House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin C. Peterson delivered the following opening statement at today’s public meeting of conferees on H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018:

[As Prepared for Delivery]

“Thank you Chairman Roberts, Chairman Conaway and Ranking Member Stabenow for the cooperative work that you and our staffs have done to get us to this point.

“We have one goal: to get this farm bill done. Farmers are counting on it. We’ve all seen the statistics on the decline of the farm economy, on their struggles with regard to trade, the news of volatile weather, and the range of challenges they face.

“It makes no sense—and it doesn’t benefit those farmers one bit—to relitigate how we got here. It doesn’t get us any closer to our goal.

“We’re all here for the same reason: to deliver for the people who count on the programs within this bill. Those are farmers, they’re consumers, they’re people who care about renewable energy and research and supporting rural communities and conserving our natural resources. This bill tackles all of it and I’m eager to hear your ideas as we move along in this process.

“But more than any one issue, I want a farm bill. I’m here to work and to get a conference report we can all sign, pass through our respective chambers and send to the president to be signed into law. I’ll remind our conferees that should be their goal as well. Nobody in this room is going to get everything he or she wants; this process is about compromise.

“With that I yield the balance of my time, and suggest we get to work.”