From the Ground Up: The center helping Congress understand impacts of agricultural, food policy

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - When creating policy in D.C., there can be a disconnect between elected officials and the farmers and consumers they represent. That’s where the Texas A&M Agricultural & Food Policy Center comes into play.

The center analyzes potential impacts of government policy proposals and procedure implementation for farmers, producers, taxpayers and consumers. It’s also a research and education center for government agencies, farm and agribusiness organizations, and agricultural leadership throughout Texas and the nation.

As the Co-director of the Agricultural & Food Policy Center at Texas A&M, Bart Fischer collaborates with both policymakers and farmers.

“The thing we are known for is evaluating the farm-level impacts of agricultural policy. So how do the decisions that are made in Washington, DC impact the people out on the ground,” Fischer said.

He’s the 5th-generation to grow up on his family’s farm in Oklahoma, where they raise wheat, cotton and cattle. Fischer also served for more than eight years on the House Agricultural Committee in the US House of Representatives. It’s the background he says helps him relate to all the people he works with.

“We’re then able to draw on all of our experience. For me, it was 8 and a half years of also working on Capitol Hill in the role that a lot of these staff are in now I can identify with them,” he said.

For the center, Fischer says there’s two main roles it plays; working with growers around the country and giving advice to policymakers on Capitol Hill.

“A lot of it is us just answering questions and helping them think through and frame the issues,” he said.

They do that by running scenarios at 94 “representative” farms across the country.

“They’re virtually farms that are reflective of that particular area of the country. Ninety-four of them in 30 different states, 64 of them are crop farms, 20 dairies and then 10 cow-calf ranches. On every single one of [the farms] they’re backed by a panel of about four to six producers, and so it’s what makes our process very unique,” Fischer said.

The simulations let the policy center collect data from the farms and take that information straight to policymakers.

“We take all of that, bring it back to our center and then Congress can ask anything,” Fischer said. “They can ask ‘What if we change the cost share on federal crop insurance where the federal government picks up a little more or a little less? What if we change reference prices in Title I of the farm bill? What if Ways and Means is looking at changing tax policy?’”

That information, Fischer says, helps Congress understand the lasting impacts of any policy.

“We can simulate the effects of any of those policy changes across all of these farms, and it gives Congress a real, tangible snapshot into how it’s really going to affect real people.”

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