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Hello and thank you for joining us today.

the US Supreme Court has overturned a 50 year old constitutional law.

Roe V Wade.

This ruling comes after a draft opinion was leaked to the public over a month ago, joining us to discuss its impact on the state of Arkansas is State Representative Vivian Flowers and Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council.

I want to say a big thank you to both of you for joining us today.

I know it's been a busy day for both of you.

I'm going to start in studio and go to representative.

Flowers first, thank you so much for being with us today.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you for having me and I know it's kind of raw and new.

This all just came down but I just want to know your immediate reaction.

Well, it's it's not one of shock since we were Privy to the leak some time ago, but it's still heart wrenching that the government the government would once again take us back to a place where women and girls are not protected.

By the government and by our Constitution, as we rightfully have been with the Roe versus Wade decision over 50 years ago.

I understand and Jerry Cox thank you so much for spending some time with us today as well.

Your raw reaction?

Well, this is a historic ruling because most legal scholars would tell you that Roe V Wade was wrongly decided.

It was one of the worst decisions in the history of the United States, really.

And so for the last 50 years almost.

The issue of abortion policy has been in the hands of unelected judges.

Those unelected judges finally said, you know what?

This is not right.

This needs to be decided in the halls of the state capitals around the country.

Let democracy work the way it's supposed to.

And that's exactly what this allows.

That allows each state to make their own abortion laws, and thankfully, the Arkansas legislature here in Arkansas.

The Governor, the Attorney general, have all worked very hard to pass some very good pro-life legislation for the people of Arkansas.

And that's a great point, because this really brings it back to the States and depending on what you read, there's a different number of states that have already have legislation passed.

Explain for us Jerry how this works in Arkansas because of the law that was passed in 2019.

In 2019, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a law that says if Roe V Wade is reversed, then abortion will be illegal in Arkansas except to save the life of the mother and and so the attorney general is charged with signing a document certifying that Roe V Wade indeed has been reversed and that this law is now enforceable and so that process is going on, and I'm told that the abortion facilities in Little Rock have already turned people away and said we're not doing anymore abortions, and so it's important to point out.

That abortion never was a right in the Constitution.

The court found some kind of privacy thing in there years ago, but this ruling turns all that around and says, you know, it's up to the states to decide what this ought to be.

And that's exactly where it is.

And that's where it needs to stay.

And representative flowers.

I want to turn back to you and you kind of reacted there a little bit.

What is going through your mind when it comes to regard to the law and the legal side of this decision?

Well, I don't I. I don't know that I have seen, heard or read of very many legal scholars who have said that the Roe versus Wade decision was wrongly decided.

And I also don't know what to say about this.

Privacy thing that was found.

I think that.

Privacy the right to privacy is something that has been well healed in case law.

Whether it comes to the privacy of students, our privacy rights as it relates to health decisions and our health records, so that privacy thing is not just a thing that the the Supreme Court found, and I think that.

I think excuse me, I think that as we explore, sort of where we are.

This notion that these decisions belongs to the states.

If we look at the history of this country, I don't know of very many situations, especially when it comes to.

The enslavement of people or justifying Jim Crow laws that states rights is a good argument for much of anything when it comes to the protection of people including and especially women and girls in this case, so you know, I would challenge any argument that makes light of privacy, or that just.

Loosely says that there are throngs of legal scholars that call Roe versus Wade wrongly decided I I, I think that's unfounded and disingenuous.

And finally.

I think that when we think about the impact to Arkansas and the rush across the states based upon very partisan and political organizations, and.

Efforts these are not legal considerations.

These have been a rush to win political favor among a small minority of people.

When you look at polls, most people in this country believe if we're going to talk about democracy, that abortion is not something that should be decided by government.

And it's not something that should be decided by.

Individuals outside of a woman and her doctor.

In Arkansas, this notion that we should not consider incest or rape is not only mean, but it.

It throws us back to a time when women's bodies and women's choices were are not not considered and and were not protected by the by the Constitution and so for me it's a very sad day in America and A and an even Saturday in Arkansas.

In a we have sadness from one side and celebration from the other side.

The President of Family Counsel, Jerry Cox, didn't respond to the argument that you guys have made it very clear you're talking about the value of each and every life.

But how do you respond to the women's rights and the women's right to decision?

And between her and her doctor?

Well, we act as if abortion is just like any old thing and I think representative flowers knows and I do too.

It's very serious thing it carries with it tremendous trauma for a lot of women.

It carries tremendous guilt and so not only does this ruling protect the lives of the unborn and I'm my dad that these children live in the womb, but they have a separate brain wave, separate blood type, separate fingerprints.

These are distinct.

