Every day, week, month and year, a successful farmer is constantly evaluating and adjusting as they roll forward with the plan of action to bring value to the marketplace with their food and fiber. Generation after generation significant decisions are made and consequences are borne out of the thinking, speaking, acting and measurement of results.
Same is true with elected officials. We carefully evaluate the thinking, speaking, acting and results from the pool of the courageous entering the ring of politics on our behalf. Their words make a difference, their action makes a bigger difference, and together they make the biggest of difference. We all play a role in understanding our political leaders’ words and actions.
As we enter a very busy farming season with the important tasks ahead, you will find the offering of perspective on the importance agriculture within the bigger scheme of our nation from a U.S. Senate Candidate, Mike Rogers.
America is blessed with an abundance of fertile land, as well as the dedicated, hard-working, and innovative agricultural community that tills the land and which feeds not only our great nation, but indeed much of the world. We cannot afford to allow harm to come to our agricultural community — it is as vital to our country’s national and economic security asset as any other.
For all the talk of Wall Street on the East Coast and Silicon Valley on the West, we Michiganders know that the bedrock of our nation and its engine is our farming and agricultural community, and our great industries, of course. Our farmers are among the hardest working and most patriotic citizens of this great nation. During the pandemic, while others were locked in their homes, our farmers were working the fields to make certain that their fellow Americans had the sustenance to survive. Without our farmers, where would we be?
The truth is that our country is under attack. While most focus on what happens in the big cities there are those who are seeking to undermine the security and sanctity of those who work hard to feed our country and fuel our nation. Farmers are not simply a part of America, they are America from its founding days to right now, and they are under threat.
Right now, hostile foreign governments and business entities backed by the Chinese Communist Party are buying up farmland across the country, without oversight, and without question. This must be stopped. Beijing acts against our country’s interests and steals intellectual property at every turn, and you can be sure they will act against our farmers and agricultural communities alike. This doesn’t mean all foreign investment is bad — quite the opposite, most foreign investment comes from our friends and allies, but we must keep a watchful eye on those who would seek to do us harm today, so we don’t try and close the barn door until it’s too late.
The only way to protect our farms and our agricultural community is if the government works with, not against, them. There cannot be effective regulation that doesn’t include consultation with the agricultural community. This also means that the government needs to respect this community when upholding the law. I will oppose any unauthorized entry by federal agents into farm facilities without cause and will ensure that federal law enforcement works with state and local partners to decisively deal with credible threats. Working together I know we can meet and defeat any threat.
This cooperation must also inform the setting of reasonable standards to protect our agricultural community and enable our farms to flourish. Standards set in Washington without any understanding of what it is like to till the soil or rear cattle are simply inappropriate. We need to protect our agriculture sector and our hard-working farmers, while making certain we have a robust food testing and monitoring program, secure animal and feed storage facilities, protecting the agriculture workforce, increasing protection for animal health at ports of entry, enhance bio-security measures, and always give preference to trusted domestic products over foreign imports.
Our agricultural community set our country on the course for the incredible successes it has achieved to date. It fuels our nation and much of the world. We must protect this most important community from foreign threats and overzealous government overreach. It is something our Founding Fathers, who were also Founding Farmers, knew and that we should embody today.
The opinions stated herein are not necessarily those of GreenStone Farm Credit Services.
To view the spring 2024 issue of Partners magazine in its entirety, click here.
