Ep. 72 Senator John Boozman

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;28;18
Dr. Hunter Biram
Well, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets. In today’s conversation, we’ll discuss the major federal policy issues affecting agriculture, how Congress has approached farm policy this year, ongoing efforts to support producers, the role of trade and market development, and what to expect as we move toward the 2026 Farm Bill and broader budget discussions.

00;00;28;21 – 00;00;33;22
Dr. Hunter Biram
I am one of your hosts today, Hunter Biram. I’m also joined by Ryan Loy. Ryan, how are you?

00;00;33;22 – 00;00;35;10
Dr. Ryan Loy
Doing well, Hunter, very excited to be here today.

00;00;35;10 – 00;00;55;21
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah, we are very excited. We have a very special guest with us. Today, we are joined by US Senator John Boozman. Senator Boozman is a lifelong Arkansan who served several terms in the House before being elected to the Senate in 2010. He grew up in a military family as the son of a master sergeant in the US Air Force, attended the University of Arkansas, and I don’t think it’s on here,

00;00;55;21 – 00;01;16;15
Dr. Hunter Biram
but he played football for Arkansas and later became an optometrist and small business owner in northwest Arkansas. He also served on the Rogers School Board and has long been involved in community health and veterans initiatives. He currently serves as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and previously served as its ranking member. Mr. Chairman, thank you for being with us today.

00;01;16;17 – 00;01;18;27
Senator John Boozman
No, thank you so much for having me.

00;01;18;29 – 00;01;38;12
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yes, sir. So, you know, Senator, I’m not sure if you remember this or not, but you and I actually go back a little ways. We go all the way back to 2015. I served as an intern in your Jonesboro office in Arkansas. I worked with Nathan Davis. I remember you visited Batesville at Bad Boy Mowers.

00;01;38;14 – 00;01;49;10
Senator John Boozman
Yeah, no, for sure. We had fun. We got to drive the mowers, and I was I was. And I’m not just saying this. I knew I knew you, but I was trying to figure out how. Ten, ten years for me is a long time.

00;01;49;16 – 00;01;53;18
Dr. Hunter Biram
Ten years has happened for both of us. A lot of things have happened a lot of good things.

00;01;53;20 – 00;01;56;00
Senator John Boozman
[…] but that was a fun day.

00;01;56;02 – 00;02;13;00
Dr. Hunter Biram
It really was. That was a fun experience. That was actually right before I went to work in DC and work with Congressman Rick Crawford. So, I have a lot to owe both of you, both of you guys. And I mean, look, now we’re talking farm policy, you know, getting to do this professionally. And so kind of a full circle moment.

00;02;13;00 – 00;02;27;22
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah. It’s great. Yeah. So, you know, I’m going to get us kicked off here. So, Mr. Chairman, just a real broad question here. You know, how has Congress advanced farm policy this year? You know, we had a lot of moving parts, a lot of things happening. But go ahead and let us know, what Congress has been doing.

00;02;27;22 – 00;02;49;16
Senator John Boozman
Well, I think it really started at the end of last year as we put together the big package for agriculture. We were putting a last minute appropriations process together. In that package, after listening to our farm community, that was the second year of really, really difficult times in farm country. Now we’re in the third year of that.

00;02;49;16 – 00;03;14;16
Senator John Boozman
In fact, the three years, the last three years, when you put those together, those are three of the worst times ever in ag history as far as drop in ag income. So last year we, you know, we were in trouble, then. We knew it wasn’t going to get any better. And it didn’t. So we were able to come up with $10 billion in economic aid for farmers and then another 21 billion in disaster relief.

00;03;14;19 – 00;03;42;21
Senator John Boozman
So $31 billion, which is a lot of money by any standards, we were able to get passed. Moving into this year, we were not able to get the farm bill done in the last administration. This is something that’s just such a priority to get done. So we started the One Big Beautiful Bill and, nobody had ever done it before, but we actually put about 80% of the Farm Bill in that particular bill.

