Episode 85. 2026 Farm Bill. Protected Lands & Medicaid Land Mines with Joan Alker and Heidi Heitkamp
Hello, one and all, and welcome back to a brand-new episode of "The Rural Impact." I'm Michelle Rathman, and I mean it when I say thank you for joining us for another conversation that works hard to connect those dots between policy and rural everything, or as you've heard me say almost every time, rural quality of life.
Well, we have quite a powerful show for you today, an impactful show for you today, if I dare say. But before we get into that, I just want to give you a few housekeeping notes and share something with you that I really think that you'll be interested in.
Now, if you have not visited our website, theruralimpact.com, I'm going to invite you to do so and scroll down just a little bit on the page, and you're going to see an event that we are hosting on June 22nd, a live event, live audience in our studio, virtual studio, as well as live stream out on YouTube.
And we're doing this in collaboration with the National Association of Community Health Centers. During that event, I will facilitate a conversation, uh, with leaders from six different organizations in three different states, rural health leaders, and they are going to talk to us about the really transformative work that they have been doing for their communities for a very long time.
Of course, you know, we're talking a lot about rural health transformation, but what we're going to talk about during this event, this has been happening for decades, and I think it's going to be extremely useful information for those of you who are looking for new ways forward in this time that we find ourselves in, where rural health is concerned.
So, it's going to be an inspiring power pack event, and I really hope that you will sign up on our website. And while you're there, make sure you hit that subscribe button. It takes literally a second to do. We are not going to flood your inbox. We are not going to sell your information. But what we are going to do is make sure that you get on our list so that you can receive our e-blasts with information recapping our shows, giving you a preview of what we got coming up next, and all sorts of information that we hope you find of value. That is our goal here.
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And lastly, if you are interested in partnering with us, there's a place for you to go on the website to do that, too. Also, real quick, before I introduce who we've got on for today, make sure that you follow us on social and wherever you listen to this podcast. Again, hit that subscribe button, leave a comment.
We do appreciate that, and we know, based on algorithms, that when you do, it helps other people find us as well. Okay, with that said, let me tell you what we've got going on for today's show because it is a doozy of a show to be sure. I don't, can't believe I just said that word, but I did.
Okay. It's a serious subject matter, and for that, we bring on someone who we've had on before, Joan Alker. She's a phone-a-friend, if you will, and Joan is the Executive Director of the Center for Children and Families, as well as a Research Professor at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy. Now, I'll tell you about that a little bit more in a second.
But then you're going to hear in the second part from Heidi Heitkamp, a former United States Senator from the great state of North Dakota, and she also leads the Board of Directors of One Country Project, an organization on a mission to demand real solutions for America's crisis of aging infrastructure, closing hospitals, stagnant wages, and so much more.
And, you know, in part two, as I said, of this episode, Heidi and I discussed the state of the 2026 Farm Bill, which at the time of our conversation, the state of it was still quite stagnant. And if you've heard Heidi and her brother Joel on their own podcast, "The Hot Dish," you know that she pulls no punches.
So, I'm eager to have you stick with us through our first conversation, through a break, and then you'll hear from Heidi. But first, before we prepare you for that conversation, you're going to hear my conversation with Joan, and she unpacks the very, I'm going to say, alarming impacts of the newly in their newly released report focused on the uninsured rate for young children, specifically how it has risen more sharply than for older children.
And then, of course, we're going to, as we always do, look at that issue through a rural lens. And as usual, because she's got a lot more receipts that she's going to bring with us, she's going to kind of dive deeper into some of the more recent developments where Medicare and Medicaid policy or Medicaid policy is concerned.
So again, not a light subject. At the end of the day, our goal is to enlighten you and inspire you to have these conversations and potentially take some action to become an advocate for the issues, the matters that are of interest to you and impacting your rural communities and quality of life. So, with that said, you know it's that time.
I invite you to sit back, put on that podcast conversation listening frame of mind, and hear my conversation with Joan Alker and Heidi Heitkamp. I am ready. I know you are, too, so let's go.
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Michelle Rathman: We are here, as I, you just heard me, introduce, but I'll say it again, Joan Alker, Executive Director and Co-founder of the Center for Children and Families. Everyone knows where to find you, but we'll make sure they can. Welcome back to The Rural Impact. We are so appreciative that you are here again.
Joan Alker: Oh, I'm so happy to be with you, Michelle. I really appreciate your effort to highlight these issues that sometimes go under the radar because so much is happening in our world right now.
Michelle Rathman: So much is happening in our world right now, and I was thinking about this this morning, and I just kind of heads up for everyone, we're recording this on June 5th, and of course, by the time you hear this, as we say, absolutely things will change. Unfortunately, that conversation we're going to have today is not going to change in a direction that I think any of us could agree in any sane or right mind, sorry for saying it, but not sorry, in a better direction.
So, one of the reasons why we really want to have you back is I had an opportunity to do a listening call, a press call that you all did, focused on a paper, a research piece that, that was put together by you and team members. And, it was called, under the report, Uninsured Rate for Young Children Rose More Sharply than for Older Children from '22 to '24.
So that's a, like a lot that's packed into that. But let's start there. First, if you could, just kind of give us a snapshot, an introduction to why you did this report. What was, you know, what you're always looking for answers, so what were some of those key findings? But introduce us to why you did this, 'cause you've been tracking.
Joan Alker: Sure. Yeah. So, every year, Michelle, we do a report in the fall that uses census data, and it comes out in the fall every year, and looks at children's and everybody's coverage rates. Takes an in-depth look at health insurance. So, every fall, we track what's happening with uninsured children in the United States.
