Carrington  (Sen. Heitkamp’s Office)  U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp Friday continued her discussions with farmers, ranchers, agriculture leaders, and faith leaders in Carrington and Wahpeton to discuss North Dakota priorities in the Farm Bill being debated in Congress and the damaging impact of the administration’s escalating trade war. Thursday, she held similar meetings in Mandan and Minot.

In Carrington,  Friday, Heitkamp met with representatives from the North Dakota Barley Council, Farm Crop Insurance Corporation Board, and farmers from the region at the Carrington Research Extension Center. Following their discussion of the Farm Bill and trade policy priorities, Heitkamp toured the center’s facilities and test plots to learn about their latest work in agriculture research, which she prioritized in the Farm Bill.

In Wahpeton, Heitkamp met with representatives from the North Dakota Grain Growers Association, North Dakota Corn Growers Association, Great Plains Food Bank, the FSA state director, and local farmers at Ag Country Farm Credit Services.

Heitkamp, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, helped pass a Senate Farm Bill with overwhelming bipartisan support which includes many provisions she fought for to support North Dakota agriculture. The Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives must now work to find an agreement on the Farm Bill before the current bill expires in September.

Earlier Friday, China’s retaliatory tariffs went into effect, putting the value of North Dakota’s soybean crop and the livelihoods of farmers at risk. A recent article stated that Chinese companies were expected to buy about 1.14 million tons of American soybeans by the end of August, but now it’s expected most of those orders will be canceled. As the administration’s trade policies continue to threaten access to markets that are critical to the success of North Dakota’s agriculture economy, Heitkamp is pushing for quick passage of a final bipartisan Farm Bill and continues to fight for trade policies that benefit North Dakota’s producers.

In addition to pressing top officials from the beginning of this administration to protect and expand markets for North Dakota goods, Heitkamp has helped lead the effort in Congress to protect North Dakota producers from a trade war by introducing bipartisan legislation with Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee to require congressional approval of tariffs designated for national security reasons. She also introduced bipartisan legislation with Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona to nullify the aluminum and steel tariffs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a new report this week showing how the ongoing, escalating trade war threatens over $60 million in North Dakota exports. The report estimates that over 111,000 jobs in North Dakota are supported by trade.

“Passing a strong Farm Bill that works for North Dakota’s farmers and ranchers is my top priority, and that’s why it’s so important to hear directly from farmers and ranchers across our state,” said Heitkamp. “Today in Carrington and Wahpeton, I listened to farmers, ranchers, and community leaders who have real worries about the long-term viability of the farm economy. They explained why a strong Farm Bill is critical for them, and how the administration’s harsh trade policies are impacting their bottom lines. Commodity prices are low and the escalating trade war is already creating negative effects for growers. Actions earlier today that continue to play chicken with China aren’t helpful to our farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers who are caught in the middle. We need to use trade enforcement to rein in China’s unfair trade practices, but this isn’t the way to do it. Our country must seriously reexamine many of its outstanding trade issues, but using farmers as a punching bag is no respectable way to go about it. We also talked about how the Senate passed a strong, bipartisan Farm Bill that has the economic interest of farmers at heart to help provide some certainty they need, and I’m proud to have included many wins for our state in that bill. Particularly during these unpredictable times, passing a Farm Bill on time before the end of September is severely needed, and the Senate will keep working throughout August to get the job done. I hope the House of Representatives follows suit.”

 

In addition to the escalating trade war with China, the European Union recently responded to the administration’s escalation of its trade war by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $3.4 billion in U.S. goods, including supply chain materials for agriculture and construction machinery, which accounts for 50 percent of North Dakota’s exports to the EU. Canada announced new tariffs on U.S. goods earlier this week, Mexico implemented further tariffs of almost $3 billion worth of U.S. goods yesterday.

In the 2018 Senate Farm Bill Heitkamp successfully included several provisions she wrote, including her fix to the ARC-County program, her provisions to help young and beginning farmers, her priority to protect and expand crop insurance, and her proposal to help farmers and ranchers handle the stress of working in an industry as volatile as agriculture.

In recent weeks, Heitkamp has discussed Farm Bill and trade policy priorities with farmers and ranchers in Kindred, Grand Forks, Richardton, Dickinson, Mandan, and Minot. Click here for video of Heitkamp discussing her Farm Bill priorities in a speech on the floor of the Senate.

Heitkamp has also heard from farm groups, hunger advocates, faith leaders, and nearly 1,500 North Dakotans about the need to protect nutrition assistance program for North Dakotans at risk of going hungry, and she is fighting to include support for the essential lifeline for vulnerable Americans in the final bill.

