FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Sara Robertson (Sara.Robertson2@mail.house.gov)

Arkansas Congressman calls out Samantha Power on odd weekend fertilizer comments

“The Biden Administration’s lack of concern for, and attention to, rural America rears its head yet again,” he says

5/2/2022

Washington, D.C. — Today, Representative Rick Crawford (AR-01) noted that odd remarks made yesterday by USAID Administrator Samantha Power, concerning a serious fertilizer crisis impacting US farmers, was merely the latest example of the Biden Administration’s poor understanding of the US agriculture sector that feeds and clothes America and the world. Power, interviewed on ABC News’ This Week by former Clinton senior advisor George Stephanopoulos, correctly noted that Russia’s war on Ukraine is exacerbating the fertilizer supply shortage, but her comments then ran off the rails.

“The Biden Administration’s runaway inflation, and its war on domestic energy production, have harmed all Americans, but particularly those in rural America,” Crawford said. “For us, soaring fertilizer prices and reduced supplies hurt not only at the grocery store, but endanger farmers’ incomes and crop production, leading to the food shortages now emerging.”

Power suggested farmers would eventually “transition” to “natural solutions like manure and compost” to solve the fertilizer crisis, seemingly unaware that those sources are already extensively deployed, in conjunction with chemical fertilizers and other crop nutrition technologies, with each playing roles based on crop choice and other factors.

USAID reports that “the world will have to double its current food production” by 2050 to meet its food needs. Yet the Biden Administration overregulates the agriculture sector, pushes a Green New Deal that foresees eliminating cows due to “bovine flatulence,” announced a “Meatless Mondays” campaign when Biden was Vice President, and has dragged its feet on the quickest way to provide relief to America’s farmers, which would be to lift tariffs on fertilizer from Morocco and other countries until US supply rises and prices fall to affordable levels.

Alluding to Power’s controversial past, Crawford concluded, “She has either been ‘unmasked’ as unknowledgeable about agriculture, or she made a ‘monster’ of a gaffe.”

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