And, I’ll just say at the outset, and just put this right out there, this is a value statement. I believe all children in the United States should have health insurance. And we have, you know, our country's done a wonderful job of making sure that seniors all have health insurance, and that's great.
So why don't we have all children with health insurance? Of course, I think everybody should, but it's particularly shortsighted to have children without health coverage. And I'll explain why. You know, children are not expensive for our society to cover. Thankfully, they're mostly healthy.
They don't consume a lot of our healthcare resources. But they are regular users of care, very regular users of care. So, as any parent knows, you know, when you have especially young children, you are in the doctor's office all the time. I mean, they're supposed to get a dozen well-child checkups before age three.
Michelle Rathman: That's because they're Petri dishes.
Joan Alker: Yes, yes. Right. Mine were in daycare, so they were picking up something,
Michelle Rathman: I had to throw that in there.
Joan Alker: Yeah, all the time. Yes. You know, hand, foot, and mouth disease, all these things you've never heard of. Fortunately, they bounced back really quickly, but they need to be able to access care. They're also, of course, I have never been to the emergency room so much in my life, except when my children were little, right?
So, they, you know, playing soccer, they fall, and maybe they broke their wrist. My younger daughter, tipping her chair back, hits her head on the radiator. She needs stitches, right? So, these kind of things happen all the time, and, you know, unless you're a tech titan, nobody can afford to go to the ER or really any medical cost in our system unless you have health insurance.
That is the number one feature of health insurance in our society. It is an economic protection. It is a cornerstone for a family's financial security. So, we track this very closely every year. Now, from '22 to '24, we had, you know, we had coming out of the pandemic, during the pandemic, everybody's Medicaid coverage was retained, and nobody lost coverage, and we saw the uninsured rate for children go down.
Michelle Rathman: I remember you, and I had a conversation about that. I just want to put that footnote there. We did talk about that.
Joan Alker: Yes. Yes. And that's because a lot of children who are uninsured in the United States are actually eligible for Medicaid or CHIP, but they're just not currently enrolled. They might have fallen off due to paperwork problems, or they didn't get the letter in the mail. This was a situation recently shown on the, on the TV show, "The Pitt."
They had a, a kid whose mom had moved and didn't get the letter and lost his Medicaid. He had asthma, it got worse, and he wound up in the ER. So that's the kind of thing that happens all the time. So the uninsured rate went up from 2022 to 2024 for all children, and we noted that in the fall when we did our report.
But we took a deeper dive to look at young children. So, we're really talking here about babies, toddlers, preschoolers, so children under the age of six. And this group, you know, needless to say, it's especially important for these kids to have health insurance. You do not want a baby or a toddler to be uninsured.
They need to be getting those checkups. They need to be getting those developmental screenings so that we all can intervene early to make sure that they're developing on track. We want those families to be supported. Those are difficult, challenging times.
You know, they're fun times. They're also expensive times.
Michelle Rathman: Joan, I want to do a really quick bridge again, 'cause we connect the dots here, because it's also the, that age, that population where, again, driven by policy, because that's what ... This is, this conversation is a very much so a policy conversation. We're also talking about the age group where we have the most struggles in many areas, in most areas of this country, when it comes to early childhood development and childcare, and so forth.
And so, you compound that, and I just think that those are two things that are important for us to connect, as you continue to talk to us about what this, the, the uninsurance rate of children of that age group means, you know, compounded.
Joan Alker: That's absolutely right. I mean, we know that childcare, affordable childcare, is incredibly hard to find. You know, diapers are expensive. I mean, it's just, it's very expensive to have a baby in this country and a small child. So, we don't want any of these youngsters to be uninsured. So, unfortunately, when we broke down the data, what we found was that during that period, the uninsured rate for these very young children under six actually went up more quickly, during the time period of 2022 to 2024.
And that, of course, was true. It varies by state, as it always does. We can get more into those findings, but I do want to flag, for your listeners, that this is, of course, this is already bad news, but what's really, really scary about this is because we are also tracking in real time what's happening today in Medicaid enrollment for children, and what's been happening since this data came out, 2025 and into '26.
We won't get the uninsured data until this fall, so we'll know a lot more then. But we're seeing a huge decline in Medicaid enrollment for children. We're up to two million fewer children since the start of 2025. And we know from past experience that when Medicaid enrollment goes down, the uninsured rate for children goes up.
That's what's happened every time that I've been working on this for years. Okay, maybe it'd be different this time, but I don't think so, because these children don't have a lot of other options for affordable health coverage. So, I think we're going to see another increase in the uninsured rate when we get the data this fall.
And so, the combination of these findings, this is really a warning sign, particularly when we're seeing these babies and toddlers losing coverage.
Michelle Rathman: Well, and again, another bridge to connect here is that, you know, we, especially on, of course, on this podcast with a rural lens, when it comes to employer-based insurance, it's a completely different landscape than in other, if, on the map, wherever you see this on the map somewhere. So, I think that's another...
Again, this is not a very, this is not a really uplifting conversation, but nonetheless, I think we, it is important for us to put all this into context. Let's talk a little bit about, you were kind of some side issue here, of the health insurance coverage and Medicaid undercount. You have a lot of other key findings in here.
Can we flip to this one? Because I want to make sure, again, that people understand that this does impact you. So, what if I say, "Oh, I don't have an uninsured child, so how does this impact me? How does it impact everybody else?"
Joan Alker: Yeah, great question. So first of all, there are, there is some undercounting going on of, of the number of children who have Medicaid. Depending on data sources, it can be a variance as much as from like a third to a half of children. So, we are talking about... And in rural communities, as we know from our other research, children are more likely to be enrolled in Medicaid than in metropolitan areas.
