Cyndi's Two Cents

Time is now to call lawmakers to action

Commentary.

Many state commodity organizations and other agricultural membership groups are heading to Washington, D.C. in coming weeks to meet with the lawmakers that represent them there. The importance of these visits and of a united voice for agriculture reaching U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators is more important than ever!

It was no big surprise that the 2022 Census of Agriculture reported a loss of family farms. The data released by USDA earlier this month shows 141,733 fewer farms in 2022 than in 2017. The average size of those 1.9 million farms and ranches is 463 acres, up 5% from 2017. The acres of farmland in the United States dropped to 880 million acres, a loss of more than twenty million acres from the previous report.

With fewer family farms than ever before, we cannot afford to have our concerns get lost in all the other noise in our nation’s capital. From unnecessary and overreaching regulations to increasing costs of inputs and transportation, farming and ranching is economically challenging to say the least.

Many of us have strong feelings about those issues debated by Congress, yet we fail miserably when it comes to sharing our views with those who are in the position to make a difference.

One of the easiest ways I know to get contact information for those who represent you in the lower house of Congress, the House of Representative, is to go to the website www.house.gov. If you are unsure of the name of your Representative, just type in your zip code. The name and contact information for that individual will pop up. The site features a complete directory of House members, its leadership, committees, and of legislative activity. 

To contact your U.S. Senator, I suggest you access the website www.senate.gov. This site is simple to navigate and contains all the information you need to contact your representatives in the upper house of Congress.

We are all busy. But if you can voice an opinion with a group of neighbors at the local feed store, restaurant, or grain elevator then certainly you can make a phone call or send a letter or e-mail voicing your opinion to those who can do something about it! If you need help crafting your message, reach out to the county or state organization with whom your concerns align for some guidance.

I believe that as citizens of this great nation, we should remain informed and engaged and hold fast to those rights and responsibilities granted us in the Constitution of the United States of America. Many of you reading this column today have backgrounds like mine. My ancestors were pioneers who battled the elements and so many other forces against them to tame the land that would become the home and farm for the next seven generations of the Young family. Apathy was not in their vocabulary, and it should not be in ours. 

Alone, you are one voice, but my friends, united, we are many.