Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senators Roger Marshall and Michael Bennet (D-CO) co-led a hearing on building drought resiliency in the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources, according to a media release from Marshall's office.
The hearing, which featured two Kansans, comes amid published reports that wheat crop yield in Kansas is expected to drop by more than 100 million bushels from last year's harvest. During his opening statement, Senator Marshall summarized how recent droughts in the United States are hurting Kansas’ agricultural industry, saying in part,
“Just last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deemed April as one of the driest months on record in the last 100 years. Currently, over half of the state is in a designated moderate drought, and over a third of the state is designated as severe. Just last week, the Topeka Capital Journal reported that the projected wheat yield in Kansas is expected to drop by over 100 million bushels, a value of over one billion dollars. This lack of rain not only hurts farm production at its most crucial time, but also adversely affects ranchers and families who fall victim to raging wildfires across the plains, incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in assets, and at their worst, homes and lives.”
Among the five witnesses were two agricultural experts from Kansas including Tom Willis from Liberal, Owner/Manager of T&O Farms LLC and a farmer with the KSU Water Farm; and Earl Lewis from Manhattan, Chief Engineer with the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources and a member of the Western States Water Council. Senator Marshall introduced both Mr. Willis and Mr. Lewis at the start of the hearing.