00;03;42;23 – 00;04;05;08
Senator John Boozman
It was overshadowed by the tax implications and all of those kind of things. But the things that cost a lot of money, changes in ARC, changes in PLC… really, including things like honeybees and this and that, you know, trying to give farmers more tools in their toolbox as far as risk management tools, that’s really what it’s all about.

00;04;05;08 – 00;04;26;21
Senator John Boozman
That’s, that’s what we need. And so we were able to put, many, many billions of dollars in there. That was a hang up we were having in the farm bill was, we needed to update things because of inflation. Everything just didn’t work anymore. And in order to do that, cost a lot of money. But we were able, through the reconciliation process, to do that.

00;04;26;21 – 00;04;50;17
Senator John Boozman
So that, that’s been the major thing that we’ve, you know, that we’ve gotten done. And now, you know, we’ll talk about the next step. Today, we were able to pass out of committee, Mr. Selig, he’s going to be the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman, and we’ll pass him out of the Senate when we get back in a week or so.

00;04;50;17 – 00;05;19;09
Senator John Boozman
Couple weeks maybe. But that’s an important post. And we’re down to just one commissioner now, and she’s in the process of leaving. So we’re reconstituting that. So ag is a very broad jurisdiction. We’re also working on crypto, which again, you wouldn’t think the ag committee had anything to do with that. But a lot of the crypto structure, crypto is either like money, security or it’s like gold.

00;05;19;11 – 00;05;42;05
Senator John Boozman
And a lot of it is more like a commodity, like gold, than it is money. And so if it’s more like gold, that part belongs in the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to, to regulate. It’s unregulated now, many, many I don’t know if you all are invested in crypto or not, but a lot of Americans are, you know, probably 20% and a lot more want to invest.

00;05;42;05 – 00;05;53;25
Senator John Boozman
The banks want to get involved, pension plans want to get involved. So that’s all great. But we’ve got to protect the consumer. We’ve got to protect the customer. And so that’s, that’s really what that’s all about.

00;05;53;28 – 00;05;58;11
Dr. Hunter Biram
I’ll tell you what, Mr. Chairman. You’ve been busy, to say the least. You’ve been very busy.

00;05;58;17 – 00;06;15;04
Senator John Boozman
But number one, number one on our mind is, I do understand how difficult it is. And I’m sure raising cattle and cattle has been kind of up and down here the last month or so. But. But if you’re growing something in the ground, you’re probably losing at least $100 an acre.

00;06;15;04 – 00;06;33;03
Dr. Hunter Biram
That’s right. I mean, you know, that’s 2025, and, you know, we just updated our crop enterprise budgets for 2026. And, I mean, not a whole lot better, to be honest. I mean, we’re looking at, you know, losses of, well over $100, actually, you know, I think for some crops, they, they would like to see a $100 loss, you know, versus like a 250 loss.

00;06;33;03 – 00;06;36;15
Dr. Hunter Biram
That’s right. You know, soybeans look, okay. But you are absolutely right.

00;06;36;15 – 00;06;37;22
Senator John Boozman
So a hundred

00;06;38;08 – 00;06;39;21
Senator John Boozman
dollar loss would be a victory.

00;06;39;23 – 00;06;40;20
Dr. Ryan Loy
In this instance, yes, sir.

00;06;41;05 – 00;06;43;07
Senator John Boozman
In some cases, yeah. No I understand.

00;06;43;08 – 00;06;58;16
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah. That’s right. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, you had talked about the Farm Bill and reconciliation. Can you help unpack the differences there? Because, I mean, you know, like you said, you got 80% of the Farm Bill. And to reconciliation. So can you kind of walk through a little bit of the nuts and bolts on that?

00;06;58;18 – 00;07;20;21
Senator John Boozman
Well, reconciliation is a process that we can use when you’re talking about spending or saving money. And the value of it is, is that almost everything in the Senate, if it’s a bill of any importance, it takes 60 votes to get passed. But we were able to pass a large portion of the farm bill with really a lot of support from Congress.