Human beings and for anyone to somehow assert that it's a woman's right to take the life of this person who happens to live there in the womb, I find it appalling that anyone would allege such a thing.

That said, that's what this ruling does.

It allows every state to protect those innocent unborn children.

Keep them away from being killed, and it gives them a chance to live.

It gives them a chance to grow up.

It gives them the same shot.

That each of us got, and I think we owe that to them.

And so to somehow relegate this to choice, I think is is the wrong argument, and my apologies, but I do have to go to another meeting.

I appreciate representative flowers and her opinion and the debate.

But thank you so much for having me on the show.

Yes, thank you very much.

Jerry Cox.

We appreciate you as well and just one final comment from representative Flowers.

Any concern about violence when it comes to the response of this ruling?

I think that.

People who have been concerned about the the wave and the attacks against physicians.

The attacks against women violence has long been a concern and I don't know.

I've never seen someone who has sought to defend the rights of the constitutional rights of women before today.

Shoot or kill someone who was fighting on the other side.

I think we've seen that.

Actually play out in in on the in the other way and you know this notion that and and I don't want to.

I didn't want to get into a debate about when life begins and the viability of an embryo or a fetus.

I think there's room for conversation about science and technology and what that means for the choices we make.

But also for what that means for medical science and innovation.

But again.

A wholesale ban without considering rape or incest?

It begs the question, you know who's whose?

Life is more valuable and who's making those decisions.

So while some may find it appalling that that conversation might be had, appropriately, I find it appalling for any man to think that it is his place to make a decision or cast judgment on a woman about whether or not she should carry a pregnancy to term.

What be it resulting from.

Incest or rape or from the perspective of a woman who was poor or left alone, unmarried or married, and in violent situations.

So there are a lot of things for us to consider and a lot of things for a lot of people to be appalled about today.

Well, you have brought up a lot of good points.

This is only the beginning of this debate, but thank you so very much for your time today.

We very much appreciate it.

Thank you and thank you for watching and we will be right back.

Hello and thank you for watching a field hearing was held recently by the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry to hear from farmers, advocates and officials about their concerns and recommendations for the 2023 farm bill Chair and US.

Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, along with our very own ranking member.

US Senator John Boozman listened to testimonies about increasing farm costs drops in rice acreage and crop insurance.

Here to expound on these issues and more are Andrew Grobmyer, Executive Vice President and director of the Agricultural Council of Arkansas.

Kelly Robbins, executive director of the Arkansas Rice Federation, Alvaro Durand Morat, an economist and assistant professor for the University of Arkansas.

System division of Agriculture and Nathan Reed, a farmer from Marianna and chairman of the American cotton producers.

We are so thankful that you all joined us here today.

Thank you very much for being here and Andrew.

I'm going to start with you first.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Good to be here.

Appreciate it just for those who don't know.

Give us a brief overview of what is the farm bill and why is it important to everybody, not just farmers right?

The farm bill is a comprehensive piece of legislation that is authorized.

Every five years, roughly, it has 12 titles.

Covers everything from nutrition programs to farm programs to rural economic initiatives, and much more beyond that.

But it's a comprehensive bill.

It is scheduled for reauthorization in 2023, and we're beginning the process for considering what changes to make to current law so that it serves Americans into the future for the next five years or four or beyond.

Really, if you eat food, this affects you.

Absolutely, because to get our food to our plate is a huge process.

It doesn't just appear.

I don't think a lot of people put a lot of time and knowledge into that process and what it really takes to get to your plate.

So everybody should be tuning in.

Everybody should be caring about this talk a little bit about that process.

There was a hearing in Jonesboro just last week.

I'm curious to know how much do they listen?

How much do they pull from these hearings?

And knowing what these issues are?

And then what does the process look like to actually create this bill?

2023, yes, so the hearing held in Jonesboro was an all day affair.

It started early in the morning with a breakfast with the senators and carried on to the official hearing in which they heard from 2 panels covering the whole entirety of the farm bill.

Three of the witnesses were members of the Ad Council of Arkansas that were representing various commodity interests, speaking to how the current law is working for them and where it can be improved upon into the next farm bill.

Senator Bozeman, being from Arkansas and being vice chairman, is set to have a major role in the drafting of the next farm bill and we were able to communicate to him what's working in Arkansas.

What's important for Arkansas and how to make this policy better for Arkansas and the US as a whole, this is a food security domestic security measure that we're talking about here.

Absolutely, we're going to get into more details of all of the breakdown and just a little bit.

But first for those who don't know how huge is agriculture?

Farming here in the state of Arkansas.

Well, we represent the rowcrop AG interests and that includes a lot of commodities that everybody's familiar with.

