Farm Bureau Delegates Set Public Policy Positions for 2015

Farmer and rancher delegates to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s (AFBF) 96th Annual Convention on Jan. 20 approved resolutions that will provide the organization grassroots authority to ask Congress to finish many measures that remain unsettled at the start of 2015, according to a Farm Bureau news release.

AFBF President Bob Stallman said that many of the challenges producers face are derived from the federal government’s attempt to overreach in its regulation of land and water use.

Regarding other policy matters, delegates:

• Reaffirmed that farmers’ proprietary data remain strictly the property of the farmer or rancher when submitted to third parties for analysis and processing;
• Agreed that farmers and ranchers must have the right to remove their data permanently from the systems of agricultural technology providers;
• Opposed state efforts to dictate out-of-state, farm-level production practices;
• Reaffirmed support for producer-led and -approved checkoff programs;
• Reaffirmed support for country-of-origin labeling provisions consistent with World Trade Organization rules;
• Called for a state-led, voluntary pollinator stewardship program to address concerns over recent declines in the populations of honey bees and butterflies;
• Supported industrial hemp production, processing, commercialization and use;
• Called for an end to the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempts to require permits for farmers to repair erosion damage on their own property;
• Opposed the current cap on agricultural labor visas under the H2-B program;
• Called for common-sense reform in endangered species protection legislation.

A total of 355 voting delegates, representing every crop and livestock sector in the United States, deliberated on policies affecting farmers’ and ranchers’ productivity and profitability. The policies approved at the convention will guide the nation’s largest general farm organization throughout 2015.