00;07;20;21 – 00;07;41;00
Senator John Boozman
So that’s how that all came to be. Now, the Farm Bill is a standalone bill. And so that’s something that has to go through the committee process. It’s sad, we’re in a situation now where, in the past, Farm Bills, agriculture in general, is not a it’s not a partisan issue. And that’s why the ag committee’s a very serious committee.

00;07;41;00 – 00;08;00;10
Senator John Boozman
It’s not a lot of ‘gotcha’ stuff. It’s it really is, getting stuff done. In fact, I’ll give you a good example of that. I was just down on the floor, earlier in the year, we passed a Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, and this will put whole milk, skim milk, and other, alternatives to that back in the school system.

00;08;00;12 – 00;08;22;06
Senator John Boozman
And we passed that out of the ag committee, unanimously. And then we passed it, after a little bit of modification, working together, we were able to pass it on the floor by unanimous consent. So the whole Senate said, yes, it’s fine, this is a good thing. So it’ll go to the House that that will become law. So, yeah, there’s a lot of positive things to do.

00;08;22;06 – 00;08;43;03
Senator John Boozman
But we’re in a situation now where the area that we’re having trouble with is, I’m concentrating on the risk management tools and things like that. We’ve pretty much done those, though. What we’ve got to do now is in reconciliation, you can’t do policy. And so right now we need to, we need to increase the loan limits.

00;08;43;06 – 00;09;03;04
Senator John Boozman
A lot of stuff that just, you know, just is outdated. And that’s stuff that we couldn’t do in reconciliation. And we’re working with Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota. She’s a great partner. She’s, you know, does an excellent job. Minnesota. You take a couple cities out of the equation and it’s a lot like Arkansas. You know, it’s colder, but it’s a lot.

00;09;03;07 – 00;09;08;12
Senator John Boozman
It’s a lot like Arkansas. She had me up there in May and it snowed.

00;09;08;15 – 00;09;13;11
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah. I can’t tell you the last time it snowed in May in Arkansas. Probably never, no.

00;09;13;12 – 00;09;33;28
Senator John Boozman
Never. Exactly. But anyway, it’s, it’s a rural state. She understands the important issues committed to getting these things worked out. So I think what, you know, what we might do is just take and get a whole bunch of bills together that have to do with things that desperately need to be done, from a policy standpoint, and then pass those out in a package.

00;09;33;28 – 00;09;55;16
Senator John Boozman
And, they essentially would cover what, what remains to be done in the Farm Bill. I’m committed to doing it. Senator Klobuchar is, is very helpful in that regard. And, we’re working with the administration so that they can use their clout. President Trump, he understands the importance of the farm community and is committed to helping. So it’s just everybody working together.

00;09;55;19 – 00;09;59;09
Dr. Hunter Biram
And that is so important, especially in this day and age. Very important.

00;09;59;12 – 00;10;20;25
Dr. Ryan Loy
Absolutely, it is. You know, as you had mentioned, this is the third year consecutively of, you know, declining and depressed, you know, commodity prices, declining farm incomes. And, and you’d mentioned that it’s probably some of the worst we’ve seen at least since the 80s. And so from that perspective, and I believe you’ve touched on this as well, if you’d like to kind of break down, you know, what can be done to help our farmers during these challenging times.

00;10;20;25 – 00;10;30;17
Dr. Ryan Loy
I know I as I understand phase two of the Supplemental Disaster Relief program is going out soon, and maybe we can kind of talk about that a little bit or anything else that maybe comes to mind.

00;10;30;17 – 00;10;53;26
Senator John Boozman
Well, you’re right, we you know, we’ve been blessed. We’ve been able to come up with some aid packages to get farmers through last year. And, under the first Trump administration, we were able to do some of that. You can’t do that forever. You know, it has to be […] when you are in a business that you, you can’t go into it knowing you’re going to lose money year after year after year.

00;10;53;27 – 00;11;15;17
Senator John Boozman
So, we’ve got to get this straight and it’s so important. I was in a, meeting when, a couple of years ago. And, talking to a bunch of senators about, they asked me to give a presentation about agriculture and the importance regarding the Farm Bill. And, I give my little presentation, asked for any questions.

