Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support H.R. 2 and the accompanying manager's amendment.

I appreciate the chairman's leadership on this effort, not only in the underlying bill but the amendment to improve upon it. I thank the gentleman for including my food access liaison provision in the amendment.

Just briefly: This individual will be tasked with coordinating USDA programs aimed at improving Americans' access to quality food and providing technical assistance to community leaders who are working to improve the lives of those living in food deserts. This is a small measure of progress that we can all be proud of and continue our work to ensure folks have access to healthy and nutritious foods.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that access to healthy and nutritious food relies on the food security system, the strong food security system provided by this farm bill. And I thank the chairman for his leadership in that regard.

As we will soon vote on amendments, I urge my colleagues to remember the importance of a strong food security system for all of our commodities, whether that be under the ARC program or the PLC program for crops such as rice, soybeans, and corn or the current sugar program. If we pick apart our commodity programs one by one, we will create giant holes in our Nation's food security system. This compromises our national security and hinders our ability to provide healthy, nutritious food, not just to rural communities that produce the food but to urban areas and, in fact, the entire Nation and beyond.

Mr. Chair, again, I want to thank the chairman for his diligence and leadership on this issue, and not only in regard to the commodity title but certainly the nutrition title, to our vice chairman and chairman of the Nutrition Subcommittee, G.T. Thompson, for his diligence as well. And I appreciate the work on the part of our Agriculture Committee.

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Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Chairman, where do I begin? I guess it was JFK who said the farmer is the only businessman who--I think he said it this way--who buys retail, sells wholesale, and pays freight both ways.

So we are comparing apples and oranges here with a business that is, say, I don't know, an accountant maybe--I don't know, Mr. Chairman--and a farmer. Farming is inherently risky, so that is not even debatable.

The issue we have here, though, is is it worth it to us as a nation to make an investment in our national security?

Our ability to feed ourselves is absolutely crucial to our national security, number one. Number two, we support our farmers at a fraction of what the rest of the world does, and so we get much better value, much better return on investment.

I think the disposable income of an average American is somewhere in the 12 percent range, what we spend on food; and if you think about and compare it to, say, in Europe where they are upwards of 20 percent and Japan in the 25 percent range of their disposable income, we get a much better return, much, much better value to the taxpayer.

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