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Speaker 1
Thank you, Representative Schrier. I don't have any questions. I'd like to recognize Mister Bishop if he has any. I
Speaker 2
Don't have any questions, but I think you made your points. Fully fund TFAP, fully fund the Farm to School program, especially crop research initiative and block grant program, 10,000,000 for the farm and ranch stress assistance network, and 60,000,000 for the school kitchen equipment grants. Very good. Worthy projects. We'll do our best.
Speaker 5
I got it. Is that better? Thank you for doing this. Now you can hear me. Good morning, Chairman Valdeo, ranking member Bishop.
It's a pleasure to once again testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture. My district of Southern New Jersey has many rural areas, and I have worked well with this subcommittee over the years. And I appreciate it to deliver targeted resources where they are needed most. As a quick aside, everybody assumes New Jersey is extremely densely populated, and there are no farms. My district is the largest congressional district in the state.
It's actually larger in the state of Delaware, and we have some of the most rural areas in the entire state of New Jersey, as well as beaches, bays, meadows. So it's quite different from what you might picture New Jersey being. My primary focus today is fire trucks. Many years ago, I served as a fire commissioner, believe it or not, in my township, a rural township of Dennis. A fire truck does not help just a single town.
It helps the entire region. All the trucks I am requesting today have automatic aid agreements to help their neighbors. And I'd also point out that many of these volunteer fire companies, these folks volunteer, and the least we can do is give them equipment that's safe, that's functional, that really works. Many of them, the majority of them, are not getting paid at all. They just do this out of the kindness of their hearts.
They have to go to courses in order to be able to do it. So we appreciate this work. These four fire trucks, which I have listed at the end of my testimony, along with their community project funding submission numbers, are geographically distributed across my district to maximize their impact. Across these items, I'm asking for 2,637,000 to purchase four new fire trucks in South Jersey. Each of these fire trucks is at least 25 old, many of them much older.
They all have significant issues and problems that we're replacing, that make them less reliable, less effective, and less safe for the fireman. They must be replaced with more reliable technology, capable vehicles. These trucks will all go to experienced fire companies that altogether protect and serve tens of thousands of constituents in my district, actually hundreds of thousands. All four of these trucks have been identified as eligible for the rural facilities program by the United States Department of Agriculture. Each recipient has provided a written commitment that they will provide, and this is always important, the required nonfederal funding match.
All four of these trucks are within my top five community project funding priorities. It's extremely important to me. These men and women deserve better. No less important is my request to provide 2,700,000 in funding from the rural water account to Salem County, the most rural county in the state of New Jersey, to construct sluice gates. Sluice gates are a flood control barrier used to direct the flow of rivers and streams.
The project would fund three different sluice gates in Salem County. It's a top priority for this rural county, one of the poorest counties in the state, and one of the most rural areas in the state, because it would deliver flood mitigation benefits to thousands of rural households and farms. One of the sluice gates, very importantly, which is in seriously poor condition and has been rated this way, controls flooding for the access road to one of the largest nuclear power plants in the United States of America. USDA has confirmed the eligibility of this project, and Salem County, again, has committed to providing the required nonfederal funds. I thank you for your consideration of all of it.
That's about as short as I ever speak, by the way.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Vandrew. I've got no questions for you, and I'll recognize Mr. Bishop if he has any.
Speaker 4
We appreciate you listening to us. Ready? Mister chairman and ranking member and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and on behalf of Indiana's farmers, the researchers, and the rural communities. I represent a district where agriculture is not just an industry. It's the backbone of our economy and a driver of innovation.
From corn and soybean production, the world-class research at Purdue University, my constituents are leading the next generation of American agriculture. That's why I'm here today to emphasize the importance of strong strategic investments in agricultural research and market development. First, I wanna highlight the Agriculture Food and Research Initiative, AFRI, they call it. AFRI is the cornerstone of USD's research portfolio and the largest competitive grant program supporting food, agriculture, natural resources, and innovation. And over the past several years, AFRI has faced funding shortfalls that limit the ability to support cutting-edge research.
For fiscal year 27, I strongly support funding AFRI at the 500,000,000 to restore these cuts and ensure that the researchers can continue developing solutions to the challenges facing our farmers. Closely related is the need to fully support Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority, or AGARDA. Modeled after programs like DARPA and AGARDA, was designed to take high risk, high reward research that can transform agriculture. And today, our producers are facing increasingly complex threats, from emerging pests and diseases, extreme weather, and supply chain disruptions. AGARDA gives the ability to think ahead, invest in breakthrough technologies, and maintain our global leadership in agriculture.
Continued and robust funding for AGAARDA is essential to ensure that we are not simply reacting to challenges, but staying ahead of them. In addition to research, we must also ensure that our farmers have strong and growing markets for what they produce. The biopreferred program is a prime example of a successful market-driven initiative and supports domestic manufacturing while creating demand for American-grown feedstocks. Through a federal procurement preferences and voluntary product labeling, BioPreferred helps connect farmers to the new markets in the bioeconomy. However, the program's funding has remained flat since its inception.
And despite rising costs and expanded responsibility, USDA has recently announced a new policy initiative that increased the program's workload, but no additional resources have been provided. So without adequate funding, BioPreferred really runs the risk of falling behind at a time when the demand for bioproducts and bio based products is growing. I urge the subcommittee to ensure this program has the resources necessary to maintain its core operations and fulfill this expanded mission. At the same time, I want to express concern with the hemp pervasion included in the fiscal year 26 agriculture appropriations bill. Producers across the country have invested heavily in hemp as a rotational crop since it is legalized in the 2018 farm bill.
While I recognize the need for appropriate consumer protections and clear regulatory standards, this provision is included without sufficient input from stakeholders and the committees of jurisdiction. As written, it risks undermining legitimate producers and creating uncertainty for farmers who are already operating on tight margins. Respectfully, any changes to the hemp policy should be considered through regular order with proper hearing, stakeholder engagement, and a science-based approach that protects the consumers without eliminating economic opportunity for responsible producers. Finally, I wanna underscore the importance of maintaining a strong support for our international food assistance program, including Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program. These programs are not only vital to humanitarian goals, they are also critical for supporting American agriculture.
By utilizing US-grown commodities, they create a reliable demand for our farmers while advancing US interests abroad. Additionally, I wanna be sure that Food for Peace continues to purchase the ready to use therapeutic foods, RUTFs, made from American crops to ensure the most valuable malnutrition children receive the nutrients that they need. In closing, I encourage the subcommittee to prioritize investments in agricultural research, innovation, and market development. Programs like Afria and Agarda ensure that American agriculture remains on the cutting edge, while initiatives like BioPreferred and our food aid programs help translate that innovation into economic opportunity for our farmers. And I thank you.
Speaker 1
I appreciate the gentleman's testimony. And, I now don't have any questions, and I'll recognize mister Bishop if he has any.
Speaker 2
No questions. You should go after the Agarda, who was in hemp language, and in for peace in McGovern Dole.
Speaker 6
Fancy. I like this room. How are you? Hi, Mr. Lobaldo. How are you, Mr. Bishop?
Yes, sir. Dear chairman, oh, do I start or you start?
Speaker 1
Well, welcome to the committee, and I'll recognize you now, Mister Jackson, for your five minutes.
Speaker 6
Thank you very much. Dear chairman Harris, ranking member bishop and members of the subcommittee, I wanna thank the I wanna take the opportunity to appear before you today. Though I must confess that the gratitude sits uneasily beside the truth I am compelled to speak. We gather here under the formal language of governance, appropriations, allocations, and fiscal years. But outside of this room, there are no such abstractions.
There are real people. There are only lives, and those lives are shaped quite decisively by what we choose to do here. I represent the district in Illinois' 1st Congressional District of nearly 300,000 households. That number on its face may seem like a statistic, manageable, distant, impersonal. But within it, over 73,000 households who depend on SNAP to eat, not to supplement abundance, but to survive on scarcity.
Nearly 40% of those households include children, and many of those children live with disabilities, already navigating a world that has not made room for them. Now they're asked to endure hunger as well. We must be very clear about what this means. If we do not fully fund the SNAP program, we're gonna have a continued escalation in our children facing this vulnerability. Also, we must be clear that these programs are deciding and affect our children's health, the protein of people who are suffering.
This is unacceptable. Whose dignity is negotiable? Whose lives can be managed against a line, and tell them that food is not a necessity. I refuse to accept that this nation cannot have compassion because the truth is, however uncomfortable, that hunger in this country is not born of inevitability. It is born of indifference.
It is sustained by those persons who have become insensitive to people that are in need. We must stand today under immense pressure because the costs are rising, stability is uncertain, and people's futures are tied to decisions that will be made far from the fields of this country. And here we are in Washington, where we have the ability to make these decisions. And there is something profoundly troubling in this, that those who feel that feed us are themselves left vulnerable. Farmers are not making it in the Midwest and across the country.
They're dependent on a safety net that we debate as though it were something optional. It is not optional. War is not essential. The same is true for food for peace programs. We like to think of ourselves as a great nation, and we are when we act our best, when we live up to our highest ideals.
But greatness is not a permanent condition. It must be renewed again by what we're willing to do for others. When families, when famine strikes, when disaster unfolds, when entire communities face the slow violence of chronic hunger, the question is not whether we have the capacity to respond. We certainly do. The question is, do we have the fundamental will?
To fund food for peace is to say that we do, that we understand our abundance as a responsibility, not as a privilege, that we recognize that the stability of the world beyond our borders is not separate from our own, but deeply intertwined with it. And yet, here we are at home. The strain is un... Undeniable. Food banks across my district are stretched very thin.
Volunteers work with extraordinary dedication, but dedication alone cannot fill the empty shelves. The emergency food assistance program, the TFAB, was designed to meet precisely this kind of need, and yet it has been underfunded again and again, as if the urgency of hunger could be postponed, as if need itself could be negotiated. But hunger does not wait. It does not compromise. It does not concern itself with political cycles or budgetary constraints.
It simply exists quietly, persistently, devastatingly. And so we are confronted with a choice. We can continue to speak in careful language to soften the reality, to treat these programs as expendable. But we can face the truth and that the appropriations in this bill carry a moral weight that cannot be ignored, because a nation that is not a nation is not defined by what it says, but by what it refuses to do. If we refuse to feed the hungry, then we have said something unmistakable about who we truly are.
If we refuse to support the vulnerable, then we have drawn a line, one that separates those who are deemed worthy from those who are not. And once that line is drawn, it does not remain constrained. It spreads. It reshapes us. It diminishes us.
It defines us. But we are not without power. We can choose to fully fund SNAP. We can choose to support our farmers. We can choose to invest in food for peace and the TFAP.
We do not have to have a false choice. The question is not whether we can afford to do these things. The question is whether we can afford not to. Because in the end, history will not remember the complexity of our justifications. It will remember whether we met the needs of the most vulnerable among us, or whether we turned away.
And this and your president, mister, leader, this is a judgment from which there is no appeal. I ask that these remarks be accepted. I thank you for the extended time, and I thank you.
Speaker 1
Appreciate your time, Mr. Jackson. I don't have any questions. I'll recognize Mister Bishop if he has any.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Jackson. You want a fully funded TFAP, food for peace, and fully fund SNAP. It's obviously in the DNA, Operation Bread Basket, but you're expanding it to feed the world. Thank you for your testimony. I think you've got good points, and we'll do our best.
Speaker 6
Okay? May I have another point of privilege? I need to get this done. What's next?
Speaker 7
Good morning. And first of all, Chair, I wanna congratulate you on your appointment to the agriculture committee. Appreciate.
Speaker 1
that. Thank you. Working with you there. Recognized for your five minutes, Mr. Mesmer.
Speaker 7
Thank you. Chairman, ranking member, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I wanna start by expressing my appreciation for the subcommittee's consistent support for rural America. By prioritizing conservation, infrastructure, and research in small towns like the one I represent, we shape the stability of food supply chains and hold manufacturers to innovate and strategically bolster our nation's independence. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I was proud to support market expansion and supply chain protections for American farm goods through the Food, Farm, and National Security Act or the Farm Bill. Notably, this Farm Bill doubles investment in trade facilitation and market development programs for US-grown products.
While trade facilitation is a key element to demand for a healthy demand for farm goods, stable domestic markets are equally essential. By generating demand within our nation's borders, we decouple our industries from reliance on foreign counterparts and guard them from global market disruptions. This is precisely why I supported modernizing the BioPreferred program through the 2026 Farm Bill. The BioPreferred program is a novel market generator for US agriculture feedstocks. By facilitating cost-effective federal purchases, the biopreferred label has spurred private sector investment into a vibrant bio-based economy.