00;11;15;24 – 00;11;36;08
Senator John Boozman
Marco Rubio, who’s the current Secretary of State now, was sitting by me. He punched me. He said, John, he said, always tell them food security is national security. He was the head of the security committee in the, in the Senate. And it’s true, you know, the last thing in the world we need to do is get dependent on Brazil or someplace like that for our food.

00;11;36;10 – 00;12;07;13
Senator John Boozman
So these are big decisions and they’re big problems. So we’ve got to, I think it starts with increasing our trade. We’ve got a surplus. We’re blessed. We had this this, you know, this huge crop, this year, actually worldwide, you know, and so we got a lot of we got a lot of product. These other countries like Brazil and Argentina, various places throughout the world, they’ve actually had an advantage because in many cases they have longer growing seasons and they’re very productive.

00;12;07;14 – 00;12;29;01
Senator John Boozman
But they haven’t had the infrastructure. You know, they haven’t had the knowledge on how to grow their crops. They haven’t had the infrastructure, the roads to take it to a port. The ports weren’t any good. Chinese have gone and invest a lot of money to secure, you know, a lot of that infrastructure, so that they can ship things to China and just to help their ag production, period.

00;12;29;03 – 00;12;54;00
Senator John Boozman
So we’ve got to create new markets, going forward. I think the biggest problem we’ve got right now and it is agriculture, because agriculture is rural America, it’s all that’s left. It’s the loss of population. We’re in a situation now where 53% of our counties lost population in the last census, I think 53 of the 75 counties in Arkansas, lost population.

00;12;54;00 – 00;13;14;11
Senator John Boozman
We got many, many counties, big counties don’t have hospitals. You know, there’s no, no health care there. So it all goes together. In the old days, the recipe was somebody ran the farm and did that. And then somebody worked in town at the local factory. And you know, made pretty good money there to help. And then land values increased.

00;13;14;11 – 00;13;44;01
Senator John Boozman
And you, you did cash flow of the farm. And so you were building equity. Now, we’re in a situation. There’s no place to work in town. And, it doesn’t cash flow. So I think, you know, markets are the biggest thing that we’ve got to do. In reconciliation, we increase the amount of money to give private entities, the various associations, money to, invest in trade promotion, which is really important.

00;13;44;01 – 00;13;48;29
Senator John Boozman
Research is very, very important going forward. So those, those are the major things.

00;13;49;00 – 00;14;06;11
Dr. Ryan Loy
Thank you for that. Thank you for your answer. And, and, I think you really hit on something important. And one of the biggest questions we get when we’re out in the, in the counties is talking about the competition, you know, from Brazil and from South America. So and you hit the nail on the head, very important, and something that we just get constant questions on from our farmers here in the state.

00;14;06;11 – 00;14;06;28
Senator John Boozman
Right.

00;14;07;01 – 00;14;24;20
Senator John Boozman
We’re just going to have to figure out how to deal with it. And we can’t you know, we’re blessed, we’ve got a great product. That’s the thing that, stands out. And the idea that you get this cheap, safe, it’s not as cheap as it used to be, but it’s still cheap, you know, relative to the rest of the world.

00;14;24;20 – 00;14;46;02
Senator John Boozman
But this cheap, safe and in China, safe is really the operative word. That’s what they don’t have is, you know, they buy a lot of stuff, they get a lot of junk. But we are the premier producer in that regard. So we’ve got a lot of good things going for us. I was pleased with the trade deals that were struck when the president was in Asia.

00;14;46;02 – 00;15;06;00
Senator John Boozman
That’s going to be helpful. Problem is, it’s going to take a while, you know, for those to kick in. But, that’s a good step in the right direction, is looking for these markets. I was with the Germans yesterday, the German Minister of Agriculture, talking about, increasing markets on both sides. You know, striking deals that were good for them, good for us.

00;15;06;00 – 00;15;27;00
Senator John Boozman
And, was with the EU a couple weeks ago doing the same thing. So, the whole world is in a position where they, they would like to get away from China being their exclusive customer, just like we would. And so they don’t want to put all their eggs in that basket. But we’ve got to be there, you know, to support them and close those deals.

