WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, today met with the Illinois Farm Bureau to discuss financial difficulties with crop conditions in Illinois due to the wettest planting season in decades. During the meeting, farmers expressed concerns with the Trump Administration’s uncertain trade approach with Mexico, and the importance of more federal investments in infrastructure, like rural broadband.
“As I saw over the weekend, severe flooding and related weather conditions in Illinois has placed significant stress on Illinois farmers, and I believe this President’s unpredictable trade strategies with our biggest agriculture markets, from Mexico to China, has hit farmers hard. The USDA announcement on trade assistance payments, in the middle of planting season, was poorly timed, making planting decisions worse, and it still has too many unknowns. This has tied the farming economy into knots,” Durbin said.
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This past weekend, Durbin visited Alton, Illinois, on the Mississippi River and Winchester, Illinois, near the Illinois River to see first-hand the effects of severe flooding on downstate communities. During today’s meeting, regional farm bureau representatives discussed how the historically wet planting season has made planting decisions intensely difficult, and the harm caused by ongoing uncertainty in the Administration’s trade approach with major foreign countries that purchase Illinois farm commodities.
