Commentary: Farm Bureau achieves results through political action

Why should the state's farmers and ranchers be concerned about politics?

Because politicians in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., are making decisions that impact us every day. Whether it's taxes, education, environmental regulation, food safety, land use, trade or insurance benefits-government decisions impact your business, your job, your family and your life. Being an actively engaged citizen is more important than ever.

The California Farm Bureau Federation has played an active role in representing members on public policy issues. While we are pleased with our progress, our family farms and ranches continue to be threatened by special interest groups determined to spend millions of dollars to elect candidates who have vowed to challenge our farming practices, increase regulation, and threaten our water and private property rights-in essence, threatening our way of life.

In response, CFBF has stepped up efforts to influence public policy by becoming more involved in political affairs and taking political action to support candidates, elected officials and initiatives that support California agriculture.

Candidates are trying to win elections and elected officials are trying to stay in office-both need two things: financial support and votes.

For nearly 30 years, FARM PAC®, the Fund to Protect the Family Farm, has been our vehicle for financial support of ag-friendly candidates. California is a big state and getting a message out to voters is costly. We've all seen the numerous television commercials and received countless items in the mail. Candidates also employ pollsters and strategists behind the scenes-all of this costs big bucks! By contributing to candidates through a political action committee, such as our FARM PAC, people with a common interest have a stronger voice and their interests or concerns are better known. FARM PAC allows Farm Bureau to support candidates who understand our issues and share our views on legislation; if you like what they did, you can support them to keep them in office.

By supporting or not supporting candidates, we send a powerful message about what's important to our membership. By supporting our FARM PAC, you take a leadership role in Farm Bureau.

How do we help deliver the other important factor-votes? We do this by encouraging grassroots activism. Become a grassroots activist, as many of you did during the Schwarzenegger campaign. Being a grassroots activist means responding to requests to attend rallies, put up yard signs, write letters to the editor of your local paper or simply telling your friends and family what a candidate will do for California agriculture. As we all witnessed in the 2000 presidential election and in many primary races this year, many elections are decided by just a few votes. Having supporters spread a candidate's message is just as valuable as those 30-second TV ads.

You don't have to wait until an election year to be a grassroots activist. Farm Bureau members nationwide recently submitted 28,000 comments supporting streamlined pesticide regulations. Utilize the tools provided by Farm Bureau, such as Ag Alert®, Friday Review, Capital Connection or your local county Farm Bureau newsletter, to sharpen your understanding of the latest issues that impact you and your business. We must all work together to deliver a consistent and credible message.

More than 20 years after the creation of FARM PAC, farm and ranch families face new challenges. We need new ways to amplify the voice of agriculture in Sacramento and Washington. We need your voice and participation in local issues, contributing to FARM PAC, writing letters and making calls to legislators. Participation in these and other activities will require your most precious resource-time.

It is important that we have a strong, strategically driven political affairs program in today's political environment.

Help make an effective political action program better. Get involved. Tell your friends and neighbors to get involved. The importance of Farm Bureau's public policy and political action program is too great to do otherwise. It could make the difference between you staying in business or not.