Tuberville Advocates for American Agricultural Producers

WASHINGTON - Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke with American agriculture leaders at a U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry hearing titled "Increasing Domestic Consumption of U.S. Grown Agricultural Products." Sen. Tuberville asked witnesses Zippy Duvall, Scott Metzger, Cathy Burns, Jed Bower, Nathan Reed, and Matt Perdue to share their recommendations for bolstering American farmers and producers. They also spoke about the need to pass the Buying American Cotton Act, Tuberville-backed legislation to incentivize American cotton consumption and revitalize the U.S. cotton industry.

Excerpts from Sen. Tuberville's remarks can be found below, or viewed on YouTube or Rumble.

TUBERVILLE: "Mr. Chairman. Thanks for being here today. [In] my state of Alabama, we're leaking oil bad. We had lost 150,000 farms and 25,000 farmers nationwide just a few years ago. Y'all know that. Mr. Duvall, I'm gonna get all of you to answer this. One wish to correct this god-awful mess. What do we do?"

DUVALL: "I don't know that there's just one wish that can solve this problem, but we need open markets. We need a labor force. And we need to tear down regulation to take down those barriers that gets in the way of us actually being able to make a living on the farm."

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you. Scott?"

METZGER: "Yeah. Thank you. And that-yeah, there's not a one-answer-fits-all on this, but-"

TUBERVILLE: "Give me a good shot at it."

METZGER: "Give you a good shot at it? Well, let's get some new markets opened up, continue with the trades that we've had. And then on domestic markets, getting those ramped up-45Z, we get the RVO numbers out and finalized, get some domestic use done. That's gonna help."

TUBERVILLE: "Mrs. Burns?"

BURNS: "Since Zippy said labor in open markets, I'll do a third one. And I think the federal government can take action to incentivize healthy eating. And to incentivize and provide better access to domestic-grown products, especially crops products here in the U. S. And we can do that by driving consumption-huge opportunity for us in the U.S. and Americans will be healthier."

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you."

BOWER: "Senator, short term-I think that it's a challenge for new markets. I think we all know. E15 is poised to be right there. But another one I need to bring up is we need to continue to support for the renewal of USMCA. I think that is critical to row crop farmers. Mexico is our number one exporter of corn. Canada is our number one export market of ethanol, truly critical for growers in the short-term while we build out these domestic markets."

REED: "Thank you, Senator. Speaking for the cotton market or for the cotton production, as a cotton farmer, we need to be able to leverage the power of the American consumer through the Buying American Cotton Act and get that passed. So, thank you."

PERDUE: "Senator, I'd say that the single biggest impact would be growing our renewable fuels markets. That's gonna improve prices for corn and for soybeans. It's gonna produce prices for-or improve prices for-wheat. We also need to make sure that we have strong, competitive, fair markets for farmers to buy inputs from and sell their commodities to."

TUBERVILLE: "Mr. Reed-thank you very much-Mr. Reed, [you] just talked about the Buying American Cotton Act, which I'm sponsoring with my cohort, [Senator] Cindy Hyde-Smith here, I hear that this would totally revamp the cotton market because if we don't do something, we're gonna lose it all. In Alabama, we're losing 400 dollars an acre before we even plant it. I mean, it's ridiculous. Why would we get in the cotton business? We have to do something. Could you explain what this act would do?"

REED: "Well, the American cotton farmer, we can produce the highest quality, most environmentally friendly, best crop, best cotton in the world. We can't produce it cheaper. And unfortunately, between other countries without as much regulatory environment and synthetics, […] we have been unable to compete on a world market. Our domestic textile industry has been decimated, not only as a cotton farmer, but our whole industry-domestic textile industry-the farm or the gins and cottonseed crushing facilities. There's so much that goes into cotton production just beyond the cotton farmer. A lot of these small, rural communities depend on all that. So, when you lose the cotton industry, you don't just lose the farmers, you lose the whole industry in America. And we feel that the Buying American Cotton Act will reverse that trend and provide-allow us to use the power of the American consumer that consumes 40 million bales of textiles a year. It will allow us to bring that market back into because there's rewards in there for domestic produced thread and fiber. There's a bigger tax credit. But it'll allow us to-until our American mill industry comes back further-export cotton, and then American cotton comes back in and garments that may have been produced overseas, and brands and retailers get a tax credit. So, it will increase demand for American cotton."

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you. Good explanation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman."

Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.

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