By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

SEATTLE, Wash. — Supporting a balanced federal budget over the next eight years and opposing cap-and-trade legislation topped the to-do list for delegates at the American Farm Federation’s (AFBF) 91st annual meeting in Seattle, Wash.

“As Congress returns to the issue of cap-and-trade this year, the message of Farm Bureau will continue to be: ‘Don’t Cap Our Future’ agricultural productivity and food security,” AFBF President Bob Stallman told delegates at the annual meeting Jan. 10-13. “We will now send that message even more strongly.

“Congress should focus on renewable energy that is better for the environment and our domestic energy security, but it should not tie the hands of U.S. producers, whose productivity, historically, has provided the world’s food safety net.”

At the annual meeting, 369 voting delegates from each state and agricultural commodity deliberated on policies affecting farmers’ and ranchers’ productivity and profitability, approving policies that will make up the AFBF’s legislative and regulatory efforts throughout 2010.

A special resolution approved by delegates stated cap-and-trade would “raise farmers’ and ranchers’ production costs, and the potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs to producers.

“The administration’s economic projections show that the proposed cap-and-trade legislation would result in planting trees on 59 million acres of crop and pastureland, thereby damaging the capability of U.S. agricultural producers to feed a growing world population and create the conditions for (hiking) consumer food prices,” the resolution read. “Cap-and-trade legislation would eliminate jobs, and could result in the loss of 2.3 million jobs in the U.S. over the next 20 years.”

The delegates voted unanimously against the proposals now before Congress and supported “any legislative action that would suspend EPA’s (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

Delegates cited recent e-mails that were made public, which questioned “just how unsettled the science really is on climate change and demonstrate the unwillingness of many of the world’s climatologists to share data or even entertain opposing viewpoints.
“The recently completed Copenhagen summit resulted in demands for the U.S. to transfer billions of dollars to the developing world to fight climate change, but produced no meaningful agreement,” the resolution added.

In fact, most of current climate change theory is based on distortions of scientific evidence, blind devotion to simple notion and outright greed, said Christopher Horner, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and one of the meeting’s speakers.

“The climate has always changed,” he said. “The question is, how does society respond to it – hysterically or rationally?”

Deficit, estate tax worrisome

Next on the agenda was the federal deficit, which Stallman said should be reduced annually and reach a fully balanced budget by 2019, reducing federal spending on government services and entitlements.

“Unless we want to saddle our children and grandchildren with a crippling debt to foreign governments, we have to get the federal budget under control,” said Stallman, a Columbus, Texas, cattle and rice producer, whom delegates reelected to a sixth term.

“We are looking at a current deficit of more than a trillion dollars. The United States must tighten its belt and we all must make sacrifices in order for the U.S. to maintain economic security.”
The delegates also requested a reduced estate tax, with no conditions or qualifications. Delegates said an increase in the overall exemption would be the Farm Bureau’s main priority, including reducing the capital gains tax burden on farm and ranch heirs.

In addition, delegates called for a workable ad hoc disaster program and approved a new policy calling for a specialty crops title in future farm bills, along with additional research programs and promotion of U.S. specialty crops.

In his annual keynote address, Stallman also issued a call to action to Farm Bureau members, as well as a stern warning to critics, that “farmers and ranchers will no longer tolerate opponents’ efforts to change the landscape of American agriculture.” At the same time, he encouraged farmers and ranchers to end the divisions among themselves.

“Emotionally-charged labels such as monoculture, factory farmer, industrial food and Big Ag threaten to fray our edges,” he said. “We must not allow the activists and self-appointed and self-promoting food experts to drive a wedge between us.”

While the mission of farmers in feeding the world, caring for the environment and respecting neighbors’ rights has not changed from when the AFBF was founded in 1919, Stallman said the ways in which farmers and ranchers carry out their mission have changed, and is often not respected by critics of modern agriculture.

“A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers, and how we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule,” he said. “The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over.”

For more highlights from the 91st annual meeting, including streaming media reports, visit www.afbf.org