Pingree Blasts Republican Agriculture Funding Bill that Fails Farmers, Families, and Rural America

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), a longtime organic farmer and member of the House Agriculture Committee, spoke out against Republicans' Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies FY2027 funding bill. During the House Appropriations Committee markup of the bill today, Pingree criticized the funding bill for cutting nutrition assistance, farmer support, conservation programs, local food initiatives, and USDA staffing at a time when families are struggling to afford healthy food and farmers are facing rising costs, extreme weather, and tariff chaos.

"Republicans can say they care about farmers and the health of Americans. But the choices they make in this bill tell a very different story. Our farmers deserve better. Our rural communities deserve better. Families trying to put healthy food on the table deserve better," Pingree said.

Pingree argued that Republicans' claims to support farmers and the "Make America Healthy Again" movement are contradicted by a bill that cuts WIC fruit and vegetable benefits, weakens local food systems, and includes poison pill riders that undermine fair competition and public health.

"How do we expect to make America healthy if we are cutting the very benefit that helps pregnant women, new moms, babies, and young children access healthy fruits and vegetables?" Pingree said. "[…] This is at a time when nearly half of children in this country do not eat a vegetable every day. So, I just do not understand how anyone can say we are making America healthy while cutting the benefit that helps children eat healthy food."

For 2027, House Republicans agriculture funding bill provides $6.3 billion in discretionary funding, a 4 percent cut below 2026. The legislation:

• Increases costs for farmers and rural communities by steeply cutting critical investments, including water and waste grants to help the poorest communities get safer water services, and slashing the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) loans in half.
• Hurts farmers by cutting the number of federal and local employees who help them access government resources they are promised.
• Threatens access to food for hardworking and vulnerable Americans, failing to ensure that every eligible recipient can access their benefits, by not providing the full fruit and vegetable benefit to USDA's Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
• Slashes Food for Peace, which provides American farmers with additional revenue and helps feed hungry children around the globe, while USDA proceeds to start implementing the program after the administration gutted USAID.

Pingree's full opening remarks as prepared for delivery:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have serious concerns about the funding bill before us today.

As appropriators, we have a very important responsibility. That is especially true for this bill, because we are talking about our farmers. About the food people eat. About whether our communities the basic support they need to survive.

Unfortunately, this bill takes us in the wrong direction. Take WIC, for example. We spend a lot of time in this committee talking about healthy food, nutrition, and getting more fruits and vegetables into people's diets. And this is supposedly the administration of "MAHA" - Make America Healthy Again.

But how do we expect to make America healthy if we are cutting the very benefit that helps pregnant women, new moms, babies, and young children access healthy fruits and vegetables?

This bill cuts the WIC fruit and vegetable benefit by 10 percent for fiscal year 2027. And the Chairman has been very clear that this is just a starting point, with the eventual goal of going back to "pre-pandemic levels."

Well, let's talk about what that means. For women, that means going from $52 a month for fruits and vegetables down to $13. For children, it means going from $26 a month down to $10.

That is not a small adjustment. That is a dramatic cut.

In Maine, about 15,000 people participate in WIC. In a state of only 1.3 million people, that matters. And the fruit and vegetable benefit is one of the most used and most redeemed parts of the program.

One WIC participant in Maine said that, because of the current benefit, she was able to buy a bag of cherries for her child for the first time. Before that, when the benefit was lower, bananas were all they could afford. Her child had never had cherries before because they were too expensive.

That is what this cut means. It means fewer choices. It means fewer healthy foods. It means a parent standing in the grocery store deciding what they have to put back.

And again, this is at a time when nearly half of children in this country do not eat a vegetable every day.

So I just do not understand how anyone can say we are making America healthy while cutting the benefit that helps children eat healthy food.

The same contradiction shows up when we talk about farmers and conservation.

We hear a lot about regenerative agriculture. We hear a lot about soil health. But this bill cuts the very programs that help farmers do that work.

It eliminates funding for the USDA Climate Hubs. It cuts Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education by $8 million. It cuts conservation technical assistance by $61 million. And it cuts the Office of Urban Agriculture, which supports food loss and waste reduction projects and local food systems, by $3 million.

Now, I know what we are going to hear today. We are going to hear that this is some climate agenda-that some of these programs are unnecessary or political.

To that, I would just say this: talk to farmers.

Talk to the farmers in my state who are dealing with extreme weather. Talk to the farmers who are trying to improve their soil, manage flooding, deal with drought, use cover crops, and make their land more resilient.

That is not "woke." That is what farming in 2026 looks like as they grapple with the impacts of climate change and rising costs. We are derelict in our duty if we are not helping them meet the challenges that are right in front of them.

At the same time, farmers in Maine are already struggling with the chaos of this Administration's tariffs.

I heard from a farmer in Brunswick who was trying to purchase a machine from Holland and had to calculate the daily price of steel just to figure out whether he could afford it. Eventually, he gave up.

I heard from another farmer in Unity who is trying to buy equipment to weed potatoes. His tariff bill is 20 percent of the cost of the equipment, plus 50 percent of the price of the aluminum and steel in that equipment. The dealer does not even know what to charge because no one knows what the price will be when the equipment arrives.

That is the reality farmers are living with right now.

And what does this bill do? It cuts Farm Service Agency staffing, Rural Development staffing, and conservation technical assistance, which supports NRCS staff.

We can put all kinds of programs into a bill, but if there is no one in the county office to answer the phone, return an email, process a loan, or help a farmer access conservation funding, then those programs cannot-and, as we've seen over the past year of staff cuts-do not work.

I am also deeply disappointed that this bill does nothing to restore the Local Food Purchase Assistance program or the Local Food for Schools program.

We learned a lot during the pandemic. We learned that our supply chains were fragile, that buying locally matters, and that schools, food banks, farmers, and families all benefit when we connect local food to local need.

These programs did exactly that.

In Maine, Farms for Food Equity used LFPA funding to purchase more than 61,000 pounds of nutritious food from 15 local farms in Southern Maine. That food went to pantries and other food assistance programs.

Daybreak Growers Alliance, a women-owned food distribution company in Unity, used LFPA funding to purchase from more than 35 Maine farms and distribute more than $500,000 in Maine-grown products to neighbors in need.

Cultivating Community in Portland supported fresh, culturally familiar food for limited-resource neighbors.

Liberation Farms supported 30 immigrant and refugee farmers and helped provide thousands of pounds of culturally familiar crops to immigrant and refugee families in Androscoggin and Cumberland counties.

These programs helped farmers make ends meet, helped families eat, and kept dollars in local communities. That is exactly the kind of thing this bill should support. Instead, this bill walks away from them.

And finally, I have serious concerns about the poison pill riders in this bill, including provisions that end support for more competition in our poultry systems through the Packers and Stockyards Act and block sodium reduction targets from going into place.

Again, Republicans can say they care about farmers and the health of Americans. But the choices they make in this bill tell a very different story.

Our farmers deserve better. Our rural communities deserve better. Families trying to put healthy food on the table deserve better.

Thank you, and I yield back.

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