LOUISVILLE, Ky. – At its 105th annual meeting, the Kentucky Farm Bureau (KFB) approved its state and national policy priorities for the 2025 legislative session, with these priorities aimed at strengthening agriculture, improving rural infrastructure, and addressing key challenges facing farmers.

KFB President Eddie Melton, a fifth-generation Sebree, Ky., farmer, addressed KFB members at the Dec. 9 meeting in Louisville, thanking the KFB board for their support during his first year as president.

“They do an outstanding job representing agriculture and setting the direction for our organization every day,” said Melton, who was re-elected as president at the meeting.

For the past 16 years, he has served on the organization’s executive committee. Also re-elected at the meeting were Shane Wiseman, of Clark County, as first vice president, and Larry Clark, of Green County, as second vice president.

Melton, who was elected as KFB president in December 2023, delivered a year-end review, and shared his thoughts about the past and future of the organization.

“I couldn’t be more excited to help lead our organization forward,” he told KFB members. “What makes our organization what it is, is right here in this room: our volunteer leaders all across the state.”

When asked what he and KFB hope to accomplish in 2025, he recently told Farm World, “KFB is committed to passage of a farm bill in 2025. The farm bill is essential to farmers across the nation. It ensures that programs are in place to protect against natural disasters and unexpected revenue losses. KFB is also prioritizing updating and extending provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are important to rural communities.

“Goals for 2025 are similar to 2024 in terms of prioritizing a farm bill,” he said. “This has been a priority since 2023. A modernized farm bill that reflects current market conditions is critical for 2025 since this issue wasn’t resolved in 2024.”

He said a priority at the state and national level is identifying tax policy that provides an incentive for keeping farmland in active agricultural production.

“New this year is prioritizing tax policy,” he said. “Tax policy has been discussed for several years because we knew many provisions from 2017 expire this year, but the big push is now due to the expiration of certain tax provisions in 2025 that are going to have a significant impact on farmers and consumers.

“We will continue to work with Congress and Kentucky General Assembly members to pass tax policy that is helpful to the agricultural community,” he added. “Also, on the agenda for 2025 is H-2A reform. Finding adequate labor continues to be the number one issue we hear about from our Kentucky Farm Bureau membership.”

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the H-2A program allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs.

“As H-2A regulations continue to become more cumbersome and costly to American farmers, it increases the cost of labor and strains profitability on the farm, and at the grocery store,” he said. “It is critical that we address the labor needs for American agriculture to ensure competitiveness in global and domestic markets.”

Melton also addressed the challenges farmers face today: “The data tells us that from 2017 to 2022, we lost 6,500 farmers in the state of Kentucky. In five years alone, during that same period, the USDA Census said that we lost 500,000 acres of production farmland in Kentucky. That’s 100,000 acres every year.

“But the one thing that stood out to me the most when I saw those numbers – it’s 274 acres every day in Kentucky that we lose of production farmland,” he said. “The average farm size in Kentucky is 179 acres. That means we lose one-and-a-half farms every day. In my mind, that’s not sustainable. Perhaps one of the most telling numbers that came out in that census is that farm production cost. It went up over 28 percent in that same timeframe.”

However, he said, “One thing that can’t be dampened is the human spirit. Our farm families are so dedicated to their farming heritage, enabling active and next-generation farmers to carry on this historic tradition. It should be a priority for every one of us in the agriculture industry.”

He said that’s why KFB launched the Kentucky Farmland Initiative, which, he added, now boasts a network of 26 partners who are committed to keeping Kentucky’s farmland in active production.

“There’s no silver bullet that’s going to cure this problem that we have of losing this farmland,” he said. “We’re going to have to take a shotgun approach. I think this coming year, we’re going to see some real progress made on this initiative.”

Overall, he said, the KFB grassroots membership is essential to obtaining its goals for the 2025 legislative session.

“KFB will bring nearly 300 Kentucky citizens to Washington, D.C., in February to meet with our congressional delegation, as well as leaders within the new administration,” he said. “When citizens engage in the policy process, these goals become more obtainable because legislative and regulatory leaders are hearing directly from their own constituents.

“In addition to the Kentucky Farm Bureau Congressional Tour in Washington, D.C., we also send weekly emails to our membership around state legislative issues,” he added. “We also continue to strengthen our relationships with existing and new elected officials so that we may advocate for every Kentucky farmer at the local and national level.”

He said, “As a grassroots organization, you set the policy for this organization for this coming year. Thank you very much for this year (2024) we’ve had. I appreciate you so much, and I look forward to what we have ahead of us at Kentucky Farm Bureau.”