Iowa’s Third Congressional District Representative Cindy Axne visited Dallas County Wednesday to discuss various aspects of agriculture. 

Axne first made a stop at the Dallas County Extension Building in Adel where she discussed the upcoming federal Farm Bill with various members of the agriculture community along with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development State Director Theresa Greenfield and Iowa Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Matt Russell. Axne says one of the hopes for the upcoming Farm Bill is more protections for farmers against natural disasters.

“We are seeing these extreme storms come up out of nowhere, tornadoes earlier than ever and we are going to have to make sure that our farmers are protected. We have got to ensure that there is protection there in this next farm bill.”

Later on in the day Axne met at the Chris Nelson farm in Minburn along with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to highlight the funding available through the Emergency Relief Program which provided $10 billion in funding for farmers affected by natural disasters in 2020 and 2021 including the derecho. Axne says this kind of help is important for Iowa’s farmers. 

“What this does is literally shore up the check books for our farmers. They are taking extreme losses when these weather events happen. They have to incur those losses for a fairly long period of time until they get relief. So, they have had to really look to their own ability to stay afloat until they get this derecho relief. So, it is really important that we get it in their hands as quickly as possible and that as many Iowans take advantage of it as possible.”

The Farm Bill is worked on every five years and will come up again in 2023.