Growing up on a corn and soybean farm in central Illinois, Tara Smith is no stranger to agriculture. Now the executive vice president of Torrey Advisory Group, Smith helps teach members of Congress about the issues in front of the ag industry.
“We represent people from the farm gate - dairy farmers, soybean farmers, corn farmers, retailers like Wegmans and everything in between, whether it’s ag inputs, processors or ingredient companies,” Smith says. “We do lobbying for them, general issues management, light communications, and association management as well.”
Smith joined the Top Producer podcast with host Paul Neiffer and shared four insights about lobbying in Washington D.C.
Q: When lobbying on the Hill, do you primarily meet with staff, representatives or senators?
A: A lot of folks come to town for their Fly Ins to lobby on an issue, and they get really disappointed where they don’t get to meet with a member. But I would say those staff are really important. They are the gatekeepers of information to their bosses, particularly if their boss doesn’t know agriculture particularly well, or doesn’t know your issue particularly well. Build that relationship with the staff so when that staffer has a question about a certain policy issue or a bill, you’re the resource and the person they call to ask a question. That’s invaluable. Meeting with members is great and very important, but I wouldn’t undersell that time with staffers.
Q: Many people have the assumption there’s a great deal of hurry to get a farm bill done. But there’s no deadline until either Sept. 30 or Dec. 30. What’s your take?
A: Congress works best under pressure and with deadlines. The intent might be there to try to move something quickly, but my guess is that there is a laundry list of other issues that are really going to take the oxygen out of the room in D.C. for the first several months this year. It’s hard to see where a farm bill fits in at all this year. And I think it would be really amazing work on the part of the leadership of the ag committee to have something ready to go in September.
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Q: What have you heard about reference prices in the next farm bill?
A: It’s hard with the farm economy where it is right now, pre-tariffs and let alone post-tariffs, to envision us a farm bill without some sort of increase in reference price prices or beefing up of Title One. If you’ve looked at the numbers getting a crop like soybeans, for example, to a decent reference price level where they would actually trigger in really bad situations - like a trade war with China - is going to require a really significant increase on a lot of acres, and that means it gets really expensive, really fast. I think it’s really hard to envision us getting a farm bill across the finish line without some of that funding.
Q: You lobby on behalf of the crop insurance industry. Why is crop insurance so important?
A: It’s one of the most important programs we have coming out of USDA. When we start talking about all of these different disasters that are coming at farmers - tariffs or increased input prices or weather disasters - the first money on the ground from USDA is crop insurance money. You look at Title One or ad hoc disaster assistance, you’re looking at a full year, maybe two, before you see a dollar in the farmer’s pocket. There’s a lot of confidence in crop insurance being able to meet those needs and being able to be a guarantee.
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