Federal officials meet with Lebanon County farmers to discuss ag concerns

Several federal officials toured a Lebanon County dairy farm on Monday, April 14, to learn about the challenges facing farmers and their operations during a roundtable discussion with area ag leaders.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Congressman Dan Meuser (R-PA9), Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA), Congressman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA15), who is chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and Congressman Rob Bresnahan (R-PA8) conducted a farm visitation tour at several farms in Lebanon and Lancaster counties. State Senator Chris Gebhard (R-SD48) also attended the event.

One of those farms was the Martin’s Farm/Debrun Creek Farm on East Rosebud Road, Myerstown, home to 100 milking head of Holstein cattle. It was at this stop that the media was invited to participate in the tour.

A press release issued after the event announced that, “Prior to the roundtable, the Secretary and Members of Congress toured Bell & Evans, an innovative and respected leader in the poultry industry. During the tour in Fredericksburg, the group discussed challenges facing the poultry industry and heard directly from the Sechler family about efforts to prevent and contain avian flu outbreaks.”

The visit to the dairy operation included a brief stop to see three robotic milking machines that were milking the cows and a walk through a large, one-story, open-air barn where the cows were either being milked by automation or resting between feedings.

After a photo op in the dairy barn, the legislators, their staff, and farmers conducted an hour-long roundtable session to discuss industry challenges. Rollins did not highlight any specifics about those discussions during her comments to the press immediately following the roundtable.

“I think we had almost everyone represented. We had pork and chicken and beef cattle and horticulture and eggs,” Rollins said. “And we had almost everybody, so it was a really good discussion. The question was, what is the single most important issue facing you as we continue to hopefully open up markets and build and preserve and honestly support our incredible farmers and ranchers across this country?”

Meuser, whose legislative district includes Lebanon County, arranged the farm visits and highlighted roundtable discussions during comments to the press.

“The importance of taxes, farms or small businesses, the importance of lowering or keeping the taxes at the levels that they are and passing the reconciliation bill,” Meuser said. “Regulations, crop insurance, farm insurance, the importance of keeping the inheritance tax at the level it is so the next generation can take on the farm. So all of these matters, the secretary heard clearly, right from the source, of course.”

Thompson mentioned the federal Farm Bill, which is up for renewal in Congress, during his opening remarks.

“We’re certainly reflected in the drafts of the Farm Food and National Security Act, which will be the next Farm Bill. This needs to be one that, as I like to say, we legislate from the outside in, outside the Beltway of Washington,” Thompson said.

During a Q&A with the media, Rollins was asked about the administration’s efforts to control avian influenza via the development of a vaccine.

Rollins said the Trump administration released a five-point plan to address the bird flu.

“It was almost a billion-dollar plan of $2 billion on biosecurity measures for our barns, first. Second, on how we more quickly repopulate in moving the regulations out of the way. Number three, just to begin to move down the cost of eggs as short-term import,” Rollins said. “We’ve now imported eggs from Turkey and South Korea and a couple other countries we’ve been talking to. Number four, talk about the overregulation, how we get regulations out of the way within a week or two. I think we issued a new rule on line speeds to allow our chicken farms and pork and others to be able to move more quickly. And number five, to your question, was about $100 million put into therapeutic vaccines and other research that we can begin to really look at how to solve this for the long term.”

Rollins was also asked about potential cuts of $13 million over three years to a food bank program that supports local farmers supplying their fresh products to those charitable organizations. 

“Listen, Governor Shapiro, who I actually respect, is playing some games here. Since the last two months since I moved into the head of the USDA, we have released almost a billion dollars to food banks and to food programs all around this country,” Rollins said. “Here in Pennsylvania alone, and I don’t know, GT (Thompson), you may have better data than I do, but here in Pennsylvania alone we have tens of millions of dollars sitting in the Pennsylvania state accounts from the USDA to support food banks.”

Rollins also said the reported cut “just isn’t accurate” and said she thinks “the Democrats are playing games” with this issue.

Rollins was asked about farmer reaction to the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and the decision by other countries to impose their own on the United States. Rollins cited several inequalities with agriculture trading and an oft-used imbalance in Canada/U.S. trade in the dairy industry.

“Once you hit that small quota from Canada, they start implementing a 250, a 280, a 300% tariff on our dairy producers. This is not okay. And by the way, those are just the numbers,” Rollins said. “That doesn’t even include the non-tariff barriers like fake science and unsubstantiated claims on whatever the claim of the day is from the EU and other places. So this is fundamentally broken. It is a system that is fundamentally dysfunctional and it does not work for American producers and American agriculture.”

Experts have said that while those figures are accurate, the Canada/U.S. ag trade agreement is a complex deal that was negotiated by the first Trump administration in 2018.

A press release issued by Meuser’s staff listed the priorities discussed at the roundtable. They were:

• Preserving and supporting small farms through smarter regulation and flexible USDA services.
• Protecting and expanding agricultural export markets, including potatoes and dairy, among other commodities.
• Ensuring continued investment in crop insurance and livestock risk protection programs.
• Improving the H-2A agricultural workforce system to meet labor shortages.
• Supporting nutrition programs and partnerships with local food banks.
• Advocating for the return of whole milk in schools.
• Advancing dairy pricing reform and long-term farm sustainability.