September 1, 2000

What Farm Bureau means to me

By La Shawn Day

I don’t know what you are doing at 6 a.m., but in my small area of the world the ag-pilot heads down the runway to take off for his first load. The cows moo, the rooster crows and the farmer grabs his favorite coffee cup and heads out the door toward a long day of work. These things may seem simple to you, but for me and my family, these small, undiminished actions are just an element of what the way of life we live is all about.

You ask what Farm Bureau means to me and to my family and I will tell you it means—the farmer has someone fighting for him. We, as an ag community, comprised of farm families, farmers, agriculturists, and future agriculturists like myself, aren’t standing alone in our battles. Politically, each year Farm Bureau spends countless hours defending positions that are beneficial to U.S. agriculture.

Here’s a couple of issues important to agriculture that couldn’t have been accomplished without Farm Bureau: Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, otherwise know as PNTR, accompanied by the organization’s support for the Nethercutt amendment that allowed for the trade of food with Cuba. These two things combined will account for nearly $15 billion worth of trade. And with several billion dollars in farm aid being handed out last year—if you do the math and the thinking—Farm Bureau is working hard to help the everyday American farmer.

As most of you were probably lying in bed, at midnight on July 12 the moment I had waited all day for finally arrived: C-Span broadcast the public hearing on the review of federal farm policy that had taken place much earlier that day. The full committee on agriculture was there, as well as our own favorite Texan, Bob Stallman, our American Farm Bureau Federation president. I eagerly watched and listened as Mr. Stallman answered each question and stood up for what WE, (yes WE, you and I) stand for. I was never so proud to be a Texas farm girl. He defended our position on biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) as well as trade and taxes and numerous other issues. I wanted to say, thank you, Farm Bureau. Without the leadership of an organization as great as ours, how would U.S. agriculture survive?

It was once said, “Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly ahead but to do what lies clearly at hand.” And let me say, they are getting down to business. Not just in politics do you find Farm Bureau fighting the good fight, but out amongst the people—everywhere—in cities, towns and around the globe, they work to spread agricultural awareness. They send our message with programs like Ag in the Classroom, where they educate school children on the importance of the American farmer, as well as undertaking programs to create leaders in our communities like the Young Farmer & Rancher program and the Citizenship Seminar. Farm Bureau supports the way of life you and I believe in. Farm Bureau creates new ways of thinking and ways to aid our needs, endeavors and beliefs. A South Texas seed breeder once said, “Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.”

Although the agricultural community may only be comprised of 3 percent of the population, the values that are taught in our society aren’t found elsewhere. As a young woman growing up in a farm family in a small agricultural community, I have been taught most of my values on the farm: responsibility from a young age with my day-to-day farm chores; serving others, as I watched the way my father conducts his business; hard work, often taught from the end of a hoe or other equally laboring tasks; and the real meaning of community, from the way that we band together in hard times to help out a neighbor.

Last harvest, the farmers I look up to put off their harvest to drive equipment across the county to come together to harvest the crop of a great farmer that had just passed on, for his young wife and family. That is community. I learned family and teamwork because of the strengths and talents that each of us bring to the table as we work together to produce a crop.

They say that the family that plays together stays together. However, with Texas Farm Bureau, let me just say: As strong farm families, we can truly stand up and say with pride to the rest of the world, the family that WORKS together, stays together.

If only everyone was involved in agriculture as many of us rural Americans are, the violence would decrease, and most of all, the real meaning of family would still exist. And the virtues that Farm Bureau works so hard to support could be found far and wide.

So, the next time that someone asks you what Farm Bureau means to you and to your family, I challenge you to think bigger, and ask, what does it mean to your way of life? To me, it means the fight for the survival of the way of life that agriculture provides for myself and future generations.
(La Shawn Day is a 16-year-old farm girl from Meadow in Terry County.)