American Farmers and Ranchers (AFR) Day at the Capitol was about six years ago when Scott Blubaugh became president of the organization. AFR members are invited to attend and learn about the ins and outs of the legislative process, as well as advocate for the positions of policyholders and members at the annual convention. Oklahoma Farm Report’s KC Sheperd attended the event this year and got to speak with Blubaugh.
“This is a great opportunity for folks to come up here and meet their legislators,” he said. “Many of them don’t know who their Senator or Representative is, so we get them introduced and let them talk about the things that are important to them and AFR.”
He mentioned the added benefit of showing the legislators that AFR is a prominent organization with 60,000 members who pay attention to what is happening in state government. This makes it easier when the organization’s leaders and lobbyists advocate for legislation at the State Capitol.
Also improving the relationship between legislators and AFR were the Oklahoma Certified Beef burgers being served during the event! “Our legislatures passed that law a few years ago, during COVID, and we administer that Oklahoma Certified Beef program, so we are always glad to share that to remind them how important Oklahoma beef is and how important our farmers and ranchers are to the state as an industry. It is also the very best you can buy, too!”
In 2020, Ty Burns, Oklahoma representative for District 35, introduced a bill that would define Oklahoma Certified Beef as guaranteed to be bred, born, raised, and processed exclusively within the state of Oklahoma. Senator Casey Murdock is recognized for seeing the bill through to law. Representative Burns spoke at AFR Day about the amending legislation to ban lab-grown meat in Oklahoma, and AFR fully supports its passage.
“We are excited about Representative Burns making that amendment today on the floor,” Blubaugh shared. “We want to get on here and support him on it.”
On Blubaugh’s radar in the near future is the state’s budget, for which discussions will begin in May. There are still policies to see through regarding conservation efforts to control Eastern Redcedars. He mentioned the recent outbreak of large wildfires and how big a problem the cedars were for firefighters.
“We have to figure out how to get control of them or we are going to continue to have these large fires that burn homes and farmsteads down,” he said. “We’ve seen those things pop up all around the metropolitan area and little control on them, so everything we can do to get rid of the redcedars, we are for it.”
Blubaugh and his AFR team are looking forward to a Youth Leadership Camp in July, which annually garners several hundred middle school to high school-age students.
Blubaugh, himself, will travel to Washington, D.C., next week to lobby for a farm bill after two years during which the Federal government has failed to complete one. “I don’t know how we are going to get their attention up there in D.C., but somehow, we have to get a farm bill done sooner than later,” he said. “We need some certainty that our farmers and ranchers can count on going forward. Not just this one-time, one-year deal; then we’ll see what next year brings. That’s no way to run farm policies. It’s a hard lift. They are so divided in Congress, right now, on every single issue, but we are going to try to break through.”