Soybeans, rice, cotton, corn and and the like.

All very important for a variety of reasons, creating food, creating fiber, creating energy, a lot of things that are important to this economy, to the people of the United States and beyond, and so it's it's a major thing here in Arkansas.

We also have forestry and a lot of other interests as well and specialty.

Production very diverse state economically when it comes to agriculture, very dependent state on agriculture economically as well.

Absolutely it's such a great point and you mentioned rice and I'm gonna turn over to Kelly Robbins, executive director of Arkansas Rice Federation.

And we're going to talk about this farm bill.

But first for those who don't know how big is rice when it comes to the state of Arkansas?

Well, thanks for the question and for allowing me to be here with you today.

Christina Rice is is a staple food for over half of the world's population.

But it's a big a big big deal for Arkansas and for our economy and for our people here arises raised in over 40 of Arkansas, 75 counties and Arkansas proudly leads our country and rice production.

We produce about half of of our country's rice production each year.

I have about a $6 billion impact each year on our state's economy.

It's raised on over 2000 farms and employs over 20,000 people at some aspect or some part of the rice production game in Arkansas.

Wow, just a pause.

Right there and take that in.

Those are huge numbers.

Fiscally.

Jobs wise, the impact that it has here.

I just feel like a lot of people buy rice at the grocery store and never pay attention to what it takes to get it there.

And then across the entire world, it's a huge industry indeed.

It is and I've glad that you mentioned folks about it at the grocery store.

We want folks to continue to eat more rice.

Arkansas probably also know the impact that we have as far as waterfowl habitat and economic impact.

The waterfowl hunting duck hunting has each year in Arkansas and that wouldn't be president if it weren't for for rice production and rice farmers.

Absolutely great point.

OK, so this has gone down the acreage of rice has gone down pretty significantly.

Talk about why that's happening.

You bet it's directly related to high input costs, which simply just means what all rice farmers have to spend to get that crop in the ground.

Get it out, get it to the mill and all.

All of us are feeling the pinch from inflation, but the rice farmers in particular and we'll.

We'll probably hear more today from from others about the high input cost of production cost that all of agriculture was experiencing.

But Rice is a little different.

We're special in many ways, and one of those ways is that it costs more to put that seed in the ground and to get to get our rice out of the field and with fuel and fertilizer costs going through the roof, our farmers are feeling that more so than many of the other commodity groups and commodity prices for rice haven't gone up quite as much as as others.

It's so interesting because we hear meat.

Prices went up and so your menus are going up, but you don't hear that about rice.

It's not the same thing.

We have seen a slight increase in that, but when you look at again fertilizer and fuel cost, farmers have options to go with other commodities, primarily soybeans.

Here in Arkansas, on a rotation with rice and for example an acre of soybeans takes about 21 gallons of fuel per acre.

Rice takes almost double that, 41 gallons of fuel per acre.

On average.

We use the fertilizer.

Pathogen of standard fertilizer.

Used in rice, about £150 per acre.

That's required soybeans really, don't they don't really use nitrogen or have to have much more open it, so just as a couple of examples, wow.

And so I'm going to get to what you're asking for what you're hoping for in the farm bill to kind of help offset all of that.

But first, we're going to go to cotton and for that we go to Nathan Reed.

Not only the chairman of the American cotton producers, but also a farmer yourself.

So it's the same kind of question to you.

What are the issues that we're seeing with regard to cotton and also thank you for joining us.

Well, thank you.

I'm excited to be able to join in, uh?

It's Kelly mentioned one of the the major obstacles in cotton production and and in a production as a whole, is these rising input prices.

We do have increased crop crop prices, which really helps the the increased commodity prices, but still are.

Our inputs are have skyrocketed and so there there's major concern that one even making a profit this year with the high input prices, even though we do have high commodity prices and the very big concern is commodity prices actually.

Dropping in price and the input price is still staying high, so that's a huge concern.

You know through the farm bill, the current farm bill.

There are safety Nets in place for low commodity prices, but there's not really many avenues for a situation that we're in now with with high commodity prices but extremely high input prices.

So OK, so I'm assuming those are going to be some of the things that you're going to be hoping are adjusted or changed for this 2023 farm bill.

Absolutely.

It would be nice on the the safety net side to to see an increase in reference price of our commodities, because when these I guess minimum support prices that that they that are in the the current farm bill when when they were done commodities were at a lot lower price.

It was a different environment and and also in Arkansas.

A lot of Arkansas farmland is is very improved.

We generally make a crop so crop.

Insurance is good, but we we typically don't have total crop failures, so so Arkansas specific.

