{"id":2637720,"date":"2026-07-30T09:01:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-republicans-take-aim-at-remaining-family-farms\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:16:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:16:45","slug":"house-republicans-take-aim-at-remaining-family-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-republicans-take-aim-at-remaining-family-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"House Republicans Take Aim at Remaining Family Farms"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhouse-republicans-take-aim-at-remaining-family-farms%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2637720&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Teh provided content features an article discussing the challenges faced by family farms in the United States. The author criticizes a statement by House Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson, which insultingly suggests Americans are unwilling to perform demanding farm tasks. The article highlights that family farms have struggled for decades due to negative profit margins, extensive work hours, mounting debt, and competition from large, mega-farms. Many rely on immigrant labour, which has historically undermined the viability of traditional family farms. The author argues that policymakers should address this issue rather than perpetuate policies that favor big farms, such as introducing legislation like the &#8220;Securing Agriculture\u2019s Workforce Act of 2026.&#8221; The piece emphasizes that the myth of the quintessential family farm is misleading, as large operations technically qualify as family farms but operate with extensive mechanization and workforce. Advances in technology, such as automation, are reducing the need for manual labor, and the author urges careful consideration of legislation affecting rural jobs and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mike-johnson-denounces-new-york-times-for-platforming-hamas-appointed-mayor\/\" title=\"Mike Johnson criticizes New York Times for giving a platform to Hamas-appointed mayor\">farm operations<\/a>, warning against policies that could further harm small-scale farming and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidens-homeland-security-department-illegal-immigrants-should-get-vaccine\/\" title=\"Biden...s Homeland Security Department: Illegal Immigrants Should Get Vaccine\">rural communities<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Few things frustrate me as much as hearing that Americans are unwilling to perform the \u201cnoble but arduous tasks\u201d that define farm life.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, that is the exact insult that House Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson \u2014 a Republican from Pennsylvania and my member of Congress \u2014 just leveled against my family and friends.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of farm families spent decades performing the noble task of feeding us only to be forced out of business because they could not compete with the mega-farms that flooded the market.<\/p>\n<p>Family farms have been in a tough spot for decades. Profit margins are negative and 100-hour work weeks aren\u2019t enough to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/under-trump-americans-have-seen-their-best-wage-growth-in-40-years\/\" title=\"Under Trump, Americans Have Seen Their Best Wage Growth In 40 Years\">make ends meet<\/a>. Your farm falls further into debt and disrepair until either you\u2019re the generation that loses the land that\u2019s been in your family for a century, or you expand. Get big or get out.<\/p>\n<p>Those that go the \u201cget big\u201d route can\u2019t find local employees willing to work the hours or the pay that farms can afford. So, yes, they turn to immigrant labor. Even then, margins are tight, and most eventually end up on the \u201cget big and get out\u201d path.<\/p>\n<p>I do not condemn those that took the \u201cget big or get out\u201d route. They did what they must, and their employees often take home more money than they do. The owner is the last one home and the last one paid.<\/p>\n<p>Nor do we hate those that migrated here to work hard on a farm to support their family. We just prefer that they come and assimilate, maybe become farm owners themselves, and contribute to our local rural communities rather than transferring all their money out of the country.<\/p>\n<p>We can and should, however, condemn the policymakers that got us to this point in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>I would submit that the single biggest factor that destroyed our family farms is that we allowed cheap and illegal labor to undermine the family farm\u2019s one competitive advantage. The family farm did not need to rely almost exclusively on outside labor to get the chores done. Mega farms don\u2019t exist without it.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, our politicians seem bent on doubling down on destroying what\u2019s left of our traditional family farms.<\/p>\n<p>The border is now secure and the mega-farm cheap labor flow is threatened, so we now need the \u201cSecuring Agriculture\u2019s Workforce Act of 2026\u2033 sponsored by Rep. Thompson.<\/p>\n<p>The Farm Bureau and their ilk will champion the bill because they represent the mega farms. In private, their leaders will also tell you that while they appreciate the quaint notion of the family farm, that is a bygone era and not the future.<\/p>\n<p>As a bit of an aside \u2014 let\u2019s disabuse ourselves of the notion that our food comes from a \u201cfamily farm.\u201d I know the official statistics say that almost every farm is a family farm, but that is misleading.<\/p>\n<p>Assume there are 99 pig farmers with 100 pigs each, and one with a million. It is accurate to say nearly every pig farm is a small farm, but that is not where your bacon comes from. The million-pig farm probably qualifies as a \u201cfamily farm\u201d anyway, even if the owner never touches a pig, so long as he still manages the farm finances and employees.<\/p>\n<p>That is not quite as much hyperbole as you think \u2014 even our largest dairy operations have more than a quarter-million milk cows.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of this legislation is stupid. We now have robotic technologies that replace some of the \u201carduous\u201d farm tasks that provide a lot of good service jobs to folks in rural communities.<\/p>\n<p>Are we going to undermine those jobs now as well? Hopefully the Senate\u2019s general practice of not doing anything will kill this bill, but I worry this is the one thing both sides might just rally around.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not sure about the best path to unwinding nearly a half century of illegal labor hiring practices that have completely restructured our nation\u2019s farms, but simply making unofficial bad policy the official bad policy is not the right answer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><i><b>The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either d or endorsed by the owners of this website. 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Yet, that\u2019s the insult House Ag Chair GT Thompson, my Congressman, just made against my family and friends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2637721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ben-Working-Feature-Image-2026-07-27T170052.855.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[45248,83428,83429,39203,33370],"class_list":["post-2637720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-agriculture-policy","tag-family-farms","tag-farm-subsidies","tag-republican-politics","tag-rural-america"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ben-Working-Feature-Image-2026-07-27T170052.855.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2637720"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637733,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637720\/revisions\/2637733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2637721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2637720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2637720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2637720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}