U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins headlined the 11th annual Ag Outlook Forum in Kansas City this week, highlighting how the Trump Administration is taking action to address the crisis in American agriculture.
Rollins outlined the administration’s five point plan to help farmers and ranchers. “Number one, prioritizing farmers by delivering relief. Eight weeks into my tenure as Secretary, we rolled out the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, the ECAP, which is helping farmers recover from the economic hardships of 2024….and today, I’m excited to announce that the remaining $2 billion of ECAP funding will be delivered within the week.”
Rollins’ second point is working to drive down farmer input costs. “To that end, USDA and the Department of Justice signed a memorandum of understanding…to protect American farmers and ranchers from the burdens imposed by a high and volatile input costs, such as feed, fertilizer, fuels, seed equipment, and other essential goods, while ensuring competitive supply chains, lowering consumer prices, and the resilience of U.S. agriculture and the food supply. The antitrust division of DOJ will work hand in hand with USDA, effective immediately, to take a hard look and scrutinize competitive conditions in the agricultural marketplace, including antitrust enforcement that promotes free market competition.”
The third point is expanding markets, including through new trade agreements. “The Philippines and South Korea, for the first time, opening their markets to our ag products. The EU, finally, amongst other things, agreeing to address restrictive non-tariff barriers on American pork and dairy. Indonesia, removing 99% of tariffs on American exports, including for all agricultural products. Japan, where I’ll be next week, agreed to increase U.S. rice imports by 75% and spend $8 billion in American agricultural products…And of course, reaching the deal with the UK where we were last week, committing some great ethanol business that will move into effect very quickly (and) better access for our American beef.”
The fourth point is strengthening domestic demand and new uses for biofuels, and fifth, secure and protect U.S. farmland. In addition, Rollins gave an update on the New World Screwworm in Mexico and the cattle inventory issue. “We are developing a robust plan to revitalize and diversify the U.S. beef industry alongside our great partners in that industry,” said Rollins. “But to be clear, and there’s been a lot of speculation about this in the news in the last couple of days, we have no current plans to offer any payment to beef producers. We see how the government getting involved can completely distort the markets. And so currently there will be no plan, no plan is even under consideration to insert ourselves through payments into the beef cattle industry.”
Listen to Rollins’ full comments at the event sponsored by the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City and Agri-Pulse here:
USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins at KC Ag Outlook Forum (35:04)