00;15;27;02 – 00;15;45;23
Senator John Boozman
And I’m not being partisan with this, but the last administration did not do well with trade. Unions don’t like trade. And they just didn’t they just didn’t look. So that is I can’t tell you, you know, y’all could probably tell me the percentage of the different crops. But you take a crop like cotton, you know, most of that is exported.

00;15;45;23 – 00;15;51;06
Senator John Boozman
You know, certainly soybeans. The list goes on and on, though how important exports are.

00;15;51;08 – 00;15;56;18
Dr. Ryan Loy
Yes, sir. Especially in, in unique to Arkansas, as well with our rice crop and everything in between. Yes, sir.

00;15;56;18 – 00;16;07;17
Dr. Hunter Biram
So moving into 2026, Mr. Chairman, so what’s on the agenda? You know, we’re getting towards the end of the year, I’m sure that you are wrapping up things for ‘25, but what’s on the agenda for ’26?

00;16;07;17 – 00;16;34;02
Senator John Boozman
Well, we went ahead and to take the pressure off, we went ahead and extended the current Farm Bill. But we’ve got to get a, Farm Bill, early in the spring, you know, late winter, early spring. Our goal is to have a Farm Bill done then to give, give farmers more certainty. These are the kind of things that the bankers look at as they decide whether or not to, to give a farmer credit, is certainty.

00;16;34;02 – 00;16;43;17
Senator John Boozman
So we want to put that in place. The other thing that we’ll be working on is the appropriations package. So those are the major things that like you pass, I think early in the year.

00;16;43;17 – 00;16;55;19
Dr. Hunter Biram
So could you maybe elaborate a little bit more on appropriations bills? You know, we’ve talked about reconciliation. We talked about, you know, the Farm Bill, how it’s been with the reconciliation. Could you talk about how appropriations is different or similar than these?

00;16;55;19 – 00;17;23;01
Senator John Boozman
Well, a lot of our spending is through the appropriations process. We have mandatory spending, that’s like Social Security and Medicare and things like that. But, we also have discretionary spending. And even like the Army, is discretionary. We decide every year how much they’re going to get. We decide how much education is going to get. We decide which, you know, is important for our universities and things.

00;17;23;01 – 00;17;46;29
Senator John Boozman
So we make all of those decisions. And there’s a big ag bill that has a lot of stuff in it that’s directly tied to farmers. But the, education bill, you know, what are we doing about rural education? You know, how are we helping our farm community there? What are we doing about rural health care? That’s, that’s a different appropriations bill.

00;17;47;02 – 00;18;12;09
Senator John Boozman
And then we all, you know, we want to make sure, for all of us, that we’re kept safe. And that’s with the defense appropriations. And then I chair the military construction appropriations part of things. That’s part of the defense package. And then, I also have the veterans part of the appropriations. And so, you know, we make deals with there are people that are serving that we’re going to take care of them after they get done.

00;18;12;09 – 00;18;37;19
Senator John Boozman
And if they’re injured or, have a disability or whatever, then we need to honor those commitments. And that’s what veterans are all about. So it’s, it’s a complicated process. And, one of the problems is, is that when you look at it, we’re actually spending a lot more money than we’re taking in. And so that is something we have to acknowledge and do our very best to pare that back so that it’s sustainable.

00;18;37;19 – 00;18;54;03
Dr. Hunter Biram
Absolutely. Do you have any insight or any update on, you know, there’s been a lot of talk about trade assistance. There’s been a lot of talk of maybe even another year end package, just given that, yes, the One Big Beautiful Bill is going to trigger a lot of payments for ‘25. But, you know, we have to deal with that.

00;18;54;03 – 00;19;03;14
Dr. Hunter Biram
You don’t receive the payment till a year later. So is there any talk of any kind of funding that might bridge that gap to get us into ‘26, as farmers pay on ’25 loans to renew for ‘26?

00;19;03;16 – 00;19;26;08
Senator John Boozman
I think bridge is the operative word that we need something to help, our farmers right now because we didn’t have going into this year, the really significant increase in, our risk management tools that will help farmers. But as you pointed out, they’re not going to get that till October of next year, after everything’s figured out.

