“Farmers Deserve Better”; MGP Votes Against Appropriations Bill

The Fiscal Year 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Bill was approved by lawmakers in D.C. last week.  One of the representatives voicing opposition to the legislation was Southwest Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

She said the legislation does little to address the real problems farmers are facing.  Gluesenkamp noted when she speaks to farmers, they are tired of being told the answer to all their problems is another federal grant for which they need to fight tooth and nail.

“I feel called to remind my colleagues that food doesn't come from a grant writer either," she said.  "All the clipboards and spreadsheets in the world don't mean a damn without somebody willing to get a sunburn and put a lien on their family home.  Before you commit yourself to the righteousness of defending a credentialed expert with fresh tires and air conditioning, I'm asking you to take a pause and question where this system of credentialed expertise has gotten us.”

Congress Needs To Deal With The Real Issues Before Farmers

Gluesenkamp Perez added it’s important Congress works to level the playing field so farmers can do the work they love and pass their farms down to the next generation.  She said often during conversations on the Hill, people will defend their tenuous relationship with agriculture.

“I humbly suggest that this committee and their staff consider the invisible graveyard, the families who are squeezed out of farming, ship their children off the farm and into a rat race the kitchen table, shunted into the hegemony of Dollar General....And if you won't deal with this on the human level, confront the raw numbers of farm consolidation, n farmer suicide, on school consolidation," Gluesenkamp Perez said.  "What we are doing is not working and I will not put my name behind it and I will not put my district's name behind it.” 

She stressed last week’s legislation failed to meet the current needs of the ag industry, while cutting water and wastewater investments, FSA staffing and loans to help rural, low-income families build their own homes.  Gluesenkamp Perez added farmers deserve a better deal that treats their vital work with the respect it merits.

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