By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov.-elect John Kasich told delegates at the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s 92nd annual meeting that he intends to balance the budget based on innovation and rational thinking. He also spoke of bringing new agribusinesses to Ohio, encouraging agricultural awareness in schools, reducing unnecessary regulation and building consensus in the area of proper treatment of farm animals.

Kasich was accompanied by his first cabinet appointee, State Representative Jim Zehringer, who will be the new director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The governor-elect called agriculture Ohio’s most important industry and applauded farmers’ work ethic and common sense approach to addressing challenging issues.

In the Farm Bureau meeting’s keynote address Dr. E. Gordon Gee, president of the Ohio State University, spoke of the approaching the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Land Grant Colleges Act.

“In my view, I think that of all the legislative actions that have taken place in this country that the Morrill Act is among the most important,” Gee said. “There has never been anything that has been more significant in changing the culture, the values, changing the direction of this country, than that act.”
Robert Boggs, current director of ODA told the attendees that there needs to be a strong voice for agriculture in Ohio and OFBF has done a great job of providing that voice. He spoke of the importance of ODA.

“The Ohio Department of Agriculture does not need to be downsized, marginalized, minimized, consolidated into other departments or eliminated,” Boggs said. “We need an agency within state government to stand up for agriculture and that can best be done by the department of agriculture.”

Boggs also said that progress is being made on the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, but it is slow going because the board wants to do a good job. Despite frequent meetings there has been little absenteeism, he said.
Mary Kay Thatcher, American Farm Bureau Federation’s director of public policy, told the group that some people in Washington might not have gotten the message on election night; those people included Lisa Jackson, administrator of EPA and Energy Czar Carol Browner. They gave no indication that they intend to back off on regulations.

“However I do think that we’re going to have a lot more luck, owing to Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his group of folks, in getting them to put through resolutions to stop funding for EPA to carry out a dust regulation or a clean water act regulation or whatever it might be, than we ever had with Nancy Pelosi,” Thatcher said.

New at the meeting this year, attendees who were updating Twitter accounts were encouraged to append the hashtag #OFBFR10 to their tweets to make it easy for others at the meeting and those not present to follow along with what was happening.