Frustration is mounting in farm country as producers remain under financial pressure.
An Illinois farmer says policies implemented by the administration and Congress have made an economic situation worse.
“We certainly have to hold these people in check because these policies are terrible.”
John Bartman says they’re failing producers. “When we’ve had elected officials for generations have been saying don’t trust your government, unfortunately we have elected officials that haven’t been doing a good job of being stewards of agricultural policy.”
He tells Brownfield what’s hurting farmers the most are the current trade and tariff policies. “Congress should not have allowed that to happen. We need our members of Congress to step up and make sure that they are the legislative branch. They have the power of the purse. They need to do their job to be sure to keep the executive office in check.”
For example, “Argentina received $40 billion from Uncle Sam and then they immediately went and sold beans to China within our market. That’s how they thanked us. And how did this Administration thank us? They gave us a $12 billion bailout that nobody wanted. If we would have our markets, we wouldn’t need a bailout.”
Nebraska farmer Randy Uhrmacher says the current political environment makes it difficult to plan ahead. “It’s almost like smoke screens are sent out all the time. We don’t know where we’re at from hour to hour anymore it seems. Everything changes so much. It really puts your trust in government at close to zero.”
He says even though lawmakers are listening to producer concerns, “There are so many conflicting groups out there anymore and they’re trying to please everybody. You can’t do that from a government standpoint because if you make one group happy, then you upset the other group.”
