Ag United News

Climate Bill, Federal Debt Top Concerns Farm Bureau Delegates

For Immediate Release - January 20, 2010
For More Information, Contact Scott VanderWal - 605-627-5479

                                                                                                                                                                                 Delegates at the recent 91st American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting voted to oppose cap-and-trade climate legislation and to support balancing the federal budget over the next eight years.  Thirty members and leaders of the South Dakota Farm Bureau attended the meeting in Seattle.

"The delegates approved a very clear, strongly worded 'sense of the delegates' resolution reaffirming our opposition to the climate change legislation in Congress," said SD Farm Bureau President Scott VanderWal.  The resolution states that cap-and-trade legislation would raise farmers' and ranchers' production costs, and the potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs to producers. The delegates also voted to support "any legislative action that would suspend EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act."

Delegates called on Congress and the Administration to balance the Federal budget by 2019, stressing that federal spending must be reduced.  VanderWal noted, "Recognizing that social Security and Medicare are two of teh items causing huge budget problems, delegates passed policy in favor of raising the Social Security retirement age as life expectancy increases."

AFBF President Bob Stallman, re-elected as president for a sixth two-year term, was praised for his convention address. "He really hit a home run in his effort to summarize the issues and threats facing American agriculture and Farm Bureau's role in navigating our industry through all of the challenges," said VanderWal. 

President Stallman issued a call to action to Farm Bureau members, and a stern warning to critics, that farmers and ranchers will no longer tolerate opponents' efforts to change the landscape of American agriculture, according to VanderWal.

"Emotionally charged labels such as monoculture, factory farmer, industrial food, and big ag threaten to fray our edges," said Stallman. "We must not allow the activists and self-appointed and self-promoting food experts to drive a wedge between us."

"A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and how we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule," said Stallman. "The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over."

"At the very time we need to increase our food production, climate change legislation threatens to slash our ability to do so," said Stallman. "The world will continue to depend on food from the United States. To throttle back our ability to produce food - at a time when the United Nations projects billions of more mouths to feed - is a moral failure."

The delegates also called for meaningful relief from the estate tax, with no conditions or qualifications. They said that an increase in the overall exemption would be Farm Bureau's main priority. They also reaffirmed their support for full stepped-up basis at the time of death in order to reduce the capital gains tax burden on farm and ranch heirs. Also on taxes, the delegates opposed the imposition of any health-related taxes on foods or beverages.

SDFB President Scott VanderWal was re-elected to represent the Midwest Region on the American Farm Bureau Board of Directors.