November 7, 2012
www.gfb.org
Vol. 30 No. 45
GFB POLICY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE MEETS Members of the GFB Policy Development Committee met in Macon Oct. 8 and Nov. 5 to prepare the policy GFB members will vote on at the organization’s convention in December. The committee met at the GFB headquarters to consider changes to the policy that guides Farm Bureau’s legislative initiatives. The policy development committee consists of 30 county presidents, the chairmen of GFB’s 20 commodity advisory committees, and 25 GFB board members. This year, 86 county Farm Bureaus submitted more than 350 resolutions. The 20 GFB commodity advisory committees also offered resolutions for consideration. The policy development committee was tasked with sorting through Farm Bureau’s existing policy and the resolutions submitted this fall to make recommendations for GFB voting delegates to consider at the GFB annual convention in December. “The main subjects on the minds of our members this year were our positions on ethanol, environmental issues, taxes, animal agriculture issues, and immigration reform,” GFB President Zippy Duvall told the committee. “You are charged with giving serious attention to all these resolutions and putting them into a useable document for our voting delegates to consider.” A total of 64 resolutions were submitted on the subject of Farm Bureau’s ethanol position, making it the subject that drew the most attention in the policy development process. After considerable debate, the committee recommended that Farm Bureau make some changes to current policy but remain supportive of the nation’s renewable fuels standard (RFS). The committee also expressed farmers’ exasperation at the volume of regulations coming from numerous federal agencies. Members posed for a group photo with a “Stop the Flood of EPA Regulations” banner which included more than 1,500 signatures collected during Sunbelt Expo in Moultrie last month. GFB will send this photo with a letter to EPA outlining Farm Bureau’s opposition to EPA regulatory efforts, particularly its efforts to expand its regulation of water on farms. The committee reiterated its opposition to federal estate taxes and urged action to prevent the increase in that tax scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2013. (For more on estate taxes, see story on inside.) There was also broad consensus regarding the importance of animal agriculture and the need for national immigration reform. The committee will meet again on Dec. 2 at 3:15 p.m. on Jekyll Island for an open session of policy development followed by a closed session for committee members only. The purpose of this meeting is to make last-minute recommendations before the voting delegates consider the final document on Dec. 4 during the GFB Convention.