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These tough economic conditions have had a devastating effect on producers throughout our region, putting many in jeopardy of going out of business and unable to pass down their family farm to the next generation. Over the past couple of years, the House Agriculture Committee, on which I am honored to serve, held over 150 hearings, meetings, and listening sessions with producers, agribusinesses, and other stakeholders across the country in order to improve upon our agriculture policies in the 2018 Farm Bill. Given the desperate times in ag country, it was imperative we get a few things right: First, restore market risk coverage to cotton and strengthen the overall safety net for all commodities; second, invest in broadband technology, water conservation, and other critical infrastructure for sustaining rural communities; and third, require able-bodied adults on food stamps to work in order to receive government assistance. The agriculture safety net is the last line of defense to unforeseen weather, market volatility, and trade inequities. Without it, we not only jeopardize rural economies, we compromise our food security. Like energy independence, maintaining our ability to feed our own people is essential to our national defense. To provide much-needed certainty for producers and stability in the agriculture economy, we reinstated cotton as a covered commodity, improved the risk management tools for corn growers and dairymen, and maintained crop insurance for all covered crops. Agriculture and rural America go hand-in-hand. With lower incomes and higher poverty rates than their metropolitan counterparts along with a shrinking tax base, rural communities struggle to cover the fixed cost of critical infrastructure. Here is one example: nearly 40 percent of rural Americans lack access to high-speed internet. Our Farm Bill makes big strides in closing the digital divide between small towns and urban centers by investing in broadband technology. Ensuring access to quality health care is another challenge for rural towns. Without the availability of basic medical services, communities in America’s breadbasket and energy basin would not survive. That is why I proposed allowing rural hospitals, using current USDA loan programs at no additional cost to taxpayers, to refinance existing debt under more favorable terms. Doing so will give our community hospitals the lower cost of capital they need to keep our families and communities healthy. Despite its title, most people do not realize that 80 percent of the Farm Bill’s funding - around $70 billion a year - is spent on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. During the Obama years, food stamp rolls doubled, including millions of work-capable adults who remained continually unemployed. Today, thanks to Republican pro-growth policies like tax and regulatory reform, our economy is booming with historically low unemployment and almost seven million surplus jobs. We are long overdue for changing our welfare policies to encourage able-bodied adults to work and prevent them from being trapped in a cycle of dependence on the government. The best way out of poverty is a job. This Farm Bill not only incentivizes employment, it commits the resources for training people who lack the necessary skills to avail themselves of the many job opportunities that currently exist. We must restore the value and dignity of work in this country. Rural communities and agriculture producers are the heartbeat of America. They feed and clothe our people and instill the values of hard work and independence upon which America was founded. Thomas Jefferson said, “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.” A farming culture is ingrained in our country’s heritage, and with the passage of this Farm Bill, we are one step closer to a stronger and more stable agriculture economy for the United States and a more prosperous future for West Texas and rural America for generations to come.

http://www.lubbockonline.com/opinion/20180701/arrington-farm-bill-makes-us-agriculture-more-stable