国际英语资讯:Spotlight: U.S. farm groups want open markets, not govt aid_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: U.S. farm groups want open markets, not govt aid

"Farmers rely on markets to make a living. Our ongoing trade wars have destroyed our reputation as a reliable supplier and have left family farmers with swelling grain stores and empty pockets," Johnson said Thursday in a statement.

"The very least we can do is provide our country's struggling food producers with the certainty of a longer-term plan that also addresses the persistent and pernicious problem of oversupply," he said.

Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, also stressed that the United States needs a long-term strategy that offers farmers "fair and open access to markets."

"The real, long-term solution to our challenges in agriculture is good outcomes to current negotiations with China, Japan and the European Union, as well as congressional approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement," Duvall said Thursday in a statement.

In a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump on May 14, Duvall called on the U.S. government to swiftly resolve trade disputes with China, as some farmers are having a critical decision to make.

"I am hearing anecdotal reports of farmers, particularly those who are dealing with planting delays due to weather, deciding not to plant a crop this year because there's just no market for it," Duvall wrote in the letter.

"In 2018, U.S. agricultural exports to China declined 10 billion dollars -- about a 50 percent loss. This is a drastic reversal for what had been a growing market," he noted.