So, this is especially important for rural areas. But, you know, the other issue, was- as you well know, is that rural providers are struggling, rural hospitals are struggling. And to the extent that they see more uninsured patients, then that just puts more pressure on that provider, right? And as you lose providers, and you lose hospitals, and you lose maternity wards, that affects everybody in the community.
'Cause the bottom line is, you know, when we have uninsured children or uninsured people, and we're going to have a lot more of them when these H.R.1 cuts come into effect next year, their healthcare needs don't go away. You know, they're still here, and they still need healthcare. But what they're missing out on is primary care, preventive care.
And so yeah, they wind up in the emergency room, and that becomes bad debt for the family, and those costs get shifted to all of us. So, the costs aren't going away, they're just, you know, it's not where we want to be delivering care in the emergency room. We want to make sure that kids, especially, but everybody's getting that primary preventive care.
So, it just doesn't make sense from any perspective. It doesn't save money to cut children off healthcare. It's, it's actually much more sensible to make sure that all children have access to health insurance.
Michelle Rathman: I agree 1000%. Anyone who has heard of this before knows me. In our previous episode, we heard from a county supervisor from Lake County, California, Bruno Sabatier, and he was talking about this very much as well, and the impact of these cuts on their, on their county, because to your point, the impact is going to be...
We haven't felt it local yet. Are you guys taking a look? I mean, this is kind of off the cuff. Are you guys taking a look at a little bit, 'cause your data is so broad, and I want to talk about what that means, kind of pull out some states and maybe opine a little bit about, as to why that is. But are you taking a look at, you know, the economic impact that this is going to have at any kind of state and county level, or can you shine any light on that?
Joan Alker: We do have county data for Medicaid enrollment. I'm sorry, Medicaid coverage for rural counties. As you know, we do look by state, and I'll just flag a couple of states here. Some of these states do have pretty large rural populations. If you look at states that have the highest rates of uninsured children under six, I'm just going to read to you, the top states and, and you'll see a lot of them have rural populations.
Texas, almost 11%, North Dakota, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, Arkansas, Florida, and Oklahoma. Those are the states with the highest rates of uninsured children and, and all of them have, excuse me, rural populations. We also know that when you look by race and ethnicity, that American Indian, Alaska Native kids have very high uninsured rates as well, and many of them live in rural areas.
Michelle Rathman: You, you brought up, and I'm glad that you did, because you did bring up the fact that, you know, I say just because someone loses their coverage doesn't mean they lose the need or, or the need for care just suddenly disappears. And without receiving that primary care, those wellness exams and so forth, again, connecting another dots, we know, as you said, the hospital, rural hospitals are at a class all of their own.
While there are some certainly that are thriving through years and years and years of perseverance, there are many others that are finding themselves in the, shall I say, struggling class. ER physicians are very hard to come by. It's very expensive, and so I just think it's important that we kind of, again, look at the big picture, but also at the d- you know, that granular detail with the states that you talk about.
Are there any other numbers that you think are important for us? 'Cause I'm looking at the s- at the data and the, the numbers are just really astonishing to me
Joan Alker: Yeah. Some of these states are really, you know, concerning. When you see it in Texas and North Dakota, we're talking one out of 10 of these young babies and toddlers without coverage. That's, that's really problematic. We want these kids to be ready for school, ready to learn, and not be such a burden on these families.
You know, the other piece I wanted to mention, and this goes a little bit outside the box of the paper, but as we get ready for H.R.1 to be implemented, and just this week, the Trump administration put out new regulations about implementing the work reporting requirement. Of course, this is going to have a big impact on rural communities.
We're actually working on a paper that looks at some of the issues that will particularly affect rural communities. And I think the interpretation of the regulation that we saw earlier this week, which went well beyond the law, and this is starting to become a pattern, that the Trump administration, as they implement what Congress passed, they're going deeper.
They're going deeper in terms of cuts and how many people are going to lose coverage. So, I think, you know, particularly on this work reporting requirement that, I'm very concerned about the impact on rural areas. There are many reasons that rural areas are going to have a harder time with this, and more people are going to lose coverage when they shouldn't, right?
And that's in part because, first of all, rural communities have a higher rate of reliance. Rural communities have a higher rate of chronic conditions, and those are exactly the kinds of folks that are at risk of losing Medicaid, particularly because the way the Trump administration had just put out this new regulation Monday, and this was not expected, this was not what CMS had been telling states for months, is that ex- after the first year, you're going to have to probably get a doctor's note to say that you can't work or volunteer.
That is going to put incredible pressure on doctors and providers. I don't think they know this is coming. It is going to put them in a very difficult position ethically, but also just as a practical matter for them to make that determination. This is not something they're trained in, or they've ever had to do before, and their judgment is going to result in their patient either losing coverage and possibly losing access to life-saving treatment, which of course they want them to have, or they're going to worry about, "Oh, well, am I going to be under, you know, possible fraud prosecution?"
Because that's all we hear from this administration is about prosecuting Medicaid fraud. So, I just think, you know, providers in rural areas who are already struggling, there aren't enough doctors. These new rules are very worrisome. I'll just flag that maybe for a future episode.
Michelle Rathman: I'm really grateful that you brought that up because I'm going to give a shout-out to Julie Rovner, "What the Health." I listened to the- we're recording on a Friday, so I listened to it yesterday, which is June 4th, and I'm going to encourage everyone to go back and listen to it because when I heard that getting ready this morning, it changed my mood entirely, and so I'm going to have this candid conversation with you.
