American Farmers and Ranchers of Oklahoma (AFR) traveled to Washington, D.C., for the 2024 Legislative Fly-In. They heard from USDA officials there, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Farm Service Agency Administrator Zach Ducheneaux.
They also participated in a Capitol Hill briefing with Senate Agriculture Committee staff, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lina Khan, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathon Kanter.
Farm Director KC Sheperd spoke with AFR President Scott Blubaugh about his thoughts on this year’s Fly-IN, and he said this year, the main focus was on getting a farm bill done, “You know, our farm bill expired about a year ago. And very, very little progress has been made since that time to get us a Farm Bill done. There are big holes in the farm safety net there right now. And we really need to get this done. But I will tell you, from all my visits up on Capital Hill and with the administration, I’m not very hopeful.”
Despite meetings with Congress and the administration, he expressed pessimism about progress due to political gridlock. He highlighted the impact of inflation and reduced grain prices on farmers, noting that neither party seems willing to compromise, “We’ve never had a farm bill that was not bipartisan, and that’s the only way we can get one because neither side has enough votes to pass a farm bill by themselves. They’ve got to have bipartisan support, or we won’t get one. And there seems to be no willingness on either side to give an inch up there. So I am a little bit distraught.”
AFR members had the chance to hear from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Blubaugh said he seems to feel the same way: “The House, the Senate, the Administration, everybody feels the same way, but neither side will give an inch.”
Blubaugh says that while all the political rhetoric is going on, farmers and ranchers are the ones paying the price: “We’re put in a bad position with the unknown. Bankers don’t like unknowns. And when you’re trying to do farm renewals on your loans, and all of that makes it tough for the bankers to say yes when we don’t know if we have a farm safety net or not, and we don’t know if we have a farm bill or if we are going to get one. Will we get a continuance of the same old bill we’ve had for six years now that’s inadequate.”
Blubaugh says things have changed pretty dramatically in six years, and the farm bill needs some new updates. “Let’s just face it. Those price indexing there was based on numbers 6-7-8, years and old, and now here we are. We’ve had inflation that nobody expected. Grain prices are down 40% of what they were pre-COVID, and our interest rates are triple. So we have a lot of pressure on our grain farmers throughout the United States.”
Looking past the Farm Bill Discussions, Blubaugh said he was very excited about upcoming Youth Activities for AFR, “we’re starting our poster podcast out in the country for the little kids. We have about 18,000
of those posters go out to young kids, kindergarten and first grade, throughout the state. That’s being kicked off. We’re going to be at the Tulsa State Fair in just a few weeks.”
District FFA speech contests will also start up in a few months with the State Finals being held at OSU in December, and then AFR County Meetings kick off in the first of October, “I’ll be attending as many of those as I could possibly make through October and November.”
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