Kansas leader asks farmer to State of the Union amid farm bill debate

As farmers feel the effects of trade wars and look ahead to the next farm bill, a Kansas congresswoman has invited a state agricultural leader to President Donald Trump's upcoming State of the Union address.

Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, will be a guest of U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, for the president's Feb. 24 speech in Washington, D.C.

The timing also coincides with a farm bill markup by the House Agriculture Committee, which Davids serves on.

"Nick's been such a strong advocate for rural communities," Davids told The Capital-Journal. "I have really enjoyed getting the chance to work with him to make sure that as I do my work on the agriculture committee that it stays front and center when I'm doing my work out there in D.C."

Levendofsky is from the Courtland area, which is roughly 80 miles northwest of Salina.

"I'm honored to be asked to be Congresswoman Davids's guest at the State of the Union," Levendofsky told The Capital-Journal. "It'll be interesting to hear what is said and how we go forward from here. I know this is always a big tradition, and it'll be interesting to see what is said and how folks react to it."

Davids is the ranking Democrat on a subcommittee that oversees policies on commodity programs, crop insurance and agricultural credit.

"A lot of it really is just making sure that I'm having that relationship building, rapport building and highlighting the things that are really important for farmers and ranchers here in Kansas directly with the chair," Davids said.

She said her role as ranking gives her opportunities to work with her Republican counterpart chairing the subcommittee, including "getting the chance to actually talk to them about why something like winter wheat as a cover crop for Kansas is so important."

What are Sharice Davids's priorities for next farm bill?

The House Agriculture Committee will begin markup of the 2026 farm bill on Feb. 23. The text of the bill — totaling 802 pages — was unveiled on Feb. 13. Davids called it "a massive piece of legislation."

"There are a few things that we could be supportive of," Levendofsky said. "I don't know that we could be supportive completely of this package, and that's why it's going to be important next week when I'm out in D.C. with Congresswoman Davids to really follow along closely with that markup process and encourage members of Congress and the ag committee to make amendments to improve on this bill."

Davids represents the 3rd Congressional District, which is primarily comprised of urban and suburban areas of Wyandotte and Johnson counties in the Kansas City metro. Redistricting in 2022 added more rural areas to the district with Miami, Franklin and Anderson counties.

"I over the years now have had the chance to visit with and physically see a bunch of the farm and ranch operations here in the 3rd District and have taken what I've learned from that," Davids said.

Among Davids' priorities in the farm bill are "protecting and improving the crop insurance program," "making sure that USDA farm programs actually are working for Kansans," "protecting the nutrition programs," allowing year-round E15 and continuing to "invest in agricultural research." She said Kansas has "a strong track record" of research at Kansas State University and the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan.

Davids said she sees two big barriers to passing a farm bill.

"One is that the House speaker has not made it a priority in the past, which he needs to do," Davids said.

The other is tariffs and "figuring out a way to build on the bipartisan pushback that we've seen to come up with some real solutions."

"Every farmer that I've talked to, they don't want bailouts," Davids said. "They want markets. They want to be able to sell the stuff that they're growing and producing."

Crop insurance and conservation are priorities

Levendofsky cited crop insurance as a priority, "because that's the only safety net that farmers have right now."

"When we talk about crop insurance, we tend to really just focus on conventional commodity crops — and yes, that's the main driver here in Kansas," Levendofsky said. "But we also have specialty crop producers growing food that people eat, and they need access to those products as well, crop insurance. The problem is that it's not all that affordable and it's not always that accessible."

Growing multiple crops in one growing season requires a different insurance policy for each crop, which Levendofsky said is unaffordable for specialty crop producers. He said there are some provisions in the farm bill addressing the issue, "but it's going to take a lot more than that."

Levendofsky said funding for conservation programs is also a priority.

"There's wonderful conservation programs in the farm bill," Levendofsky said. "But usually the problem is those programs are very popular — which is a good thing, people want to utilize those programs — the problem is that they are underfunded, so only a few of the applications for these programs get approved and funded."

More funding would allow more farmers and ranchers in rural America to access the programs, he said.

Cuts to nutrition may undermine bipartisan support

Nutrition is the largest of a dozen titles in the farm bill. It includes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.

"From what I've seen so far — and again, we're still going through everything — there's nothing in the current bill to restore some of the harmful SNAP cuts that we saw, which does undermine the bipartisan coalition that traditionally gets the farm bill across the finish line," Davids said. "It doesn't mean this is the end of the road. It just means that's something that we need to be addressing and cognizant of."

Those SNAP cuts were part of the budget reconciliation legislation in 2025. It was originally dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act before Republicans rebranded it as the Working Family Tax Cut.

"It's obviously been a challenge since reconciliation over the summer where these significant cuts were made to the nutrition program," Levendofsky said. "It's done serious damage to the food and farm coalition that make up the farm bill.

"That's the only way we've gotten a farm bill passed in the last 50 years is to ensure that nutrition programs are included with farm programs, because we need those votes from urban areas to get the farm programs we need in rural America. And now there's been significant damage done to that coalition and it's going to take some time to build that back up."

Levendofsky said the nutrition programs — and their funding — are necessary parts of the farm bill.

"It's a program that is essential to so many people, and it's essential in so many rural areas too," he said. "There's so many rural grocery stores that depend on those SNAP benefits as people come in and use them. That's more money going into the pockets of these rural, independent grocery stores to help keep them alive and vibrant."

Helping beginning farmers

Levendofsky said he wants more attention to programs that benefit beginning farmers, like access to credit and land link transition programs.

"That's essential because the average age of the American farmer is 61 years old," he said. "We've got to be talking about ways and working on ways to bring young people back to rural areas and farming areas so that we can continue to keep family farmers on the land and ensure that they have the support that they need."