Farmers looking for policy changes with the new Virginia General Assembly

AUGUSTA COUNTY, Va. (WHSV) – Farmers across the Shenandoah Valley are looking to have their voices heard in the 2024 Virginia General Assembly.

With the General Assembly in full swing, funding for Agricultural Best Management Practices is something that’s been on the lawmakers’ agenda before. A goal has been set to reduce the amount of erosion and runoff into the Chesapeake Bay.

“There are some big goals for farmers and agriculture as a whole coming up for 2027,” Bradley Dunsmore, a farmer in Augusta County, said. “The fully funding of those BMPs in the budget are very, very important for farmers if there is going to be any chance of farmers hitting their goals for 2027 with the Chesapeake Bay cleanup.”

Currently, farmers are using EPA-approved herbicides to help limit the amount of tilling required on farmland.

Dunsmore said legislators in Richmond are trying to limit the use of these herbicides, which can lead to farmers not meeting their requirements in 2027.

“Whether it’s a pesticide or herbicide, those are very important tools in a farmer’s tool bag,” Dunsmore said. “That allowed him to do things better than what we used to do in the past. You know, they allowed us, allowed a lot of farmers to go to no till or minimal till practices, which has greatly helped with erosion. It’s helped keep sediment out of the bay.”

Along with these bills, Dunsmore said the large animal veterinarian shortage has hurt many farmers in the Commonwealth. In the Valley, many farmers are grateful for the access to vets because Augusta County is the largest cattle producer in Virginia.

“I’d say we have more veterinarians in this area than we have anywhere else in the state. Certainly there are other parts of the state that agriculture is not as intensive, and there’s people that have farming operations that the closest veterinarian is well over an hour away. There might only be one veterinarian within two hours of them,” he said.

Dunsmore said farmers are keeping an eye out on legislation based around solar energy. He said the solar conversations are hot and controversial topic in the agriculture community.

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