Nunn talks Farm Bill, immigration enforcement

Big things have been happening in the U.S. House of Representatives to benefit area farmers.
Zach Nunn, who serves as Iowa 3rd Congressional District Congressman in the House, paid a visit to Red Oak on Feb. 6, holding a roundtable with around 20 agribusiness professionals and area farmers to update them on recent legislation and get their feedback. Nunn said there’s been activity around the Farm Bill.
“It’s going to come back up for reauthorization in the House this month. The good news is we’re moving forward. I think we all recognize this Farm Bill was supposed to be done a year and a half ago. I am very happy that the House did its job. We got the Farm Bill through and it was bipartisan. Now that the Senate has gone from Democratic to Republican, we’re expecting the Republican chairmen to be able to help move things forward. We also have a couple of good fighters on the Senate side, both Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Joni Ernst on this, now we’ve just got to take it past the threshold,” Nunn explained.
Starlyn Perdue, the state executive director for the Farm Service Agency was also in attendance. Perdue said every corner of our state is so important when it comes to agriculture.
“We are a very unique, a very diverse state. It’s amazing to even just look at the topography of the map and see how different it is from here in southwest Iowa versus northeast Iowa and everywhere in between. The Farm Service Agency is here to help everyone, every farmer. It doesn’t matter if you’re farming with two head of cattle and 100 acres, or if you are managing a production of over 10,000 acres or even beyond, we have programs that will help you and will fit for that. We work very closely with the NRCS as well under the USDA heading,” said Perdue. “If there’s anything you guys need or if there’s any challenges that you guys are incurring, please do reach out to your county office, and keep constant communication with them, they are there to help.”
Nunn, who serves on the Ag Committee in the House, said that he feels it’s the most important committee, particularly for the state.
“The Ag Committee is the one where I think we get a lot of things done that help grow rural Iowa. It’s not just what we’re doing on the farmer’s side, it’s everything we’re doing for rural broadband, it’s the stuff we’re doing for infrastructure, for water quality. All of that flows through the Ag. Committee and we’ve got a big window to get some good things done. We’ve already filled up the Farm Bill with pretty much every ask that we’ve got from last year and now we’ve got more coming in. If anyone has ideas or recommendations for us on the Farm Bill side, please contact my office because the window’s open until about the end of this month,” stated Nunn.
While is was a state, rather than federal issue, attendees of the roundtable brought up their issues regarding the potential for eminent domain to be used regarding the Summit Carbon pipeline project. While it was believed if enough people signed up for the project to make it happen, that was great, but that people shouldn’t be forced into it. Nunn agreed.
“I believe in no private gain with eminent domain, and I said the same thing to the President. We’ve got to make sure the feds don’t come in here and make things worse. I know we’ve got great state legislators who are working on this issue. Private property rights still matter in this country. It’s what the country was founded on. And, if we can’t stand up for that, we are in a real world of hurt. If only 90% of the folks want the pipeline to be there, well then, you find a way to work with the remaining 10%, you don’t just take the land from them. I’m very much on the same page regarding this issue,” advised Nunn.
Nunn also asked those in attendance at the roundtable for their thoughts on immigration, saying it was a real issue that affected the state.
“It hits the farm area, particularly the livestock area, big. I’ve talked to a number of our dairy guys on this. Congress moved very aggressively in our first six months. Let’s not forget that we went through four years of 10 million people coming here with no checks and very little assistance when they got here. Even folks who wanted to do it the right way were getting passed over by people who were doing it the wrong way and you were candidly incentivized to come here the wrong way. That was wrong. I’m all for a pathway to immigration in this country. I also want to make sure we’re doing it in a way that respects the people who are doing it through the rule of law. I think that we can make sure that the folks who want to come to the country legally that we’ll have a pathway for them,” explained Nunn.
Nunn said he wanted to focus on H1A visas, as they were very beneficial to Iowa companies such as the meatpacking plant in Perry, and H1B visas.
“AI is not going to replace those guys. If you’ve ever been to a meatpacking plant, that is hard work. It is tough. Most Americans aren’t raising their hand and saying, I’d like to do this tomorrow. We’ve got to find a workforce that can help with that. That also extends out to dairy, it extends out to livestock, and to some extent to our specialty crops. As for H1B visas, these are the ones to be able to say I want to come here and work, whether it’s the guy or gal in the kitchen, whether it’s the person who’s doing hospitality or working in a community. Candidly, in a lot of Iowa, we need this,” said Nunn.
Nunn said he’s also focused on getting a pathway into the country for healthcare workers.
“In rural Iowa, if anybody’s got a family member who is in a nursing home, a lot of the people who are taking care of our greatest generation now are folks who have come here and are working to get their citizenship. I say we give them a pathway to legally work here to help take care of our communities and make sure it’s successful. That also goes for the county hospital as much as it does for the nursing home in town,” Nunn stated.
Jason Sickels, who owns 400 acres of land and also works full-time for Parks Livestock which operates across the U.S. and employes immigrants, weighed in on the issue saying that they make sure to vet employees, but questioned the limits.
“After someone learns what they need to do, and if they’re good, I’ll move them to a different area. A lot of times their visa is on a time stamp, so we lose them, and then we get a new employee we have to retrain, and that is a very big pet peeve,” commented Sickels.
Nunn felt that they could benefit Sickels and employers like his by streamlining some of the processes.
“We shouldn’t put all the responsibility on the person offering the job to do all the immigration on the front end and make sure this is a person who is here legally. We have a ton of systems that should already be checking this. We should be helping you by saying, ‘here’s a quality candidate.’ I don’t want people who have the same integrity as you, doing this on the back side, and getting a market advantage. Because frankly, some organizations hire somebody, work them until they’re broken, and then drop them off at the county hospital and leave them to the taxpayers to fix. On the flip side of that, there’s other smaller owners that are doing the same thing. They have a caretaker on a visa, and if they leave, then a lot more of those smaller mom and pop farms are coming up for sale because they can’t operate without them.  I think as much as we talk about the urgent need for capital, we’ve also got to talk about the urgent, consistent need for affordable labor. Like I said, AI is not going to solve all these things, these are jobs to do with your hands,” Nunn said.
Brent Bierbaum, who farms around Griswold asked Nunn about the status of the USDA’s Regenerative Ag program.
“The USDA put $400 million in equipment, and $300 million in the Conservation Reserve Program. I went to our local Natural Resources Conservation Service office and asked them about it and they didn’t know anything about it,” explained Bierbaum.
Nunn said that the funding was supposed to be part of the ag appropriations that were passed in October of last year and should have been available as of November of last year, and if there were any issues regarding transfers of funds, they should be rectified with the passing of the remaining elements of the Farm Bill. He advised Bierbaum he would check  further into the status and get more information to him.
“I will say this, this is the first time since the 1990s we’ve passed all the appropriations bills. which is a big step forward. Candidly, it’s something that should happen every year. We should follow the state legislature’s model on this and just get the budget done or we don’t go home. D.C. doesn’t work like that. I could not agree more on the fact that we’ve got to appreciate the secondary effects. Recently, we didn’t just shut down the government for 43 days, we shut down America for 43 days, and we allowed other people to move into markets where we should have been,” advised Nunn.