By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dealing with the $8 billion hole in the state budget was the top policy item discussed by delegates at the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting, said Adam Sharp, OFBF’s director of legislative policy. OSU Extension, food safety, Current Agricultural Use Value Assessment (CAUV) and referendums were other topics delved into by delegates.

Concerning the budget the delegates talked about performance audits for state government programs and staff and also privatizing some government assets, Sharp said.

Another item the delegates considered was preserving the core functions that agriculture supports in state government—things like food safety and personal property rights that are dealt with through state government. 

“They spent a lot of time discussing OSU Extension,” Sharp said. “They want to encourage Extension to define its purpose and to emphasize more of its resources and time on agriculture, natural resources, nutrition and 4-H youth development. Those core areas are where they feel there needs to be a focus in the program.”

The delegates felt there was a need to educate landowners about the value of CAUV and the importance of preserving the program. They felt that many landowners didn’t appreciate the work that Farm Bureau has done to create and preserve that program.

“The last major item they spent time on in the delegate session was the Ohio Referendum, an initiative law-making system,” Sharp said. “The delegates talked about wanting to make sure that citizens have the adequate opportunity to engage with their government as far as through the petition and initiative process but they questioned whether or not small well-funded groups could exert undue influence over the state.”

The system has worked well for agriculture in the past, but California has had a flood of initiatives brought forward by special interest groups, Sharp said. The delegates wanted to ascertain that the current system is the best way to go.
These state policies will be considered by the OFBF board and they will approve a final list of priorities. Those issues will then become priority issues for the OFBF.

“The state budget will be at the top of our list,” Sharp said.

The delegates also voted on a couple of national policy issues, Sharp said. Those policies will be forwarded to the American Farm Bureau Federation. One issue of concern is the dairy industry. 

“Given the situation with dairy the last couple of years our delegates voted to support the concept of a margin insurance program,” Sharp said.

They also voted to strengthen the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program and increase its ability to deal with multi-year risk and also to simplify it, Sharp said.

Food safety was another item, he said. The delegates wanted to create a policy, which says food traceability should be tracked back to the farm only and not beyond that.

“That is when you have government requiring a farmer not only to identify his product out the front side where he is selling or moving it to, which we think is okay, but tracing where on their farm they actually produced the product or where they bought their inputs to produce that product,” Sharp said. “We think the intent was there, but we didn’t believe the AFBF policy was clear. We support tracing back to the farm, but not beyond.”

Each year, Farm Bureau takes its direction from new policy decided upon by delegates and approved by the OFBF board of directors.