50 different states to do 50 different iterations of this. if farmers, they don't need the chaos, they need clarity and certainty to >> thank you. mr. secretary, thank you, madam chair. >> thank you, senator boozman. senator welch. >> thank you very much. i don't have a complaint. we have the best usda people in vermont, we are so grateful for that so i will accuse you of

hiring good people, i hope you don't take that the wrong way. john roberts, travis tomlinson, my former colleague in the house came up under secretary robert after disaster, deputy undersecretary farah ahmad, i want to say madam chair and ranking member boozman, very responsive, it is heartening to vermonters such a response from the department and i thank you for that. a couple of questions, what i understand is farmers, no one works harder and gets less of the action. it is like 12% of the food dollar goes to the farmers. >> it is less than $0.15 can take the input cost out, it is about $0.07. >> that is unbootable and not really sustainable no matter

who the farmers are. i appreciate the emphasis you have boosting farm incomes and some ways to do that through energy efficiency, get some of the input cost down and maybe get some income up. our farms try to take advantage of that and a number of farms that i visited being able to take advantage and get boosted income and lower cost. that is the reprograms. i want you to comment on, do you have any suggestions that might help us make it more possible for more farms, particularly smaller farms under such pressure, to access usda programs like reap. >> we have done over 251 reap grants as a result of the an i.r.a. you will continue to see thousands more of those grants. we recently announced resources for small distributive wind projects. example of opportunity for farmers and those in the small

distribution wind distribution system to get the word out about c-span.org that allows farmers to use one or two megawatt ou opportunities to reduce their cost. honestly, senator, the thing you could do that could have the most profound impact would be to figure out ways to encourage the establishment of cooperatives between farmers who produce excess energy on their farm and be able to coordinate that excess energy and provide it to our ecs and utilities looking to convert or transition from fossil fuel based to renewables, one of the reasons why the pace program, part of i.r.a., is very popular and you will see a lot of that happening. >> thank you very much, that is a good suggestion. i want to talk about crop insurance for small farmers in vermont, you may know, in may we had a freeze that hurt a lot of orchards and we had a big flood in july and it wiped out

the crops for the specialty crops. why we call it specialty versus vegetable is a mystery to me, vegetables are good for you. nd it is really tough because under the existing programs, it is like a vegetable producer had to be able to account for how much spinach and coriander, whatever and we have introduced the weather act which is intended to make it much more streamlined for some of these small farmers. by the way, they are small, the incomes are relatively small that they play a huge role in the local community and keep that land open so very important to us and i'm sure my colleagues have similar situations in their own states. can you speak to some of the administrative policies usda is considering to ensure that disaster assistance and other crop insurance programs are more responsive to these really smallsu dairy and diversified

farms we have in the northeast and elsewhere? >> winters new crop insurance products for a number of fruit and vegetable products that are grown across the country. we modified existing policies to expand coverage, we have established an increased opportunity under the whole farm revenue protection program which could be available. we made it easier to qualify under name, the program available from those that don't have crop insurance. we have also taken a look at ways in which we can expand protection under the microform program, expanded the amounts of coverage and opportunities into those programs that would cover greater number. we will continue to do that, continue to try to use risk management tools to the extent we can. we are covering 540 million acres in the u.s. and 42 million head of livestock which

has been significant expansion the last three years. h >> okay, but the disaster we had, we have a lot of small towns, i know you do in iowa, a lot of folks and towns under 2500, they don't have the technical capacity, rural development very helpful. my question is whether we should consider having technical assistance programming specifically for towns having these emergencies where it doesn't have to be competitive in a big application process, you have a disaster, you know they need help, you have the capacity for technical assistance, can we get that to them right away? >> that is a good suggestion. >> how do we implement it? >> rural development needs to have the resources and ability and permission from congress to utilize resources. >> i'm glad you think it is a good sick justin because it is really tough essentially what happens when you have a flood and it is a small town, the select board starts going through the rolodex and find out who has a backhoe, who has

a truck, front and loader but there are ongoing things that need to be done and that technical assistance is helpful . >> a number of communities have regional government associations which basically provide that service. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. i yield back, thank you, madam chair. >> thank you very much. we will go to senator ernst and senator bennet, for the members, the second vote has started so we will continue. >> great. >> thank you, madam chair and thank you so much, mr. secretary, great to have you inb front of us today and great to have another iowan here. last month i kicked off my yearly river to river tour, going back and forth across the state of iowa from the mississippi river on the eastern side to the missouri on the western side of the state. while i've been out visiting, one of the questions that continues to stand out is when congress will come together and

pass a farm bill, the ag groups are active in the town halls and producers and rural communities deserve to have a comprehensive piece of legislation that provides the most certainty. for us to be resorting to a kick the can down the road mentality isn't an option for farmers and ranchers and it es should not be an option for congress either. i hurt -- hope we come to the table and negotiate a bill that focuses on the farm. secretary vilsac, before i dig into the ag specific questions, i would like to address work policies at the department of agriculture. we are weeks away from the four year anniversary of federal buildings being temporarily closed due to the covid-19 pandemic. as you know, gao says

your headquarters has space utilization rate of 11%. it has gotten so bad one of your employees went so far as to write me an anonymous letter that i do have with me today madam chair, i would like to submit that to the record please. >> so ordered without objection. >> let me read a few sentences, and i quote, the vast majority of u.s. d.a. employees are not working in person. on the occasions i have gone to usda headquarters in washington, d.c., it resembles a ghost town. your employee goes on to say, remote work and telework employees are often unreachable and do not respond to simple email questions for hours. with that, mr. secretary, knowing your own staff is recognizing issues with policies currently put into place, how many days per week do you require your d.c.-based managers and employees covered

by collective reckoning agreements to be physically in the office? >> the majority of the week. >> okay, but with that majority of the week? >> for some it is three days, others, four days. >> yet the occupancy is 11% according to -- >> senator, that is not correct , that is not even close to correct >> that is from the government , accountability office. >> i don't know what the date is of that or the letter you just referred to, i can tell you that is not what is happening in february 2024. >> okay, thank you, mr. secretary. other than supervisor oversight, what does the usda due to monitor federal employees that are working remotely? to make sure that they are actually working? >> first of all, to suggest they are not working i think is an affront to the hard-working members of the usda family. i can show you chapter and

verse of all the work getting done at usda, i can tell you how many home loans, how many form loans, how many nrcs contracts have been entered, i guarantee compared to other administrations, this team is working their tail off, okay. please don't tell me the work ub is not getting done because i can show you that it is. >> we will take that up because we do receive calls at the office where our constituents are having trouble with usda. we will continue to forward those questions on to you. federal employees official worksite that the fines are location-based to pay requires them to show what to the office at least once a week but this standard is waivable on employee by employee basis do you know how many exceptions to the standard twice in a paid period standard has the usda issued

since the pandemic and has the agency revoked any of these exemptions? >> i don't know the specific answer to that but i can tell you 82% of hours nationally correct in person and in offices. >> 82%, okay, thank you, mr. secretary. moving on to other issues, another issue i know that is top of mind, especially for islands is e 15. last week we saw announcement from the administration it would adhere to the eight midwest governor's request for year-round capital e 15. i welcome this, i think it is long overdue and i applaud the work of governor kim reynolds and attorney general byrd. we know pushing of implementation until 2025 is very discouraging for those in that area. with the 2024 summer driving season approaching, iowa families or corn farmers, ethanol producers, retailers have no idea if capital e 15 will be at the pump this summer

. hearing some of the statements you have made, it appears as if you are confident the epa will announce another emergency waiver, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> in your discussions with the administration and epa, when you believe we could expect to see an announcement for nationwide e15 sales this summer? >> consistent with the last two years they issued the waiver, iy could be wrong about this, i thought it was in the april timeframe. whenever it was done last year, i'm pretty sure they were at the resources and data necessary to make the decision and have the decision stick. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i hope you continue to lean into the administration on this as well. earlier this month, in regards to moving on to s.n.a.p., i will go ahead and submit the question for the record, madam

chair, i do say that i'm running out of time so thank you, mr. secretary. i yield back. >> thank you very much. senator bennet. >> thank you senator stabenow and secretary, thank you for coming back to the committee and your public service and leadership as well. madam chair before i post my questions this afternoon, i wanted to pay tribute to a brave man that we lost this weekend, today in the west, we mourn the loss of a cattle and sheep rancher whose family six generation farm, served as president of the family farm alliance nearly 20 years and on the board of directors for solutions from the land and was former member of the wyoming house of representatives. when i came into the senate in 2009, pat helped bring me up to speed on colorado and western

agriculture and western water. 2018, i had the pleasure to visit his and his wife's ranch nestled in the snake river valley. on a moments notice, pat brought together people from all over the west to join us at his ranch for a land barbecue while we talked about forestry and water and conservation challenges. in my view, pat and his family's ranch is a shining example of productive agriculture, habitat conservation, sustainable land stewardship coexisting on the western landscape. pat was a fervent advocate for western issues and i know secretary vilsac knows this welcome of all the impacted, his greatest priority was his family, his wife sharon, their three children and six grandchildren. he managed the ranch with future generations in mind and before he passed, he started

