Op-ed: Rural America is in trouble. Congress needs to pass the farm bill.

Farmers across rural America are facing an affordability crisis. As a third-generation farmer in the Yakima Valley, I know firsthand the challenges facing farm country and the importance of passing the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2026, otherwise known as the farm bill. This legislation is an investment in our producers, our families and the rural economy across Washington's Fourth District. 

This Congress, I have worked as a member of both the House Agriculture Committee and the Agriculture Subcommittee on Appropriations to help ensure the USDA's programs are working effectively for the producers they are designed to support. The farm bill covers a wide swathe of programs — commodities, conservation, research, forestry, horticulture, energy, trade and rural development — and includes many different pieces of bipartisan legislation to address the challenges in rural America.

One example is my legislation, the Agriculture Export Promotion Act of 2025. This legislation doubles the funding for the Market Access and Foreign Market Development programs to enable farmers’ and ranchers’ access to more market opportunities. In 2023, the state of Washington exported nearly $7.5 billion in agricultural products, demonstrating how important foreign markets are to our state. 

With over 250 specialty crops in the Fourth District alone, improving access to crop insurance, bolstering research and enacting a standard framework for disaster assistance are keys to the success of our growers.

Another key to success included in this year’s farm bill is the reauthorization of voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. Farmers are the original conservationists, and it is important we provide them with the support they need to continue to steward our land.

Throughout Central Washington, farmers and ranchers who are struggling due to high input costs and market uncertainty have made clear that a reauthorized farm bill is long overdue. Producers know how this legislation provides a hand-up, not a handout, and allows them to continue to feed our country even during trying times.

It is not lost on Congress and this administration that farmers need immediate help. The Working Families Tax Cut signed into law last summer made critical updates to commodity reference prices and the USDA’s Farmer Bridge Assistance and the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers programs totaled $12 billion in direct payments that serve as a lifeline for struggling producers. But farmers will not have long-term certainty until we reauthorize the farm bill.

Farm country and rural America as a whole are in dire straits. If we do not act quickly and reauthorize critical USDA programs, we will see more family farms sold, grocery prices increase and communities that continue to struggle. Chairman GT Thompson has done yeoman’s work to get a bipartisan farm bill out of committee, and it is time to bring it to the House floor and deliver on our promise to help our farmers, ranchers and producers.

This article was originally published in Agri-Pulse on April 20, 2026.