ICYMI: Senator Marshall Joins Market Day Report on RFD-TV to give a Farm Bill Update and Discuss his Legislation Addressing Imitation Meat Labeling

Washington, D.C.- Senator Marshall joined Market Day Report on RFD-TV to discuss his new Fair and Accurate Ingredient Representation on Labels (FAIR Labels) Act, legislation that requires more accurate and transparent consumer labeling of imitation meats created with cell-cultured products from a lab or with plant-based proteins. Senator Marshall also discussed pushing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to keep better track of foreign adversaries owning American farmland, Joe Biden’s ongoing border crisis, and crop insurance in the 2024 Farm Bill. 

Highlights from Senator Marshall’s interview include: 

On the FAIR Labels Act:

“Consumers more than ever want to know exactly what they’re eating, they want to know where it’s from as well. So I think it’s very unfair to put some of these soybeans or plant-based proteins to put them in the meat counter, and really mislabeling them.” 

“They’re [consumers are] assuming if it’s in the meat counters, it’s from an American-grown cow, pig, chicken, whatever it is, they don’t have any idea it’s from plant-based, and really the science and the studies behind the plant-based, they’re not held to the same level that American products are, the typical protein sources.”

“As far as next steps, I’m afraid that our White House and some of my friends across the aisle won’t make this a priority. So we’ll keep fighting.”

On Foreign Ownership of American Farmlands:

“Food security is national security. Americans, we take our groceries so much for granted, but we’re blessed to just live in this incredible country where we can actually grow more than we can eat. Other nations see this, and they want to move in here and try to gain ownership of that, whether it’s land, or the meat processing, or whatever stage of this food process is, they want to own pieces of it.”

“Right now we don’t even have a good idea of how much land does China own, and exactly where it is. So we’re calling on this administration to do their job, measure it, so then we can manage it and see what big of a threat this is or isn’t.”

On Joe Biden’s Border Crisis and its Impact on Ag Communities:

“Certainly for the folks back home, this is our number one concern. Every state is now a border state. 10 million people have crossed the border illegally in the last three years, 1.9 million ‘gotaways,’ terrorists, foreign nationals, all these things are happening.”

“Americans understand this, this President has the authority right now to shut down the border. Why does he want more legislation when he already has the authority to do it? I don’t think Americans are going to fall for this.”

“I’ve been to the border several times and spent time on some of these ranches and some of these farms. Number one its just the physical threat that many of these farmers and ranchers have been physically threatened by these people. They tear up their fields, they disrupt the work that’s going on on the farm if you can imagine that as well, just the constant disruption of the activities as well, let alone the vandalism and just the inability to do your daily work.”

“It’s costing American taxpayers about $500 billion a year, and the White House has found ways to take monies from one place and put them into another. But of course, it’s all in the back of American taxpayers.”

“I want to secure the border… I think there’s policy changes that need to be made. But mostly Joe Biden just needs to enforce the current law and stop breaking the law.”

“Right now he’s been paroling, about 700,000 people a year. Under Barack Obama, he paroled only 5,000 people a year. So we went from 5,000 to 700,000. Clearly, the parole law says you’re supposed to do this one person at a time, and Joe Biden is doing it tens of thousands of people at a time. So just enforce the current laws that we have, maintain operational control.”

On Supporting Crop Insurance in the Farm Bill:

“Crop insurance, crop insurance, crop insurance. Crop insurance is the backbone of every Farm Bill, and your listeners, most of them understand, but we need to communicate to folks that don’t live on the farm, that crop insurance allows us to plant next year’s crops. We have so many forces against us from Mother Nature we cannot control.”

“Crop insurance has gone up, just like everyone’s insurance has gone up. We’re kind of stalled in a Farm Bill right now. We’ve maxed the funding for the food programs, but we want to put the farm back in the Farm Bill, we think we need to have more money for crop insurance, as well as the Title One funding of the PLC reference prices, the ARC reference prices.”

“American farmers are growing more with less. We’re the original conservationists, but yet our input prices are going up and up and up, whether it’s fertilizer or diesel fuels. But the big concern back home is interest rates. The average farmer has a million-dollar operation loan, their interest rates went from two to nine percent, that basically ate whatever profit was left.”