Agriculture

Being born and raised in Alpine, I have had countless opportunities to learn about agribusiness first hand.  Agriculture is the second largest industry in Texas, behind energy, and many of our towns and family members rely on agriculture to make a living for their families, and feed the world. I have had the opportunity to serve on the Agriculture Committee in Texas, and learned even more, which will help me continue to work for the farmers and ranchers of Texas.

Living in rural West Texas I have the opportunity to talk to farmers and ranchers regularly and hear their concerns from property rights, insurances, disaster programs, credit, infrastructure  and much more. All these issues are important to me and items that the Agriculture Committee has jurisdiction over. I serve on the subcommittees: General Farm Commodities and Risk Management; Livestock, Rural Development, and Credit.

Im proud to say that as a freshman on the committee, we worked to move a Farm Bill to conference, something that should have been done over two years ago. The bill provides certainty to our farmers and ranchers by providing safety nets to allow them to produce agriculture products we need to nourish our bodies. The final bill also makes improvements to allowing more money to be used for rural communities infrastructure projects, removes direct payments to the farmers, and removes many of the harsh requirements for those in difficult times to obtain SNAP benefits.