(The Center Square) – North Carolina lawmakers in both Raleigh and Washington, D.C. are pursuing legislation aimed at protecting the agriculture industry, which represents one-sixth of the state’s economy and employees.
Republican U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd are among dozens in Congress promoting a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to block a proposed rule from the Department of Labor that will result in higher rates for certain workers in the H-2A program, which is widely used by farmers in North Carolina and elsewhere.
Those rates have grown at twice the pace of inflation over the last decade, while other proposed changes would require farmers to track every activity of every employee on their farms, lawmakers contend.
“At a time when farmers and growers are already being pushed to their limit as a result of rising input costs and shrinking margins, President Biden’s Labor Department is adding yet another burden,” Budd said. “At the same time, families are struggling to afford their daily lives because of the Biden administration’s inflationary policies.
“This new rule will only add fuel to the fire by driving the cost of food and supplies up even higher. Congress must overturn this harmful rule to ensure that America’s farmers have a seat at the table when the federal government issues policies that could exacerbate their already significant labor and operational costs.”
Tillis said, “The H-2A visa program has long been a last-resort option for farmers as a legal and reliable source of labor to plant, grow, and harvest their crops; however, the wage rate farmers are required to pay by the Department of Labor has long outpaced the rate of inflation and become unsustainable. This year’s increase has only exacerbated the current national labor crisis.”
The resolution, and an identical measure introduced in the U.S. House, is supported by the Agriculture Workforce Coalition representing 550 agriculture organizations across the country, including the North Carolina Farm Bureau. It’s led by Budd and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, with support from Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The House resolution was introduced by Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and House Agriculture Committee Chairman G.T. Thompson of Pennsylvania.
State lawmakers in Raleigh, meanwhile, are poised to approve legislation to protect North Carolina farmland and military installations from hostile foreign governments. The bipartisan House Bill 463, slated to clear the House this week, states “no adversarial foreign government shall purchase, acquire, lease, or hold any interest in” agricultural land or “land situated within a 25-mile radius of a military base, military installation, or military airport.”
The bill is modeled after similar legislation cosponsored by Budd in the U.S. Senate.
“Allowing foreign adversaries to purchase farmland is a legitimate concern in rural North Carolina and poses a serious risk to our national and food security,” said House Majority Leader John Bell, R-Wayne, sponsor of the bill.
North Carolina’s six major military bases include the U.S. Army’s Fort Bragg, Pope Air Force Base, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Camp Lejeune, MCAS New River, and MCAS Cherry Point. Seymour Johnson is in Bell’s Wayne County.
Agriculture is North Carolina’s largest industry, accounting for one-sixth of the state’s economy and employees and $91.8 billion in gross state product.
U.S. Department of Agriculture data from 2021 shows the state is home to roughly 45,100 farms covering 8.3 million acres, with the average size of 184 acres. Those figures are down from about 46,400 farms covering 8.4 million acres in 2017.
Farms in the Old North State produced cash receipts of $13.2 billion in 2021.
