President's Column: Disaster Safety Net

It seems like every few days I hear of someone still picking up the pieces from last year’s record hurricane events, or, more frequently, rebuilding structures lost in the more recent winter storms. 

Meanwhile, Louisiana Farm Bureau is continuing to look to federal programming as a potential safety net for our farmers and ranchers in times like these. I am afraid that net is proving to have some holes in it, unfortunately.

Farmers and ranchers like you and I don’t wait around for someone else to fix our problems. We’re famous for our Cajun Navy rescuing ourselves and even helping out in other states.  We get to work and find a way to continue doing what we love – raising a crop or caring for our livestock. I am proud to see Louisianans doing that each and every day, no matter the storms that life brings our way.

However, a constant source of food, fiber and shelter is a matter of national, state, and local security and economic stability. So when major hurricanes hit our state doing damage from the Gulf to the Arkansas state line, or a very rare winter ice and snow storms devastates a lot of important farm infrastructure and valuable livestock, we could certainly use some relief.

We are still looking for ways to find you that relief in a meaningful way.

Now that’s not to say there aren’t worthwhile programs out there and we certainly appreciate the tireless work being done by our local USDA Farm Service Agencies and NRCS to see those through. 

The problem is agricultural disaster relief currently takes Congressional action to see dollars from Washington D.C. that come anywhere close to touching the billions of dollars in damages that Louisiana’s agriculture industry has seen in the last eight-plus months.

While the dollars often grow larger when you go through Washington for help, the effectiveness of those dollars frequently do not. 

What works for one crop may not work for the other. For folks like our timber producers, who saw some of the largest valued impacts in 2020, they may not have much of a program at all. These are just a few broad examples of a discussion that needs to be had.

So what can we do to make this better? We need our grassroots, Farm Bureau advocates to get to work.

We recently had the great news that Julia Letlow will be joining our other strong Louisiana Delegation in Congress. And as this issue of Louisiana Farm and Ranch is released we will likely have another strong leader elected in Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District. 

So with a full delegation in Washington DC, we need to find clear solutions to share with these elected officials on how our disaster needs could be better attended to in the future.

One final thought speaking of Washington—I’d like to congratulate Julia Letlow on her recent election representing the Fifth District.  She is working hard to get on the House Ag Committee and is committed to working for the farmers and ranchers in her district and our state. 

As you might remember, she lost her husband, Luke at age 41 to complications from COVID-19.  She is urging folks to get vaccinated as soon as possible and so am I.  Debbie and I are both fully vaccinated and want everyone to be safe and healthy.  We almost lost my predecessor, Ronnie Anderson, to COVID last year, but I’m happy to see he’s up and running, serving Farm Bureau as an ex-officio board member.

That’s why I’m urging you to get your vaccine—we need everyone alive and healthy to pull for agriculture on the local, state and national levels! 

Whether in person, virtually, or whatever your preferred method of reaching your elected officials, we need to be able to speak up. Farm Bill discussions have already begun for 2023. The time is now to come together and find better disaster assistance and farm policy for our farmers and ranchers.