Butler Farm Bureau approves new policy suggestions
PROSPECT — At its annual fall meeting, the Butler County Farm Bureau voted on a new set of policy suggestions to be considered for the group’s state lobbying efforts.
Four resolutions were agreed to at Thursday’s meeting, Oct. 12, at the Prospect Fire Hall: to extend deer-hunting season by a week, to repeal electric vehicle mandates, to prevent any foreign country from owning farmland in the United States, and to increase the federal estate tax and gift tax exemption limit from $5 million to $6 million.
Two others, a resolution to simplify regulations pertaining to homesteading and cottage businesses for sale of excess goods, and another to provide government subsidization for livestock insurance, were shot down.
The successful policy suggestions are submitted to the group’s state Policy Development Committee and will be taken to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s annual meeting in Hershey, slated Nov. 13 to 15. Delegates from farm bureaus across the state will be present for that meeting.
Policy suggestions approved at the state meeting go into the bureau’s official policy book for the year, to be used by its lobbyists in Harrisburg and in Washington, D.C.
Policy suggestions of national interest are submitted to be voted on at the annual meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation, scheduled Jan. 19 to 24 in Salt Lake City.
According to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s website, policy development is its most important activity, and “an organized and ongoing program of gathering ideas and opinions from the members.”
“The Farm Bureau here has a lot of clout in Harrisburg and D.C.,” said William Thiele, District 15 representative on the state bureau’s board of directors. “What we saw today was some state policies that we have pushed for in Harrisburg, and then there are some national policies that we’ve pushed for in D.C.”
