The American Farm Bureau Federation tackled two issues that it says put U.S. farmers at a disadvantage.
In an April 26 announcement, the AFBF noted that a recently released U.S. Department of Labor rule “mires farm families in excessive compliance costs while disregarding privacy concerns for farmers and their employees.”
The Farm Bureau continued, “With this addition, DOL sets itself apart as the agency most committed to burying farmers and other H-2A employers in a mountain of regulations.”
AFBF President Zippy Duvall com commented on the April 26 rule and DOL’s track record, saying, “Farmers appreciate the men and women who work on their farms, and we don’t take lightly the responsibility to ensure their safety and protection.
“We wholeheartedly support clamping down on labor abuses, but this rule instead assumes all farmers are guilty until proven innocent and that’s not right.
“With this 600-page rule, the Department of Labor has issued a stunning 3,000 pages of new regulations in just 18 months, which farmers are somehow supposed to navigate. Impossible.
“In truth, the workers most supported by DOL are the lawyers needed to interpret the tsunami of new rules that keep moving the goalposts for farmers.”
Earlier in the month, the Farm Bureau also looked at the “forever chemical rule, which it said “creates uncertainty for farmers.”
On April 19 Duvall addressed the Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule to designate perfluorooctnoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), “the two most common per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS),” as hazardous materials under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.
He said, “America’s farmers and ranchers share the goal of protecting the nation’s water supplies, and they believe those responsible for PFAS contamination should be held accountable. Unfortunately, farmers could be unfairly targeted even though they do not create or use any PFAS in their operations but may have passively received the chemicals. We acknowledge that EPA is saying it does not want farmers and ranchers to be penalized for a situation they did not create, but without those assurances being expressly written into the rule, future enforcement is uncertain.
“This is a problem facing all of us. Our members, like all families in America, are completely unaware of the PFAS levels on their property until it’s too late because these chemicals are coming from outside sources. As mitigation efforts move forward, it’s important that farmers are not held responsible for the presence of PFAS chemicals, which they did not produce or intentionally use.”
