One-fifth of U.S. agricultural production is exported, making trade an essential part of the farm sector, with sales forecast by USDA at a near-record $190 billion this year. Foreign trade and U.S. food aid will be the subjects on Wednesday of “the first of many hearings the committee has planned as we gear up for the 2023 farm bill,” said the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow and senior Republican John Boozman said Wednesday’s hearing, the first by either the House or Senate Agriculture committees to be held in Washington, would be followed by hearings on farm supports, public nutrition and land stewardship. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will appear before the committee on March 16, according to one report.
“We are both looking forward to a collaborative process, working with all senators to deliver a strong farm bill,” said Stabenow and Boozman in a statement.
Agriculture undersecretaries Alexis Taylor, who holds the trade portfolio, and Jenny Moffitt, who oversee USDA marketing programs, were scheduled to testify, as was Sarah Charles, head of the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which responds to international disasters. The United States is the leading global donor of food aid.
Farm exports have boomed with the return of China as a major customer in 2020 and then the price spikes caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain exporters. Half of U.S exports are row crops, such as corn, wheat, soybeans and cotton, and the other half are high-value products such as meat, poultry, sugar, fruits, vegetables, nuts and ethanol.
Imports are an increasingly large factor in agricultural trade. The United States is forecast to run an ag trade deficit this year, the third in five years, due to Americans’ appetite for fruits and vegetables, alcoholic beverages, sugar, cocoa and coffee. Mexico and Canada would supply more than $4 of every $10 of imports that are expected to total $199 billion.
Two newly elected Democrats, Sens. Peter Welch of Vermont and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, are joining the committee.
Nearly half of the members of the House Agriculture Committee are newcomers — 11 of its 28 Republicans and 12 of the 21 Democrats appointed so far. Three more Democrats will be appointed later. Last year, the Democratic roster included three members of the Appropriations Committee, Chellie Pingree of Maine, Sanford Bishop of Georgia and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio. They are not listed this session.
House Agriculture chairman Glenn Thompson plans to create a nutrition, foreign agriculture and horticulture subcommittee, reported Agri-Pulse. “Nutrition is domestic consumption or markets, right, and then foreign ag is foreign markets,” said Thompson. “Nutrition is a balance.”
The subcommittee would lump public nutrition programs, such as SNAP, WIC and school lunch, with export promotion and market development.