Hawley Hosts Annual Meeting with Missouri Farmers at State Fair

Hawley Hosts Annual Meeting with Missouri Farmers at State Fair

Friday, August 15, 2025

The Senior Senator Honored the Late Kit Bond & Touted Cancelation of the Grain Belt Express

This week, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) attended the annual Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, meeting with commodity groups and hosting an advisory council meeting with state farmers. Representatives Bob Onder (Mo.-03), Jason Smith (Mo.-08), Mark Alford (Mo.-04), and Eric Burlison (Mo.-07) also attended Senator Hawley's annual meeting.

"Ag is not the past. Ag is not only the present. Ag is the future," Senator Hawley said. "You don't have a sovereign country if you can't feed your country. And [Missouri farmers] feed this country better than anybody else anywhere in the world."

At his meeting, the Senator spoke alongside Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins. There, he presented awards recognizing farmers and ranchers across the state, including the "Senator Kit Bond Memorial Farmer of the Year Award."

Senator Hawley honored Linda Bond and her late husband, Christopher "Kit" Bond-who represented Missouri as its former United States Senator and Governor-for their decades of service to the Show Me State. The Senator presented Mrs. Bond with a framed copy of his Senate-passed resolution that recognized Mr. Bond-who recently passed away on May 13, 2025-as a lion of rural Missouri.

Senator Hawley went on to answer questions from farmers and constituents on a range of state-specific topics. Senator Hawley specifically condemned the green-energy boondoggle the Biden Administration attempted to force on Missourians in the form of the Grain Belt Express.

"As if they hadn't taken enough from you," Senator Hawley said to his constituents gathered, criticizing Democrats' obsession with Green New Deal policies. "This is $5 billion dollars. [The Grain Belt Express] doesn't meet the criteria for the loan. It's an outrage; it's an insult to the people of my state."

Senator Hawley successfully secured the cancelation of a $5 billion taxpayer loan that would have funded the Grain Belt Express, a green transmission project that has taken the land of numerous Missouri farmers across eight counties while padding the corporate profits of parent company Invenergy.

Issues