Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller discusses challenges in agriculture & medical marijuana legalization | KTAB

BIG COUNTRY, Texas (BIGCOUNTRYHOMEPAGE) – On this week’s version of Massive Nation Politics, Information Director Manny Diaz spoke with Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller about challenges going through agriculture and the legalization of medical marijuana in Texas. Miller is an eight-generation farmer and rancher who received his third time period in workplace final November.

“We’re having fun with the very best cattle costs we’ve ever had throughout a drought and normally, had been listed liquidating catalysts having to unload due to the drought. Normally, when that occurs, proceeds simply go into summer time; they simply tumble. However now we nonetheless have extraordinarily excessive cattle costs. What that tells me for the long run, even after the drought breaks, and we begin rebuilding our numbers, there’s going to be a scarcity of cattle, so the value might be going to be excessive,” Miller shared. “Now, the unhealthy finish of that’s we’re in a drought; we don’t have any hay or feed to hold over from final winter. We fed all of it up. Most of us didn’t make sufficient hay to get us by means of this winter. So we’re having to buy hay; it’s fairly costly as a result of you must add freight and mileage to that. The costs have by no means actually come down. They received terribly excessive final winter. So we’ve nonetheless been terribly excessive costs for feed.”

Miller has spoken to many producers all through the Massive Nation and the State of Texas. He shared that probably the most important dilemma he has heard is from the federal authorities.

“Effectively, the largest downside we face in agriculture, sadly, is an overreaching federal authorities… They simply took our antibiotics away from us. We will now not purchase antibiotics to deal with our sick animals over-the-counter. Now, we’ve got to go to city to get a prescription and get an appointment with a veterinarian; it simply takes time. In the meantime, the animals stay sick,” Miller defined. “We’ve received an overreaching federal authorities attempting to place the Waters of the US again on us. I sued the Biden administration and received an injunction to cease the Waters of the US. For those who don’t know what that’s, it’s far overreach from the Environmental Safety Company. It makes it very troublesome to farm or produce oil and fuel on this state. So we simply received one factor after subsequent, after subsequent, after subsequent. We’re preventing an open border right here in Texas, and we’ve had over six million unlawful aliens come into our state for the reason that Biden administration has been in workplace.”

Miller additionally shared how the State of Texas Agriculture Reduction (STAR) Fund helps these throughout Texas and within the Massive Nation.

“That’s one thing that I’ve began there. It’s the Division of Agriculture. We don’t use taxpayer {dollars}. This isn’t a taxpayer-funded program. We exit, I do, and others helped me elevate cash from the non-public sector, people, firms, even nonprofits, organizations, {and professional} organizations, and we use that cash to place again 100% of that we don’t maintain out any admin payment, however we put 100% of that again within the farmer to get them again up on their ft after a pure catastrophe. Like proper now, we’re going by means of a variety of fires. And with that comes a variety of lack of fences. These aren’t actually lined throughout property injury; Definitely not lined with crop insurance coverage. So these all should be paid for out of pocket. So we’ll companion with that farmer in our STAR fund, and we’ll pay as much as half the price of the supplies to get that again. We don’t come up with the money for to pay the entire thing, however we’ll exit and purchase The fencing materials, the wire, the posts, and many others. Get us a receipt, and we’ll write them a verify for 50% of that. So it’s not every little thing, however it actually helps. For those who’re taking a look at a number of mops of fence,” Miller shared.

He added that proper now, that is extraordinarily useful because the state of Texas has confronted extreme climate over the previous couple of years.

“It’s not simply wildfires. It’s floods. We now have a variety of Texas topic to hurricanes, freezes, you recognize, we had a variety of injury through the freeze in February of ’21. Twister injury, there’s, you recognize, we’ve got a variety of… should you reside in Texas, you’re topic to a variety of perils,” Miller stated.

Miller plans to host a summit in Irving this September, specializing in methods and insurance policies to counter the Biden administration’s influence on non-public property rights.

