House Ag Committee Chair GT Thompson of Pennsylvania told attendees at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture’s Winter Policy Conference that getting a farm bill done is a top priority in 2026. Senate Ag Committee Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota appeared to bring some optimism to that goal by saying the leaders of each Ag Committee work well together despite the political divide in Washington, D.C.
“What you probably heard is that GT and Angie and Senator Boozman and I work really well together, and despite a lot of headwinds, that’s putting it mildly, what everyone is facing right now. We have kept those relationships strong. Together, we’ve worked on bipartisan legislation to get whole milk into schools. We’ve passed through bills to better manage our forests, through the committees, reauthorize grain inspection, and of course, while we may have disagreed on that bill that passed this summer for various reasons, there were a number of proposals in there that were bipartisan and supported by all four of us. And of course, our goal now, with all of the crises and things that are going on, is that we’re able to come together for a bipartisan farm bill.”
She also spoke at the NASDA Winter Policy Conference, saying it will take working together to overcome the challenges facing U.S. agriculture.
“Our ability to work together is critically important given the challenges that we’re facing right now in rural America. You look at what I already mentioned, the trade policy. I think you all know I am not a fan of the chaos in the commodity markets and the ups and downs and the drying up of markets due to these tariffs, especially hard in my state. We’re the fourth-largest state for ag exports. More than one-third of our ag production is sold to customers abroad. Tariffs have made our crops less competitive in international markets, while making the cost of inputs like fertilizer and equipment more expensive.”
Farmers, ranchers, and all stakeholders in U.S. agriculture need more certainty to do business every day.
“Farmers in my state are being asked, as I’m sure there are in many of yours, to make long-term decisions about planting and about what they’re going to do and how much they’re going to invest when the rules change by the week, or even sometimes by the day. And what I’ve heard time and time again is that people want certainty, and this has been the opposite. Canada, as I’ve mentioned before, is a huge problem for a lot of every state but the northern tier. We export more goods to Canada in my state than our second, third, and fourth-largest markets combined. And I have led the bill with Senator Tim Kaine and Senator Rand Paul, and it actually passed the Senate to overturn the tariffs on Canada.”