the process to preserve his ranch through usda conservation easement. his community were profoundly grateful for his dedicated service, his commitment to conservation, and his generosity. secretary vilsac, i did not mean to demote you, is there anything you would like to say about pat o'toole today? >> senator, i want to associate myself with those words, pat was incredibly passionate individual who believes very strongly there was a better way and was committed to not only his operation sort of paving the way and showing and modeling a better way but encouraging others. he was a force and we are saddened by his loss. >> senator bennet, i will ask that you give best to the family and our condolences so thank you . >> thank you very much for doing that. as you know, i was in ukraine this weekend and had the

opportunity to talk to sharon on the way back from shannon airport, of all places, so that was an appropriate place to reach her in ireland on the way back. we are going to miss him a lot and i think his life is evidence that division is not the way to make progress in this country and it is not the way to make progress in agriculture as well. >> amen. we will reset your clock, this was important to say. >> i don't want you to do that. >> no, i want to make sure, this was important. >> thank you. secretary vilsac, i want to thank you for the recent announcement of $35 million for wildfire mitigation in colorado's front range as part of the bipartisan infrastructure lot and inflation reduction act. as you know, i know you know this well because of how much time you spent in the west, in both

terms. colorado and the west continue to experience record shattering wildfires that threaten landscapes, safety, and frankly our way of life. and it is february and active wildfires are already burning in colorado today, this week. we are expecting a rough fire season and no staff available at some of colorado national forest for nepa executioner for small projects and ta landscape scale, i know that is unacceptable to you, it is unacceptable to us. i wonder if you could talk about how the forest service is planning to address the staffing shortages and prepare for the upcoming fire season. >> senator, i would be happy to look at that particular forest

it surprises me because we added significant forces to the forest service. candidly right now, we are a bit concerned with lack of a budget on whether or not we can retain many of those who fight those fires and absent a budget and firefighter fix for the pay , we will see a lot of those folks leave so that is a big concern right now. we have, as i say, streamlined the process for hiring and we have reached out and expanded significantly the outreach and have added significant number of people. >> we will work with your team on that and get them the specific information quickly. i agree completely with your characterization of what you guys have done in the broader forest service i should also mention at the outset, have the opportunity yesterday to meet with a group of federal wild firefighters in my office.

they reminded me, this is a battle you have been in a long time, a battle we have been in a long time, to get these folks a decent paycheck, just to get these folks decent mental health care. you know, access to education and professional development and housing, in colorado, has lt become, drop the west, has become virtually impossible as you know, we have done good work with the agency in the state whether department of agriculture has very graciously done land swaps with local communities to try to create housing but we are way behind. i agree with you, we will be in a crisis here because the next generation of firefighters will not come from nowhere and the people they need to train them are the ones we are losing right now.

out of respect for my colleague from illinois, i will spare the secretary of my last two questions since he gave me more time, madam secretary. i will submit them for the record. i don't need a judge, i don't even need a judge. i'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart. i will say closing, i deeply appreciate what you said about a our need for staff on the forestry and the salary issues continue to be ones that make it impossible for the agency to be able to staff its field offices adequately. that is not because nobody has tried, it is because we don't have the budget you're talking about and we have not increased salaries in a way that will be competitive. i will send a question about that too. thank you, madam chair and mr. secretary. >> senator wanted to go next, the only republican on this, i said sure. now senator highsmith is here

to we go back with regular order? we will go back to regular order. senator highsmith to nd >> thank you so much, madam chair and ranking member boozman and i appreciate the secretary being here, enjoy the years we had, the opportunity to work together. during the recess, three days i put 1000 miles on my car going up and down mississippi looking at different things that we have a serious problem brewing in mississippi right now so i was so excited this is falling on today because we truly need help. it is the southern pine beetle which is by far the most destructive forest pest in the united states which you are well aware. my goal today is to make you aware of the issue because it is so serious. so many people look at the stand of trees as their kids' college savings

fund, some people look at it as their retirement. i wanted to make you aware of this today and see if i could get help with you and the e department to help me address this because it is truly critical. mississippi suffered historic drought last year and at one point, all 82 mississippi county's work in d3 extreme drought or worse according to the u.s. drought monitor. prolonged drought stresses trees, especially pine trees and stressed pine tree is a ringing dinner bell for the pine beetle. all of this to say mississippi is experiencing major southern pine beetle outbreak and private landowners across the state are devastated. here are a few stats from the most recent report prepared by the u.s. forest service southern research station and mississippi for street commission. nearly 80,000 acres of pine mortality, i've never

seen anything like it driving down the side of the road. we removed several from my mom's yard because these trees are in neighborhoods falling on houses. 12.5 million dead trees, we call them widowmaker's in mississippi. conservative economic impact estimates indicate $96 million in lost timber which affect so many things including the o sawmills and everything else. the mississippi forestry commission reported 230 fires across 9000 acres and forrester's expect the problems to get worse going into the spring season. now is the time for action. it is time to respond to infestations and importantly, prevent further outbreak because it is so sensitive. i understand the usda farm service agency emergency forest restoration program or the efrp provides

kashi systems a private landowners to carry emergency measures to restore forest befalling national disasters. drought and insect infestations are eligible disasters under efrp and commercial thinning of damaged trees, fire breaks, prescribed burning, all of which are helpful activities combating the southern pine beetle are also eligible practices. efrp sounds like a viable option for landowners in mississippi but i heard challenging concerns about the program such as the amount of time it takes to receive kashi payments following the disaster, some landowners need financing up-front to carry out emergency measures and without it, they often never take action. only the fsa national office, not fsa county office committees can authorize this efrp for drought and insect infestations which makes

getting the authorization potentially more time-consuming as well. my question to you, mr. secretary, are there ways usda and/or congress can improve the overall quality of assistance provided through efrp? t >> i think the answer to your question is yes, there is a concern about transitioning back to the county because it is difficult to keep track of the resources allocated county to county. it has to funnel up to the national office but certainly we can look for ways to streamline that process. we can also look, should be looking at a way in which we can adjust the cost share issue in terms of advanced payments so work is not delayed, those are two things we ought to be doing. >> fantastic. will you ensure required authorization by the fsa national office to respond to mississippi's pine beetle outbreak happens in expeditious

manner because we are in real trouble here? >> i understand, yes. >> i can count on you to do that, wonderful. will you and the department work with me going for the help address the challenges faced by many landowners in mississippi and throughout the south as well? >> will you get me a budget, senator? >> i would be glad to do we will work real hard to do that because this is critical. we are getting flooded with calls about this. of course, i work with former u.s. ag commissioner. >> i'm familiar with the pine bark beetle because this devastated the west. it is a very serious issue. >> i so appreciate your willingness to help. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, madam chairwoman. thank you for being here, mr. secretary, we appreciate you very much. i have a line of questioning about questioning of nutrition

dents, in the middle of a compromise whether we will have a pilot program about nutrient dense foods. under the dietary guidelines, whole milk, for example, is not considered nutritionally dense. if the appropriation were to pass tomorrow, how would you define nutrient dense foods? for example, would you draw the line at nutrient content between flavored yogurt and dessert? with the states or usda be in charge of creating the definition of nutrient dense? what would be the process t determines foods are in and out based on usda guidance? based on your guidance today on what is nutrient dense or create new ones? much more broadly, what is the impact going to be on retailers ? how would this type of policy impact retailers, will it make it harder for retailers to be

able to use the s.n.a.p. program? what is the impact on consumer choice and dignity? would you agree investing more in nutrition education could be a better way to address some of the root causes of diet -related diseases? . >> i will try to answer some of that. >> i'm giving you all the questions, answer the parts that make sense to you. >> okay, first of all, i think obviously congress has to direct us to do this. if you do, there may be parameters you put around it, if you don't put parameters around it, we would look for partner in state or states depending on what you tell us to do that would be willing to work with this because the state administers this s.n.a.p. program, we don't administer the day-to-day activities of s.n.a.p. there are couple states that looked at this and i think they looked at it in a very tailored way. i don't think we have many

answers to the questions you raised which is why you have a pilot to find out whether not a system like this does work or does not. does it create serious i.t. issues at the grocery store or not? does it create the stigma or not? in terms of the definition of nutrient dense, we would probably let the science, nutrition science drive that as we with the dietary guidelines say we would have some scientific basis for the determination and the structure would also be dependent on the capacity of an individual state to administer the program. i think there are a lot of unanswered questions about this . i would say we have found incentives work effectively as the chairwoman understands and appreciates with her advocacy for the double blocks program and gus schumacher and other started that is part of the gus program, successful program increasing nutrition ed aspect