In Indiana alone, the bio based products industry supports over 100,000 jobs and has more than $7,000,000,000 of economic activity. The industry employs nearly 4,000,000 Americans nationwide and contributes 489,000,000,000 to the US economy. These are good-paying jobs in rural America. Jobs in processing, manufacturing, logistics, and innovation that depend on strong demand for American-grown import inputs. I thank the subcommittee for its attention to this vital program and encourage continued hearty investment in this common sense innovation.
Before I conclude, I wanna request the subcommittee also support the US Department of Agriculture Center for Veterinary Biologics or CVB. CCCVB serves as a door between animal drug and vaccine manufacturers and the market. The CVB regulatory process protects over 71,500,000 food animals from disease across the state of Indiana. However, due to a surge in foreign animal disease and a shortage of credentialed staff, review times for veterinary biologics are stretching far too long. As innovative new technologies wait on the shelf for review, our farms remain exposed to bird flu, avian virus, African swine fever, and other dangerous illnesses.
The Hoosier state produces more than 20,000,000 turkeys and just under 4,500,000 hogs each year, generating about 20,000,000,000 in economic impact. That is what's at stake, just in India alone, if we do not fully support our livestock farms with the biologics they need to protect our food supply. As a subcommittee drafts their fiscal year 2027 budget, I urge inclusion of funding for CVB and robust support for the biopreferred program. I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to working with the subcommittee as we continue to invest in rural America.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Mesmer. I don't have any questions for you. I recognize Mister Bishop if he has any.
Speaker 2
No questions. You support the BioPreferred program, APHIS for veterinary vaccines, and the Center for Veterinary Biologics. Excellent. Got it.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Mesmer. Good morning. Miss Ruiz, welcome. You're recognized for your five minutes.
Speaker 8
Thank you, mister chairman and ranking member, for the opportunity to testify before this committee. I represent California's 25th Congressional District. It's the southeast corner of California. We grow dates, citrus, leafy greens, and table grapes. We're pretty damn good at it, and a whole host of specialty crops that feed this nation.
And as the son of farm workers, I know our farmers and farm workers work in brutal heat, navigate drought, and manage rising everyday costs, and they deserve a farm bill that actually works for them. Today, I wanna highlight three priorities this committee has the power to act on. The first is the GUSN Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program or the GUSN IP. Here's how it works. When a family uses their food assistance benefits at a farmer's market, the GUSNIP doubles the value of those dollars.
A family with $10 to spend gets $20 of buying power, and that money flows directly to the grower at the market stand, and allows the consumer, the hungry, to buy more food. GusNIP's $56,000,000 annual baseline reaches only a fraction of the 42,000,000 Americans on SNAP. Advocates have called for 350000000 per year to begin closing that gap. So I urge this committee to increase Gus' NIP funding to $350,000,000 in the next farm bill. The second priority is the local food purchase assistance program and the local agriculture market program.
Congress zeroed out these programs, both of them. The local food purchase assistance program connected local growers to food banks, school districts, and institutional buyers. Farmers in my district built those relationships. They delivered on those contracts, and then Congress pulled the rug out from under them. The local agriculture market program supported the farmers markets, food hubs, and direct marketing channels as smaller operations in our district depend on to survive.
These were not giveaways. They were market infrastructure, and eliminating them was a breach of faith with the agricultural communities that planned around them. I'm asking this committee to restore these programs to full funding. The third priority is the specialty crop block grant program. This program funds state agricultural departments to support specialty crops, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and tree crops.
The problem is the distribution formula. It does not adequately account for the concentration of specialty crop production in high-density districts like ours. We're one of the most specialty crop-intensive congressional districts in the country, and we are competing for the same dollars as districts with a fraction of our specialty crop acreage. That's not fair and penalizes and hurts disadvantaged areas that produce the most and also need assistance the most, and this committee can fix it. I'm asking my colleagues to include targeted report language directing USDA to prioritize specialty crop block grant funding for high-density specialty crop districts.
