<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/12/1609441828191.jpeg" alt="Sen. Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and ranking Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan/Photo courtesy of Senate Agriculture Committee." />
 <figcaption>Sen. Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and ranking Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan/Photo courtesy of Senate Agriculture Committee.</figcaption>
 </figure>By BRENT MARTINSt. Joseph PostUnited States Sen. Pat Roberts had planned to tour Kansas one
last time before retiring from politics after 40 years.That simply wasn’t possible in 2020.Roberts, a Republican who is leaving the United States Senate
after four terms, had planned to visit all 105 Kansas counties this year.“So, I was really looking forward to going to every county and
just saying thank you and sitting down over a cup of coffee and visiting with
folks. Well, along came COVID,” Roberts tells St. Joseph Post. “So, we’ve been
Zooming like everybody else and that is the best substitute under the circumstances,
but there’s nothing like personal contact. So maybe we’ll do that down the
road.”Roberts won election to the Senate after serving 16 years
representing the Big 1st District of Kansas in the U.S. House. He
first won election to the Senate in 1996.Roberts laments a loss of collegiality in Washington over the
years, a collegiality he has seen leading the Senate Ag Committee.“And you’ve got to get to know people,” according to Roberts. “People
who are on the Ag Committee, we sit around a small table. We don’t have a big
committee room. We know each other and we know that the job of getting a farm
bill transcends any partisan politics that we may have. So, we’ve been very
fortunate.”In his farewell speech from the Senate floor earlier, Roberts
stated, “I lament the loss of comity, the ability to work together, or just get
along.”Roberts has a distinction in Washington:&nbsp; the only member of Congress to serve as chair
of both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.“Well, you’re working for the finest people that our nation
has to offer as far as I’m concerned:&nbsp; farmers,
ranchers, growers, for that matter everybody in the food-value chain,” Roberts
says. “We are still feeding our country the best quality food at the lowest
prices in the history of the world. Also, we’re feeding a troubled and hungry
world.”His high point? Passage of the Freedom to Farm Act.“So no longer the government could dictate what a farmer would
plant,” says Roberts. “The farmer would make that decision, according to the market.”Roberts calls Freedom to Farm an historic move which wouldn’t
have happened without a lot of teamwork as well as the Republican surge in
1994, which carried the party into the majority in the United States House
after decades in the wilderness and brought Congressman Newt Gingrich of
Georgia into prominence, eventually elevating him to Speaker of the House.Roberts favors increased trade and chafes at President Donald
Trump’s characterizations of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he
helped write and the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Roberts supported.Still, Roberts can’t argue with Trump’s tough stance with
China.“China’s not behaving themselves, at all. We’ve just seen a
lot of headlines now about China and they’re influence and hacking into all
sorts of our infrastructure,” Roberts says, adding that Hong Kong as we knew it
is gone with Taiwan looming as a big issue for President-elect Joe Biden and his
security team.American farm policy is at a crossroads and Roberts isn’t
thrilled with the formation of the Biden Administration.“If you look at his cabinet picks, especially EPA and others,
we’re going to go right back into a lot of regulation that I think was terribly
counterproductive,” according to Roberts.Roberts says he understands Trump wanted to blunt China’s
ambitions of becoming the dominant nation.“But, if you trade with them and if we’re able to sell them
the best quality food we have in the world and they are dependent on our food supply,
that at least gets you a seat at the table and that is a chip to play.”We will have more with Sen. Roberts on Monday.

Sen. Roberts bids farewell after 40 years in Washington