of s.n.a.p. we establish new nutrition team at usda in the s.n.a.p. program for the express purpose of trying to figure out how to better educate people about the utilization of the s.n.a.p. dollars in effective way to promote nutrition. i think i've touched on most of the questions . >> could you talk a little bit about the funding needs for nutrition education if we did something with regard to that? you mentioned the gusnip program. >> i think if you increase the financing, you would find significant audience for that. had i know that? you did that in the pandemic assistance bills that you passed and as a result we saw fairly significant uptake in gusnip and particular interest in produce effort working with

pediatricians looking at chronic disease situations. instead of prescribing a drug, they prescribed fruits and vegetables. as a way of dealing with chronic disease opportunity to anything you do in that space will be beneficial and increase our knowledge base and help us formulate better policies to advance nutrition. >> thank you. you stated for the record i'm not house agriculture committee hearing, your government working hand-in-hand with puerto rico to transition to the s.n.a.p. program, in your view, what would you say puerto rico and the usda are in a position to eventually have the proper infrastructure to allow puerto ricans access to s.n.a.p. ? >> we are working very closely with puerto rico. the challenges they need to make sure that they have the administrative foundation to administer the program so that when people apply, they get benefits quickly. when they are no longer qualified, they are

transitioned off of the program . there's an awful lot of work that has to be done setting up the technology and staffing of this effort so we are working very closely with the governor, i traveled the puerto rico and talk to him specifically about this. e it is not a matter of weeks or months but i think it is in the foreseeable future, the expectation and the goal is to transition to s.n.a.p. >> you did publish, usda did publish feasibility study were concluded puerto rico is ready to transition to s.n.a.p. , is that your position? >> it is my position we are working closely with them to make sure they have their ducks in line, the worst thing to happen would be the transition to take place for them not to administer properly, there would be significant chaos and a lot of families hurt. >> i also want to address

national security. obviously, our farmers are as vulnerable as any other businesses in america, especially when they don't have strong data protections and don't have cybersecurity of their data and information moreover, something senator marshall and i have been working on, one health proposal where we create commission of usda plus cia, nsa, dod, hhs, to really prevent the next pandemic. have you had the opportunity to work with any of the other agencies on pandemic preparedness and being able to make recommendations about collaborating to share data in advance so we protect the country from the next pandemic? >> there's a white house led effort the usda is involved and most recently they had either today or sometime this week, they will table talk exercise on that very subject.

>> absolutely, senator marshall. >> mr. secretary, welcome back to that aji committee, continue to appreciate your service to this country my first question, go back to prop 12, i appreciate your answers before as you know, california's proposition 12 is another costly regulation. it would seem to me if you are a larger company, you could overcome these hurdles a little bit easier than a small packer could. in the pork industry, we see a company like smithville, which dominates 25% of the packing, they are able to overcome all of these regulations, they are big enough that they can handle another regulation, overregulation continues to, consolidation of industries say no more than the packing industry. what you think prop 12 has a

independent pork producers that cannot afford to comply and will it drive further consolidation? >> it is a reason we expanded in expanded processing capacity at the local level. between efforts to expand market and additional processing, nearly 400 projects have been funded and we expect more to be funded in the next several months. this is part of building a local and regional food systems so you're not at the whim of a handful of large- scale facilities or at the whim of a policy you have a hard time complying with. >> thank you. should congress act to prevent the proliferation of laws like prop 12 across the country? >> you know, i think you have to provide some clarity and consistency. having said that, i don't envy your capacity to do that, it will not be easy to craft that. >> thank you, to your point earlier, hard to have one producer comply with 50 different states how we should raise a heifer in kansas. let's talk about disaster

assistance for a second. obviously, kansas coming off e back-to-back years of drought and apply for more disaster assistance and we probably got more complaints about the response and rollout of the latest round of disaster assistance than any other one issue in the last several years. specifically, we were seeing small absentee landowners were getting disaster assistance at a greater per acre rate than the full-time former families were. this progressive way of doing this seems to be very complicated, it seemed to be very slow. i would ask you to consider abandoned this practice in the future. >> it is interesting, i'm looking at the numbers for kansas, 45,132 of your producers got more money as a result of this progressive factor, 10,217.less so 82% of your producers benefited from this effort. having said that,

the way to avoid this is very simple, provide the resources fully and completely for the disaster. it was 10 billion to $12 billion disaster, we told congress that, you all gave us a little over 3 billion. >> we give you $3.7 billion which was more than adequate to cover the situation. i think it is unfair to punish those because they happen to have more acres let's move on to the next question. let's talk about the packers and stockyards act, i'm not sure we got to cover that topic yet today. in june 2021, usda stated and i quote, the usda will re-propose a rule to clarify the parties do not need to demonstrate harm to competition in order to bring an action, end quote. under certain provisions of the packers and stockyards act. the office of management and budget before final review before it is proposed. i point

out eight federal appeals courts have affirmed the packers and dockyards act requires a person to demonstrate harm to competition. we have over 60 livestock organizations nationwide that oppose the rule because it hurts livestock producers. here's a question, is it still the position of the usda you can implement a rule that would be blatant violation of circuit court precedent by not requiring harm to competition to bring an action under the packers and stockyards act? >> the rule itself has not been finalized so i think we have to take into consideration any litigative risk associated with the rule in crafting it, i think you'll see more activity from packers and stockyards before that rule is available for folks to look at. i think there is work to do on the poultry tournament system and there's more work we have to do to avoid discrimination and retaliation to producers and

i think you will see those rules coming forward relatively soon. i think there is still work to be done and continuing to do work on the rules you es mentioned. i think it is appropriate for us to crafted in a way, we believe, response to the concerns courts have raised in the past. >> i'm digesting that answer. so you don't feel, if it has this harm to competition, it is almost a double negative on me here, do you think it is in violation of circuit court precedent not providing harm to competition to bring an action on the packers and stockyards act? speech it is and, upon us to crafted in a way to address whatever concerns raised by courts in the past to avoid those problems. at the same time, to provide more balanced marketplace for producers. and integrators.

>> thank you i think i would close by making a comment that if we want to guarantee affordable food, access to affordable food for everybody, spending plenty of money on the back end, i'm concerned as we work on the forum -- farm bill going forward, not spending enough money that the farmers can plant next year's crop, not really a question, just a statement. thank you very much, i yield back. caitlin c mr. secretary. it is good to see you. >> i am not sure i would pay $400, but i might. she might be worth it. >> so i am going to ask you a question that starts with part of it that does not sound like it belongs in the committee. i want to talk about the environment and particularly the dead zone of the gulf of

mexico. this is not a new phenomenon but it is a recurring and threatening phenomenon where some 4000 to 8000 square miles m of the gulf of mexico dies because of the runoff, primarily from the mississippi river. and that runoff is chemicals, nutrients, animal waste, sewage, and about like. it has a influence on the gulf of mexico, weather patterns, and a lot of other things. i know enough about you personally that you care about things like this and i do too. they trace many of the elements of runoff to our states. so i guess my question to you is what you think about our current farm programs and whether they are addressing this and whether there are things we need to be doing in the future? i think about illinois

situation. we are kind of blessed to have similar states, from a farm point. we are about number four in the nation in terms of agricultural production. pretty big state. only ranked 37th in the nation when it comes to major conservation programs. they might have avoided some of this runoff. what are we missing? what do we need to do? if you think it is a problem, how would you address it? >> first of all, the resources you provided under the inflation reduction act provide some ammunition to address this in a more meaningful way. we have reached out to cooperative groups that have reached out to farmers to participate in basic conversation that could reduce the need. we are also funding research, senator. i think we know that we over apply some of these nutrients. and with precision agriculture, we will do a better job of

knowing which lands need the nutrition and which does not. i have been told as many as 20% of our form acres in illinois may not need any fertilizer at all so we could see a reduction of that. we have resources that have been applied from the ccc that have been used to create alternatives to the fertilizer. we will look at different ways to fertilize the land. we have our climate smart agricultural effort where we are trying to encourage climate smart practices by paying farmers to embrace them and paying them a market premium for what they race sustainably. that should also have an impact. so if you utilize and expand conservation and if you reduce the level of fertilizer being applied and if you create financial incentives for farmers to embrace climate- smart practices and if you odor research that allows you to be more precise, i think the combination of those factors

will significantly over time reduce the risk of the dead zone continuing to expand at the rate it is. >> i know i am stepping into a minefield here, but statistics that you offered earlier about farmland and the size of the farms for average farmers and income and such suggest that many of the key decisions are being made by investors rather than actual farmers of the land. in that situation, do we have the right incentives in place for these investors to be part of these programs? >> i think we do because the science would say if you invest in conservation you improve the productive value of the soil. you also have water quality improvement.