The farmers back home growing world-class produce deserve a formula that reflects the scale of what they produce. So to my colleagues on this committee, you have a real opportunity here. The decisions made in this room determine whether family farms in the San Jacinto, Coachella, and Imperial Valleys can survive and grow. The decisions here can determine whether the hungry get fed, whether Americans can afford their food. Thank you, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Doctor Ruiz. Appreciate your time. I don't have any questions for you, I recognize Mr. Bishop if he does.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. You were to the point. Increase Gusnip, support the local food programs, local food purchase, and local ag market program, support the specialty crop block grant, and reflect the intensity of increase in intensity for those areas that have high density specialty crops.
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. Good enough. Well, Mister Flood, I appreciate you being here today. Recognize you for your five minutes.
Speaker 9
Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, Ranking Member Bishop. Thank you for the opportunity to share some updates about an important project that this subcommittee has been very good to over the course of my tenure. It was originally introduced by my predecessor, Congressman Fortinbury. Specifically, I'd like to call your attention to this project. It's the USDA Ag Research National Center for Resilient and Regenerative Precision Agriculture.
It's located on the Innovation Campus at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and it will anchor a national network comprised of ARS research units and land-grant universities committed to addressing one of the most critical science gaps to advancing innovation in American agriculture. This committee has been really good for this project over the years. We are still working to land this. I am requesting 16,000,000 as my top priority CPF request for FY '27. As we approach the final years of the required construction funding, we must keep up the momentum to secure significant construction funds in FY 27.
Congress appropriated 11.2 for initial planning back in FY '21, then 20,000,000 in FY '22, 25,000,000 in FY '23, and most recently, 16,000,000 in FY '26, all for the construction of this facility. This is also one of the top or the top priority for US Senator Deb Fisher, who's an appropriator in the upper chamber. USDA broke ground in the first phase of construction in May, 2024. This includes a 15,000 square foot greenhouse and a 10,000 square foot head house space connecting with the existing UNL Greenhouse Innovation Center. The second phase of construction, which will begin when Congress appropriates all funds, will go towards construction, laboratories, and office space on the Innovation Campus.
During the groundbreaking on May 24, USDA leadership, members of the congressional delegation, university leaders, stakeholders, and producers across the state and region were there to support this new facility. Last June, I had the pleasure of hosting chairman Cole in Lincoln to share firsthand the transformative vision guiding this project. Last month, the ARS administrator visited the University of Nebraska to observe firsthand the significant potential of this facility and its research for advancing agriculture across the country. Precision ag is a key piece of our agricultural fabric. It makes sense that this project is in the Cornhusker State.
You might know this already, but we have the largest freshwater underground aquifer in North America. It's basically our secret weapon. And we, since 1955, have gone out of our way to manage that resource. It has not dropped more than 12 inches since we began, very judiciously making sure that our farmers and ranchers were using water wisely. That's why we can irrigate the more semi-arid portions of Nebraska and grow crops.
So we have a history in precision agriculture. This project helps us further that cause. It's also where the national center is home to the combine, the Heartland Robotics Cluster, which supports small businesses in spin-offs from ag research. These small businesses are driving student entrepreneur interest in precision ag in Nebraska. So I think you're well aware of the project.
It is making a difference. The greenhouse is under construction right now. We are well on our way to finishing this project. We have a couple more years to go. But as we have gone along, you should know the state legislature has also put 30,000,000 into this project.
And this will not just serve Nebraska. It will serve everyone in America. With that, I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Flood. I don't have any questions for you, and I'll recognize Mr. Bishop if he has any.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much, Mr. Flood. I'm very familiar with the project. I worked very closely with Mr. Fortinbury on this subcommittee. He was very passionate about it, and he made a very strong case. And I'm glad that the committee has followed through over the years to try to bring it to fruition.
So thank you for appearing before us. I'm hopeful that we can get it done.
Speaker 1
Thank you. You are our last. Appreciate your time. Mister Bishop, if you have any closing remarks before we gavel out.
Speaker 2
I wanna thank all of the members who came and presented. We wanna do our best to serve the needs of the people, our members, of course, and the people of America with the mission of USDA and the things that we can do in this subcommittee.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Bishop. I wanna thank everyone for attending the hearing today to tell us more about the programs important to your state and district. This has been a help, this has been helpful information. We'll certainly keep your comments and priorities in mind as we move through the fiscal year 2027 appropriations process. This committee subcommittee stands adjourned.
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