LORETTO, Pa. — Lawmakers of all levels met with farmers Tuesday at the annual Cambria County Farm Bureau Legislative Tour at Vale Wood Farms to discuss a wide range of local, domestic and international policy issues.
As the rain came down in sheets outside — sometimes so loud that people had to yell to talk to each other — Marty Yahner and other farmers argued that agriculture affects not just them, but “everybody who eats.”
“If farmers are regulated out of businesses or taxed out of businesses or commodity prices are below the cost of production for too long where farmers can’t stay in business, food prices are going to go up,” said Yahner, who is also the governmental relations director for the local farm bureau.
Rep. Glenn “G.T.” Thompson, a longtime Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the highest-ranking official at the event.
Thompson has served as representative for the 5th District for 10 years, but he’s now running in the newly-drawn 15th District, which includes much of Cambria County.
Thompson said he thinks the Trump administration needs to “move along” the tariff process so that “agriculture is not punished by retaliatory tariffs.”
Farmers across the country, including some at the tour Tuesday, have said that tariffs imposed by other countries in response to U.S. tariffs have started to hurt business. Thompson said Tuesday that his goal — and, he thinks, the president’s goal — is to eventually get to “zero tariffs,” although it’s not clear how long that could take.
Thompson was far from the only lawmaker at the event. Also spotted were state Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R–35; state Rep. Bryan Barbin, D–71; state Rep. Frank Burns, D–72; Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan; and Cambria County Commissioners Tom Chernisky, BJ Smith and Mark Wissinger.
For more details about the bills that the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau supports, many of which were discussed today, click here.
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