When I heard the implications for rural health clinics, whom I work with many of them, rural hospitals, it's when I say a burden, I don't mean like, "Oh my gosh, I have to go back out and run out and get a gallon of milk." I'm talking about tsunami changes that they do not have the capacity to...
I mean, again, we're beyond the analogy of building a plane while we're flying it. I mean, honestly. And so, it's just like there's no thought to what this will mean every single place it touches. And so, I wonder what the response is going to be from the advocacy groups and, you know, that says this does not make any sense because, to your point, it's all subjective.
This is what we're hearing: that you, you know, attestation is going to be really subjective and, and there will be no rhyme or reason to further complicate. And I'm really curious about the why. I don't, I mean, why put this much stress on the system? “What is the point?” is the question. I have many questions, and that's one of them I have that I can't answer.
Joan Alker: Yeah. And you know, these rules kind of got changed up midstream. States are already under a lot of pressure and a lot of timeline pressure to implement all of these cuts and all of these changes. And so most of them are understaffed, so they're going to have to rely on very expensive consultants or tech vendors.
That's another thing I worry about, how much money is going to get thrown away and wasted on these for-profit tech companies and consultants at a time when these providers, these community-level providers, and I really don't think, you know, until this week, this was a worry that I had, that this was going to happen.
I wrote something about this last year, but this is even worse than I think what most people were expecting. So essentially, what these new rules mean is that having cancer is not enough.
Michelle Rathman: Right
Joan Alker: Okay? You know, the state could look at your claims data and see, okay, they've got cancer, so we want to make sure they keep getting treatment so they can work, right?
Like, this is the point of giving people health insurance, then they're better able to work. Because a lot of these folks are working part-time, they're working in industries that aren't providing health insurance. So that, that's-- having cancer is not going to be good enough. You're also going to have to have this note from your doctor saying your cancer is going to prevent you from volunteering, working for 80 hours.
How are they going to determine that? I mean, that's very hard. This is much
Michelle Rathman: To ask the question, where's the dignity?
Joan Alker: Well
Michelle Rathman: Because I'm going to again, I'll say it, I'm not going to cut this part out. You know, I'm a person whose life has been touched many times over by cancer, and I just-- There's no part of me that can fathom. And then I look at the-- take the emotional part out, the practicality of it, to your point.
I mean, so wow. Joan, as I said to you before we started recording, you and I will have a conversation someday that is going to be w- we'll just be chuckling, and we'll be talking about things that bring us joy. I find this to be a fascinating conversation because if we're not informed, how can we make informed decisions?
Joan Alker: Absolutely right. And I really appreciate, Michelle, your tireless efforts to highlight these issues, 'cause they're so important. I don't know. It's like if you don't have your health, what do you have, right?
Michelle Rathman: That's right. That's right. Well, my gosh. You know, Joan, you are now an official phone-a-friend. We have to send you a mug. I'm not going to show the side with my lipstick on it, but we'll send you a mug for all, all the great content that you bring us. We're going to make sure that we put this really remarkably important report up on our website, theruralimpact.com, so you don't have to tool around and find it.
Joan, where do you want people to follow you so that they can hear it directly from you, versus how I, you know, I don't put words in your mouth, but instead of me forwarding you, how can they find you?
Joan Alker: Yeah, they can find me on Blue Sky. They can find me on X. I'm JoanAlker1 on both those platforms. And also sign up for our blog. If you go to our website, ccf.georgetown.edu, you can sign up for our newsletter and just comes out on Fridays. And we do have a special feature now to cheer everybody up, Pet of the Week.
So
Michelle Rathman: Honestly, just before we joined, I dropped my little Bella off at the pet playground to play with friends today, and so I have her on puppy cam. I'm a new mom who just dropped her off. This is her second time there, full disclosure.
Oh my gosh, Joan. Well, we have to say goodbye to Joan, but for the rest of you, I want to just really encourage you to stay with us, because first, you're going to hear a really quick message about an event that we are doing in collaboration with the National Association of Community Health Centers, and then after that, I am joined by another phone-a-friend. You know her as Heidi Heitkamp. So, we'll be right back. Stay tuned.
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Michelle Rathman: Hey, everyone. I promised you we would be back after a break, and I am back with another. I'm going to say if I dare, phone-a-friend, Senator Heidi Heitkamp. Oh my gosh, podcaster extraordinaire, really a leader in the rural space. Welcome back to the Rural Impact. We have a lot of things to talk about
Heidi Heitkamp: We do. And, you know, there's a lot of good work that's going on out there. Unfortunately, it's not translating to policy. And it's work that you're doing, Michelle. It's work that we're doing at One Country, the work that we're doing now at our Commission on Rural Prosperity, that we hope will yield some really interesting results in terms of recommendations.
But right now, you couldn't be anything but discouraged if you watch the Secretary of Agriculture getting interviewed, in the House Ag Committee, and just wondering...I mean, they're living in opposite worlds from what we're seeing in rural America.
Michelle Rathman: I'm glad you mentioned that. So just for full disclosure to our listeners, we're recording this on June 5th, and you know by the time you hear this, things will change. And you know, every morning I woke up, I woke up, you know, hoping, and I know hope is not a strategy. I'm a strategist by nature, that we, that something will give.
You know, that movie, Something's Gotta Give. So, your organization, I watched some of the hearings as well, not the spectacle, but I really wanted to listen for the answers.
Your organization, 'cause it's... Sorry, it can, it is sometimes. What do
Heidi Heitkamp: It's an alternative world. I mean, you know, it, you can't solve problems you won't admit you have. And it's like Biden, Biden, Biden. And I'm like, come on. I mean, I know this is nonpartisan, but honest to goodness,
Michelle Rathman: It's funny, I hear journalists say, "I sit through every hearing so you don't have to." And to that I say thank you.