00;19;26;08 – 00;19;48;15
Senator John Boozman
So, that that’s going to be very, very helpful. But it’s going to take a long time and some farmers won’t be able to sustain that. So we need a bridge right now. And so we’re working with the white House. We’re working with, the Appropriations Committee on that. Senator Hoeven is actually chair of ag appropriations and is a senior member on the ag committee.

00;19;48;15 – 00;20;09;17
Senator John Boozman
He’s a dear friend and does a great job. I was visiting with him today. I was visiting with Senator Bowen, who’s from South Dakota, the majority leader in the Senate, you know, so he’s got a lot of influence, a lot of power, and he’s totally committed to, to working something out. And so we got behind with the government shutdown.

00;20;09;18 – 00;20;24;27
Senator John Boozman
And then also the markets have been fluctuating. So the big thing is what we got to do is figure out, and we need to do this quickly. And we, it’s not like we hadn’t been working on it, but we’ve got to figure out how much we need, you know, to provide what the cost is going to be.

00;20;24;27 – 00;20;45;10
Senator John Boozman
And then we need to figure out who’s going to get it. And probably as important as any of those, which are all very important, is getting it distributed in a timely fashion. You all are familiar with some of these aid packages that take a year or two to get. That ain’t going to be helpful. You know, this has got to be something that goes out almost immediately.

00;20;45;10 – 00;21;02;22
Senator John Boozman
So we’re looking at some packages that we’ve done in the past. You know, that worked pretty well as far as the vehicle that you deliver them in. Because you know, you’re talking about billions of dollars. That’s not an easy task to, distribute that and make sure that it’s going to the people that it should be going to.

00;21;02;24 – 00;21;30;19
Senator John Boozman
So that’s where we’re at. We’re also in the process of talking to the administration and trying to actually get stuff on paper to go forward. But I’m convinced and, I, talk to farm groups every day, and I’m convinced after talking to them and, talking to the people of Arkansas, but talking all over the country, and that’s another thing that’s unique to the situation that we’re in now.

00;21;30;19 – 00;21;52;26
Senator John Boozman
Generally, when you have these kind of issues, it’s a crop or two. You know, some crops are down, some are up. Maybe a region of the country is hit harder, more than another region of the country, for whatever reason. But now, if you’re growing something in the ground, it doesn’t matter what you’re growing or where you’re located.

00;21;52;26 – 00;22;09;15
Senator John Boozman
You’re losing money. And so that’s difficult because that makes it much more costly. But it also, really does just, you know, it emphasizes the need that we’re under and the fact that we actually need to get this done quickly.

00;22;09;16 – 00;22;16;23
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yes, sir. Well, that sounds like a very encouraging parting word to end on as we’re running out of time. Any other, last comments for our listeners, Senator?

00;22;16;23 – 00;22;37;11
Senator John Boozman
No, no, I, I appreciate you all so much. These kind of programs are very helpful because this is the topic of the day, amongst, a good portion of the economy of our country. And, you know, usually ag is about 25% of the GDP in the state. That’s what it is in Arkansas, Michigan, Minnesota, in the Dakotas.

00;22;37;11 – 00;22;55;03
Senator John Boozman
It’s probably 40%. In California it’s near 25%. But California is so big, their economy is so huge, it’s bigger than everybody else’s. And bigger than most countries. So it’s just something that really binds us together. And, we’ve got to get this done.

00;22;55;03 – 00;22;57;13
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yes, sir. Couldn’t agree more. Couldn’t agree more.

00;22;57;14 – 00;23;04;17
Dr. Ryan Loy
Well, Mr. Chairman, it was an honor to talk to you today and get to virtually meet you. And we hope to host you sometime soon in the podcast studio.

00;23;04;19 – 00;23;05;23
Senator John Boozman
I would love to do that.

00;23;05;23 – 00;23;24;08
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yes, sir. Absolutely. Thank you.

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00;23;24;08 – 00;23;36;07
Dr. Hunter Biram
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