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Washington Congresswoman is sounding the alarm that farmers in her southwest Washington district are struggling.

“The most haunting memory was of a farmer, he’s like a grown man, starting to cry, I don’t know if I can get this farm to the fifth generation,” Gluesenkamp Perez told U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Gluesenkamp Perez stressed how difficult it is for small, independent farms to survive.

“The suicide rate—it’s three and a half times higher than any other population,” she said. “What are we doing?”

Congresswoman urges action in southwest Washington farming crisis

In a social media post, Gluesenkamp Perez said the federal government would become more efficient by listening to farmers and cutting red tape, not “randomly cutting civil servants.”

Making government more effective means listening to growers about common sense ways to cut red tape – not making their work harder by randomly cutting civil servants.

I urged Ag Sec. Rollins to refocus on empowering small producers to sell food locally and stand up to…

— Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (@RepMGP)

“Are we truly empowering our farmers to push back against corporate consolidation and foreign land ownership—and simply sell their food to local schools?” she said.

The federal government has eliminated the , which provided resources for schools to purchase food from local farmers. Therefore, Gluesenkamp Perez is calling on the U.S. Agriculture Secretary to take action.

“I urged Rollins to refocus on empowering small producers to sell food locally and stand up to consolidation and foreign land ownership,” she said. “Our family farmers need hope.”

Heather Bosch is an award-winning journalist for ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Newsradio. Read more of her stories here.