So, you are thankful that your organization is keeping, as you would, because of the state that you've represented so well for so many years, a close eye on the fate of the 2026 Farm Bill.
And I want to say, I read, which is HR7567, that this is as close to advancement as it's come for many years, but it still has a long way to go, I think, to get to the finish line. Although I was kind of surprised to maybe to hear this morning about what went through about immigration enforcement funding last night as well.
But that said, we know this legislation will affect every state differently, with enormous impacts across the board, commodity programs, crop insurance, disaster assistance, rural development, conservation, land stewardship, nutrition initiatives, which we'll talk about as well. Can you give our listeners a kind of perspective from your lens that only you would really have? I'm not in the rooms that you've been talking in.
What are you hearing right now as it goes to the Senate?
Heidi Heitkamp: You know, I was recently at an event for Cindy McCain, who is leaving the World Food Program, a great friend of mine, and saw a number of senators, and particularly Senator Bozeman, who I worked pretty closely with on a number of initiatives when I was there, and said, "Hey, you going to get a farm bill?"
And, you know, I think, I think if he had felt really confident, he would've said, "Absolutely, Heidi. No, no problem." But he said, "I sure hope so,” and you know, I think, I think that there has been, over the years, a lot of trust built up between Democrats and Republicans. You know, we always said that in the ag committee, the fight wasn't between Democrats and Republicans.
They were between Southern, you know, cotton and, and peanut and, rice states and soy and corn states, and, you know, what is d- what, what's the unique interest that you have, whether it's food security if you're a, if you're particularly a congresswoman from Manhattan or whether it's forestry and fighting forest fires if you're from California or Colorado.
And so, over a long period of time, there's been a lot of really interesting coalitions built. You know, we're going to have to give a little bit to, to get this person on board and make this bipartisan 'cause we need those 60 votes.
The big, beautiful bill really, really has tested that trust. By that I mean when you look at that, particularly the long-term relationship between people who are concerned about food security long-term, measured against people who are, you know, basically trying to guarantee a food supply and a safety net for American agriculture.
Those have gone hand in hand, and that trust was broken in the OBB. I don't know how many Bs it goes. OBBB. Yeah, when they basically reduced, increased, farm subsidies, and took care of a number of issues that, you know, producers wanted taken care of, but cut security, food security for so many families, and we're seeing that play out right now.
There's an interesting development in terms of what the expectations are going to be for Democrats in particular, who are deeply concerned about food security and what that's going to look like going forward. But, but I think there is also a growing concern about big producers versus smaller producers.
And we're seeing that stress, Michelle, all across the places where you and I live, and the people that we talk to, where, you know, the established farmers, the farmers with pretty big operations, own their land, you know, haven't had to leverage their land, still have the ability to get operating loans.
Those farmers are doing pretty well. But as Angie Craig, in her questioning of the secretary, in these hearings basically said, "We're losing farmers every day." In fact, I read a report today that every day, two dairy farmers in Wisconsin go out of business. This is a crisis. This is a crisis, and it needs to be addressed.
But I think that, that there is, there is no consensus, and if all the answer is we're just going to throw more money in based on acreage or based on net worth, you know, based on how many bushels you produce, that's not going to get where it needs to go. And so I think there's gotta be a discussion.
Michelle Rathman: Woefully inadequate, that conversation. I mean, in my notes, I show that research, US farm bankruptcies increased by 46% in 2025, and it's not looking better in 2026 due to elevated production costs, tariffs, credit and financial conditions, and of course, market volatility.
Heidi Heitkamp: So, I mean, you know, the president in some ways has recognized that he is responsible on both ends for the challenges that production agriculture has had. Whether that is increased production costs by starting a war, you know, my opinion is that we didn't need, that was ill-conceived. You know, driving up input prices, whether it's diesel or whether it is, you know, fertilizer, motor oil.
I mean, that's-- there's a whole lot of hurt and discussion that's coming from there. And then the tariffs on farm equipment, which he's now rolling back to kind of reduce some input costs. I don't know, it may be too little too late. And then on the other side, the loss of markets, by imposing heavy tariffs on some of our best markets.
And, you know, is that the way to curtail Chinese dominance? Probably not, but yet that's what we did. And so, they got it coming and going. And I don't know how that gets fixed. It-- I think the president has a naive view that it gets fixed by throwing more money into the pot and saying, you know, "Here you go. Just go out to the mailbox and, you know, feel good about yourself today." But I don't think there's a producer that you know, or I know, that thinks that's a long-term strategy.
Michelle Rathman: No, because, you know, I will say, full disclosure, folks who listen to this podcast know I'm, I'm married to a horticulturist. I mean, I get the volatility. I mean, these are not predictable things, and that's why you have protections and systems in place. And something that I also read is that, you know, compounded by all the other challenges, we've got this gap in federal aid.
What I'm reading from RFD-TV, while Congress has distributed aid through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, economists estimate it covers only 35 to 45% of the actual row crop and cottage damages. And, you know, we are now approaching another... I mean, every season is volatile.
Heidi Heitkamp: I mean, but the volatility that we've always looked at has been market and, you know, competition without irrational intervention from the federal government and weather. And, you know, now we've added the additional vulnerability of looking at these input costs. And, and I, I would say this, that I've never seen a farm crisis more driven by bad federal policy than this farm crisis.
