New York Farm Bureau (NYFB) announced during a press conference that it has finalized its national legislative priorities as the organization works to promote policies benefiting New York farmers and rural communities. NYFB continues to educate and work with members of Congress and regulatory agencies while seeking to increase public awareness of issues important to agriculture.
“While working with our colleagues at American Farm Bureau and other state Farm Bureaus to craft our national priorities, we had a dual focus in mind: to protect the livelihoods of farmers and to strive to make food accessible and affordable for all New Yorkers,” said NYFB President David Fisher. “We will make every effort to work with the Trump administration, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and elected officials in Washington to achieve our goals.”
Agricultural Labor
- Pursue meaningful reforms that help farmers meet their labor needs, including, but not limited to, enacting a three-year Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) freeze and rescinding the U.S. Department of Labor’s AEWR methodology for H-2A employees in non-range occupations.
- Support efficiencies and modernization of immigration and labor regulations.
- Advance policies that strengthen and protect agricultural workers without disrupting the business of farming.
Farm Policy
- Support passage of a modernized Farm Bill with Farm Bureau priorities intact.
- Ensure that New York’s unique agriculture industry needs are met in the Farm Bill, including supportive dairy programs, specialty crop initiatives, agricultural research, nutrition programs that support farmers and consumers, and conservation programs.
- Support legislation that would allow for urban farms and controlled environment agriculture to be eligible to receive USDA grants and/or loans.
Taxes
- Achieve an extension of the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including lowered rates, a doubled estate tax exemption and important business deductions.
- Protect harmful Unrelated Business Income Tax changes.
Regulations
- Continue to seek a regulatory environment that enables farmers and ranchers to feed a growing population while remaining environmentally and economically sustainable.
- Provide a liability shield for farmers related to PFAS contamination.
- Eliminate any requirement for farmers to report air emissions under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.
- Ensure EPA’s revised definition of “Waters of the United States” fully implements the Sackett decision and can be easily understood by farmers, ranchers and landowners.
- Work for reform of decision making and appeals related to conservation compliance (Swampbuster) rules.
- Ensure a science-based approach for pesticide registration and review to prevent disruptions to agriculture and our food supply.
Sustainability and Climate
- Ensure that environmental sustainability efforts also ensure economic viability for farmers.
- Provide and promote voluntary, market-based incentive tools and technical assistance for farmers, ranchers and foresters to enhance carbon sequestration and other greenhouse gas emissions reductions using scientifically sound standards.
- Foster the development of private sector ecosystem services markets.
- Increase public awareness of agricultural advances in conservation.
Supply Chain
- Achieve legislation to prevent a patchwork quilt of state regulations restricting interstate commerce of agricultural products.
- Expand agricultural processing capacity and enhance market transparency.
- Support efforts to increase capacity for small meat and poultry processing facilities in New York.
- Safeguard access to agricultural inputs through proactive trade policies and science-based environmental assessments of chemical registrations.
- Increase U.S.-grown biofuels utilization.
- Ensure domestic energy production and transmission is both compatible with and complementary to agricultural land use.
Infrastructure
- Support broadband deployment in rural communities and ensure federal investments are targeted to those not currently served.
- Reinforce the need to rebuild, repair and modernize transportation infrastructure, including rural roads and bridges, ports, inland waterway locks, dams and levees.
- Increase federal investment in agricultural research facilities.
Rural Life and Health
- Increase awareness of mental health resources and encourage broader availability of agriculture-specific assistance.
- Expand programs to provide resources and address stigma surrounding mental health challenges.
- Support policies and legislation to provide stress assistance programs to farmers, increase farmer-facing training opportunities, increase awareness, and reduce stigma for rural mental health issues.
Trade
- Expand trade opportunities for U.S. agriculture.
- Promote fair agricultural trade in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement review process.
- Reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.
- Engage in trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and other nations.
