WASHINGTON, D.C. — The agricultural platforms of the 2024 U.S. presidential candidates was the topic of a forum held by the National Press Club in Washington on August 8. Representing the Republican platform was Kip Tom, an Indiana farmer and co-lead of the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump Coalition. Rod Snyder, former senior Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agricultural policy advisor for the Biden-Harris administration, represented the Democratic platform during the two-hour forum, which was hosted by the Farm Foundation and moderated by Wall Street Journal reporter Kristina Peterson.

“Agriculture and rural communities deserve this type of substantive policy discussion that is so often lacking in our current political environment,” said Snyder, moments before attacking Trump’s agricultural trade record and lack of a detailed farm policy platform. “Vice President (and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala) Harris is working to build an economy where farmers, ranchers and rural communities can thrive. This starts with ensuring that producers of all sizes have access to diverse markets, a robust safety net, a reliable workforce, an innovation pipeline and a level playing field for competitors all around the world. It is also vitally important that rural communities, where most of our food is grown, are healthy and thriving places.”

Tom, who is a managing partner of Tom Farms, LLC and was the former United Nations ambassador for food and agriculture under Trump, began his remarks by paraphrasing former President Dwight Eisenhauer. “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the field,” he said. “I think when you look at agriculture today and our policymakers we see so much policy in Washington that is enacted that is far from what we need in rural America. We need to make sure we are a reliable source of a strong economy and agriculture ecosystem.” 

Tom prefaced his ensuing remarks by acknowledging that he had not consulted with Trump or his representatives about the Republican candidate’s current farm policy. “I want to start off by saying I have no formal platform from the Trump campaign for 2024 on agriculture, but I can talk about his record in the past and the successes he had, and an example would be trade,” he said, pointing to the Biden-Harris administration’s reticence in rescinding Trump’s 301 agricultural trade tariffs that remain in place. 

‘We saw a $26 billion to $38 billion increase in trade and we signed an $80 billion trade deal with China at the same time. And we’ve done over 50 trade deals with China during the Trump administration. I think Donald Trump is clearly the leader in making sure that we have a strong ag economy,” said Tom.

Snyder, who is now serving as director of EPA’s Office of Agricultural and Rural Affairs under Biden-Harris, pointed to the current administration’s achievements for rural Americans under the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act as evidence of their commitment to farmers. Most recently, Snyder continued, the administration had committed nearly $10 billion to help member-owned rural electric cooperatives provide communities with clean, reliable and affordable energy.

Snyder cited Harris’ selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as “encouraging” to agricultural stakeholders. Prior to being elected governor, Walz served six terms on the House Agriculture Committee as a member of Congress and helped write three farm bills. “This is a leader that is deeply familiar with rural America and has a reputation for working across party lines,” Snyder said.

In contrast, a return to a Donald Trump-led White House would result in four years of “chaos and uncertainty” for the farm economy, according to Snyder. “The outlook for a second term would be even more severe,” he said. “This election is a choice between certainty and chaos for farmers and ranchers across the country. During his prior term Trump’s trade wars cost the American farmers $29 billion in lost exports in 2018 and 2019 alone, while undermining markets that took our farmers decades to build. His most recent proposal for a tariff of 10 to 20 percent on all imported products would lead to further loss of global market share for U.S. agriculture, not to mention rapid inflation for consumers.”

“You say, ‘why do we need to do this?’” Tom said. “Well, you look at the balance sheet. Let’s say we’re importing $500/billion worth of goods from China. We’re only exporting $350, and that number continues to decline. We continue to see our manufacturing sector move out of this country and go other places. The reality is, yes, those tariffs will be out there but there’s no question Trump wants to deal with them. He took care of us before when he did it, and he’ll take care of us this time too.”

Snyder said farm labor would suffer under Trump’s leadership due to his promise of mass deportation of undocumented migrants, Snyder said, while bipartisan bills in Congress that would address migrancy issues and farm labor have been thwarted by candidate Trump’s advice to House Republicans.

