Booker says GOP Farm Bill ‘fails to meet the moment’

U.S. Senator Cory Booker, who would be in line to chair the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee if Democrats win control of the U.S. Senate in November,  said the draft of a Farm Bill released by Republicans today “fails to meet this moment of crisis that American farmers and families are facing.”

“Since the last Farm Bill passed in 2018, we have lost over 150,000 farms in the United States, most of them small farms. Now, at a moment when food prices continue to skyrocket, over one million children have lost access to food assistance because of the massive cuts to the SNAP program that Republicans made last year,” said Booker.  “This status quo Farm Bill does nothing to repair any of that damage – instead, it goes backward, by undermining USDA support for regenerative agriculture and creating loopholes for pesticides to avoid safety oversight.”

Booker said he won’t for legislation that “leaves small farmers without a functioning safety net, does not make healthy, clean food more affordable, and does not reverse a meaningful amount of harm caused by H.R. 1, including by delaying the shift of SNAP costs to state budgets.”

“I urge Republicans to come to the table and negotiate a bold bipartisan Farm Bill that will provide the real support desperately needed by American farmers and families,” he said.