NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Given the wildfires in portions of the Big First district earlier this year and the heavy rains we've seen in the last several weeks, it's a tough time to be in agriculture, according to Congressman Tracey Mann.
"Mother Nature can be a tough business partner," Mann said Wednesday. "That's the nature of agriculture. Credit our ag producers, livestock producers and farmers. What they do every day to feed and clothe the world is pretty remarkable."
Combine that with the inflation of the costs of what it takes to get crops out of the ground and to market, and it's really a challenge, not to mention the repair work if any fence is destroyed as a result of wildfires.
"The cost to build one mile of four barb red brand wire, the quote last year was $10,000 a mile," Mann said. "The cost for that same fence today is $20,000 a mile. The cost is doubled."
That's why a test program from The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University to put GPS collars that can shock cattle on them rather than building fence may ultimately be a long-term solution, but any innovation needs to be both cost and nature effective. Mann also noted that it's important from an input cost perspective not to so quickly go away from fossil fuels, as a matter of federal policy.
"This war on fossil fuel and really liquid fuels needs to end," Mann said. "We need to finish the Keystone XL pipeline, we need to lift regulation on our oil and gas producers. We need to return to drilling. The answer is below our feet and growing in our fields. We just need to tap into it."
Mann did not support the gas tax holiday that President Biden wanted to propose as he didn't see it as a solution to the larger problem.