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There was bipartisan agreement on many of the main drivers of food inflation. But that agreement evaporated when we asked what Congress can do to slow it.
The lawmakersβ responses, below, have been edited for length and clarity.
POLITICO: Whatβs driving up costs for you on your farm?
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the self-proclaimed βonly working farmerβ in the Senate, who frequently tweets updates while driving a combine in his wheat fields:
βRepairs. The cost of diesel fuel, in particular. The cost of tires. I mean, repairs, supplies and energy. Repairs would be mostly manpower, and then dieselβs diesel.β
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), a rice farmer in Northern California and frequent critic of the Biden administration:
βIf you want to make my cost of producing an acre of rice come back into line with just a few years ago β¦ then my diesel doesnβt need to cost me five-and-a-half dollars a gallon versus two-and-a-half. Then my fertilizer doesnβt need to be tripled, some of the pesticides I have to use for controlling weeds and stuff. Those have gone up dramatically.β
Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), a former Tennessee agriculture commissioner who raises beef cows on his farm:
βFarmers, just like everyday consumers, we buy lots of fuel to do what we do, and the prices for that have gone up dramatically. Like any auto buyer, itβs hard to get tractors because of the supply chain shortages there, and there are more expensive parts.β
Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif), an almond farmer who represents Fresno, a critical agriculture district in Californiaβs Central Valley:
βThe cost of energy. Fertilizer. I grow almonds and the cost of bees has increased significantly over the last five years. And the cost of subcontracting, Iβm not large enough to have my own harvesting equipment for my almonds so I hired that out β¦ that has increased significantly over the past several years.β
POLITICO: As a farmer, what do you think it would take to fix food inflation?
Tester: βMore competition in the marketplace. Itβs as simple as that. So what the administration has done with meat processing is a step in the right direction. Now they needed to pass my [cattle market] bills to deal with the spot pricing and special investigator. Capitalism works when thereβs competition. It doesnβt when thereβs consolidation.β
LaMalfa: β[Energy] is one. Also enforcing trade. [Former President Donald] Trump got a deal cut with China back then. β¦ Our ag products are suffering greatly because [China] is not meeting the goals that were set for the ag portion of it.
I spoke to the president right after the end of the [State of the Union] speech, and I talked to him about water, California water. We need his Bureau of Reclamation and the other federal regulatory entities to cut us some slack.β
Rose: βThe biggest thing contributing to inflation right now is the runaway government spending that the Biden administration has engaged in.
But then you also have just an onslaught of regulation that stands in the way of current production β¦ the types of policies that have interfered with farmers being able to get their hands on badly needed pesticides.β
Costa: βWe have a problem in this country that weβve not been able to address successfully, and thatβs the amount of food waste. β¦ Whether itβs in our schools or other products, one of the things I want to look at this farm bill reauthorization is how we can do a better job with those impacts.
Then if itβs not extreme droughts or floods, I donβt know what category you put the avian flu. Clearly these are things weβre looking at better ability to provide in the farm bill reauthorization, [where] we plan for a lot of invasive pests.β
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )