January 28, 2020

New podcast shares AFBF Annual Meeting highllights

Topic: Issues

January 28: It's a wrap on the 101st AFBF Annual Meeting and Convention, held Jan. 17-22 in Austin, Texas. It was a successful meeting, with one of NDFB's policies being implemented at the national level.

Download and listen to the 2020 AFBF Annual Meeting recap mp3.

Read the transcript:

And that’s a wrap. Another year has come to an end of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Annual Meeting and Convention. Which means a year’s worth of work deciding what kind of policy that a member wants, taking it to their county, which then goes to their district, ends up at the state level and eventually on to the national level at American Farm Bureau Federation, to see if that idea that was a member-driven policy from the grassroots, gets placed into the book or not.

It was a good time in Austin this year for the American Farm Bureau Federation 101st annual convention, finishing up 100 years of advocating on the behalf of farmers and ranchers all across this nation.

The policy is what drives our organization. It’s that grassroots policy development that drives the very thing that we’re about: Creating a position which then we advocate on the behalf of to try and make changes where they’re needed to make the lives of rural citizens – farmers and ranchers – better across this nation.

There was a lot of policy debate. In fact, it took a whole day to get through the policy and in that time, NDFB had a big win. One of the policies that came forth from our grassroots membership was adopted without a fight. And that policy is to support the repeal of Swampbuster. And if you’re a farmer or rancher in the Prairie Pothole region, you know how overbearing some of the interpretations of wetlands have been when it comes to complying with Swampbuster.

There were also a lot of other good policies there, but that was the highlight from NDFB, and we are proud to be able to represent our members at the American Farm Bureau Federation level with their grassroots policy.

And that’s a wrap, but we’re already starting to work, and our members are starting to develop the ideas that they believe will be important for their policies they want to implement this coming year.

So, stay tuned. The work starts over and we’ll be back at it again a year from now, seeing which of our policies get implemented at the national level once again.