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The House Agriculture Committee Staff Directors embody pragmatic policy leadership.

By Ryan McAlpin

Parish Braden and Brian Sowyrda speak at Center Forward’s Agriculture Summit on Tuesday, July 14, 2026 in Washington, D.C.

Parish Braden and Brian Sowyrda, Majority and Minority Staff Directors for the House Committee on Agriculture, kicked off Center Forward’s Agriculture Summit with a bipartisan conversation highlighting how the committee’s work, from the Farm Bill to other bipartisan priorities, has focused on policy instead of personality, leading to record cross-party support. As the top staffers on the committee, Parish and Brian discussed the relationship they have developed, helping to advance the work and priorities of their respective committee members.

That working relationship was on full display as the conversation turned to the specific priorities driving each side of the committee. Parish spoke of the desire to complete a 5-year Farm Bill reauthorization and the increased importance of forestry legislation for Chairman GT Thompson (R-PA), noting it as a growing focus heading into the remainder of the Congress. Brian addressed Ranking Member Angie Craig’s (D-MN) emphasis on food security as a matter of national security, underscoring her belief that Congress needs to invest more heavily in food and nutrition research to meet that goal.

The two also discussed the strain that conflicts in the Middle East place on American farmers, particularly as input costs continue to climb to unsustainable levels. Parish and Brian spoke to the role the committee can play in supporting producers through this uncertainty, ensuring farmers have the tools and resources they need to weather cost pressures largely outside their control.

The conversation also touched on emerging policy areas working their way onto the committee’s radar, including cryptocurrency and hemp, reflecting the growing range of issues the committee will need to navigate in the years ahead.

Brian spoke candidly about the need for Democrats to build stronger inroads with rural America, arguing that the party must rebrand and work to regain the level of rural representation and trust it once held. Both staffers agreed that some of this work requires ongoing education, conversations that happen behind closed doors, member to member, to build genuine understanding of rural priorities rather than relying on assumptions.

Throughout the discussion, Parish and Brian returned to the approach Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Craig have taken to build consensus, not just among committee members, but with leadership as well. That emphasis on relationship-building and buy-in, they agreed, is what ultimately produces stronger, more durable legislation.