NC lawmakers bring back Farm Act, without raw milk or cancer lawsuit bans

North Carolina lawmakers plan to push through a wide-ranging agricultural bill on Wednesday, a new sign of life for the bill that has laid dormant for the past year after drawing criticism over several provisions that have now been written out of the bill.

It passed the state House nearly unanimously Wednesday, on its way to final approval in the state Senate before heading to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein for his signature.

Just about every year, the North Carolina legislature passes a farm bill addressing economic, environmental or health-related topics in the state’s biggest industry. But it’s not every year that that piece of legislation leads to hundreds of boisterous critics storming the halls of the General Assembly like happened in 2025 — in that case, a bipartisan group of raw milk superfans — including at least one person who was arrested for trying to bring in a gun.

The uproar over that proposed ban on raw milk was just one piece of the bill that drew outcry from both sides of the aisle. Critics also homed in on a provision that would’ve made it much harder, if not impossible, for cancer patients and others to sue pesticide companies for causing their health issues. It was lobbied for by big-business interests after biotech giant Bayer agreed to pay billions to settle lawsuits over cancer cases linked to its popular weedkiller Roundup.

Bayer bought Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018 and in 2020 paid approximately $11 billion to settle Roundup lawsuits from more than 100,000 people; earlier this year Bayer agreed to pay another $7.25 billion to settle 65,000 more Roundup lawsuits.

Both provisions are now dead. The raw milk ban was removed last year. And the cancer lawsuit ban doesn’t appear in the new version of the bill that GOP leaders made public late Tuesday, less than 24 hours before the votes Wednesday. Additionally, lawmakers also took out a provision that would’ve expanded powers for city or county governments to block new construction they feel might harm local agricultural production.

“I, at this time, know of no opposition to any particular section that’s in the bill,” said Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, a farmer and lead negotiator on the bill.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, thanked him and the bill’s other GOP negotiators for removing the most contentious pieces of the bill. “This is a much better bill than what was initially filed,” she said, singling out the prior attempt to stop cancer patients’ lawsuits.

But she does oppose some pieces of the bill, she said, including a provision to exempt some agricultural buildings from needing to be up to code. She pointed to a massive 2022 fire in Winston-Salem at a fertilizer plant that required thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes, and said this bill could make similar emergencies more common in the future.

“That terrible disaster in Winston-Salem, that involved fertilizer — which would have qualified for this exemption from the building code,” Harrison said. “So I just want to be mindful that this might not be the best path.”

She was one of just two lawmakers to oppose the Farm Act, which passed 110-2.

State Republican lawmakers in 2025 filed at least two different versions of a Farm Act, in Senate bills 639 and 401. The former still contains language giving broad legal immunity to pesticide companies, but it has gone nowhere in the state House after passing the Senate in a mostly party-line vote last year, with every Republican and two Democrats in support. Senate Bill 401 is the one moving forward in the legislature now, and it contains no such provision.

The new version of the bill up for approval Wednesday contains other provisions, including proposals to:

• Study ways to protect water for agricultural use, a growing issue with North Carolina’s urban areas booming and needing more water, particularly amid a statewide drought.
• Repeal a points system used to punish hog farmers who violate environmental or health rules, which Dixon said was put into law years ago but never actually used.
• Allow public school students an extra two days of excused absences to attend livestock shows, equestrian competitions or other agricultural-themed events.
• Lower the penalties for illegal shrimping, which comes after a separate effort to crack down on shrimping failed in the face of passionate opposition.
• Enact various changes for the propane industry and its regulators.
• Create legal carveouts for property used for composting, or that specialize in turning animal waste into agricultural products.