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Texas Agriculture Archive

January 17, 2003

Executive Report

Texas Farm Bureau Executive Director Vernie Glasson gives his annual report to the membership...

It is important that we spend time to reflect on what has been a tremendous year. 2002 was a record-setting year for Texas Farm Bureau.

Let's begin with membership. What an accomplishment! A 32,035 member gain—a new all-time high for Texas of 348,673 member families—Texas Farm Bureau's largest gain ever in 69 years. Our's is the second largest gain ever in the history of the American Farm Bureau. We achieved an Every County Gain—which is no small feat for a state Farm Bureau with 207 county Farm Bureaus. This accomplishment is the result of the organization working together on "all cylinders." This is a year that now sets the goal to beat for Texas Farm Bureau in the future. Records are always made to be broken, but this record will likely stand for many, many years.

Membership is truly Farm Bureau's lifeblood. Membership provides our very reason for being—our existence as an entity. Without members, Farm Bureau would not be. Membership provides us leadership—grassroots leadership. It provides financial resources to promote the agricultural industry. Members give direction through policies generated at the local level.

Membership, especially one the size of Texas Farm Bureau, also gives us credibility. Stop and think about it, with a conservative estimate of three family members per Farm Bureau family, we now have well over 1 million Texans, or some 5 percent of our state's population, who now belong to our organization. Impressive? Yes, it is, and I contend, until proven otherwise, that Texas Farm Bureau is the largest membership organization in the State of Texas. Our county structure gives us an unparalleled reach into 207 of Texas' 254 counties—something that almost no other organization can claim. And because of the commitment and dedication of leaders such as yourselves, our sheer numbers make us the most active organization in the state.

In short, membership is important, and our collective record-setting efforts in 2002 will provide benefits for years to come.

Because of the turbulent membership years of the '90s, we left unsaid how important a strong and growing membership is to Farm Bureau. But we should not take it for granted. Members and the financial base they bring to the county and state organization are critical to the future success of Farm Bureau at all levels. I've heard it said that "membership will take care of itself—we should work on other things." But there is nothing more important—it is not a "chicken or the egg" question. Membership work is the first and most important thing we do in Farm Bureau.

To sell someone a Farm Bureau membership, you must have a positive story to tell. And we have quite a positive story. Let's talk about what we have done in 2002.

Let's begin with "telling agriculture's story." Texas Farm Bureau launched our new Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network in concert with Texas State Network.

In one short but busy year, we have outstanding programming at least five days a week on more than 60 radio stations across Texas—an excellent beginning to what promises to be a very successful effort.

"Planet Agriculture" has been in major exhibits across the state from Abilene to Houston, from Denton to San Antonio, including Austin, Waco, Fort Worth, and the State Fair of Texas in Dallas. Almost 2 1/2 million people have viewed some or all of the exhibit this year. I hope you agree that it is a very impressive display that promotes your industry.

Texas Farm Bureau was the first state Farm Bureau in the nation to launch an Internet website in the 1990s, and one of the first membership associations to do so in the entire United States. Since then, we have had the opportunity to communicate—literally millions of times—on issues and matters of importance to agriculture. In 2002, our worldwide web results are continuing to amaze us all. We have a full-time TFB "Webmaster" and our content, graphics, and overall quality match up well with industry standards. We have search capability and useful links to other sites, including databases. We have audio capability and will soon have video, as well. In 2002, we had nearly 2.7 million "hits" on our website. We believe this is significant as we know we have traffic from reporters, teachers, members, as well as from some who do not agree with our positions.

Radio, "Planet Agriculture," and the Internet are not our only means of telling agriculture's story. They merely deserve special mention this year. Texas Agriculture and Texas Neighbors newspapers continue to be vital elements in our communications effort. Texas Neighbors, which goes mostly to non-farmers and ranchers, was expanded in size this past year so that we can better tell our story. The TFB's Speakers Bureau team remains active and available to assist in local presentations to Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, and the like.

Texas Farm Bureau's Agriculture in the Classroom program is far and away the best program in Texas to educate school students about agriculture. Our material is excellent. Our outreach and support for teachers is unmatched. We held numerous teacher seminars this past summer. Many were held in our major metropolitan areas due in large part to our stepped-up urban county Farm Bureau effort put in place by Project 2000. Let me share with you one example—a letter received by Agriculture Program Coordinator Kristen Fuller of the Houston area. The letter was written by Dr. Louise Bell, Director of Educational Services for Mathematics and Science, Dickinson Independent School District.

Dear Kristin:

What a treat it was to have you in our district to present, "Cotton Journey, A Field Trip in a Box," to our fourth grade teachers. All of the teachers learned so many things that will be useful in teaching students about the important role of cotton in Texas. The kits will encourage teachers to go beyond their textbooks and use the kit for additional enrichment. We also appreciate your arranging for a "real live cotton farmer" to visit with us and tell us about the process of picking, seeding, and shipping cotton.

