|
Agriculture Feeds The World
Mo. Farm Bureau Is 100, Is Root Of Farm Bureau Organizations
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER
MidAmerica Farmer Grower
Lake Ozark, Mo.
As the nation’s first and oldest state farm organization, the Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB) celebrated its 100th annual meeting and conducted the more serious business of determining national and state policies for 2015 recently. Almost 1500 members representing Missouri’s 113 county Farm Bureaus attended the meeting at Lake of the Ozarks.
To celebrate the event, three Farm Bureau representatives, including MFB President Blake Hurst, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman, and former MFB President Charles Kruse addressed the group in attendance.
Stallman reminded everyone that the Missouri organization is responsible for creating AFBF. He cited several accomplishments of MFB.
“The banquet last night was the largest state Farm Bureau event I have ever attended,” he said. “I just want to clone you and send you out to the other state Farm Bureaus.
“Farm Bureau has done more than any other organization for farmers,” Stallman added. “By coming together as an organization we can accomplish more than we could as farmers alone.”
He cited two big recent achievements: Getting a five-year farm bill passed and making progress on Water Resources program development.
“We are looking to Congress for more accomplishments next year,” he said. “Farm Bureau members have come together more than ever before to fight the water problem. We surprised our friends over at the EPA with the work we have done on waters of the United States. We haven’t won this yet, but we have kept the pressure on. We have just two words for the EPA and the Corps: That’s enough!”
Many have registered their comments on the water issue and at least 17,000 of the comments were unique enough to make a point.
Addressing the group assembled at the 100th annual meeting of the Missouri Farm Bureau were from left to right Charles Kruse, former MFB President,
Blake Hurst, MFB President and Bob Stallman, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President.
Photos by John LaRose, Jr.
“We have a grassroots action team, the ‘Go Team,’ and they have learned to communicate with the media. But this battle isn’t going to go away. Still we are working to protect farmers from over-zealous bureaucrats whose efforts could destroy agriculture as we know it.”
AFBF has created a group, the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, comprised of 21 agricultural groups to determine how to portray agriculture to the public.
“We learned that we need to change the way we talk about agriculture,” Stallman said. “Consumers don’t want to be told what to think. They want a conversation, and they want their questions answered. The social media allows us to do that. It’s making a difference. We are talking about being environmental stewards of our land. Our messages already carry weight. I encourage all of you to engage in that conversation if you have a chance to do that. I think this new technique will be almost as effective as the mechanization of agriculture.”
Stallman said AFBF is presently developing strategies for next year, and will take every opportunity to move Farm Bureau forward.
Hurst cited the challenges and successes faced by agriculture and MFB over the past 100 years. Safer food, better nutrition, and increased life expectancy are just a few of the advances society enjoys today, much to the credit of the American farmer, he said.
Food is his favorite story. Hurst reported that at that first annual meeting some 300 people showed up for free food, although membership was considerably less than that.
“My grandfather started farming using mules,” he began, “and he finished farming driving an eight-row combine. He told me how they lived from planting to harvest on just $26.
“Let’s not forget how much better off we are now,” he continued. “All the things that make our economic success possible are because of what we did. We made a difference that will make our industry better forever.”
Hurst named several areas of accomplishments and noted that MFB has received all the program awards from AFBF.
“The EPA wants to regulate water in our ditches now,” he reported. MFB has a video program, “Ditch the Rule,” and its message to the EPA is “That’s Enough!” The video was shown during Hurst’s presentation. “That’s the most important national issue we worked on this year. We’ve issued dozens of op-eds and editorials about it, and the EPA commented to Missouri and gave us a public spanking.”
This spurred the organization to change the way it communicates with the public.
“As an organization and industry, I don’t think we’ve ever faced as many challenges than today,” Hurst said. “I recently traveled to New York for a conference sponsored by the New York Times. Their goal was to change our industry and our lives. But by the second day hunger pains struck us. They served us a fried carrot and a half bite of pork for $180 a person. I would have given $180 for a quarter pounder.”
Hurst said that presently Farm Bureau is telling about this industry better than ever before in the past 100 years.
“We need to brag about how each American farmer is feeding 155 people. Consumers spend less on food, so there’s more available now for health and other things. Farmers sell our accomplishments short when we don’t tell what we have done for the human race.”
