Four of Congress' farmers weigh in on how to solve high food prices

Inflation continued to ease in January, fueled by the overall declining cost of energy and consumer goods. But one data point remains stubbornly high: food prices. And few in Washington can agree on how best to rein them in.

According to the January Consumer Price Index, the annual inflation rate dropped slightly to 6.4 percent from 6.5 percent, a figure that’s likely to cheer the Biden White House and Democrats. But the report — a closely watched measure of the economy — also found that the price of food in January increased slightly from the month before and was 10.1 percent higher than it was in January 2022, with the cost of eggs, meat and poultry leading the surge.

While the annual rate of inflation saw a slight decrease, prices rose on a monthly basis with housing costs being the largest contributor to the increase.

The factors driving high food prices are complex and political leaders have few tools to address them. So POLITICO turned to a group of Washington's experts — four members of Congress who are also working farmers.

There was bipartisan agreement on many of the main drivers of food inflation. But that agreement evaporated when we asked what Congress can do to slow it.

The lawmakers’ responses, below, have been edited for length and clarity.

POLITICO: What’s driving up costs for you on your farm?

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the self-proclaimed “only working farmer” in the Senate, who frequently tweets updates while driving a combine in his wheat fields: 

“Repairs. The cost of diesel fuel, in particular. The cost of tires. I mean, repairs, supplies and energy. Repairs would be mostly manpower, and then diesel’s diesel.”

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), a rice farmer in Northern California and frequent critic of the Biden administration: 

“If you want to make my cost of producing an acre of rice come back into line with just a few years ago … then my diesel doesn’t need to cost me five-and-a-half dollars a gallon versus two-and-a-half. Then my fertilizer doesn’t need to be tripled, some of the pesticides I have to use for controlling weeds and stuff. Those have gone up dramatically.”

Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), a former Tennessee agriculture commissioner who raises beef cows on his farm:

“Farmers, just like everyday consumers, we buy lots of fuel to do what we do, and the prices for that have gone up dramatically. Like any auto buyer, it's hard to get tractors because of the supply chain shortages there, and there are more expensive parts.”

Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif), an almond farmer who represents Fresno, a critical agriculture district in California’s Central Valley:  

“The cost of energy. Fertilizer. I grow almonds and the cost of bees has increased significantly over the last five years. And the cost of subcontracting, I’m not large enough to have my own harvesting equipment for my almonds so I hired that out … that has increased significantly over the past several years.”

POLITICO: As a farmer, what do you think it would take to fix food inflation? 

Tester: “More competition in the marketplace. It’s as simple as that. So what the administration has done with meat processing is a step in the right direction. Now they needed to pass my [cattle market] bills to deal with the spot pricing and special investigator. Capitalism works when there's competition. It doesn't when there's consolidation.”

LaMalfa: “[Energy] is one. Also enforcing trade. [Former President Donald] Trump got a deal cut with China back then. … Our ag products are suffering greatly because [China] is not meeting the goals that were set for the ag portion of it.

I spoke to the president right after the end of the [State of the Union] speech, and I talked to him about water, California water. We need his Bureau of Reclamation and the other federal regulatory entities to cut us some slack.”

Rose: “The biggest thing contributing to inflation right now is the runaway government spending that the Biden administration has engaged in.

But then you also have just an onslaught of regulation that stands in the way of current production … the types of policies that have interfered with farmers being able to get their hands on badly needed pesticides.”

Costa: “We have a problem in this country that we’ve not been able to address successfully, and that’s the amount of food waste. … Whether it’s in our schools or other products, one of the things I want to look at this farm bill reauthorization is how we can do a better job with those impacts.

Then if it’s not extreme droughts or floods, I don’t know what category you put the avian flu. Clearly these are things we’re looking at better ability to provide in the farm bill reauthorization, [where] we plan for a lot of invasive pests.”