so it is in the long-term best interest of a landowner to have these practices embraced because it will increase the value and productive capacity of that farm over time. >> i recently took a flight last week to africa on a delta airlines plane. and they were making it clear to all of their passengers that they are taking this global warming and climate change seriously. and they want to be zero carbon producers in a matter of just 10 or 20 years, to the point where they offered what i was sitting had a nice seat a tooth brush which is not unusual, but made a point of telling me it had a wooden handle on it. less plastic. it appears the private sector in this country at least some parts are taking it very seriously, climate change. what do you think we need to do to bring the farming sector into that mind-set? >> well, there are 141 projects we are funding through the ccc,

senator. including in 50 states climate b smart practices to be embraced by farmers. it involves as i say hundred and 41 contracts. they involve well over 100 commodities in over 205 climate smart practices. the system basically pays farmers to embrace climate smart practices and then is linking them up to markets that will essentially provide a reward, if you will -- a value- added proposition for farmers. secondly, by being able to measure, quantify, and verify the result of that climate smart practice, we are helping to create a ecosystem marker credit which could generate more income from the farm. and, finally, many other products involve the conversion of agricultural waste, which is an answer to your dead zone question. if you could begin to take my

newer and instead of applying it on land created as a feedstock for one of those bioproducts, it could be a fuel or a variety of other bioproducts. you have not only created a new income source and commodity for that farmer but jobs for rural communities. >> thank you for that service. madam chair? >> all right. senator tuberville. >> thank you, senator bowman. thank you, madam secretary, for being care. let's talk about s.n.a.p. for a second, madam secretary. considering 80% of the farm bill is for activity, we need to make sure that it goes to those who truly need it most. i hope we do. i know that states that directly administer s.n.a.p. with the usda program require the asset test in s.n.a.p. >> i think what would be best to do at this point, senator,

would be to get back to regular order for the process of qualifying and staying on s.n.a.p. during the pandemic, there was essentially a waiver of that process including constant interviews and touching base with folks. getting back to regular order, t i think, would be significant, and that is why we have sent significant letters to governors in a number of states urging them to get back on io track. >> what you think -- what additional information does the usda need to help address the root causes of fraud. anything else that we need to make it easier to catch them? >> well, i think we have made some significant steps in that regard. and -- i think probably what i need to do, senator, is i need to give your full team a briefing in our interest in this. i think sometimes people see pl

the error rate and they think that represents fraud. sometimes the error rate is overpaying and sometimes it is underpaying. we want to make sure that we are calculating the benefits properly. and making sure people get, as you say, the assistance that they need. >> inc. you. i will get my staff to get in touch so we can kind of work on this together. i have a question on trade. the u.s. has historically been strong on agriculture exports, but due to president biden's ra economy, we have a trade deficit of over $30 million duea to rising imports and lack of new market access. can you share to us how the usda is working with u.s. trade in representative to underscore the need for a proactive approach so that our competitors do not continue to gain market share and capture opportunities that would have otherwise been hours? >> well, i think you have to otherwise look at the import issue. horticulture and sugar are two

areas. i would also say that sometimes there is a tendency, senator, to focus solely on trade agreements and not understand there is work hello that process that matters. we have calculated roughly $20 billion of tradewinds that have occurred in the last couple of years. a couple of examples. mexico and potato access. japan and increased beef caught a. p hilippines extended acc india expanding access to apples. the philippines and expended access to pork. egypt and expended access to poultry. there are a extend a number of things that have occurred that do not get the headlines been asked result in an increased trade. the reality is we have a much stronger economy than the rest of the road has. when china's economy suffers, that obviously has an impact and effect on exports as well. so it is a combination of factors. a strong american dollar. do we want a week dollar?

do we want to we can the american economy so people are not buying stuff? i don't know. we will continue to work on this. and as far as trade agreements are concerned, the reality is maybe you think you can pass trade authority but i have not seen that happen here in this body. and until it does, it becomes very difficult for us to negotiate a trade agreement when the people we are negotiating with believe that there are 535 folks that could renegotiate the deal. it is hard to have a trade agreement without trade promotion authority. >> let's talk a little bit about poultry. yesterday, the usda fs s extended the time limit for pork processing facilities allowing them to continue operating at higher line speeds. as of now, the poultry industry speed waivers are set to expire at the end of march. can you say whether the usda

plans to expand the waivers? >> i think we will see an extension of this because we want to make sure we get the right information about whether or not line speeds actually do relate to increased injury, worker injury, or worker safety. that is the whole purpose of this. it is to try to find out what the facts are. we need to structure the studies in a way that gives us the information. and i am not interested in making decisions on this until i have all the facts, and i do not have all the facts yet. >> thank you. farmers in alabama and across the country are struggling to survive. i know you have met with a lot of them and have heard from a lot of them. many of them are family farms. it has fallen $70 billion since 2022, and that is the largest and fastest in u.s. profitability over a two-year period of time. $27 billion since 20 2021 and up over $100 million since the

rapidly rising interest rates. we cannot control. there are record high labor costs. if you can find labor in all farm inputs, our farmers are struggling to keep up with the ever evolving bureaucratic environment that requires them to hire lawyers and lobbyists to ensure compliance with the endless red tape up here in washington. these are additional costs that they really cannot bear to contribute to further consolidation in the ag industry. when do you think farmers are leaving the industry and the next generation does not keep farming -- you have any answer to that for farmers? >> i have several answers. one is that there has been a focus on production. we are talking about a commodity-based system. we have encouraged farmers to

produce and have suggested you have got to get bigger get out. that has been suggested. what we need to do in my view is to create alternative opportunities for those small and midsize producers so they are not competing solely in a commodity-based market which is not really designed for them. that is why it is important to have local and regional food systems and invest in renewable energy and create opportunities for that energy to be sold to the local co-op. that is why it is important to have smart agriculture. and create smart products like sustainable fuel that can create new commodities with agricultural waste. there are a multitude of things that we can and are doing to basically create a better opportunity in the future. >> what i do not want to see is what is going on in europe. >> a completely different approach. >> i understand that but it is all that regulations at the end of the day.

and of the farmers in alabama, it seems like every other phone call i get is something different they are having to face in terms of whether it is climate change or whether it is the high cost of fertilizer or all these things are coming at them at once and the prices aren't there and they cannot make a profit and if we lose our farmers we are in bad trouble. so i just wanted to let you carry that on from the people in alabama. hopefully this year there is a good crop and everything works a lot better than what it has. thank you. >> senator fetterman? that is very nice. senator grassley? >> before i wanted to address my first question, i will speak to the entire committee, of which there is only three of us here now, but i think we are really missing a good opportunity to make sure that

farmers have the long view on -- pardon me. i -- the long view on agricultural policy by not having a five-year farm bill and i would like to emphasize the importance of getting that done here this year. you see, i know secretary, that you are doing a lot to enhance the enforcement of the packers and stockyards act. i do not know the status of that but i know you had a discussion with senator marshall on it but it came up that there was some decisions by surrogate courts that you had to take into consideration. does that create stronger enforcement or rican your opportunity to do stronger enforcement? >> i think it creates a level playing field for the producer which i know that you want and

at the same time it may was standing litigative challenge that may come to the rules. but, having said that, there are a series of packers and stockyards rules that we are completing. were asking folks to provide producers a bit more information about who they are doing business with. we are very close to getting the retaliation and discrimination roll out in final form that essentially says you cannot discriminate or retaliate against a producer when he or she exercises their rights. there is a system role in the process and a cattle discovery rule in the process. so there is a series of rules we are looking at and the goal here, senator, is to level the playing field and does provide a balance. >> of all the different rules that you are trying to write, does that surrogate court opinion affect all of those

rules are -- >> just one. >> just one. then could you characterize for me if you think that that ruling causes you to do less than what you would like to do as secretary of agriculture to make sure that the act is effective? >> to i think it is a challenge to figure out how to do what needs to get done but in a way that does not create a litigative challenge -- a successful litigative challenge. >> you have informed me well on that. thank you. maybe very generally, could you speak about your role, the primary role, in this special fuel for airplanes that green farmers have a big interest in. but your role in that and can we preserve feedstocks being

primarily used there without diluting it. like, i heard some people want to dilute it. >> we had two rules. one is to advocate for a rule that allows a broad array of feedstocks, including the traditional feedstocks that are used for biofuels to qualify for the tax credits and for the incentives so that it is financially feasible to use ethanol for example. that is part of my responsibility to articulate the need of the science behind that. we have been successful in getting the great model incorporated in the process and now we are in the process of talking about climate smart agriculture and we will continue to pound the table on that. the second responsibility is for usda to also provide the science and the data behind the availability of feedstock.

the logistics for the supply chain, high can accelerate adoption, and commercialization. i was in georgia recently at the first commercial scale plant. we have to get you 36 billion gallons. that plant was a 10 billion gallon plant so obviously we have to accelerate dramatically the commercialization and availability. so we need to figure out the tools we can use it usda to try to accelerate that. >> could you characterize for me the advice you have been doing and how it has been received by those that have to make the final decision? >> well, i think they appreciate the fact that i am a strong advocate that our team at usda is very thoughtful and provides the scientific data to back up what we are saying. we are not just advocating because it would be good for farmers. we are advocating because the science supports it.

