U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek, a Democrat from Council Bluffs, says there’s what he calls a “farmageddon” in rural America due to the the failure of the U-S Senate to pass a new Farm Bill and the trade war that’s hurt corn and soybean farmers.
“The word that I’ve heard over and over and over from our farmers is the word betrayal,” Turek said Wednesday in southwest Iowa. “They have largely supported Trump and it’s because of these tariffs that we have seen that has led to our commodity prices being upside down.”
Turek made his comments at a farm south of Clarinda, as members of a “Farmers for Turek” coalition gathered to endorse his primary campaign against fellow Democrat Zach Wahls. “When I am in the senate, congress will not recess until we have an active Farm Bill. No one gets to go home until our farmers are taken care of,” Turek said, to applause. “I also want to make sure that we do something to address the monopolies that are jacking up our input prices and make sure we’ve got monopoly enforcement.”
Turek, who’s been elected to two terms in the Iowa House of Representatives, said it’s time for the U.S. Senate to vote to allow nationwide, year-round sales of E15. “Especially in a situation where we have seen unstable markets, we’ve seen a loss of demand and commodity prices being upside down, I think E15 is a way to address this and provide a little bit more stability to markets and market prices for our farmers,” Turek said. The E15 bill passed the U-S House earlier this month.
Turek is competing for the chance to face Republican frontrunner Ashley Hinson in the General Election for the seat currently held by U.S. Senator Joni Ernst. Jim Carlin of Sergeant Bluff, a Republican who started his campaign for the U.S. Senate nearly a year ago, is running against Hinson in the Primary.
(By Mike Peterson, KMA, Shenandoah)