During a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked Richard Fordyce, president Trump's nominee to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation, about small farm payments.
00:00Thank you. Senator Fetterman. You're recognized. Yes, sir.
00:08I think. Go ahead, Senator Grassley. Yeah, he's a legend in his own mind.
00:16Thank you very much, Senator Fetterman. I know you're very qualified for this job because I know what you did in the previous Trump administration, so there's no doubt about your qualifications.
00:30I got some questions along some things that I've been believing in in farm programs, and I'd like to have you answer.
00:41I've been an advocate for one overall amount of money that one farmer can get, and that one farmer ought to have dirt under his fingernails in order to qualify for payments.
00:52I got nothing against big farmers getting bigger. I just don't think we ought to subsidize big farmers to get bigger.
01:00Because if we're subsidizing them, it drives up the price of land. It drives up the cost of cash rent.
01:07And most young farmers getting started farming are the type that have to rent their land.
01:15And competition with people that maybe are farming 2,000 acres versus somebody farming 10,000 acres.
01:23There ought to be not a limit on the size of the farm, but there ought to be some limit on how much the federal government is going to help.
01:31Because the principle of a safety net is that we have a safety net for the last 70 or 80 years.
01:37Because there are certain sized farmers, small and medium sized farmers, that don't have any control over Nixon freezing beef prices in 70,
01:49or Carter putting a grain embargo on in 79, or even the uncertainty that comes with the way that Trump is doing business.
02:02So I say we ought to be helping those that are hurt by things beyond their control.
02:10So that's why I advocate a limit on farm payments.
02:14Do you think that there should be any limit on how big a payment would go to any one farm operation?
02:23Well, Senator, I thank you for that question.
02:26And I appreciate that.
02:28I don't know that I have thought about that necessarily, but I would say that whatever Congress says is under that definition of actively engaged,
02:44what the payment limitations are, certainly we will follow the letter of the law and enforce that as the agencies are doing today.
02:53I wasn't going to bring up actively engaged, but let me, I don't think I have so much of a question on it,
03:00but it would be a matter of informing you how I see it within the Department of Agriculture.
03:05Sometimes Congress has expended the term actively engaged so people don't have to actually be involved in the management of the farm operation
03:16to get some help from the farm program.
03:18But some of it has been done through either guidance or regulation within the Department of Agriculture,
03:27and I've seen it expanded even under Democratic secretaries of agriculture, but for sure Republicans have done it.
03:36And I think if you're involved in any of those regulations, you ought to review what they are and see if they haven't gone too far.
03:44Because when third cousins can start getting some benefit from a family farm operation, it's not right.
03:52So I'd just like to have you take a look at it.
03:54Secretary Rollin is focused on supporting small farms.
03:59Do you agree that payment limits help protect small and medium-sized farmers,
04:04or is this something you want to say you haven't given a lot of thought to yet?
04:09So, Senator, could you repeat the question?
04:11Yeah, Senator Rollins is focused on supporting small farms.
04:16Now, I get this from my conversations with her.
04:18I got it from her confirmation conversations we've had.
04:26Do you agree that payment limits help protect small and medium-sized farms?
04:32So I think, if I understand the question correctly, I think that payment limitations on smaller farms,
04:46typically the producer that's operating a smaller farm doesn't necessarily bump up against the payment limitations.
04:55Farmers that are farming larger farms, more acres, a lot of times do bump up against those payment limitations.
05:05Okay.
05:06Did that answer your question, Senator?
05:07Yeah, you've answered it.
05:09Let me just finish with this.
05:11I hope I get a chance to have a conversation with you and explain what my motives are.
05:18I guess I've already expressed them.
05:20I can't express them much more than that, but I'd like to have some consideration given to it.
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