Lacking an official agricultural platform from the Trump campaign, Tom put forth the priorities of the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump Coalition in his presentation to the National Press Club. A top priority of the Trump administration, according to the Coalition, would be the “death tax” or federal inheritance tax. 

“What is being proposed today would nearly double the amount that farmers and ranchers would have to pay in inheritance taxes. It could be the most undermining issue, taking away the farms and ranches as we know them today,” said Tom. “I look at the regulatory issues in this country. Under the Biden-Harris administration they’ve created almost $1.67 trillion of new regulations that are not only costing industries, they’re costing farmers and the American consumer. This is why we see the 30 percent inflation in grocery stores today. Kamala Harris needs look no further for (the causes of) price gouging than in the mirror at herself.”

In contrast to more than 50 ag trade deals Tom credited the Trump administration with completing, the Biden-Harris administration has yet to complete a single deal, according to Tom. 

“This is why we see a decline in our export sales of nearly $42.5 million dollars,” he said. “And now we are seeing a decline in farmers’ income. Farm Bureau just lowered their expectations for farm income to almost 50 percent (lower) from 2022 to 2024.”

Tom called for a “national agriculture strategy” that includes both the private and public sector to ensure the “American dream can continue for all of us.” The strategy would include expanding transportation infrastructure, reducing reliance on foreign agricultural inputs, incentive agricultural careers, improving risk management tools for farmers, immigration reform and more. 

Following each presenter’s speech, the forum opened up to a Q and A session that lasted for around an hour and a half. Topics broached included the farm bill, crop insurance and farm safety nets, the Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP), Project 2025 and agriculture, and more.

As for the SNAP section of the farm bill, Snyder said a farm bill passed by the House agriculture committee, mostly along partisan lines, undercut SNAP and nutrition programs. He said people need to come together to negotiate in a way the American farmer deserves.

“American farmers, the whole ag sector, critically need certainty, and so I just urge Congress to move as expeditiously as possible to get (a farm bill) done. I think the key to success in past farm bills for many, many years has been holding together that traditional partnership, the coalition between farm production programs and nutrition programs.”

Tom said the leadership to get a farm bill done starts at the top, and the nation needs a president who says, “Get this done.” The final bill will probably be about $1.5 trillion over five years, with the SNAP provisions accounting for almost 83 percent of that total, he said. Tom said he’s concerned about the amount of fraud associated with the program.

“I’m very much a supporter to make sure we help that family that is food insecure, that’s maybe fallen on tough times,” he said. “I want to make sure our seniors retire with dignity. With our increases in food inflation right now, that’s really difficult for them. I’m compassionate about it, I want to do what’s right, but there’s room to reel in the fraud that takes place there.”

Climate smart agriculture was also discussed during the forum.

“As a farmer, we don’t get caught up in gimmicks, cute names, anything like that,” Tom pointed out. “We just want to go out, produce a crop, and if anyone is a true environmentalist and wants to push sustainability, it’s the American farmer and rancher. I’ll be damned if I think the government, someone sitting in a cubicle, should be able to tell us how we need to farm and how to be climate smart. Farmers have moved to using less chemistries, less fertilizer, they no till, we’ve cleaned up our creeks, rivers and streams and oceans. I don’t think this is any role the government needs to be playing in. I think it’s up to us as farmers to do this.”

Snyder agreed farmers have made progress in environmental and conservation issues, but noted that’s due in part to investments from USDA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service over a century.

“Coming alongside the American farmer to work together to advance these shared goals,” he said. “Some of these things are just a matter of public good and that should not all be borne by the farmer.

“What we’re seeing in terms of climate smart agriculture is just building on the success, I believe, of the last 100 years by making sure that carbon and climate are part of that conversation. This is good news for American farmers because there is an appetite both in the U.S. and globally for these kinds of new, low carbon markets.”

 The entire forum can be viewed on demand at www.farmfoundation.org/forums/the-agricultural-platforms-of-the-cadidates-for-president-of-the-united-states/.