Bipartisan Farm Bill must protect Missouri farmer, families

Senator highlights importance of nutrition assistance, farm programs Missourians depend on, as traditionally bipartisan effort faces threats of politicization

Highlighting the legislation’s importance to Missouri farmers and to families in need, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is calling on Senate leaders to pass a strong, bipartisan Farm Bill that keeps with tradition in supporting Missouri’s agriculture producers and maintaining the nutrition assistance programs on which hundreds of thousands of Missourians depend.

“As you consider reauthorization of the Farm Bill, I urge you to continue longstanding tradition of bipartisan support for America’s farmers, ranchers, and vulnerable families,” McCaskill wrote in a letter to the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “I supported the 2014 Farm Bill because it preserved and extended a much needed safety net for Missouri agriculture while also providing critical support for nutrition programs. The historic partnership between the anti-hunger community and production agriculture has transcended party lines for decades and this partnership must continue.”

McCaskill’s outreach comes as the Administration and leaders in the House of Representatives have pushed proposals that would politicize nutrition assistance programs, undermining the traditionally bipartisan Farm Bill and threatening to derail its passage. After a proposal in the President’s budget to replace the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with a “harvest-box” of pre-selected foods, McCaskill responded in her letter, “This plan is demeaning to the hundreds of thousands of Missourians who know best how to feed their families and supplement their groceries with SNAP benefits. … Equally concerning are efforts by the House to alter eligibility requirements and asset testing.”

McCaskill has been a longtime supporter of Missouri agriculture producers and nutrition programs, and fought to pass the 2014 Farm Bill that created a Permanent Livestock Disaster Assistance Program; ended Direct Payments and replaced them with a program of crop insurance options to ensure farmers and ranchers retain a basic safety net; saved more than $8 billion in the SNAP without negatively impacting Missourians who rely on this assistance; and provided a year of full funding for the Payment In Lieu of Taxes program, which provides funding for vital services in Missouri communities containing federal lands.

Continuing to stand up for Missouri agriculture in the face of proposed tariffs by China on American soybeans, pork, and beef, along with aircraft, trucks, and other goods in retaliation for the Trump Administration’s announcement it will place tariffs on Chinese goods, McCaskill called on the Administration to “scale back this escalating situation before it becomes a trade war that does nothing but slam some of Missouri’s most critical economic engines.”

McCaskill has been honored six times with the National Farmers Union’s Golden Triangle Award for her long record of working to support Missouri’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities.

Visit mccaskill.senate.gov/rural to learn more about McCaskill’s fight to protect rural Missouri.