“What that’s in case your listeners don’t know, and lots of people don’t know. They’re not tuned in, however that is unhealthy for our nation as an open border, for my part. So, the primary govt order that Joe Biden issued throughout his first week in workplace, he launched the 30 by 30 plan. And what that stands for is to idle 30% of our land in america by the yr 2030. So that’s an quantity of land; it’s 150 million acres bigger than the Louisiana Buy. A 3rd of our land is rather a lot. So, take it fully out of manufacturing. Meaning no farming, no oil and fuel, no logging, no recreation, no something,” Miller defined.

He added that there are issues which are in movement to reverse a few of these issues in favor of Texans.

“Effectively, this spring, we hosted the Western Legislative Caucus. Now, that’s the second largest caucus in america Congress, hosted within the stockyards. GT Thompson, who was chairman of the Agriculture Committee in america Home, was there… and we addressed this concern. And we are actually writing the brand new farm invoice. We’re within the technique of that. So we’re attempting to place issues within the farm invoice that might forestall the Biden administration from finishing up his 30 by 30 plan. We’ve received to cease, and he’s devastated agriculture, devastating to the timber business, devastating to the oil and fuel business,” Miller shared.

Miller and others have tried to get President Biden and his employees to go to Texas however to no avail.

“We’ve by no means received a response of any type, both good, good or unhealthy. However they’re at all times welcome. I’ll be glad to arrange a tour of the Texas border. Like to take Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. They’ve by no means actually seen the border that I do know. I used to be a lawmaker earlier than I had this occupation. I used to be chairman of Homeland Safety and public security so my mission from the governor then was to safe the Texas border so I can present you the true border if anyone desires to return,” stated Miller.

The 2019 state invoice that legalized hemp in Texas had excessive expectations for farmers, however Miller stated many are switching to a fiber product for varied causes.

“We began out rising hemp for CBD oil. Typical farmers noticed a variety of revenue in doing that. So we planted.. we’ve got an excessive amount of hemp than we’d like. So, the value is plummeting. The pivot goes to fiber. We’re switching from an oil product to a fiber product, and that’s the long-term place for hemp, and for my part, it suits conventional farming significantly better. It’s not as labor intensive. One farmer can develop an entire pivot of fiber hemp harvested similar to we do, put it on a truck, and ship it to the mail. What they do is that they make fiber out of it, and never CBD. All that fiber has was over 2,000 merchandise. They are often hempcrete constructing blocks; it may be rope, canvas, automotive interiors. The checklist goes on and on and on,” Miller shared.

Throughout final yr’s election, Miller was thinking about increasing the legalization of medical marijuana, one thing he believes needs to be as much as the physician and affected person.

“What it’s, and let me clarify, my opponent was for full-fledged leisure use of marijuana. I’m not for that. However I’m for medical use for compassionate use for something. We now have a lot good science now. And we all know what illnesses it could possibly deal with, but our legislature picks winners [and] losers. For those who’ve received this illness, you will get handled, should you received this illness, and hashish will assist should you can’t get handled. So we have to get out of that enterprise. We have to let the doctor-patient relationship let these docs make these medical selections and never some bureaucrat or some politician. That’s my place, and hopefully, they develop it just a little bit every time; it will get higher and higher. However we nonetheless don’t have full-on use of medical hashish,” Miller defined.

He added that he believes medical marijuana will turn into authorized in Texas, with every legislative session drawing it nearer.

“If you will get it to the ground, most likely 70% or 80% of the legislative physique will vote in favor of it as a result of we’ve got such good science on it. Now, it’s not hypothesis anymore. Once we began with hypothesis, we thought, ‘Effectively, that’ll result in leisure use or extra drug use,’ however it’s not. It’s a plant by-product. Look. Medical marijuana is just not practically as addictive as among the prescribed drugs we use now. Hydrocodone, Oxycontin, Fentanyl, you recognize, all these narcotics that we prescribe. This can be a plant-based drug that relieves ache and struggling, and we’d like… if it’ll assist any individual and getting them assist,” Miller shared.