CARTHAGE, Miss.–Mississippi’s drought hit some of the state’s farmers hard and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is asking Congress to provide relief so some operations don’t go under.
“It is absolutely essential that Congress provide emergency assistance for agricultural producers before the end of this year. Even if we passed a Farm bill today, under the traditional Farm bill, structure, assistance would not reach the farmers in time,’ she said during a Wednesday hearing.
“The assistance needs to be robust and it needs to be implemented swiftly. And then the third thing is we must address all types of disasters. When I say that, I’m referring to natural disasters, as well as market related disasters.”
Hyde-Smith said that farmers in Mississippi have produced some of the best crops in years and have done everything right, only to have some of their effort negated by natural disasters such as the drought and hurricanes.
“I’m the former AG commissioner of my state. I’m the former chairman of the Senate Ag Committee in my state and serve on Ag now. I’ve never had lenders and farm credit lenders and bankers to look at me and say, we are not going to be able to finance these farmers. I’ve never had that happen until now,” said the Senator.
She pointed out that a package put forth by the White House did not include any coverage for market loss and that there is precedent for doing so.
