House Agriculture Committee

January 15, 2025

 

Representative Matthew Shepherd Matthew Shepherd, District 97. This is my eighth term in the House. I represent El Dorado and western Union County.

 

Representative Bruce Cozart Representative Bruce Cozart. This is my seven and a half term in the House, just a partial term my first one. So my seventh term. I don't know how many times I've been on Ag, but I represent Garland County, District 91. About half of Garland County. Les Warren has the other half. And Richard McGrew. But I am a cattle rancher. A small, small side. I don't have the big herds. And a building contractor. That's what I do on the side.

 

Representative Stephen Magie So good morning, Representative Magie from Conway. I represent District 56 out of Conway, which is just mostly in the city of Conway. This is my sixth term, I think, on Ag, my seventh term here in the House. And glad to be back. I do have a lot of agricultural interest, row crop ground. A lot of people don't know that I have a license from the state of Arkansas. I'm a certified liquid manure application specialist.

 

Unknown We knew that about you.

 

Representative Stephen Magie As is D. Vaught. Go out about 8,000 hogs a year and have some timber interest also and a lot of interest in the agriculture industry. Thank you.

 

Representative David Whitaker Good morning. I'm Representative David Whitaker. I represent House District 22, which is the west side of Fayetteville, all of the city of Farmington and a good bit of cattle land all the way down almost to the gates of Prairie Grove. This is my seventh term in the House. And I have served two previous terms on Ag, but had to go away for a couple of terms to follow a calling on some other issues. But I'll end this morning by saying Home at last.

 

Representative Ron McNair Representative Ron McNair. I represent District 5, which is South Boone County. This is my sixth term. I don't even own a dog, but I represent lots of farmers. And I've always been blessed with them telling me what I needed to do. And I'm just looking forward to a productive and short session. Thank you.

 

Representative DeAnn Vaught Representative DeAnn Vaught, District 87. All of Little River County, all Sevier County, and a portion of Howard County. Lots and lots of farmers in my area. Most of them are livestock producers. We did have a dairy. We shut down our dairy. Now we're running about a thousand steers on our farm right now or it will be here shortly. They'll be right around a thousand. 

We have a hog farm and chicken houses. And yes, we do have a liquid manure permit. Specialist, I liked that one actually, though. And I have a Ag business degree and I've always had a heart for agriculture. It is the largest industry in the state of Arkansas, and it's something that we should all be proud of and we should work hard to make sure that farming is kept alive here in our state. And we've got to work hard to make sure that they can keep the freedoms that they have to farm now. And I look forward to a good session too.

 

Representative Marcus Richmond Marcus Richmond. This is my sixth term. I'm District 52, which is Yell County, Scott County and Southern Sebastian County. Cattle and timber interests now. I started out on a dairy farm. First job was cleaning up the barnyard. And so I'm well prepared to be a politician. Thank you.

 

Representative Carlton Wing I'm Carlton Wing. I represent North Little Rock and Sherwood. This is my fourth term on Agriculture. And a lot of folks will say, now, how much farming do you have in your district? And I represent all of the square foot gardens in North Little Rock and Sherwood. But I do have some credentials. 

We were in a committee meeting and they were talking about possibly having a farmer card to allow our farmers to be able to go sales tax free on their purchases. And so I called my friends at the Farm Bureau and asked for a farmer card. And so I am farmer number 0001 as of right now. And I'm looking forward to my good friend Tracy Steele, who also represents North Little Rock with us. We can get a farmer card for you, too, right here in central Arkansas.

 

Representative Denise Garner I'm Denise Garner from District 20, Fayetteville. And again, like Carlton, most people wonder what in the world someone from Fayetteville is doing on Agriculture. We do have some poultry up there in northwest Arkansas. We do have some sustainable local cottage industry food producers. And for the last 20 years, I've worked in an organization to make the food system sustainable in Arkansas. So we have a restaurant with about 90% of our products being from local farmers. And I'm absolutely interested in making sure that the food system is sustainable in Arkansas. Thank you.

 

Representative Harlan Breaux I'm Harlan Breaux. I'm in my fourth term right now, and I have most all of Carroll County, including Boone County. And we got a lot of chicken farms around where I live. So I'm looking forward to this and looking forward to good things to happen.

 

Representative Stephen Walker Stephen Walker. So we're in my second term now. I represent District 27, which is most of North Arkansas. It stretches from Izard County all the way to Newton County.

 

Representative Chad Puryear Chad Puryear, House District 25, Eastern Washington County, Crawford County and part of Franklin County.

 

Representative Matt Brown Matt Brown, 55, and the rest of the City of Conway that Representative Magie doesn't have. And the only thing I know about is Ag it's not Aging, Children, and Youth.

 

Representative Kendra Moore Kendra Moore, District 23, which is West Washington County. This is my second term. My family and I have a small cow calf operation and I am the official gate opener.

 

Representative Steve Unger Steve Unger representing District 19, my hometown of Springdale. My dad's family were farmers until my grandfather died, and then the depression wiped him out. I have cleaned out chicken houses and picked strawberries. And if you plow something up in Springdale, mostly what you'll get is rocks. But I do appreciate the Ag culture business in Arkansas and all that it contributes.

 

Representative Tracy Steele I'm Tracy Steele. I represent North Little Rock, the part that my colleague does not represent. Glad to be on this committee. I've served many moons ago in the House and the Senate. But I have never served on the Agriculture Committee and I've always wanted to. So glad to be here.

 

Representative Cameron Cooper Cameron Cooper, District 57. I live in White County. My district includes Western White County, Eastern Faulkner County, Northwest corner of Lonoke County. It's cattle country. I grew up on a farm. We've got 200 head of Red Angus beef cattle, got a herd of Nubian dairy goats. And we also raise a few pigs. 

My summers as a kid were not fun. As you can imagine, growing up on a farm, it wasn't all about swimming and fishing. It was baling hay and non air conditioned tractors. You can imagine that dust that sticks to you ,sticks to the sweat, you know, picking up rocks off the hay fields, our meadows. That's right. Cutting thistles. Yeah. Our meadows grew hay, but they also grew rocks. Clean the rocks up, and by the end of summer, you got to clean the rocks up again. Very rocky area. 

Anyway, I love agriculture. I'm being facetious about that. My summers were not always fun, like I said, but it was very character building. A good way to be brought up and bringing up my daughters in the same way. So glad to be on this committee.

 

Representative Jason Nazarenko I'm Representative Jason Nazarenko, District 4, which is all of Marion County and then southern Baxter County. I'm not on Agriculture. My predecessor, Representative Jack Fortner, was the chairman. We have a lot of agriculture in our district. And so I had nothing at 10:00, and this is where I wanted to be to just meet the folks that are here and know who's going to be working to help our district out. So I appreciate you all working hard and making sure you keep all of our folks in agriculture with the best possible solutions that they've got. Thank you very much.

 

Zane Rogers Zane Rogers, the committee analyst. Now just excited to be a part of this committee.

 

Representative Roger Lynch So let's take a few minutes and go around our audience here. Jack, you want to start? [Discussion off mic] I keep forgetting that. So right now, we don't have any business to conduct yet, but we certainly will. And so for the committee, a couple of things came up during the leadership meeting yesterday afternoon. 

If we have someone at the end of the table and you have a question and then you think, well, I'd like to ask another question, don't hesitate to do that. Go ahead and do that. I mean, we all know that that as long as we're cordial and we treat each other with respect, you ask your questions. If it goes overly long and you're taking somebody else's time, I might say, you know, maybe we ought to break that and come back at the end of the meeting with other questions. 

Remember that we'll be in this room off and on for the next two years, so please don't step on somebody else's toes any harder than you have to. You know, we all get emotional at times about issues that come up, but remember that the next day we've got to work together again. So let's remember that and be cordial and friendly. And it's all right to disagree. Okay. But we can do it in a manner that's not personally attacking someone. Okay. All right. 

Let's see what else we've got. Quorum is 11 people. And so normally, when we start a meeting and I rap us in, then, I'll say the chair sees a quorum. All right. And then we'll get into our business. Agendas are prepared in accordance with House rules and are prepared two days in advance. Sponsor notifications will be sent to members who have bills on the agenda two days before the committee meeting and the notices are sent by email. 

After a bill or resolution has appeared on the committee agenda and has been called up for consideration and if the sponsor is not present, the item will be placed at the bottom of the active agenda. If a bill or resolution has been called up for consideration three times, it will automatically drop to the deferred list unless the sponsor notifies their request to move bills from the deferred list to the active agenda. Must be made by 2:30 p.m. two days prior to the scheduled committee meeting. 

Amendments should always be in writing. Please let staff know before the meeting if you have an amendment. Any special order of business is set at the call of the chair and when the sponsor of a bill requests a special meeting date or time for the committee to hear his or her bill. This is used when there is a controversial bill that will have a lot of people testifying either for or against the bill or when the sponsor is people coming from out of town to speak on the bill. So you all remember to work closely with the staff. They'll iron out all the wrinkles and make sure that when we come in here, we're professional and we go through our order of business quickly and efficiently. 

All right. My man says there's nothing else. Anybody else have something they want to add before we adjourn? The meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for coming.