and a number of folks who may have been a bit skeptical of the greek model now embrace the greek model. and we are in the process of educating them about climate smart agriculture so they understand the crops and efficient fertilizer and things of that nature. you can calculate the benefits of those, and that should be incorporated in the matrix in the calculation. >> let me end with a position or a feeling i have about this. there seems to be an inconsistency from, i think, primarily environmental groups, and if i am wrong on this you can correct me. but they want to clean up the pollution that airplanes put into the environment, and yet if you don't use ethanol and green as input into that, then

you aren't going to have enough fuel made by all the other sources who could use and so it seems to me that we ought to be on the same wavelength, environmentalists with farmers, trying to provide so we have an adequate amount. >> i would agree with that and i would just sort of at a point which is if you cannot domestically produce the feedstocks for this fuel, then you are going to have to import them. why would we do that? >> thank you for your courtesy. thank you, secretary. by the way, are you going to be the long deserving secretary of agriculture we have had pretty soon? >> not. >> big "gym" tangle wilson from iowa. >> we all saw the jeopardy

question. did you answer it, senator? >> oh, my goodness. >> now, that is one of the few ones i could answer for you. >> all right. senator fetterman. welcome. >> thank you. here we go. sorry. it is a pleasure to be here. and, now, i meet with a lot of farmers from my state, which happens to be pennsylvania. it is actually our top business in pennsylvania. i am sure you know that. and there are things that come up that may not be perfectly germane to the certain kinds of discussions here, but i want to bring about some of these issues that i hear a lot when i meet with the trade groups and other farmers all across, and

the same kind of argument is that they need to have support in order to remain in business and to be profitable. and they are under siege by a lot of different things. and one thing i wanted to talk about now, and i hear this again and again, his concerns -- and i share those concerns -- and i sure those concerns -- foreign companies owning our land. is that an issue that you may be concerned with? >> and is roughly 3% or so of the agricultural land is owned by foreign interests, senator. now, the challenge is whether or not we have an accurate read based on the system, which is an honor system where folks are supposed to report that they are a foreign owner. some folks do. some folks may not. >> so -- so you don't believe it is a concern because it is

3%? >> you look at the people. it is canadians. it is the uk and brits. it is folks from holland. oftentimes people talk about folks from china. china is 1/10 of 1% of that amount. >> yeah. i believe they are the 10th. even though they are 10th in terms of ownership, they still effectively on about half the size of rhode island. >> my concern about china is twofold. one is the location of whatever they own, whether it represents a security issue. we found recently the desire to buy land that was close to defense installations. i have concerns about that. china is also our number one hag when i was meeting the customer from an export perspective and when i was meeting with the agriculture

minister, he inquired about certain laws being passed in the united states that is they are sensitive to what they are hearing, and the question is whether or not that will impact their buying decisions and whether that matters to anybody on the ag committee or anybody on the congress. >> to your knowledge, are american companies buying chinese land? >> no. >> why not? >> because china does not provide that. >> yeah. if they don't allow us and we allow them, that does not seem -- >> well, states basically can allow laws the past foreign ownership and many states have done that. >> okay. moving on. and, again, i am not concerned that canada owns a lot. or i am not really worried that denmark might. but, again, china has been very clear that it is certainly not

an ally, and it is certainly in a kind of category and now they do not even allow us to have that kind of same situation in their nation, and i think it is a concern and i hear that a lot in my state. and now moving back to another thing. s.n.a.p. now, the republican side, especially the ones in the house, now, they really want to make that a target. and i think it is critical about that. given my position in chairman of the subcommittee or whatever, i would do anything legally that i can do to block that -- any legislation if they try to cut s.n.a.p. or two weapon eyes that or do anything to the thrifty food plan. now, in 2018, the farmville authorized in a very bipartisan way. the usda is regularly re-

evaluating the thrifty food plan. now, so can you explain a cost- neutral thrifty food plan that would be a cut to the benefits? >> well, it would impact the level of benefits in the future and result in less benefit over the long term. it would not necessarily cut the benefit today, but it would certainly result in a lower benefit in the future. >> well, i just really wanted to be clear that to me that is untouchable and s.n.a.p. is, i think, in my mind sacred to people that are hungry in my nation. now, speaking to other foods and anything, my farmers feel like they are under siege by these plant-based, so-called plant mills.

now, so i don't believe you should count something that is made out of oats or almonds or whatever it is as milk. they can make whatever products that you once. but it to me is impacting the bottom line for our dairy farmers here in my state, and i suspect all across the nation. what are your just personal thoughts on labeling plant milk when it is not really anything to do with milk? >> well, i think the challenge here is that the term milk has a certain brand associated with it in terms of nutrition. i think people believe that milk is a very nutritional food so anyone who uses the term milk to be able to establish the nutritional value of whatever it is that they are trying to sell and oftentimes what you find with those alternatives is that they do not match the nutritional value of milk and therefore in my view they ought not to be able

to use that term. >> okay. madame chairwoman, for 90 seconds perhaps? >> absolutely. >> so it pains me to agree with governor desantis on anything, but i will in that he is opposed to lab beat and i find that really kind of very unattractive basically. basica. i know another and now another challenge is just one more product or movement or whatever that is going to impact our farmers that race before other kinds of chicken. so, really, can you be calling that actual meet? or what kind of category is the kind of a thing? >> we are currently grappling with this issue in terms of labeling what you call it. if the biological process is

actually equivalent to what takes place with livestock, the argument that it ought to be able to be called meat. however, consumers, i think, need to understand and appreciate the differentiation between cell culture meat and livestock that is produced on the farm and that is what we are dealing with now trying to distinguish so that when consumers make the choice they know what they are buying. >> yeah. i find that very, very different. i think i would -- so i do think it is going to have another impact and challenge for our farmers. >> thank you very much. important questions here in labeling. so thank you. senator holden? >> madam secretary, thank you for being here and for your work on behalf of the great farmers and ranchers across the

country. my colleague from pennsylvania just mentioned s.n.a.p., and in the baseline for the farmville which is $1.5 trillion, the s.n.a.p. baseline is going to go from about 600 billion-something dollars to $1.5 trillion. it is doubling. is there any reason that the baseline is going up that much? >> well, there may be a smaller program where you are seeing an increase but probably not. >> so i just referenced that in terms of cut. last i checked, it is in terms of doubling. i want to bring up two programs that i think are fundamentally vital for farmers and ranchers across this country in terms of production and agriculture and it will not surprise you when i say the first is crop insurance

and a second is the counter safety net. i think these are fundamental to our system of agriculture. we have an amazing system of agriculture in this country. it is still largely small businesses, family-based businesses. family-based farms and ranches across this country and when you look across other industries, and i will come some comments on this if you like -- but we see concentration over and over and over again in these other industries, but in farming we don't have them. we have this amazingly diverse system of farming and ranching of largely family-based small businesses. and i think that is incredibly important for this nation, fundamentally important for this nation and sometimes it gets taken for granted and we have to be really, really careful not to take it for granted because we have the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world.

and not only do americans across the board -- there able to spend less of their budget than in other developed countries because of what our farmers and ranchers do. so when we talk about a farmville, it benefits every single american every single day because of what our farmers and ranchers are out there doing and i know you believe that too. so when we talk about this farmville, we have got to get it right for production agriculture because we cannot take that amazing agriculture which is fundamental to our nation in so many ways. our national defense. everything. and that means crop insurance, the number one risk management told -- we have got to get it right which also reduces the need for disaster programs and the same. so when i ask you, do you support making sure that we update crop insurance so that

it is affordable for our producers and that it is as fair as possible from state to state, and that they have access not only to crop insurance on their enterprise on a basis that they can afford but also supplemental coverage options. do you support that? and do you have ideas on how we can and should enhance it? >> senator, i think the idea we have had new crop insurance policies established while i have been secretary and we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of modifications to existing policy and the establishment of the hall from revenue protection, and even a medical farm program suggest that we understand and appreciate the importance of it . i would take a slight issue with one of the comments that you made. i think there is consolidation happening in agriculture. i am not happy with the fact that in my professional life we have lost 544,000 farms.

gone. those are families that i think i suspect many of them would have loved to continue farming but were not able to. now, folks can tell me it is all the regulations and taxes and so forth, which is what i hear all the time but what i think what has been missing from the conversation is market development. domestic marketing development and alternative revenue streams. so as you talk about a farmville focused on production agriculture, i would hope you also understand the importance of local and regional food systems and understand the capacity to create additional revenue streams for these farms. otherwise, we will continue to see consolidation. >> okay. we are making the same case. we are talking about tolls we think are important. so we have got a pretty great system and we want to make sure that we sustain it. right? you just lamented to the fact we have lost some farms.

