Witness urges swift passage of farm bill, warns of "bad actors" buying farmland

An unidentified witness told committee leaders that American farmers and ranchers are “really hurting” and urged immediate passage of a farm bill while calling for prompt confirmation of personnel at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The witness said rising input costs and trade barriers are squeezing producers and warned that “on every American farmer's doorstep today, there's a bad actor that is trying to buy that land.” He added, “We gotta have a farm bill, sports fans. That's all there is to it. We've gotta absolutely all of us say we're all in.”

The witness listed a range of pressures, saying farmers face tariffs, higher machinery and fertilizer costs, and fuel-price effects tied to natural gas. “After you go through all that, what does a farmer do at night? He may sit there worrying about bugs or disease or, you know, dry weather or terrible, terrible rains,” he said.

The speaker also recounted a recent conversation with Doug Burgum and said the message Burgum relayed was that Interior and other agencies “gotta have the people, and they gotta have them confirmed, and they gotta have them confirmed now.” The witness mentioned Brooke Rollins by name while urging confirmations.

The remarks mixed personal background and advocacy: the witness described a long family history in farming and said he had “probably planted and harvested hundreds of thousands of acres of row crops,” and noted his family farms in multiple states. He argued that preserving family farms matters both culturally and economically.

There were no formal motions or votes recorded in the provided excerpt. The witness concluded by thanking committee leaders and leaving for another meeting.

No specific legislative text, bill number, funding amount, or formal committee action was cited in the transcript excerpt provided.