Backed by several Missouri commodity and agri-business groups, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt has launched a two-day campaign swing focused on agriculture.
Blunt, R-Springfield, is running for a second six-year term in the U.S. Senate, after he served 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"I don't mind the process of elections, at all," Blunt told supporters gathered Monday morning at Lauf Equipment Co. in North Jefferson City, "because this is where we make choices about who we're going to be, and how we're going to be who we're going to be.
"And there's no groups I'd rather have in my corner than these ag groups who so effectively represent our state."
Former Farm Bureau President Charlie Kruse told the crowd he's chairing "Roy's Ag Team," working to win Blunt's re-election bid in an August primary campaign against at least two other candidates, and then against Democrat, Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates in November.
The Jefferson City event was the first stop of an eight-city tour.
"When you look back over Roy's legislative career, he's always been there for us," Kruse said. "He's always stood strong on the issues important to all of us. ...
"It's so good to see all of mainstream agriculture standing together."
Speakers from the Missouri Farm Bureau, Cattlemen, Corn Growers, Dairy, Pork Producers and Soybean associations mentioned "federal overreach" several times, especially as applied to Environmental Protection Agency regulations and programs.
For example, the Pork Producers' Diane Slaten said the Obama administration has spent seven years looking for "ways to over-regulate and to get in the way of growing our business and taking care of our farms and our families."
Mike Deering, the Missouri Cattlemen's executive vice president, added: "The regulatory war that the administration has waged against farm and ranch families is depressing, saddening and it has to stop - and (Blunt) time and time again fights to stop it.
"The administration seems determined to turn every acre of Missouri farm ground into a vast national park, and we're not going to stand for ... this nonsense."
Blunt talked about the EPA's "waters of the United States" proposal, intended to reduce pollution in the nation's lakes and streams.
"Every roadside ditch in Callaway and Cole counties, every runoff from every parking lot, every piece of water standing in a farm field after a big rain ... is not "navigable' waters," Blunt argued, noting navigable water is the only kind that federal law authorizes the EPA to regulate.
Blunt also has focused for several years on the growing need for agricultural products, a need some experts expect to double within the next generation.
"The estimates are it's taken about 10,000 years of agriculture development to get where we are now in all the food the world grows today," Blunt said, while "35 or 40 years from now, that will be twice as big as it is now."
As the world's biggest area of commerce, he added, the future is bright for today's young people who choose agriculture careers.
"And nobody can benefit from that more than we can" because of Missouri's central location and roles in research and transportation, Blunt said. "We need to spend more time planning for how we take advantage of that."