CANYON, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — On Wednesday evening, U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington and representatives from U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson’s office hosted a listening session to get feedback for the 2023 Farm Bill re-authorization process.

The listening session took place on the campus of West Texas A&M University, where attendees packed out a pavilion to share their priorities for the Farm Bill.

The session was important for the region, as Rep. Arrington (TX District 19) serves as the chairman for the House Budget Committee and Rep. Jackson (TX District 13) is a member of the House Committee on Agriculture.

Farmers, ranchers, and more came together to share their priorities and what they hope the bill will accomplish.

“We want to have input into what goes into it, make sure we keep crop insurance strong,” said Joe Baumgardner, a cotton and peanut producer from Wellington. “With all that’s gone on in the last couple of years, our input costs have skyrocketed, if there’s things within the farm bill that can do to help us with that and our price the commodity prices really haven’t increased that much”

Michael Bezner, the chairman of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, was one of the speakers who shared during the session.

“We would just hope that the Farm Bill doesn’t do any harm to our business in terms of over-regulation or more government involvement in terms of mandates and how we market cattle or anything like that,” Bezner said. “We’re happy to support the Beef Checkoff.”

There were several local producers who spoke, as well as dairy producers, and even a sugar cane producer from another part of Texas. Each speaker registered ahead of time and was given two minutes to share.

WT officials said prior to the listening session that Rep. Jackson planned to attend, but was unable to be there due to a family emergency.