I mean, in the '80s, you know, we had bad farm policy. I mean, the farm bill got substantially reformed since the '80s based on that experience. But a lot of what drove the '80s was a horrific drought, and we're seeing that same horrific drought across the country. We're fortunate in my part of the world that we are getting enough moisture, but barely.
And, so I know I talk to, I talk to, for instance, Jon Tester all the time, and, you know, he's a farmer. And I said: "How's it looking?" He said, "I may not have anything to harvest, Heidi. It's so dry here, and it looks like the Dust Bowl." And, we're back to soil conservation. What does that look like?
And I know there's going to be a lot of emphasis given what's happening right now with drought, on what we can do to encourage better soil practices in the farm bill. But, you know, it's, it's, it, it-- right now we have an absence of Congress intervening on policy, and we have an administration that says everything's okay and any problem that you have right now, developed two years ago, and we're trying to fix it.
No, that's not true. If you go back and take a look at when these problems developed, they developed when we put tariffs on our most significant trading partners and when we basically started tariffing inputs, and we started basically creating conflict in places that we desperately need to rely on the supply chain.
Michelle Rathman: And then as I take a look at, again, you know, connecting more dots, I think about our farmers, and obviously, you know, if you didn't know by now, that's where our America's food supply comes from, and at one point in time, where we were feeding the world as well. So, we take a look at the nutrition initiatives, such as a potential for farmer market and local food promotion programs, which I think is, I've seen it do amazing things when you have that kind of investment in local sources of food and protecting those local farms and becoming a food supply.
But then I juxtapose that to the massive cuts under, I say, "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy," H- HR1. And so how, I, I feel like, you know, it's Whack-A-Mole. We try to get ahead here, but then, you know, what's, what is the point of investing in these programs if those who they can serve are no longer eligible to be served by those programs?
Do you know what I mean?
Heidi Heitkamp: Right. No, I don't know, the whole thing needs to be reexamined, which is, you know, this isn't, this isn't a new problem. We have seen a lot of dollars going into rural development. We've seen a lot of dollars, kind of how d- how is the best way to deploy, what we think we need to do for rural America.
But it hasn't made the kind of impact that we had hoped for. And so that's why, the folks at Brookings and AEI, American Enterprise Institute, center right, center-- actually center left, center right organizations basically said we need to reexamine all of rural policy. And that's what Governor Sununu and I are doing as we chair this commission going forward.
But this is futuristic. This isn't how do we deal with the crisis of today. And, you know, I have an old saying, and I talk to staff all the time. I said, "You know, you can't admit... You, you, you can't fix a problem you won't admit you have." And what I saw from the secretary yesterday is a lack of admission that there is a problem.
I mean, it's kind of the, the, the whole give it time. We're out of time. Give it time is not a solution here. We've-- we're out of time. And so, what is that going to look like? And so, you know, and, and I, I honestly do not think you're going to get farm bill, until maybe the lame duck. And so, we're going to be limping through this grow season.
People are going to be trying to make decisions on what they're going to do. The bankers are going to be trying to make decisions on whether they're going to carry producers one more year, at a time when there will be great uncertainty, and the only certainty will come literally hours before the end of the year, probably.
Michelle Rathman: And I want people, our listeners, to understand, you know, if you go back into our library, we have had conversations about the impacts. I mean, this is not hyperbole. This the impacts of just the staffing levels at USDA. And so, every time that there's a shift in policy within, you know, people have to manage it, monitor it, implement it, so forth.
And so that's just another.
Heidi Heitkamp: That just happens automatically, Michelle. Yeah,
Michelle Rathman: AI.
Heidi Heitkamp: AI,
Michelle Rathman: Well
Heidi Heitkamp: Call up the bot because we all have had great experiences doing that when we want customer service.
Michelle Rathman: Yes,
Heidi Heitkamp: When, how many times have your listeners or producers yelled into the phone, "Agent, representative, a real person, please, God, give me a
Michelle Rathman: Have you been eavesdropping on me? So, let's shift a little bit to our land. You know, I mean, this is where all farming happens unless you have these, you know, AeroGardens and so forth. But let's be honest, you know, you've, you've just... I am a subscriber to your blog. I would encourage you we'll put the links on our website for people to do so as well.
But on May 31st, there was a blog, "Hands Off Our Lands." And you know, Heidi, we're going to be doing some episodes, serious episodes. I know everyone's talking about data centers. I know everyone's, you know, you can see clips anywhere you look on social media about, you know, angry town halls, rightfully so, because, you know, I live in a community where we almost lost huge parts of land to empty warehouses that we fought, and they're back and so forth.
But talk about the hands off our lands and the impact on rural if we don't heed this warning.
Heidi Heitkamp: Well, I let's start just talking about, our 250th anniversary and what makes America great, and the, the kinds of best ideas, best practices that we as Americans have experienced and, are the beneficiaries, our generations are the beneficiaries of some really good planning and thinking.
That's the national parks; that's our national lands. That is, those places where you can stand and think about who-- all the people who came before you and really have that experience. And as we see kind of a disconnect, I mean, I'm a big believer that one of the solutions to depression and loneliness is to get outside.
Get outside, you know, go for a hike in a, in the grasslands in North Dakota. Take your... You know, make sure you, you, you don't get ticks. I mean, trust me, this is tick season. But just get out there. Do you know, the bike trails are out there, and it is just healing, remarkably healing. And so now what the argument is, we're just going to turn these all over for, I mean, I wouldn't say exploitation, but development.
That's why we've saved them for all those years for future generations, so that the billionaires can exploit them even more. And I just... I mean, you can't, I, I, I... You can't begin to describe how discouraging it is, that, that, that they will tout this history of Teddy Roosevelt. They will be there, I'm talking about a certain political official who will be at the Teddy Roosevelt library opening and talk about this great legacy of what Teddy Roosevelt did as, as they're standing in the Teddy Roosevelt National Park, and then turn around and just say, "Let's give it away.
