After wrapping up the day at the American Farm Bureau Convention, held in San Antonio, Texas, Farm Director Ron Hays got to speak with Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Rodd Moesel. Moesel provided details about the various issues that delegates dealt with including taxes and trade, animal health, and more as the 106h Convention of the general farm organization wrapped up in Texas– plus Moesel and Hays talked about one surprising issue at the state capitol coming NEXT WEEK as the State Legislative Session begins.
First- at the national level- two big issues on the minds of agriculturalists everywhere are the upcoming expiration of important tax policies and the Trump administration’s views on tariffs and trade deals.
Moesel also mentioned that the EID policy concerning cattle, finalized last November, was an important topic covered at the meeting. “That was probably the issue that got the longest amount of debate and the most amendments today,” he said. “In the end, we ended up pretty much back where we have been, that we are strongly supportive of voluntary programs and opposed to mandatory systems.”
During the session, Moesel heard that 11 percent of America’s cowherd is currently wearing electric tags of some sort. He mentioned that the focus is on reproductively complete animals eighteen months or older that are crossing state lines.
“All of us realize that it is important for those systems to keep developing so that they can be deployed quickly in the event of an animal disease outbreak,” Moesel said. “We are asking people certainly to do the part that the government is requiring now, but to make their own voluntary decisions about what to do with the rest of their herds.”
Moesel said Farm Bureau is not wanting to roll back the new EID rules finalized by USDA on November fifth- but has no interest in seeing that expanded to younger cattle under 18 months.
They also talked about the still pending farm bill and growing concerns about agricultural labor as well as some of the key issues that Farm Bureau will be working on at the State Capitol next week including eminent domain issues. Click the sound bar at the top of the page to listen to the entire audio.
“The position that we are taking on eminent domain is that we are all about private property rights which has been the key mark of Farm Bureau for generations, so we are fighting for the rights of landowners to make their own decisions and we want landowners to be treated reasonably and fairly and to be able to negotiate their own deals if they choose to, and we certainly don’t want them to have to deal with imminent domain with these types of operations,” Moesel shared.
The “operations” being transmission lines, solar fields, wind fields, and battery enterprises.
Moesel was surprised to learn only a couple of weeks ago that Farm Bureau delegates would also be involved in annexation issues. Evidently El Reno, Oklahoma, believes that they found a loophole in the law and has annexed a large section of land between Yukon and El Reno without landowner involvement.
“We have stepped up to be involved in some lawsuits to challenge those annexation issues and we will be working on some legislation at the capitol to try to clean up the questions in the annexation laws,” Moesel stated.
Hays and Moesel covered a lot of other issues in their Tuesday afternoon conversation- be sure and listen to the full visit by clicking on the LISTEN BAR above.
