During a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing in July, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) asked nominee for Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation Richard Fordyce about disaster relief.
00:08And Mr. Fortas, I'm really pleased to see that you're willing to serve in this capacity,
00:13again, having served before and done excellent work the first time.
00:17And so I want to welcome you back and tell you how much I appreciate your work
00:21and how much I look forward to working with you.
00:23I know you're going to be spending an awful lot of time in Arkansas due to the power flag committee chairman.
00:31But when you're not tied up in Arkansas, would you be willing to come to North Dakota?
00:36Well, yes, Senator, I would.
00:38And as you know, you did invite me a couple of times the last time, and I think I came both times.
00:44Yep. But you'll still come back again, won't you?
00:47Oh, absolutely. Yes, sir. In the summer would be better.
00:51Yeah.
00:54Well, we'll absolutely make sure it works, but we want to get you up there.
00:59And we appreciate that.
01:02And of course, all the good work you do.
01:04Talk to me how the chairman, myself, others worked very hard on getting that disaster assistance, you know, passed.
01:13And my understanding is it's going well.
01:15It's been very important to our state.
01:19And now you're starting, you know, on the weather piece.
01:23Talk to me how that's going.
01:25So, you know, I the only information that I have is anything that I might see in the ag news, ag press.
01:36I have not had any conversations related to policy, policy development with the folks at FPAC.
01:44So I do know just because I've heard it from a number of farmers that the first 10 billion, the implementation of that was incredibly swift, seemed to be pretty seamless.
01:57And, you know, I would I would expect while the second part of it is probably just from the way I read some of the language is probably going to be a bit more complex and complicated.
02:10But, you know, I have confidence that that that's being worked on, not I would have no idea as to what the progress is in that at this point.
02:19But I have confidence that they're working on it.
02:22The and maybe somebody else brought up to you, but both the corn growers and soybean growers have been in to see us over the last week or so.
02:30And in the case of the corn growers, they still have a lot of 24 crop.
02:34They haven't moved.
02:35And of course, they've got 25 crop common and and they're not able to get that contracted right now.
02:41And same with the soybean guys, you know, we put the disaster assistance in place.
02:46We put, you know, important components of the farm program in place.
02:51Arc PLC updates, enhancements to crop insurance to make it more affordable in the O3B.
02:59And but we got to have, you know, we got to have some sales going.
03:05And, you know, any any thoughts in terms of what we can do there and, you know, to try to address some of these sales that we need to make?
03:15Certainly, you know, I know that the the market, I know you mentioned corn and soybeans and, you know, that market is not incredibly robust right now.
03:26You know, if I'm confirmed, we actually are going to have to change the structure of our farm.
03:33But currently, my wife and I and my wife is sitting right behind me, Senator.
03:38She's the marketer for the.
03:40She looks awfully young, Richard.
03:43Well, would you believe we were married 36 years ago yesterday?
03:47I would not. I would not.
03:49She likes that answer.
03:51Are you sure he has the right number there?
03:54It is. Yeah.
03:55Well, congratulations on that for sure.
03:58So, you know, from a from a marketing standpoint, a sales standpoint, I'm not completely sure why that's why that's happening unless it's just the fact that the market is not in a place where they want to move where they want to move grain.
04:16But I think, you know, we have in the first administration when I was the administrator, we had a very open dialogue with a lot of organizations, both commodity groups, farm groups, conservation groups.
04:31And I would commit if confirmed, I would commit to visiting with those organizations and understanding a bit more about what that what that problem is.
04:40Yeah. Well, we have some work to do there.
04:42And as you know, in the first Trump administration, we worked together with the Commodity Credit Corp, which is funded out of the Ag Apropos Committee.
04:52And we you know, we're going to need to continue to do that work with our chairman and ranking member on ag.
04:58And and I and I know you're committed to making sure that we do that as needed.
05:02I'm looking for a up or a no.
05:06Yeah. Yes. Yes, Senator. Yes, for sure.
05:08Okay. Again, thanks. Look forward to working with you and appreciate your service.
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