Texas Representative Jake Ellzey (R) spoke to Texas Politics about the recent Farm Bill, its timeliness, and its focus on welfare (SNAP).
People in many parts of the world are facing a type of food insecurity. Some of the food shortages have been caused by people like Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
“If people can’t eat, at a time where the dictators of the world are acting like it’s 1938 with going after the energy production in Europe, food security in the Middle East and Africa, our production in the United States is more important than ever before,” said Rep. Ellzey.
The Texas representative criticized the bill’s focus on SNAP benefits and stated that the food crop was neglected in the legislation.
Ellzey stated, “And as a fraction of actual farm support, the Farm Bill has very little actual aid attached to it. I can’t remember the percentage but most of it is SNAP. Most of the Farm Bill is SNAP, and people don’t understand that…very little money actually goes to the food crop.”
The congressman continued his statement and pointed to the usefulness of crop insurance. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) defines crop insurance as “an important risk management tool available to farmers and ranchers to help protect them against declines in crop yields and/or revenue.”
“The crop insurance is incredibly important. Without a crop insurance, our farmers when they have bad crops because of bad weather, and sometimes crops just fail, we have to have farmers here who can produce and can survive with that crop insurance. So that’s extremely important. The other details, I haven’t talked to GT lately on what the details are,” concluded Ellzey.
Many Republican lawmakers have criticized the bill for being full of things they don't agree with, especially on issues like border security.
“And then this border bill…the woke parts of it for open border policy…those are iron clad but anything to do with border security is at the discretion of [lawmakers],” added Fallon.