Since helping to write, negotiate, and pass the 2014 Farm Bill, Heitkamp has spent years talking with North Dakota farmers and ranchers about their priorities to prepare for the next Farm Bill. The provisions she fought for came about after spending years talking with farmers and ranchers about their priorities, including holding Farm Bill tours across the state in 2016 and 2017 after she helped write, negotiate, and pass the 2014 Farm Bill. The Senate Agriculture Committee – which Heitkamp sits on – passed the Farm Bill earlier this month with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Provisions Heitkamp successfully worked to include in the bipartisan 2018 Senate Farm Bill:

 

  • Her bill to fix the ARC-County Program to help farmers when commodity prices fall to damaging levels. Heitkamp introduced her bipartisan bill with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) in October 2017. It specifically responds to concerns from North Dakotans and would direct the Farm Service Agency to use the more widely-available data from the Risk Management Agency as the first choice in yield calculations so that county level data is more accurate and updated, calculate safety net payments so they reflect what’s owed to producers in the physical counties where their farms are located, and make payments more accurate. The bill builds on Heitkamp’s successful effort from 2015 when she got the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to allow farmers whose land is across multiple counties to have their ARC-CO payments recalculated so those payments reflect what’s owed to them in the physical counties where their farms are located.

 

  • Her Next Generation in Agriculture Act to provide funding and reform programs that help young and beginning farmers and ranchers enter and remain in the industry, build the next generation of farmers, and feed the country and the world. Heitkamp introduced her bipartisan bill with U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) earlier this year. It would provide permanent funding for beginning farmer and rancher training programs, create a permanent National Beginning Farmer and Rancher Coordinator and Agricultural Youth Coordinator at the USDA, direct state USDA offices to designate an employee as the state beginning farmer and rancher coordinator, and establish a next generation agriculture technology challenge competition. The average age of a farmer in North Dakota is 57 years old, according to USDA, and the percentage of new farmers has declined since 1982. Heitkamp’s bill would help cultivate the next generation of farmers and support rural economies.

 

 

  • Her priority to expand export opportunities for North Dakota agriculture producers. With 95 percent of the world’s consumers living outside the U.S., Heitkamp has been fighting to protect and expand export promotion programs to help North Dakota farmers sell to the world. She fought to make sure the Farm Bill would expand USDA programs to help farmers find new global markets for their goods.

 

  • Her amendment to boost trade with Cuba. Heitkamp and Boozman successfully included their bipartisan amendment to allow USDA to use its existing export market development programs to create, expand, and maintain a strong Cuban export market for U.S. agricultural producers and processors— at no additional cost to U.S. taxpayers. This change in USDA policy would provide some needed relief from low American commodity prices by fostering a new, reliable trade relationship, boosting agricultural export revenue, and increasing export volume for American farmers and ranchers. This builds on Heitkamp’s efforts to boost trade with Cuba going back to 2015, when she first introduced legislation to lift the ban on private banks and companies offering credit for agricultural exports to Cuba.

 

  • Her efforts to support a foot and mouth disease vaccine bank. Heitkamp fought to secure funding in the Farm Bill for a new National Animal Disease Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Program, as well as National Animal and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank, with a priority put on foot-and-mouth disease. The threat of disease is a constant threat over a rancher’s operations, and the need for a rapid response system is crucial for our food system to be able to address any outbreaks of disease such as foot and mouth. This vaccine bank will help protect North Dakota’s livestock industry and our national food system.

 

  • Her proposal to help farmers and ranchers in crisis. Heitkamp secured support for state departments of agriculture, state extension services, and non-profits to establish helplines, provide suicide prevention training for farm advocates, create support groups, and reestablish the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. These provisions were included in the bipartisan FARMERS FIRST Act, which Heitkamp helped introduce in April to address the alarming rate of death by suicide among agricultural workers.

 

  • Her reforms to make nutrition assistance more accessible in Indian Country. The Farm Bill includes a provision derived from Heitkamp’s Tribal Food and Housing Security Act to help tribes like Spirit Lake provide nutrition assistance to low-income households and children who are at risk of going hungry. This provision waives most or all of the match requirement for administrative costs to run the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) programs, which many tribes use to provide healthy, affordable food options to low-income individuals and families. In Fiscal Year 2016, there were 5,661 participants receiving nutrition assistance from the FDPIR on North Dakota tribal lands.

 

  • Her provision to support rural Native American communities. Heitkamp successfully included an amendment to establish a permanent Rural Development Tribal Technical Assistance Office to provide technical assistance across all areas of rural development funding. The provision, part of her Tribal Food and Housing Security Act to ensure Native American communities are supported in the 2018 Farm Bill, would support rural business and community development, housing, rural infrastructure like electric and telecommunications services, and rural hospitals and health care.

 

  • Her provision to provide greater certainty for the current Tribal Promise Zone designees, including the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Spirit Lake Tribe. Heitkamp successfully added this provision, which was part of the CROPS for Indian Country Act that she cosponsored, during markup to ensure that four Tribal Promise Zones continue to have access to resources and technical assistance from federal agency partners.

 

In addition to her work on the Farm Bill, Heitkamp has been successfully fighting to improve disaster assistance programs for North Dakota farmers and ranchers. Earlier this year, her bill to improve disaster assistance to livestock and honeybee producers by permanently removing the funding cap for the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP) was signed into law.