Picnics, Fairs and Policies

This morning I was thinking through the next few months. Graduations bring summer and in the life of a field person at Farm Bureau that means picnics, BBQ's, fairs, festivals and policy development. It means more time on the road with extra events and time spent with members. I've been at Farm Bureau 14 and half years and I have made several friends over that time. Some of them I see on a monthly basis and others I only see a few times a year.

One of the things that I think Farm Bureau does well is policy development. It doesn't sound fun or exciting and sometimes the best thing about the meeting is thinking about the kind of pie I'm going to eat that night but it really is a solid part of what makes Farm Bureau special and a little different from the other agricultural groups out there. Instead of the American Farm Bureau (AFBF) office telling the states and we in return telling our county members what our positions are going to be on issues- it's the opposite. The state or AFBF doesn't take a position on something unless we have a policy on it and that starts at the county level.

I can read through our policy book and even parts of AFBF's policy books and see the faces of our members. I know that the policies on discarded road signs and elections were written by Jerry Kennedy and our border security policy was written by Joe King, Alan Sietz and Jim Chilton. That same border policy is in the AFBF book. There is also a portion of the AFBF's policy on forest health that was written by rancher Jim Parks who lives in Coconino County. The fallowing land during drought was written by Sarah Teskey who used to live in Yavapai County. I could go on about most of the policies in our book.

So for me its exciting because I don't just see a policy of words written on a page, but rather faces of my members who went to a meeting and stood up and said "I want to talk about..." Some of the policies took members driving to other counties to visit with their members asking for the support of the policy. I've seen different counties sit across the table and work together to make better policy. Some of our policy has been in the book long before I came and I'm sure if you talked to the Jim Klinkers or Bob Wilsons of Farm Bureau you would get the story behind the policy and the person who started began the process.

Even though sometimes the things we look forward to is the good pie or great dinner it turns out to be the stories that make it important. That's what the end product is- issues with faces on them written in a book.