>> we want to make it better. that is for sure. >> that really starts with crop insurance. i am not saying they are not important. isn't it? if you ask farmers across the country, what is the number one thing they say is most important? >> well, there is no question that is the answer but the question is whether or not we have challenged ourselves to think anew and to think more broadly. i'm not suggesting we should not do what you have outlined with crop insurance, but what if i am suggesting is of you to stop it that, that is not enough. >> that is right. so let's add the countercyclical safety net to that. isn't it important we do as good a job on that including updating reference prices to make sure it is relevant and reduce the need for ad hoc disaster programs? >> as long as you're not damaging other opportunities

that could create a chance for farmers to benefit from conservation practices. for example, you talked about doing expense prices at the expense of fill in the blank, i.r.a. that is why you has some challenges and i have suggested be more creative than that. >> can i sit on the chair for maybe another minute. glad you brought it up. conservation programs. would you agree they should be voluntary, farmer friendly, not one-size-fits-all, and that we have good examples out there like equal up and the rccp and other things that farmers want more of . >> everything is consistent with that, senator. >> i am glad to hear that. they do want more funding for the programs. i think, again, emphasizing farmer-friendly so you know what i am talking about. you are from iowa.

how do we get more transparency and they are doing well right now but, boy, they suffered for a long, long time before they got these markets. but they are doing better and i hope it continues. how do we continue? and you know the concentration on account of time. but what do we do to improve pricing and transparency? >> price discovery. greater transparency. more processing at the local and regional level. >> and you support our library? >> re-established it. >> thank you so much. we have a number of members coming in now, so thank you, senator. at this point, senator warnock. >> thank you so much, adam chair. i was glad to get the news a little while ago. everyone here has it. it looks like we may be avoiding a government shutdown but here we are again engaged in governing through brinks,

which is a terrible way to run anything, let alone the united states government. yes. included in the deal that was struck is ag, but, obviously, we will see the text in a few days and over the weekend and hopefully get these bills cleared over the next week. so when we think about the prospect of a government shutdown, if the secretary could put into sharper focus for us -- secretary bill said, as we think about the implications of a lapse in funding that puts millions of hard-working families at risk, both those who run the small family farms where the lifeblood of our rural

economies, secretary vilsack, what consequences of a government shutdown keep you up at night as we run through this? >> first of all, the farmer who cannot get the loan. the farmer who can't get the payment. the farmer who can't get the disaster assistance program. the farmer who cannot get the contract signed. the s.n.a.p. recipient who cannot get the resources to be able to go to the grocery store. with mom who will not get the benefits to go to the wic program. we spent the last several years doing extraordinary research on the to have the lab touchdown and millions of dollars of research lost. the forest service that was to open up the forests so people can enjoy them but can't and won't. i mean, the list goes on. >> thank you so much. i appreciate that excessiveness

because it underscores how much is at stake beneath the games that washington plays. >> just the threat of a shutdown -- this is the fourth time that we have had to spend staff time planning for a shutdown. but interestingly enough, depending on the timing of the shutdown depends on who gets characterized and in what category in terms of the workforce. it is an extraordinary waste of time and resources. it is just maddening. >> thank you so much. i am going to change topics. you are well aware that child hunger is a serious problem. free and reduced price school meals but over the summer months they often do not have adequate adequate access to meals and go on throughout summer vacation. how many students have been reached by these summer lunch

programs? >> you want to know how many of the states that have agreed? >> i agree. >> 21 million out of the 30 million so are eligible. there are 13 states that are yet to agree to the program. >> that is right. and sadly my state of georgia is one of those states. this summer, we are putting her most vulnerable children at the risk of going hungry and experiencing long-term health challenges. >> 1.1 million children in your state. >> 1.1 million. so state leaders refuse to participate in this program. i can tell you -- i can point you folks not far from my church who would benefit. how much money is georgia leaving on the table that can be used to feed our kids?

>> $138 million. but then you have to figure out how it rolls around in the economy. you're talking about close to $.5 billion lost. >> not to mention the economic impact on our state. same thing with medicaid expansion. similar story. i appreciate your effort and all the hard work you all are doing over at the usda and i hope will encourage states like georgia that have not opted in this year to do so next year. we have to continue to work until we continue with the summer meal gap and access to food. i want to change it to another topic. section 2.2 00-6 and 2.2 00 0-7 of the inflation reduction act, which i thought hard to include with senator booker and the

chair providing $5.3 billion for economically distressed farmers and farmers who have experienced historical discrimination by the usda. i have engaged these farmers over the time of my early years in the tenure here in the senate. when i think about the program, it is one of the reasons why i do this work. every now and then you get a chance to do something that is transformational. i think of lucius abrams who is one of the farmers in georgia who had all of his usda loans forgiven. i believe you all the lucius and you know what this means. he is no longer at risk of literally losing his farm. last time he came before the committee, asked for your plan for eligible farmers to make sure they apply for assistance. that application window is now

closed. so i will ask again on my written questions the outreach that you did. but now i want to ask what happens next and when applicants might see assistance. when i talk to farmers who have applied for assistance, they tell me they are trying to plan for next planting season and they want to know when they can expect assistance. what is your timeline for getting the financial assistance into the pockets of farmers? >> by last count, there were nearly 60,000 applications that had been received. so the administrator/mac the outside administrators -- have got to go through the process of evaluating those. w we have to do it sometime in the summer. >> sometime this summer. thank you very much. these farmers have had a long haul. this goes back over decades. the financial assistance is

long overdue. i want to continue to persuade you to swiftly roll out this funding so other distressed funders can remain on their land and grow other props. and we are working to see what has been done. >> there have been an additional nearly 40,000 farmers that are received over 22006. >> thank you very much, senator. your back with us. i was thinking as the secretary was talking about going climate solutions and now it is in the department. >> thank you, madam chair. that was a long journey and imagine getting a bill like that to the u.s. senate 92-8. >> it was great. we think both of you for your leadership on that. >> thank you, madam chair. today, i went to talk to you about something. by the way, jon tester, he drives a tractor in his spare time. and other than things out of

your jurisdiction, i have over the last six months to a year her the topic of the farming community and farmers are worried about and that with the foreign ownership of land. in airport that i have right here, the gal made six recommendations that would help the usda modernize the process and make the most of the data it collects and collaborate better with our national security agencies. madam chair, i would like to submit this into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you. according to the gao, they are not meeting the mark to fully monitor foreign ownership and penalize non-filers. i have simple legislation. the improvement act with jon tester, senator tester, as a co- lead.

14 republicans. nine democrats on it, including madam chair. i believe that this bill is low hanging fruit. it should be the next step congress takes in addressing ownership of agricultural land. do you agree this would be a good bill to get through the process? >> senator, it would be a very fine bill to get through the process but i don't think anybody should be fooled that this somehow is going to result in a significantly better system and the reason i am saying that is we basically have today in honor system. we have a self reporting system. so if you are not an honorable person, you may decide to report and you have 3000 -- over 3000 offices right could potentially file a deed and no one know about it.

so unless there's some kind of central database which i don't think folks are really excited about, listing all the real estate transactions that take place in this country, you have got an order system. and if you are okay with in honor system and improving it these are absolutely the right things to do but do not think this will somehow result in a full and complete understanding of foreign ownership. >> did you look at the gao's of foreign ownership? >> they really don't do much in terms of the self reporting aspect of this issue. >> so if the bill were amended to take care of self reporting, would that be what you would need to see to make it more effective? >> that would be a way of ensuring that you're actually getting the information. >> that is why we have herrings. ? to take a good bill and make i better. >> i might be fine with it but i will tell you you will find

people not very excited about the idea of a national database where every real estate transaction will be in the federal government's purview. but the problem with these issues is it is so easy to kind of demagogue them. it is a self reporting system. so if you don't want to report, you take your chances. >> i think it is something that we could probably do were it does not have to end up being a national database to where you could find it and preempt it in some fashion. >> make sure when you're doing that if it is an llc or a llt, make sure you can look into and go deeper . >> because then they can hide the true ownership of that. >> how much are you concerned about? what if it is a 1% ownership? >> i think we ought to be smart enough to get to the bottom of who is owning ground and not be

deterred by the fact it might be hard to do. i think that is when i am after. i will take that into consideration and see if we can work with you on the specifics to see if we can get that to where it would be a good product. so on another issue i hear a lot about would be prop 12. it has probably gotten producers in many places in a quandary between what they are currently doing in their own operations and what they may have to do to be relevant and other markets. hoosier farmers, i think, have been torn between the investment that they may have to make. some may choose to do it. in terms of what is happening in california, there may be opportunities. for many, it is an area of

concern. my concern is that you do not want to homogenize things across the country. there may be a good idea there. what you think about what is happening along the lines of that and how it has got producers worried about if there are going to be investments that are irrelevant and how that may cascade across the country? >> yeah. i think the supreme court when it makes its decision that this did not violate the clause does not violate the market because i do not think hog producers have as much choice as the supreme court seems to think that they did in violating the congress cause. the decision that the supreme court has issued opens up the opportunity literally for all 50 states to do this in one

form or another, so it could potentially be quite difficult for producers to understand precisely what to do and how to do it. the reaction i am having in usda is to make sure we are building out the local and regional food system so that producers who choose not to participate with a large packing facility and do business in california have an alternative. >> well, i think the concern has to be that we do not let one state be kind of a shadow regulator that this place is going to reflectively, you know, look at it and declare it the new standard. i am not think we are doing it but a lot of people are concerned about it. on the other hand, we do not want a good idea to be suppressed. >> that is the challenge. >> it looks like it will be more out there than not. and a lot of this stuff has been originating there and

sweeping across the country and i think we have got to be careful that it is not the tail wagging the dog. >> well, there are also other issues that intersect in this discussion that are also challenging. >> thank you. i'm out of time. >> thank you, madam chair. mr. secretary, thank you and your team for being here today as well and the work that you have been doing. madam chair, i want to say thank you to president and kyle for coming out to new mexico. i appreciate them traveling across the country. i want to get out there with some shovels and they will want to clean one one of these days but we have them out there as well. i apologize for whatever i have may have done to them but i got a little taste of new mexico. >> >> i appreciate that, madam chair.

