Concerns about the future of agriculture dominated the discussion March 7 as U.S. Rep. Tony Wied met with top officials from Genex, one of the world’s great suppliers of bovine semen.
Huub te Plate, Genex’s chief executive officer, presented Wied with information on the Shawano-based company and how it plays a part in growing not only the country’s dairy and beef industries, but also the world’s. He said there are about 4,500 member farms in the Genex cooperative, with about 100 delegates who manage the company as a whole.
With President Donald Trump’s announcements about tariffs for many countries, including China, te Plate told Wied that such talk has his company concerned about future operations and distribution.
“China is a challenge,” te Plate said. “They just shut down the market. We can’t deliver there anymore, because the USDA (Department of Agriculture) APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) has some problems declaring some disease-free and low-disease statuses.”
Te Plate said that APHIS has not done a recent survey of Genex’s operations to confirm that the company has low instances of bluetongue, an insect-borne disease that can impact cattle, sheep and other meat animals, and that is the main cause for the issues in China. However, he clarified that even once that issue’s resolved, having a tariff war with China will not help the company’s bottom line.
Genex uses a lot of USDA programs in its work at home and abroad, including the Foreign Agriculture Service, according to te Plate. He noted that Genex also has a USAID program in Africa that was impacted by Trump’s sudden changes to USAID’s operation.
“The tariffs, they really scare us, to say it directly,” te Plate said. “We have production in Canada, for biosecurity and risk mitigation reasons, so that’s going to be really tough. We don’t even know if genetics are going to be part of the tariffs. They weren’t four years ago, but the list of products that is is long.”
Wied sits on the House Agriculture Committee and said a new farm bill is on the top of the list to get through Congress this year. The farm bill is usually updated every five or six years, but the last bill passed in 2018 and has simply been extended since.
“I’m very hopeful. I’m confident that is the No. 1 priority of the chairman, G.T. Thompson, and he talked about it the first time we met,” Wied said.
He noted that his office is “getting information fast” from the Trump Administration but was hopeful that genetics would be insulated from the tariffs in the meantime as Congress tries to push through priorities like the farm bill. However, Wied did not guarantee that the farm bill would be safe from the massive cuts in spending for which Trump is pushing.
“What I first realized right off the bat was that a lot of what’s in the farm bill has to do with SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and things that aren’t with farmers,” Wied said. “With the budget process right now and going through the budget reconciliation process that Congress is doing, we’re going to be tasked to find some savings in the budget. So we need to look a lot at the SNAP and the food assistance programs.”
Wied said talking with officials at Genex and other agriculture representatives around northeast Wisconsin is giving him a chance to push for things that will benefit farmers and others in his district.
“That’s my job, to be an extension of the farmers here in District 8 and bringing that information with me to make sure we’re advocating for the farmers here,” Wied said, noting that he expects a farm bill to get through Congress by the end of this summer. “That’s why this was an important meeting today.”
Wied also talked about the need to grow the nation’s economy, as well as getting Congress to return to approving budgets instead of passing resolutions to extend the existing budget, a practice that has occurred for decades with threats of government shutdowns popping up every few months.
“What we continue to do is spend money we don’t have, ultimately printing money that is causing our inflation,” Wied said. “I also believe in just generally peace through strength and getting back to doing business around the world, getting back to countries doing business with each other, allowing for more free and fair trade around the world. That’s really important to me, and I know that’s what President Trump is focused on, too.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
Genex sits with Wied to discuss farm bill, tariffs
