Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) delivered the following opening statement at a full committee hearing for the purpose of receiving testimony from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Watch the hearing here.

[As prepared for delivery.]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Former Chairman Scott was a true fighter. For hungry veterans in his district, for students of historically Black 1890s land-grant institutions hoping to become the next generation of agricultural leaders and for family farmers.

That is exactly why the issues facing farm country today require a serious approach. We owe Congressman Scott that much.

Madam Secretary, almost a year ago to the day you appeared before this committee for the first time. During that hearing, Republicans and Democrats voiced their concerns about the pressing issues of the day facing farm country and rural communities.

Even then we discussed input costs, commodity prices, tariffs, food assistance programs and USDA’s important role in addressing all these challenges and more. I left that hearing hoping that you would heed the advice of this committee and chart a course for your agency that met the needs of working families and family farmers. Instead – what we have witnessed is blind loyalty to a reckless President and administration.

Over this past year, you and this administration have failed farmers and working Americans time after time after time.

Let’s recap your record since you were last here...

President Trump doubled down on his reckless tariff agenda, destroying critical export markets and driving up costs for all Americans. It cost farmers an estimated $15 billion in lost sales to China last year alone.

While American farmers were reeling from the fallout of these tariffs and calling on the administration for relief, President Trump instead gave Argentina $20 billion and handed their ranchers a sweetheart deal, allowing more beef to be imported at the expense of American cattlemen. It’s truly stunning.

When you finally did listen to the pleas from farm country for relief, it was woefully inadequate – picking winners and losers by providing some farmers with only a fraction of the relief they needed, particularly specialty crop growers, sugar beet farmers and foresters.

Only 6 percent of farmers reported that their financial situation improved from last year. 6 percent. I’m embarrassed for you.

Farm bankruptcies surged 46 percent nationwide in Trump’s first year back in office, and an astounding 70 percent in the Midwest. And just this past April, farm bankruptcies surged to their highest monthly total since early 2020 in Trump’s first term.

Farmers began 2026 hoping for a course correction – and what did this administration do? Start a war with Iran with no strategy, forethought or care for what the consequences would be for American agriculture or working people.

As a result, critical supplies have been choked off from leaving the Strait of Hormuz, driving fertilizer and diesel costs to staggering new levels and making it nearly impossible for farmers to turn a profit.

And while all of this is happening, what have you been doing? Proclaiming  that the “Golden Age” of Agriculture is “just around the corner” for over a year now. I can promise you that corner is so long no farmer in America can see around it.

And mind you, that is just talking about farm country.

You’ve also made the largest cut to food assistance in the history of our country. At a time when more and more people are struggling to afford food.

Then you went on TV and bragged about kicking over 4 million Americans off food assistance.

People like Joseph Myers from my home state of Minnesota. He is a former farmhand who is going to lose SNAP benefits because of the new so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. In his words, “when the food stamps come to an end... then it’s gonna be really suffering.”

He’s 58, can’t perform physical labor anymore and works at the local food bank 10-12 hours a week, but Republicans decided that’s not enough for him to deserve SNAP benefits.

And over the last year I’ve watched you brag about taking food away from millions of people like Mr. Myers? You’ve put on some big show about a “golden age” for Agriculture? It’s disgusting.

The only person this has been a “golden age” for is the president himself. A personal $1.8 billion slush fund, paid for by the American taxpayer. A ballroom custom built for his fancy dinners, paid for by secretive corporate donors. Putting his face on a 250-dollar bill. Building arches, carving his names into buildings. And that doesn’t even include his crypto or shoddy cell phone business interests.

A farmer from Iowa put it better than I could, so I will close with his words “[p]eople are out here hurting. The rhetoric about the golden age of agriculture right around the corner – that doesn’t match the reality of what’s going on on the ground at all.”