secretary, one issue i wanted to highlight is related to a study the usda recently highlighted for hispanic and non-hispanic farmers. the study also found that hispanic farmers are more likely to be a financial risk than their counterparts. and i have been calling for more data on ethnic and racial disparities and i was finally happy to see the usda release this report, and, mr. secretary, i wanted to ask if i have your continued commitment to make equity a priority with usda? >> absolutely. >> i cannot thank you enough. you went out to new mexico firsthand yourself. i cannot thank you enough. it is one thing to be able to hear about what is happening on the ground. is another thing to be able to see it for yourself and you took time to visit with those families who are devastated by the largest fire in our state's history.

now, new mexico is still recovering from the devastating fire back in 2022. i appreciate the partnership between fema and usda. but there are still some areas that need some attention, mr. secretary. well usda and fema have created a one of a kind conservation restoration plan to help the folks back at home, there is still some additional direction that i think we could benefit from with working within the u.s. and mexico and what i still hear from new mexicans is some of the confusing guidance coming from an rcs on these plans. in addition, there's also confusion to how new mexicans should apply for other usda programs. now, my other question is can usda do more to help new mexicans recover from these fires? >> well, it sounds like we do. we recently allocated additional resources from a disaster fund to create additional resources available to new mexico, to vermont, and

also to alaska. but if there are issues relevant , i am more than happy to reach out to chief crosby and make sure we are paying attention to whatever the issues are introducing whatever barriers exist. >> i appreciate that. as a matter of fact, madam chair, one of the issues with kyle and brandon at the gates with the local farmers impacted by the fires, he had a few issues that he raised -- and, mr. secretary, i also had those in writing to make sure we can better take advantage of those specific programs. mr. secretary, going forward, how does the department plan to implement the lessons it has learned from the recovery efforts in new mexico into policy and practices? and, the reason i ask that question is to me there has been this revelation when there is fire disaster across america -- in this case across forest

areas -- whether it is fema or the federal government as a whole will react to that fire but then the flooding or other aspects of that disaster that need to be included in some of these declarations and then all of the alphabet soup of all the acronyms of one of these agencies that have responsibility to work with agencies in new mexico. this is really one of the first. it is very unique. i am looking to see if there is a way that we can work together to ensure that this happens anywhere else in the country that some of the lessons learned from these families in the ground there and the leaders within usda can capture them and include them in policy. >> i think so. one of the things we learned was having a central location where of all the people, they are in place at one time. and the variety of issues and depending on the nature of the disaster and how they have impacted their farm, their home, or their particular

community. we did this in a gymnasium in new mexico and learned a lot about that particular experience and we may have to figure out how to make that a standard practice. >> i appreciate that very much. one of the areas related to the particular fire in new mexico -- as you know mr. secretary with some of the reports and investigations that have been conducted, some of the prescribed burns were not put a completely. as a matter of fact, i believe the folks who are looking at it and put their hands over it said it is not hot, but they did not use some of the infrared technology available to ensure the subject is put out completely and the subject completely. as a matter fact on one of the investigations, i believe the folks that were looking at it with her hands over and said it's not hot. but they didn't use some of the infrared technology that is available to ensure that something is put out completely. and the question that i have, mr. secretary, is usd eight now moving more aggressively to ensure when there are prescribed burns or other fires that got started but when were putting them out, infrared

technology is being used to make sure it out completely and doesn't have a chance to spread. >> another lesson learned is to have a much more extensive plan and thought process behind the prescribed burn using all the tools and technologies to ensure it is safe and that it doesn't do the damage we have seen in new mexico. so yes, that is happening. >> i appreciate that, secretary tom vilsack. i know you heard this from a lot of our colleagues, the importance of making sure the people that need to get food that are hungry, that they are able to get that food with some of the supplemental assistance nutrition programs as well. conversations taking place with all of us here, especially around kids, i think we all agree, democrats, republicans, when we are talking about the most liberal in archimedes, especially hungry kids, there is more we could do to work together. and so secretary tom vilsack,

will the recent updates to the food plan help combat child poverty? >> well, i think it did. i think there is obviously more to do. i think the summer feeding program is also going to have a positive impact on childhood hunger and childhood poverty. the good news, as i mentioned, in rule areas for the first time in a while we saw a reduction in the number of per persistently poor counties in this country. for the first time in a decade a population increase in rural america. i think things are beginning to slowly improve. but obviously there's a lot more work to do. >> i thank you for the time. >> thank you very much. senator fisher. >> thank you, madam chairman. mr. secretary, good to see you, thank you for being here today. i'm going to follow up a little here on what my colleague was talking about. we had a fire in central nebraska that burned over 70,000 acres. and i am thankful that

currently there aren't any reported injuries, but obviously when you have a significant number of acres like that and the time of year it is taking place, getting hay bales, as well as pasture, it's going to be an issue. so, as we learned of the damages, i appreciate your commitment to work with my office and nebraskans to get the necessary disaster assistance to producers in a timely matter. >> i would encourage a team to take a look at our disaster plan document that outlines the various programs that could be helpful. >> rate. i would also echo the sentiments that senator smith spoke about with regard to our disaster programs. i do have a bipartisan bill that would ensure that usda has the authority to provide some of those advanced kashi payments for the emergency conservation program in the emergency for

street restoration program. >> that is a good idea. >> i think it's fabulous. a lot of times it takes a year or two to get the payments out. you could see people out of business. >> it is also important because we are now seeing art disasters on top of disasters. up in new england, where they basically had a flood and just when they got things right, they got hit with another disaster which basically eliminated all the good work they had done to that point. it is important and necessary for us to figure out a different activism for providing help more quickly. >> we haven't had snow for a while, it will come back. it is march in nebraska. but we still have the winds and that was the big issue with these fires we had. i have also expressed concern previously that conservation dollars, i believe, need to be

prioritized based on locally driven conservation needs. we have large resource concerns i hear about in nebraska, and it centers around water. water quantity and water quality, and those are not prioritized, nor are they permitted under ira funding. about 65% of the practices funded in nebraska from 2020 to 2022 were deemed only provisionally eligible or not eligible at all under the ira. is usda considers what practices should be eligible under the ira funding, is it accurate that if a state or local nrcs office believes a practice should be eligible, that they must then use their own limited time and resources to make that case to usda? >> well, i want to make sure we

are tracking on this. i think nebraska's part of the western water initiative were we have allocated resources above and beyond the ira. focus on this issue of water. >> i am speaking specifically that water projects don't qualify under the ira. there other programs that can qualify under but not under the ira. is that correct? >> i think that is correct, it could stand to be corrected, but i think that is correct. but there are other programs available with resources with normal budgeted resources that are available for that purpose. >> correct. but when you have over half of the programs in nebraska that address water, that need to address water, and locally, the nr f offices in the past have always prioritized those and continue to, it limits the availability to tap into what i

believe are conservation practices that should be recognized when we talk about the ira. that instead of it all being based on admissions, i think we should be able to recognize those. >> i think it is based on the science that these practices will impact and effect greenhouse reductions or carbon sequestration. again, the regular programs can be utilized for the purpose of folks at the local level feel are most appropriate. >> i agree with that statement, but i also continue to push that those decisions need to be made at the local level and passing a bipartisan bill that addresses just one segment but local offices in the state recognize the need and prioritization of other resources as in water quality

and quantity. i'm concerned, i'm saddened that those are not recognized here by the federal government bite usda anymore as being important for the state of nebraska. >> well i think that is not what they are saying -- >> talking back and forth. >> it's not about them not being important, they are not necessarily climate smart. >> we will have a discussion sometime on that. because you understand the importance of water resource in the state of nebraska and the value we have with that resource. >> absolutely. that is why they are part of the western water initiative, $1.9 million being made available. i think they are climate start projects as well. we differ on that. usda has been investing significant funds to increase independent processing capacity.

