Rep. Crawford on Harvest for Hope and farmers’ aid

As a guest on this week’s Talk Business & Politics D.C. Edition podcast, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Jonesboro, discussed his upcoming appearance in south Lonoke County at next weekend’s Arkansas Pecan Festival in Keo and several Congressional topics.

At the end of the pecan festival, Crawford’s band, Triple Nickel, and other Arkansas performers will take the stage to raise awareness for farmers’ mental health. The concert is called Harvest for Hope.

“We’ve all heard of Farm Aid. It’s been around since 1985 or maybe even longer than that, but I think it got started in 1985 as we were enduring the farm crisis of the 80’s and it was designed to raise money for farmers,” he said.

“I could go down there to Keo and do a deal and even if we raised a million dollars, we wouldn’t make much of an impact. But where we can make an impact is providing resources to address a real big problem that’s underlying this financial crisis. And that’s the mental health crisis that goes along with it. When you’re financially strained and you think maybe generationally you’re losing your farm potentially, or that the threat is there, we want to make sure that farmers don’t feel like they don’t have anybody they can reach out to turn to talk to about what they’re going through emotionally,” added Crawford.

Crawford said he wants to highlight the resources that are available for farmers, and others, to address their mental health.

“My wife is a mental health professional and so it’s kind of something that I have a personal burden for as well,” he said. “I want to make sure that we are providing necessary resources for farmers to address those underlying issues that come along with financial stress. Could be the potential for suicide, could be substance abuse or any other problem that might come from that financial stress, but we want to make sure that the resources are there for farmers and that they know that they’re not alone in the effort.”

Crawford said he’s written two new, original songs to perform at the concert.

As for financial aid to farmers, Crawford said there are three large efforts underway. He expects financial relief to come from this trio of options, not one comprehensive package.

“I’ve got a piece of legislation that we call the ‘Bridge to Gap for Rural Communities Act’ or what we call ‘The Bridge Act.’ It’s designed to allow farmers to opt in for a 50% advanced payment for the ’25 crop year. It would take out the payment limitations as well. So I mean it could help. It’s not the silver bullet, but it can help,” he said.

“There are two other considerations. One is there is some replenishment of the CCC [Commodity Credit Corporation], so there might be some aid there. President Trump talked about some tariff derived revenue being targeted to farm relief, and then I think, I can’t speak for Senator Boozman, but I think there may be something over in the Senate that they’re kicking around as well,” said Crawford.

Crawford said in combination these options could provide between $30-$35 billion in relief for farmers.

“That is not going to happen as a single piece of legislation. That is a big, big bite. I can’t imagine that that would on its own be able to be authorized. But the piecemeal approach – where we can take maybe my bill, whatever the Senate might be considering, and then possibly administrative action, executive authority to provide some relief using tariff derived revenue, all of those things – we might be able to cobble together somewhere in the $30-$35 billion range in total. I think that’s kind of our best case scenario,” he said.

Crawford also discussed the prospects for a Ukraine-Russia peace plan and immigration reform in the wake of the killing of a National Guard member on patrol in Washington, D.C. Listen to his full interview at this link.