MOUNT VERNON — Members of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation returned home Friday after an intensive three days spent conferring on national policy and addressing government officials. The OFBF members were on the organization’s 62nd annual County Presidents Trip.
While it may be unlikely that such a visit will provoke any unsupportive lawmakers to suddenly change their votes, it provides an opportunity for Farm Bureau members to shore up support among friendly policymakers and to demonstrate that although farmers work deep in the countryside of rural America, they are keeping an eye on Washington.
One problem for the OFBF, and in general, for the entire American Farm Bureau Federation, is a perceived unwillingness to negotiate on hard-line positions. During comments addressed to members of the media on Thursday night, OFBF Executive Vice President Jack Fisher said it would be important for the bureau to reach out to the opposite end of the political spectrum in the future on such issues as animal rights.
“We will have to find a middle ground,” Fisher said.
However, no such comments came onto the floor in front of the group during the three days it spent in Washington. Indeed, the opposite was far more typical, as several county presidents raged against the Humane Society of the United States, not to be confused with local humane societies, which do not typically pitch into arguments about the ethics of farm animal treatment. This led to predictable demagoguery from some politicians, such as House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio 8, who used the phrase “whacko environmentalists” in his comments about opposing interests to the group at the Farm Bureau Forum held on Wednesday.
The AFBF policy statement handed out to group members for distribution to their representatives directly states a rather hectoring position on the animal rights front: “We are opposed to the concept of animal rights and oppose the expenditure of public funds to promote the concept of animal rights.” This is somewhat softened by a following phrase in the document, which acknowledges that farmers of the AFBF do, indeed, support the proper treatment of animals, but the defensive rhetorical stance offers little room for finding middle ground.
USDA Deputy Director Chuck Conner, who in his brief tenure has made some outspoken remarks, was relatively subdued in his comments addressed to the group Thursday afternoon. Conner said that President Bush was in favor of extending the current farm bill for another year if a compromise on the 2007 Farm Bill can’t be reached by mid-April. Conner still held out some hope for hammering out a compromise bill, although he said that before anyone suggested anything about new taxes for any item covered in the bill, lawmakers should look closely through existing policy to find additional funds. He said the government’s budget is so enormous, large sums of money could be reallocated from defunct policies.
“Within $3 trillion, we can certainly find $10 million,” Conner said, referring to the national budget.
Conner noted that one of his biggest concerns for future operations of the USDA was a shortage of veterinarians. He said he felt that the way the USDA is kept under a microscope by the Humane Society of the United States and other animal rights groups was discouraging veterinarians from joining the agency. One OFBF county president suggested the creation of a new, less demanding position, a sort of veterinarial equivalent of nurses’ aides for registered nurses.
“That’s an interesting thought, and I appreciate it,” Conner said, caught off-stride by the idea.
Conner said the good news for farmers right now is that agricultural exports are growing daily, although future battles will have to be fought to render continued success in free trade agreements.
