Smith kicks-off 300-county focus on agriculture

Southern Missouri is home to a vibrant and diverse agricultural community that faces unique challenges for continued growth and success. These meetings, visits and townhall style forums with a multitude of farmers and stakeholders provide an opportunity for substantial conversations to foster ideas, hear concerns, and generate feedback the Congressman shares with his colleagues and the White House to help rural America continue to succeed.

“As a fourth generation family farm owner myself, I take special pride in representing and fighting for our farming families,” said Congressman Smith. “Every year I look forward to the summer months, when I get to travel throughout our area and hear what issues are impacting our local communities the most. I look forward to sharing what I have seen and heard with my colleagues and the White House to make a real difference for Missouri farmers and their families.”

Back in 2016, less than five months after the conclusion of his summer farm visits, Congressman Smith met with President Trump’s transition team. He provided the President’s team with regulation after regulation he had heard about consistently from farmers that were impeding their ability to operate. Then, over President Trump’s first year in office, he directly repealed, suspended, or removed more than half of those Smith identified for his team. These included onerous regulations like the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule which attempted to place unobtainable and costly federal restrictions on any body of water passing through or standing on private land.

Specifically this year, in addition to hearing how the government may be encroaching on them, Smith is interested in how Missouri farmers are responding to and dealing with the challenges presented by the Coronavirus pandemic, discuss his work and ideas to help stabilize agricultural commodity markets, his work to hold meat packaging facilities accountable and to share the latest on his discussions with the Administration on China’s purchasing commitments, and the opening of new markets.

Some highlights over the next several weeks will include:

A tractor museum in Perryville, to celebrate the deep meaning and historic connection the area has with farming; a farmer in Oran, who created a breakthrough irrigation app, to recognize the innovation and ingenuity of southern Missouri farmers; a family run butcher shop in Ironton, to hear how a local butcher shop is navigating the coronavirus and the underlying issues in the meat industry created by monopolistic meat packers; a leading milk and dairy hauler in Cabool, to discuss keeping American dairy competitive abroad; a dairy farm in Norwood, that’s been hard hit by recent storms, to highlight the resiliency of our farmers and how we can mitigate future storm damage; a fishery in Dexter, to hear more about their operation and celebrate the diversity of agricultural operations in southern Missouri; and a winery in Ste. Genevieve to hear about the challenges facing the agritourism industry and its importance to the area’s economy.