Let's just, let's just sneak it.
Michelle Rathman: With a bunch of, with a bunch of gold shovels, you
Heidi Heitkamp: Yeah. Yeah. I,
Michelle Rathman: The vision is horrifying to me
Heidi Heitkamp: Well, and, and if you think about it, I-- this is the ownership of these lands is a n-not a partisan issue. Th- it's a bipartisan issue. It is an issue that all Americans care about, and they're going way, way, way too far. You know, and, and so I'm, I, I mean, I'm not somebody who says, "No, never," but I am somebody who says, "Let's proceed with caution.
Let's talk about what that I- what that looks like." And, you know, you, you, you, you take a look at data centers and, and people... I, you know, talk to corporate people all the time. They're really excited, and because look what we can do, it'll increase efficiency. It'll increase the efficiency and help their bottom line by eliminating employment.
So right away, people are very nervous about what this is going to look like. At the same time, rural America in particular is being asked to foot the cost, whether it's water, whether it's higher electricity prices, or the loss of land, and out of production. It's yeah. I, you know, so...
And, and oh, by the way, we're just going to sneak in and have everybody sign NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, and then trust us. Well, y- how do you trust somebody who's not willing to be transparent? And I think, I think, I, I, I told a group of CEOs, I said, "Watch out for the pitchforks." I mean, you see it in right-wing populism, you see it in left-wing populism when you don't see corporate responsibility.
And so there needs to be a whole lot of discussion about what that looks like. And, right now, it ta- and this is the intersection now of money and politics, because those same people, because they can spend unlimited amounts of money if they do it through a PAC, are putting millions and millions and millions of dollars where their publicly facing discussion is, "Oh, no, we're really interested in regulation. We want to have this conversation." But yet their PAC is saying, "We're only going to fund, and we're going to basically elect the Congress that will never regulate what we're doing."
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, it's in- it's interesting.
Heidi Heitkamp: Yeah, I'm just saying, you know, this, people... I'm not somebody who says you don't need a data center in this country, you don't need that infrastructure, but you need to have a measured discussion with the people who have the greatest impact, and those are the people who live in those communities.
Michelle Rathman: And mitigate every single possible risk. I mean, at the end of the day,
Heidi Heitkamp: But they're not. That-- And in fact, the only reason to support these, if you're a public official, is it will grow your property tax base, right? So, you might be able to give property tax forgiveness to a lot of people in your county or your township. They've given that away. They've given the sales tax base away.
It's like you're a billionaire, so here, let me give you state money, or federal money, or local money, to do something that's maybe going to employ a couple janitors.
Michelle Rathman: Well, I mean, I'm,
Heidi Heitkamp: I just don't get it
Michelle Rathman: I don't want to get ahead of my skis here, but I mean, wouldn't your property value go down if you don't have water or a
Heidi Heitkamp: The way property tax, the way property tax works is we need X number of dollars, we're going to divide it over the taxable value. And if, if you have excluded the value, billions of dollars of ta- of, of value in real property development from the property tax base, it's a double whammy because you're going to be paying for their services.
I mean, you, it-- and, and that's why you see over 70 jurisdictions now have basically passed moratoriums or bans on data centers. There is a huge group of people who are going to be litigating these NDAs, against the backdrop of open records laws and what that transparency. And so, you know, and my argument is, look, if you master of the universe tech company think that you need them, go out and persuade the people that they, that you're going to be a good corporate citizen.
And they're not willing to do that. They're willing to take shortcuts
Michelle Rathman: No, and I'll tell you, and Erin Brockovich is getting in on this, too.
We're trying to get her, we're trying to get her on the show because she's got this great da- mapping of these, the centers. But I thought, I thought about this, Heidi, before we talked today. You know, I love what you just said about the fact that it's very, it's, it's int- impossible for me to trust without transparency.
I think one of the questions that are really important for us as we're advocating to protect our lands, to protect the health and wellbeing of our community, because we know that we have a tsunami of other shifts happening that are, are, kind of take us backwards with respect to access to health and of course transportation and so forth, is ask the question of your representatives, how will this impact my and my family's and my family's quality of life? Because we say every, you know, road to quality of life is paved by a policy. And to your point, these are policy-specific decisions that are imposing potentially just catastrophic harm on communities.
Heidi Heitkamp: Yeah. I mean, you know, without-- I mean, we have seen across the country recalls of public officials who haven't been transparent, and, and this isn't a right-left issue. This is an issue where the citizens believe that they have a right to understand what's going on in their community. And, you know, it-- right now the people who are benefiting are the people who build and construct these, the people who maybe make a lot of money selling the land, but these facilities are going to be there for a long, long time.
And the other thing, Michelle, and this is the old kind of utility person in me, I look at all this and say, "This is like a gold rush," and everybody thinks they're going to get rich doing it. There isn't a lot of basic planning, and maybe that's the capitalist system. You don't want to plan. But everybody wants to build one of these, and what happens when we build infrastructure to support these things, and then that infrastructure gets stranded because we don't need that many.
And already China is basically talking about semiconductors and chips that, that will use a lot less energy, don’t need as much water to cool. And so, w- you know, if this is technology that moves very fast and, and we need some guarantees that if in fact our local rural co-op secures the facility, the amount of, energy that the facility needs, that that's on the facility and that they have long-term contracts with these facilities so that they can actually, pay the piper if, that demand goes down.