and i thank you for that. we've seen a number of grants that have been awarded, $186 million went to 24 projects. another $171 million went to some other projects. but yet we see the epa now, their own regulatory analysis shows that if they take their preferred regulatory route, than anywhere between 16 to 53 of those processing facilities will close as a result. and my office has heard from a lot of small, independent facilities that are concerned that epa is maybe underestimating the impact of that and they are worried their facilities are going to close. so, well i think you for the investment by the usda, are you worried about that? >> we provided input to the epa which is why their preferred

alternative, i think, is limited to 16. they offered three options. the preferred alternative is limited to 16. the third option is the 58. we will continue to work with folks. i think we will still continue to have a strong commitment to expand processing. we are not finished with additional resources. we also put together a plan, a relenting plan so facilities that may be on the edge you have access to credit to get them to a better place. so it may very well be that that option is available to address whatever the issues are. >> i appreciate that as well. we have the three of four big processors in the state. but there's also a big movement in nebraska, as you know, to have more localized processing plants. and the effect that has

on rural communities, local committees, local producers, is tremendous. and so people are getting a little leery though, about that. and if i hear some questions, can we reach out to you on that then? >> sure. you bet. >> thank you very much. >> and now, last but certainly not least, senator from new jersey. >> thank you very much. we wrote to you urging the usda and usaid to move quickly with $1 billion in purchase shipment of you as commodities to response to the unbelievable global hunger crisis. tens of millions of people around the world as you know are disproportionately women and children, are on the brink of starvation. do you have any update on that you can share with us on that? >> senator, we are reliant on usaid for instructions and directions because they are the ones that administer the distribution of those, those resources. and i would be more than happy to reach out to administered of

power and find out what her thoughts are. we are anxious to move on this as quickly as they give us direction. >> i appreciate the process has been dragging on way too long. the usda can close the -- controls the ccc funding so i ask you make this a personal priority and do everything you can in your power to expedite this process. you know, i believe food aid is a perfect example of why we need the usda authority to utilize the ccc and not allowed really any partisan writers to interfere with that in the future. mr. secretary, you know i disagree with this administration and their position on prop 12. we have discussed this before. i was really glad the supreme court subjected it -- rejected it. i disagreed with some of the comments you made that allowed states to enact laws such as prop 12 would lead to, i think your word was chaos. i don't think there's any

evidence of this. and i hope you can understand, at least, maybe not agree with, but why millions of voters in states like california and massachusetts, legislatures in states like michigan and new jersey, are simply appalled by the way pigs and chickens are treated in these large factory farms when they are immobilized in these tiny battery cages, in these gestation crates. i hope you can understand why they have taken action to ban these inhumane practices. but, even if you don't understand exactly or agree they are cruel practices, this is really an issue to me about democracy and faith in our democracy. is present biden has said time and time again, he has rightfully declared, micro c is one of the central causes of his presidency. and so with this issue of democracy, in my opinion in question more than ever right

now, at least in my lifetime, i hope we can exercise some caution, whenever we consider overwriting the will of people in states and interfering with the role that states have, as laboratories of democracy. i don't always agree with a guy named sid miller who you are probably aware of, texas agricultural commission. but last week he published an op-ed in the hill supporting california's right to enact prop 12 entitled washington, don't tread on state ag rights. i like to submit this for the record. >> without objection. >> you know small farmers who raise animals more humanely from around the country filed a brief with the supreme court in support of prop 12. the supreme court actually cited that brief from american small farmers in its decision. the farmers argue humane treatment laws like prop 12 create actually a lot of market opportunities. and this is in light, in the 2022 usda ag senses, that shows

we have lost 9000 hog farmers since 2017. these independent hog farmers, many of them in business for years or generations have been driven out of business. and we should give these laws a chance to create the market opportunities for farmers that are willing to be humane and it supports really the small forming model. so my question, really, secretary vilsack, to put it simply, is should we allow or at least give a chance to create the market opportunities for these farmers and for our small farmers in america? >> senator, i have no problem with a state essentially directing how there farmers in that state should operate. they clearly should have the right to do that. i think the challenge is when they essentially try to extend

that to other producers and the court basically made the decision this wasn't going to discriminate against hog producers because they have a choice. i'm not sure how much of a choice they have in terms of markets. think that we are trying to create more choice by expanding local and regional processing. so, my concern is if every state does what california does, then there is not going to be any consistency at all in the marketplace. it's going to be very difficult for producers to know precisely what the rules of the game are. >> my concern is something that, big ag is pursuing this as a way to squeeze out of the market a lot of the people that would actually benefit from prop 12. >> okay, to me, you and i can disagree about this, but i think a better approach for those small and midsize producers is to figure out how their farms can generate multiple sources of income. and i think there are today ways we have put in place to

allow them to do this. >> and yet, 9000 small farmers are out of business and continuing to lose -- maybe this is my last point, my time is running low. usda's equity commission released its final report, i was glad to see that one of the recommendations was the creation of the usda office of small farms. we are in the country where we are losing farms at an alarming rate. i traveled to the midwest, sat with families who have had farms in their family going back to the homestead act. and in order to ensure that small farms have access to usa programs, this is one of the recommendations. i have introduced a bill to create such office and ensure it has enough funding to meaningfully help small farmers. and have been pushing to get

this included in the farm bill. i just want to know, do you support the equity commission? >> that would be helpful. that would be helpful. in addition, we need the resources to be able to provide cooperators outside of usda to provide assistance and help as well. i think it is both. >> thank you. i mean, independent family farmers face outrageous challenges as a consolidated world, multinational big ag corporations continue to dominate the market. we are seeing more and more consolidation. that is what i think is fighting for small farmers is so critical. that is why i think steps like prop 12 supporting what small farmers are doing. i want to bring up last point which is the issue of access to crop insurance. i know the usda has been making new crop insurance products and changes to all farm and microform policies to make the more attractive. for producers. however, i am learning, and hearing from small farmers that they are not even able to purchase these products because agents and companies just won't sell to those independent small farmers. we have a major problem with the way we are incentivizing agents and companies to only

service the larger, largest farms. in many ways the system seems to be more more rigged against small independent family farmers. we need serious safeguards to ensure that every farmer has deputy to purchase crop insurance. usda already has the authority to address some of the issues. i know i need to wrap up, i'm going to submit some questions for the record on this topic. i appreciate the 10 second indulgence by the chair. >> senator, could you get me details about the farmers you have talked to, i am more than happy to have them look into this. >> i will of the, not only for my statement across the country. >> think is much, really important questions. and thank you, mr. secretary, for being with us. you can see the broad interest in the committee from all the members who have been participating. we know how important you and your agency are as we talk about supporting our farmers and our families in rural

communities, the we all agree, we want to thrive and we want people to be able to live in rural communities have the fullness of opportunity. so thank you for your partnership, your dedication over the years. and, we look forward to working with you as we go forward. the record will remain open for five business days. and with that, the meeting is adjourned.

earlier today education secretary mikael cardona testified before lawmakers on his department's priorities and policies. taking questions on delays in federal student applications and ongoing israel-hamas protest on college campuses. watch the house education committee hearing tonight at 8:00 eastern. it's also available on our free mobile video at. c-span now. or online at c-span.org.

on wednesday the house oversight committee looks at washington, d.c.'s response to pro-palestinian protests at george washington university. the protests have allegedly involved anti-semitism and unlawful activity. testimony from the d.c. mayor as well as metropolitan police chief pamela smith. watch live at 1:00 eastern on c- span3. c-span now, or or video app or c-span.org. do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> saturdays, watch american history tvs congers investigates. we explored major investigations in our country's history by the u.s. house and senate. each week authors and historians will tell the stories, we will see stork footage and examine the impact

and legacy of key congressional hearings. this week the 1987 hearings on the iran contra affair. we will hear about the clandestine sale of missiles to iran for the exchange of hostages in lebanon. with proceeds going to contra rebels in nicaragua. watch congress investigates, saturdays, 7:00 eastern on c- span. bucha tv. every sunday on c-span2, and 9:15 p.m., mike gonzalez argues that in their book next gen marxism. then at 10:00 eastern on afterwards, journalist author of magic pill talks about the success and concerns surrounding new weight loss drugs. as well as the personal experience taking ozempic. is interviewed by berg news health reporter. watch book tv every sunday on c- span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch anytime online at tv.org.

-- book tv.org. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more. including wow. >> the world has changed. today fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. so wow is there for customers. speed, reliability and choice. now more than ever it all starts with great internet. >> wow, support c-span along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. up next maryland democratic governor moore, talk about political polarization and the importance of disagreeing the right way. from the economic club of washington, d.c., this is just under one hour.