Cohosted by the Agricultural Leaders of Michigan As Michigan honors agriculture this month and recognizes National Ag Day on March 21, the Agricultural Leaders of Michigan cohosted a media conference on Monday, March 20 providing an overall industry update. Following are comments from the press conference made by MABA President Chuck Lippstreu, summarizing some issues MABA is focused on for 2023. Thanks everyone for being here. I’d like to thank our Agricultural Leaders of Michigan partners. This is a great group and a great cross section of our Michigan agriculture industry coming together to mark National Ag Day. I’m Chuck Lippstreu and I am president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association. We represent 300 businesses and organizations at every point on the agricultural value chain. The main way to think about our members, these are businesses of all sizes that work with farmers to help them get their job done throughout the growing season, and help them access markets across the nation and around the world. So, we get involved in any issue that could impact the agricultural industry in our state. And from where we sit today the number one thing to know is agriculture remains a bright spot in Michigan’s economy and a leading driver of economic growth for our state – by some measures the second largest economic driver in Michigan. It’s a $100 billion-plus industry in terms of annual contributions to our economy. And it’s interesting to note that the industry continued to grow even with the headwinds of the last two or three years. Agricultural exports in 2021, which I think for state level data is the latest that I’ve seen, grew year over year even during the pandemic. And that is a testament to the resiliency of this industry and the willingness of everybody from farmers, to every business that works with farmers, and everybody on the value chain to figure out a way to get the job done. Today I’d like to talk first about some challenges we continue to navigate as an industry. I’m going to restate some things that we just heard, because what you heard from Mr. Diglio on workforce and infrastructure is experienced by everybody in the industry. I’d also like to talk about opportunities in Lansing. This is a year of opportunity for agriculture even during an uncertain time. And I want to close with a couple of items we’re tracking at the federal level as well. First, it’s important to focus on the two core challenges that we continue to face and our member businesses continue to navigate, and that’s the dual crisis of supply chain and workforce. These are issues that go hand in glove. Without enough people working in the supply chain and on logistics issues, the success of the industry is disrupted. Certainly farmers have got serious labor challenges. Agribusinesses do too. Two areas that we’re having special challenges: The first is truck driver availability. There remains a record truck driver shortage in America, projected to reach 100,000 drivers short versus demand over the coming years. Here in Michigan, that has been our experience as well. Trained truck drivers are extremely important to the success of the economy and there are not enough of them. So, we continue to encourage any and all efforts at the state and federal levels to encourage truck drivers to get into the industry, to support them to get trained up and meet requirements to drive, and to keep them in those important jobs. In addition, we have to have rail workers. Rail labor and the lack of workers at the railroads has created substantial disruption, especially in the grain industry. And across both road and rail transportation, we’re focused on building up decrepit infrastructure, especially on the rail front, that we continue to see in rural communities. Again, those are things you’ve heard from our other speakers today. But there’s also opportunity out there. And again, if we recognize agriculture as a leading bright spot in the economy, there are things happening right now that our industry sees as real opportunities. One good example that’s being discussed even as soon as this week in Lansing is the topic of climate solutions led by agriculture – delivered by agriculture using modern technology – as well as work to advance soil health. These are issues that I think are going to be brought up tomorrow at a House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee meeting where we’ll be hearing from experts at Michigan State University. I’m very excited to tune into that hearing and appreciate Chair Julie Brixie for hosting a meeting that’s focused on ag technology and innovation. This is something our member companies are working on every day with the farmers they serve. How do we use modern technology to maximize ROI for the farmer, deliver environmental benefits, and measure results for everybody from policymakers to frontline consumers? There’s so many exciting things happening on that front in the industry and we look forward to telling those stories this year. In addition, we’re excited about the opportunity to once again make progress at the federal level, and this is where I want to close. This is a Farm Bill year. We hope to see a federal farm bill done in 2023 and not stretch into next year. That’s going to take bipartisan leadership in Congress. Thank goodness we’ve got Senator Debbie Stabenow in her capacity as Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee. We’ll be sad to see her go when she steps down from the U.S. Senate. But before that, she’s indicated that she’s going to be hard at work every day on behalf of Michigan. And for her, with that legacy of helping shepherd bipartisan farm bills across the finish line, we’re confident that will continue here with this 2023 Farm Bill. We’re also excited to have, for the first time in a long time, Michigan represented not just on the Senate Agriculture Committee but on the House Agriculture Committee, with Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin joining the House Ag Committee. She is the first member from Michigan on House Agriculture in some time, I think even since Senator Stabenow during her time in the U.S. House. So we’re excited to have Congresswoman Slotkin in that leadership capacity. With that, again, certainly no shortage of challenges, uncertainty and volatility. You heard that from the speakers today. You’ll hear it from us throughout the year. We need people. We need functioning supply chains and those remain major challenges. But this is also a time of opportunity and to ensure we continue to grow Michigan agriculture, which is one of the top drivers of our state’s economy. Thanks again to our partners who are speaking on the call with us and those who joined today.