Because if
Michelle Rathman: That’s widely unpopular.
Heidi Heitkamp: We build, if we build to that demand, and then we have stranded investment, trust me, I've seen this show before, it's always the current rate payers, the people who live in these communities who end up paying the bill,
Michelle Rathman: Yes. '
Heidi Heitkamp: ‘cause that money's gotta get
Michelle Rathman: Yes. Always, always. And because we don't have a crystal ball, we don't know. I mean, I live in a, I live in a state where we had a, factory that did s- I won't say the name of it 'cause I don't want to get in trouble, but it was medical, medical supply with, w- toxic waste and, you know, clusters of cancer and so forth, and it took years for the state to take them to pr- you know, take them to, to task on, on reimbursing these families who w- you know, w- will, their lives have been ever f- been forever altered as a result.
So yeah. Okay, before we go, again, 'cause only you have this lens, I encourage every time I do, listen, if we want a shift to happen, we have to be vocal, we have to be measured, we have to be, you know, you don't go out there and scream and s- and, but it, to articulate. So, if everyone right now, in the spirit of the 250-year anniversary and celebrating democracy, what do our listeners need to be thinking about as they reach out to their member of Congress and talk about the importance of legislation and policies that improve the quality of life where nutrition assistance is concerned?
And if you are a farmer, what do they need to hear to convince them that it's, like, how important it is to make some shift happen in this course?
Heidi Heitkamp: Yeah. I, I, I think that American-- rural America is being taken for granted politically. It's like, "Oh, they're always going to be with us. All we gotta do is do some short-term relief and, you know, we don't need to worry." And what I would say is demand answers. I'm not saying change your vote. I'm not, you know, that's not why I'm on here.
But, but pull your head out of the sand, take a look at what's happening. If you think things are going great and going to be great in the next, you know, five weeks or, you know, by the end of the growing season, good on you. Trust them. But I would say trust but verify, and how you verify is you actually have conversations.
And the people who get in to see people are your commodity groups, they are your big farm groups, whether it's Farmers Union, Farm Bureau. You know, y- you need-- if you're not a member of those groups, you can attend a roundtable, a hearing, but you have to be vocal, and you have to scare them politically.
I'm not saying, you know, jump on the bandwagon one way or the other, but I'm saying don't be taken for granted. You know, it's when people think that no matter what happens in your economic life, no matter what happens in your community, that there won't be accountability politically, then you're going to get crummy results.
And so, you know, whether that is public lands that you care about, whether that is taking a look at conservation and soil conservation that you care about, whether that's taking a look at climate-smart agriculture or, you know, you know, AI application agriculture or land use issues. And the one issue that we haven't raised, Michelle, that I would really encourage people to pay attention to is farm ownership.
What we're seeing, I-- you know, I have a friend who is basically saying, "Well, what about corporate ownership?" I said, "You know, what's happening right now is a lot of, what we call 1031s, which is a transfer of in-kind property to avoid capital gains and ta- a taxable event." People are bailing from other kinds of rental property to buy up farmland.
They have to do it very quickly, and they're out there competing against our neighbors for that farmland. And so, even in North Dakota, I think only 25% of the land in production agriculture is being basically, is the producer, does the producer own, and this is a really, really bad trend.
We're
Michelle Rathman: Hey, listen,
Heidi Heitkamp: point of tenant farming
Michelle Rathman: Will you, if we do some valid research? I wanted to bring up this point. We'll do some research and verify, and if you have information for us to be able to share with our listeners, we'll put that on our website. And before we close out, I will just say, you say trust it and verify.
I think it's really important that when you are reading something online, it's very easy to do. You know, when I was reading about the, you know, doing my research, more research on the Farm Bill and reading about you know, the new ruling that came out around chemicals, if you will, pesticides, and then you have to really look to see who's, who's, publishing that paper, and of course it was from an, producer of said chemicals.
And so, when you do, make sure you have your facts and verify with the with those who you can trust, such as Heidi Heitkamp and One Country. And so again, we are just so appreciative always for your time. You know I'm going to have you back because this conversation, this dot-connecting conversation, is not going to be over until the work is done.
Heidi Heitkamp: Yeah, absolutely. And, I would just say, you know, in the meantime, if you're motivated, just pen a letter or pick up the phone and, you know, go to a town hall. This is election season. Every congressman is on the ballot. You know, they're going to be out and about. They're going to be doing, you know, the obligatory farm photo op, right?
Where they go into the field and, you know, or they sit around with a bunch of farmers. You know, attend that and, you know, have a conversation with the people sitting around the table. They represent you. If you're a soybean grower, that person at the table representing soybean growers represents you.
Make sure the right questions get asked.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, that's a great point. We didn't even get into some of the other subjects. That means we have to have you back. So, thank you again for joining us.
Heidi Heitkamp: Thanks, Michelle. Keep up your good work.
Michelle Rathman: I appreciate it. All right, you guys, do not go anywhere because I have a closing message for you, some very important notes. Stay tuned. I will be right back.
As always, my thanks to Joan Alker and Heidi Heitkamp for joining me once again for another conversation that I think, as you heard, both are very passionate about. You know I am as well, and I am certain so many of our listeners, if you're a return listener in particular, that you understand where we are coming from.
We are really working hard to make sure that we can connect the dots between policy and quality of life, and by doing so, help to inform and educate folks on what is important for the future of rural America. So, with that said, I also want to just remind you to visit theruralimpact.com and become a subscriber.
We appreciate it when you do. And as I close out, I will say once again, please take the best possible care of yourself, and to the best of your ability, all those around you. We will see you again on a brand-new episode of "The Rural Impact."