Our big big issue would be a shallow loss, whether it's a shallow loss on yield, you know a 10 to 20% reduction in yield because of some factors or increased inputs, and so you know.

Hopefully there might be some opportunities for some insurance products there, like a shallow loss coverage insurance product through crop insurance.

Well and want to turn to.

Duran Morat, economist and assistant professor U of a system, division of agriculture.

Thank you, of course, for joining us as well, and I'm curious to know because the answer always seems to be money money.

We all need more money.

We needed money with the crop insurance.

We need money with subsidies or whatever it may be.

So knowing that money is not limitless and that there are a lot of concerns about how much is being spent already, what are some of the answers that we can do for these farmers to really help them out in this bill?

Well, thank you for having me and thank you for for this discussing this important topic.

Again, the farm bill.

I will just start by saying that it is.

It is a vital piece of legislation for for American farmers for Arkansas farmers.

And and you're right.

I mean, we are assandra say we are starting to discuss the next farm bill in 2023 and.

And along those discussions are budget discussions and there is a whole, you know, budget procedure that needs to be followed and.

So basically, the way things work is you know if you want to improve spending in some programs.

Basically that has to come from some other programs, so there is a kind of an internal.

Battle if you will for funds and all that is going to really.

Ultimately, define what can be done so we know we know what you know farmers want.

Or in general we start hearing what they want in terms of commodity title in terms of crop insurance and that that was one of the reasons for the meeting last week.

Also with the with the Senators is to hear what farmers want in particular Arkansas farmers.

But all those discussions will start really go into details about what changes are.

An interesting and important for farmers.

How much those changes may end up costing and where that money will come from.

So again, money is a scale resource, and if we want to increase spending for say, rice, it will need to come or for the PLC program it will need to come from somewhere else, so that's what makes all the farm bill discussions very.

Very interesting absolutely, and I want to hear from everybody one more time before we have to wrap up, and so I'm curious, what do you consider success when you see what comes into the 2023 farm bill in the end?

Well, our primary focus is on three titles of the Farm bill.

We have the commodity title, the crop insurance title, conservation being the 3rd and, and very important all of it is about sustainability of our farmers and making sure that they're able to weather all the various volatile matters that they face and adverse matters they face in a given crop year.

And so that's kind of what we're looking at.

We want to make sure that the factors that have changed since the last bill was written are included in in the development of this new law, and making sure that the safety Nets are there to ensure that Americans continue to have a safe and abundant and affordable food supply.

And if we did not have this, those would not be guaranteed.

And we're very lucky in America to have you know, grocery store shelves that are full, despite some of the supply chain challenges we've we've continued to.

Produce we've been, you know, essential workers, and providing that for Americans, and I think we can all be thankful for that.

Yes, and I think we can look to the farm bill to ensure that that gratitude will continue the fact that we still have access to food is a wonderful thing.

So real quick on rice.

What would be your goal to have in there?

You bet you?

Well, it's Nathan and Andrew have both mentioned they referenced the the price loss coverage PLC and that's a A baseline reference price that's used for for rice that was established 10 years ago in 2012.

Using production cost back then, ten years in advance from there our cost have gone up.

We need to have that updated and we need to have some indexing factors that are built in so that we're not just stuck with it for five years.

Moving forward that it can adjust as prices go up.

Very good point.

This typically goes through every five years.

Nathan final question to you real quick.

Same thing.

What would you like to see in there for sure?

Well, I I just want first your viewers to understand that that we as farmers are are price takers.

Not not price setters.

So whenever in the commodities whenever you have a drop in commodity prices we have no way to offset that cost, we cannot raise our prices to do that and that's why for the security of food and fiber production in America, the farm bill is so important.

And in order to have a meaningful farm bill that provides.

Still protections to farmers in times of tough economic despair, we need the ability to respond to high prices, high input prices.

We need the ability to like was mentioned to maybe up the reference prices.

So when you do have a rapid drop in commodities, the reference prices are so low.

A lot of times we trigger a loss and profit on the farm, but it does not trigger any type of meaningful support and 2nd we need a robust crop insurance program to help deal for when there are disasters.

And like Andrew mentioned, the environmental concerns farmers are at the forefront and sustainability and Environmental Protection in America.

I plan a lot of cover crops and do a lot of different things that are obviously very helpful to the environment and sustainable.

Regenerative agricultural production practices.

It would be nice to be able to get some a little bit of compensation to help expand on that and improve what we're doing there.

Very easy to understand.

They're absolutely well Nathan and Alvaro and Andrew and Kelly.

Thank you all very much for being with us.

Today I'm, Christina Munoz for Arkansas week and I'll see you next time.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.