Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is visiting with the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Vice President of Public Policy, Steve Thompson, about the OKFB August Area Meetings.
Oklahoma Farm Bureau members are invited to attend one of the 11 August Area Meetings held across the state, signifying the beginning of the grassroots organization’s policy process. Members will be able to consider some of the leading issues facing agriculture and rural Oklahoma as they prepare to develop an organizational policy for 2023. Members also will receive various organizational updates.
These meetings will help with the process of developing new policy for the annual OKFB meeting in November.
“That is the question, and that is the point is to find out what is on their (member’s) minds,” Thompson said. “I think that it will vary a lot depending on what part of the state you are in.”
As many parts of the state have received some rain, Thompson said he is curious to see OKFB members’ positions on policy.
“That is a key point of these meetings is to start our policy development process and talk about those and share information so that when they go back to their county resolutions meetings and their annual meetings and up the chain, what ideas they want to push,” Thompson said.
Thompson also gave a preview of what discussions will take place at these meetings regarding federal and state legislation.
“I think we have seen a flurry of activity from the Federal Government this summer, different agencies proposing rules, and they are very scary from the EPA’s new pesticide guidelines that are set to come out soon having to do with endangered species that Oklahoma is really squarely in the bullseye of…,” Thomspon said.
There is fear in Oklahoma, Thompson said, that the Federal Government aims to take away the right to use pesticides and herbicides completely.
In the western part of Oklahoma, Thompson said he feels that a big conversation in those meetings will include the Emergency Drought Commission and drought relief funds. In the eastern part of the state, Thompson said producers are battling activist groups, water permits, property taxes, and more.
“We are very excited to hear what particular issues our folks are dealing with so we can take them back to the Governor’s staff and legislative leadership so they can hear directly from what is going on,” Thompson said.
One of the big issues at the top of the list, Thompson said, involves medical marijuana. Thompson said there has been some progress on this front.
“Our calls for quite a while now have been more about the abandonment of those grow houses in certain places rather than new ones popping up,” Thompson said.
View the schedule for OKFB August Area Meetings below:
