Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) delivered the following opening statement as the House Rules Committee considers sending the Republicans' so-called "skinny" farm bill to the House floor. Watch her opening remarks here.

[As prepared for delivery.]

Thank you, Chair Foxx and Ranking Member McGovern. 

I wish we were here today to debate the finer points of a bipartisan, five-year, 12-title farm bill. Because that is what farmers and working people desperately need right now. 

Tariffs and trade wars have closed American farmers out of markets, costing them an estimated $54 billion and counting. 

Farmers are also dealing with higher costs of farm inputs like fuel, fertilizer, seeds and labor. 

Farm bankruptcies are up nearly 50 percent. We lost 15,000 farms in the United States last year. Farmers need an end to the trade wars. They need economic assistance to stay afloat. They need input costs to come down. 

Yet, the bill before us today does not address any of those problems. 

This bill does not lower input costs. It does not help regain or expand export markets. It does not expand domestic markets. It does not stabilize fertilizer or diesel prices. It does not offer a single penny in farm aid. 

The Republicans call this a “skinny farm bill” – and maybe that’s because they know there’s not enough meat on the bone, nor is it a real farm bill. Most of the funding for crop insurance and other important titles was funded through reconciliation. It’s a dangerous precedent that my Republican colleagues have set. 

Farm country needs a full, five-year, 12-title, robust farm bill that helps solve their biggest problems. Not a “skinny” farm bill that leaves so many questions unanswered and so many problems unsolved. And we will be right back here in a year if the administration continues the bad policies that are impacting farm country. 

While farm country is hurting, so are many other parts of America. This farm bill leaves working people, children and seniors behind by refusing to help address the food affordability crisis.  

Trump’s tariffs will cost the average American household $2,500 this year, up from $1,700 last year. That’s well more than the small tax refunds middle-class Americans are reportedly seeing this year.  

Does this bill help make life more affordable? No. In fact, it locks in place the $187 billion cut to SNAP made in reconciliation.  

Ensuring America’s elderly and children can afford food in a time of rising costs was one of Democrats’ top priorities for the farm bill. It was dismissed by Republicans – ignored, just like the biggest problems in farm country are ignored by this bill. 

USDA says that more than 3 million Americans have already been kicked off food assistance thanks to the $187 billion in cuts that this farm bill locks in. And now we are hearing reports that the Majority may be coming after more SNAP cuts in a future reconciliation bill. 

Are you kidding me? That is anything but a bipartisan process. 

To make matters worse, this bill sides with multi-billion-dollar pesticide companies over our neighbors by barring local and state governments from setting health and safety standards for certain products, and depriving people hurt by pesticides from having their day in court. 

It cuts the nation’s most popular farm conservation program, EQIP, by $1 billion. 

It preempts Prop 12, which set food quality and animal welfare standards in California and will have far-reaching consequences and roll back hundreds of state laws across the country, red and blue alike. 

This bill is not ready for prime time, folks. It can be much improved, and it should be reworked to solve the biggest challenges facing family farmers. 

I encourage this panel to vote "no." The Senate is beginning its own negotiations, and my hope is that they send us a more bipartisan solution that actually meets the needs of America’s family farmers and working people.