He cited improved health, a decline in every chronic condition, better nutrition, taller people.
“Only in this century have we seen such an improvement in health,” Hurst said. “For thousands of years people only had enough to live. They didn’t work off the farm because they didn’t have enough energy. Only when people have adequate food can everything else we think of as creative be created.
“We take food for granted. We forget how much the world has changed in these years. It happened one seed variety at a time, one chemical at a time. It’s all added up to a remarkable increase. That’s what happened in our 100 years. That’s the story we must tell,” Hurst summed.
In his comments, former MFB President Kruse reflected on the newly formed organization 100 years ago, noting that the issues were different then they are now.
“They knew what hard times were,” he said. “They struggled like we struggle. Right after the depression was a time that no one laughed about. My grandfather sold a rail car of calves and shipped them to St. Louis from Dexter. He got a letter saying ‘your calves didn’t bring enough money to pay the freight.’ My grandfather replied: ‘I don’t have any more money, but I’ll be glad to send you more calves.’”
He also reflected on how times have changed.
“What if someone in that first meeting had stood up and said ‘In 100 years we are going to be told we can’t grow certain crops because we have to protect some little critter?’ Or ‘we are going to be fined for dredging sand or gravel?’ Unfortunately that’s where we are today. All this has come to pass, and where would we be if we didn’t have Farm Bureau?”
Kruse said he called a farmer one morning and the farmer said he’s sitting there waiting for John Deere to come out and fix his air conditioner.
“There was this long pause,” Kruse said, then added: “You know, I can remember a time when an air conditioner wouldn’t keep us from planting corn!”
He also recalled the amount of time Farm Bureau members spent making policies happen.
“MFB has been involved in every tax policy of this state, which even includes how much tax can be imposed on the people without a vote.
“Isn’t it amazing, that people can get together in a coffee shop and talk about something, and the next thing you know it’s talked about at Farm Bureau, then it’s talked about at the state legislature and is acted upon?”
As MFB president, he learned that this organization is made up of a lot of good people who are interested in making a difference.
“Missouri Farm Bureau continues to be blessed with these great dedicated people who care about the organization. Everybody in this room and around the state made me so proud to lead this organization.”
MFB is one of three state organizations that owns its own insurance company, an accomplishment Kruse calls “a blessing.”
“We may be swimming up stream, but we are swimming,” he said. “I’ve seen what can happen when a state does not control its own destiny.”
Recalling his annual address in 2001 and the tragedy of 9-11 that this country had just come through, he said: “At that time everyone, even the national media, thought it was OK to pray in public. It was OK to speak to our neighbors. Some people had to learn all that, but not us. We begin our meetings with a prayer. We all tell stories about how our neighbors have helped us, and we have helped them.”
Yet, thoughts of the future are a bit uncertain.
“We wonder if there’s any hope for the future. These doubts consume us. But just as we built on the foundation of our predecessors, in years to come our descendants will build on the foundation we leave them,” he said. “As we celebrate 100 years of Missouri Farm Bureau, we don’t know what the future holds, but we do know this: Just as Missouri Farm Bureau has been a defining force in the past, so it will be in the future.”
Voting delegates at this year’s annual meeting reviewed, discussed and approved policy positions on state and national issues. Most policy positions are long-standing, but several are new. Some of the major issues which MFB will work on for 2015 include: Supporting the development of a new voluntary Missouri beef checkoff but opposing a second USDA beef checkoff: MFB supports the existing national beef checkoff program and favors the development of a new voluntary state beef checkoff, but opposes Secretary of Agriculture Vilsackʼs proposal for a second national beef checkoff.
MFB is concerned with protecting farmersʼ and landownersʼ information. The organization believes information reported by farmers to government agencies as a result of mandatory federal or state requirements should remain confidential. While members are interested in the use of unmanned aerial systems (drones) for agricultural purposes, it is clear they are concerned about governmental aerial surveillance.
This year's MFB Annual Meeting was a kick-off to the group’s year-long centennial celebration. MFB is the first and oldest state Farm Bureau in the country, organizing on March 24, 1915, in Saline County. ∆
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER: Senior Staff Writer, MidAmerica Farmer Grower
|
|