Pricing Farmers Out Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Farmers in Washington, over the past five years, have been going out of business at a rate of about 14 per week.
Ron Muzzall, a farmer and 10th District Senator, says overregulation and the rising price of doing business are the major reasons this is …
MUZZALL … “We’ve got producers around me here who I’m not sure are going to survive 2024. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
The non-farming folks, Muzzall says just don’t understand that farmers are price takers, not price setters …
MUZZALL … “There’s a rural-urban divide there. If you’re raising a commodity, you don’t know what you’re going to get paid for that. You can do some board contracting and the like, but largely those prices are determined well off of the farm.”
So, as we lose farms, Muzzall asks, where will we get our food? …
MUZZALL … “Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a time when the American consumer may be relying on out-of-country producers to provide that product.”
And Muzzalls says the quality and safety of that food is far lower than ours …
MUZZALL … “You think that you can raise the minimum wage, you can take care of overtime. All if does is push production to other places, whether it’s out of state or out of the country, that then pays their workers far, far less than what we do and we can’t compete.”
10th District Senator, Ron Muzzall.
