**Statement of Robert D. Edwards**

**Grower, Halifax County, North Carolina**

**Before the**

**U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee**

**On Horticulture and Organic Agriculture**

**Thursday, June 26, 2008**

Good morning, my name is Robert Dowe Edwards, I am a third generation
farmer from Whitakers, North Carolina. Along with my brother and father,
we grow over 5,000 acres of cotton, corn, soybeans, peanuts, and other
specialty crops such as cucumbers in Halifax, Nash, and Edgecomb
Counties in Eastern North Carolina. Our farm is a family operation, I
have grown up working this land, and look forward to continuing this
operation for many years in the future.

For over ten years, a vital and profitable part of our farm, has been
the 100 acres of cucumbers we plant each year. I am sorry to have to
report to this committee, however, that due to the severe and sudden
rise in the price of fuel, the ongoing and worsening problem of a lack
of labor to harvest these cucumbers, and the recent and increasing
problem of a lack of honey bees needed to pollinate these crops, we have
been forced to reduce our acreage of cucumbers by 50 percent.

I am not alone in experiencing these problems. Not only do I grow
cucumbers on my farm, I also work as a grower for a much larger cucumber
operation, Carolina's Best Farms, managing cucumber production
operations in these counties, producing hundreds of acres of cucumbers
that supply pickling cucumbers for the significant pickling and canning
industry in the State of North Carolina.

I emphasize again the economic pressures that all farmers are feeling
with respect to labor availability and the rising cost of fuel, and I
hope that Congress is working to address these issues. But we are here
today to discuss a problem that is just as harmful as those previously
mentioned: pollinator availability, honeybees. The simple fact is, no
honeybees, no cucumbers.

The hybrid Vlaspick pickle breed that I grow, specially bred and
designed as a heavy fruit set variety designed for five to six pickings
at harvest, is highly labor, irrigation, and time intensive. This breed
is also highly pollinator intensive, there is a short window for this
fruit to be pollinated, which also requires a high number of bees to
perform this successfully. And again I emphasize, if this pollination
does not occur within the window of opportunity, these will be no
cucumbers to harvest.

Our decision to reduce our acreage of cucumber production is as directly
related to the declining availability of honey bees for pollination of
these crops. Our farm and the surrounding cucumber farms that I work
with have until recently always rented honey bees for pollinators from
bee hive operations located within the State of North Carolina. Over the
past three years, however, we have seen a notable decrease in the
availability of these hives for rent. The reason for this is that the
bee hives produced in the Southeastern part of the United States are
being shipped all over the country due to shortages of bees in other
areas, this increases in the cost we pay to rent these bees. These
longer shipping distances have also increased the cost of the hives.
Three years ago I paid \$45 per hive, today I am paying \$68 to rent
that same hive.

In other states the story is even worse. In California, there is already
a concern about a shortage of bees to pollinate the almond crop, growers
are scrambling to reserve bees, and the price their has risen to \$140
per hive.

The lower number of hives for rent has also decreased the time these
bees are available to sit on the field to be pollinated, making the
window for pollination even smaller. This increases my pressure to
increase irrigation to make sure the crop is ready for the time I will
have these bees, and this in turn further increases my fuel costs.

For our purposes, our operation has always used one hive per acre to
ensure adequate pollination. As I mentioned earlier, cucumbers are a
difficult fruit to pollinate, this is a very sticky plant that requires
a high number of bees due to the increased effort that is needed on the
part of the bee. And as I tell my non-farmer friends, these bees are out
there pollinating more than my cucumbers, they are critical for the
growth of virtually everything in our food chain; because everything in
this chain eats something that has been pollinated, or ate something
else that was pollinated by a honey bee.

My great concern is that we are witnessing a serious and unexplained
reduction in the availability of these bees. This sudden reduction in
the number of bees has been explained to me as Colony Collapse Disorder,
but the cause of this is not so clear.

Mr. Chairman, I am not a scientist, I am a farmer, and I know one thing
for certain: no bees, no crops. As a farmer who relies on these bees I
am searching for solutions just like you are. I think in the short term,
possible solutions could be to give these farmers some of the access to
the programs that we provide to the farmers who rely on them. My bee
supplier lost 40 percent of his hive last year, if I lost 40 percent of
my crop and did not have crop insurance, I would go under. Congress
should consider making crop insurance and low interest FSA loans
available to these bee keepers, and to increase the amount of bees,
possibly making them eligible for beginning farmer loans.

I did not reduce my acreage of cucumbers because of the cost of fuel, I
was forced to reduce my acreage because I could not ensure that I would
be able to rent enough bees to pollinate my crop. Congress can work to
fix the H2A problem, to correct our labor crisis in the specialty crop
industry, and I am hopeful that at some point fuel prices will have to
go back down. But Congress needs to understand that the problem of a
lack of bees needed to pollinate the very foods we consume every day is
a real and growing problem that needs to be studied, addressed, and
corrected. Bees are as important to our crops as the water and the
sunshine.

Again, I thank this Committee and Chairman Cardoza for his attention to
this important matter. I would be happy to try to answer any questions
the member of this committee might have.