An ongoing theme for the farm bill is to separate nutrition and agriculture into two separate bills. U.S. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat representing eastern North Carolina farm country is on board with the idea, but he acknowledges it is not likely. 

When asked during a tour of drought-stressed crops in Edgecombe County July 2, Davis responded “no” if a farm bill can be passed without the nutrition program.  

“Fundamentally, the system should work even though we understand the politics of it,” Davis said. 

Davis, the vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, was one of four Democrats who voted for the Republican-sponsored farm bill in the committee in May. Other Democrats voting for the bill in committee were Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, and Sanford Bishop of Georgia. 

The farm bill is now in the rules committee, awaiting movement to the full House for a vote. Davis said he would be surprised if the bill comes before the full House before the end of September. He said it is still unknown if the bill will pass both chambers and be signed by the president before the new Congress convenes in January. 

‘We need a good farm bill’ 

Davis emphasized the importance of the farm bill and said he is ready to meet with his colleagues in both the House and Senate to work on final passage “because we owe it to our farmers, we owe it to our agriculture community. We owe it to the American people to get it done.” 

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“We need a good farm bill. I voted for support of the farm bill because I believe it was definitely headed in the right direction,” Davis said in a news conference during the drought tour at V&V Farms in Rocky Mount.  

Currently, the 2018 farm bill is in extension. “We need a good bipartisan farm bill as it historically has been,” Davis said.  

Davis also emphasized the need to modernize the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program, so it works better for farmers. He said it is important to understand that H-2A wages are set while farmers are dealing with rising production costs and inflation to absorb, and they can only absorb so much. 

“A lot of our farmers, especially here in eastern North Carolina, are experiencing so many challenges just to continue to operate. We have to be there for them now more than ever especially in the midst of this drought so that they can sustain their operations and continue to feed and clothe the American people and beyond,” Davis said.  

Immigration and inflation 

Davis remains optimistic that H-2A reform can be achieved in Congress in a bipartisan way. However, he stressed H-2A reform must be kept separate from the broader immigration conversation. 

“If you let it get into the immigration conversation, it’s totally gone. It’s not that we don’t need to get into the immigration conversation, but you just need to have two separate conversations,” Davis said.  

“One of the bigger takeaways for me is I think we need to change how we talk about H-2A. What I mean by that is when we often talk about H-2A, we use the word labor, we use the word workers. I think we need to move all that out of the conversation, and we need to talk about, hear this, workforce. I’m telling you having to deal with others on my side, when you say labor, workers, you’re already dealing with a certain perception and connotations. But when we talk in the context of workforce, this is our reality,” Davis said.  

Shane Varnell, owner of V&V Farms in Rocky Mount, said there are very serious problems with the current H-2A program. 

“Somehow, we have to put a cap on the increase that happens every year. If not, if that continues, that is going to put us out of business,” Varnell said at the news July 2 news conference on his farm. 

“The other main thing that we have is inflation. It hits the regular people hard. Groceries go up; gas goes up; fuel goes up. What kills us is you can multiply those 100 times for our fuel bill. The fuel that we run through these tractors, what the equipment costs, what they are charging for combines, everything from the seed that we buy, nothing has gone down,” Varnell said. 

Varnell did note that fertilizer costs have gone down some since the pandemic, but the costs for other inputs have all gone up, not down. “Our rent goes up every year. Our taxes go up every year. This year commodity prices are down, and then we have a drought on top of that,” Varnell said.