We look forward to working with you for planning an "Ag Day." I sent the letter I received from Tom Ferguson about Ag Day out to the elementary principals today. As soon as I hear from them I will contact you. Thank you for passing our "want list" on to Tom. What a wonderful resource the Farm Bureau is to our students and teachers.

Sincerely,
Louise T. Bell

Another activity that is growing in popularity is Food Checkout Day. That important effort to help tell our story was a major event in 2002 and promoted by county Farm Bureaus all across the state to tell the consumer public—that as Americans, we work fewer days in a year to buy our families' entire food supply for that year, almost 60 days sooner on average than it takes us to pay our taxes. Quite a story.

In summary, Farm Bureau is "telling the story." No one in agriculture, outside of the commodity check-off promotion programs, aims as many resources or works as hard and long as Texas Farm Bureau in putting out the message about the importance of agriculture. County Farm Bureaus are a critical part of the story-telling effort, and I commend them for what they are doing.

Communication is important. But "effective communication" is even more important. To illustrate this point, I heard a story about a cakemaker who was commissioned to do a wedding cake for a prominent family. In discussing what to put on the cake, the father of the bride insisted that an appropriate biblical scripture was in order and suggested 1st John 4:18, which reads, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear." Well it just so happened, the cakemaker was not particularly knowledgeable of Bible scriptures, and she just scribbled down the verse number not realizing there was a book of John as well as the books of 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd John. So you can imagine the surprise and shock when the bride's parents arrived at the reception, and the cake had inscribed John 4:18, which reads, "For thou hast had five husbands." With that being said, we will continue to strive for "effective communication" in Texas Farm Bureau.

Farm Bureau's legal defense efforts in 2002 are noteworthy. We were active in key legal challenges affecting members that have potential statewide implication on other producers. TFB's legal defense fund, that was established as a result of Project 2000, is an important tool for the organization in these changing times where cows are labeled as "polluters" and deep plowing is characterized as endangering the environment. Texas Farm Bureau and AFBF were successful this year in a three-year-old lawsuit where an animal rightist group was seeking the release of names and addresses of ranchers who use the USDA services for animal damage control. The Clinton USDA had sided with the animal activist group and decided to release the names in 1999. Farm Bureau challenged the decision, citing the fact that such release could lead to harassment and possibly worse. On Oct. 21, U.S. Federal Judge Walter Smith in Waco ruled that giving out the information would violate the federal Freedom of Information Act which exempts the release of individual personal information. We congratulate and thank Judge Smith for his decision. We believe that farmers and ranchers deserve privacy on information held by the government. Interestingly, on October 22, 2002, the day after the decision, I received the following email addressed to "the Texas Farm Bureau:"

Subject: Congratulations

To: The Texas Farm Bureau

"Anyone who can support the torture and murder of innocent animals in the wild are cowards and perverts. The Texas Farm Bureau's support of the inhumane and perverse method of protecting livestocks is as disgusting as it gets. One must be a cold hearted parasite to allow the use of chemical collars to kill animals in the wild. Congratulations to the ignorant ranchers that are too stupid to realize that there can be a balance between ranching and nature. Although there are many ways to protect livestock from natural predators in the wild, these cowards would rather see animals suffer and die for their own perverted entertainment. But what can you expect from a state that features canned hunting. You are all hicks."

Steve Farley

Now fellow Farm Bureau members, you see why it was, and is, that we seek to protect farmers and ranchers from what many consider to be a type of harassment effort and oppose releasing your names and addresses to the public.

I hope you realize that I have not yet said anything about a lot of other very important activities and accomplishments for 2002. Let me quickly summarize several:

• Trade: Texas Farm Bureau and AFBF successfully lobbied on behalf of the new Trade Promotion Authority for the Bush Administration. Your Board of Directors conducted an exploratory mission to Brazil to determine what our competition is going to look like in the future. Officers attended a Cuba trade promotion conference in January, and former President Patman later traveled to Cuba in to promote Texas agricultural exports to Cuba, meeting personally with President Fidel Castro. Farm Bureau has worked tirelessly to eliminate the trade embargo on food products with Cuba and to promote sales of Texas products. Our AgLead Class V young leader group traveled to Europe to study and discuss trade barriers and issues with the European Union.

• Environment: Texas Farm Bureau is waging a determined and aggressive battle against, what many believe to be, overzealous and misguided activists. Our focused efforts are on what is now a key battleground for American agriculture—the Bosque River Watershed, literally at the front door of the TFB Waco office. We have spearheaded two key programs to prove that modern agriculture is not the "culprit" that a city mayor, considered by many to be biased, and a newspaper, considered by many to be liberal, contend that it is. A cooperative effort led by TFB is designed to show through DNA typing that the dairy industry in Erath and surrounding counties is not responsible for E-coli bacteria in Lake Waco. In addition, through the generous support of Philip Morris, we have begun our efforts to establish a demonstration project using a methane digester to convert manure into compost and electricity, and hopefully, a profitable new by-product for this dairy enterprise.

• Political: Texas Farm Bureau AGFUND participated in dozens of statewide, Congressional, State Senate and State Representative races with an overall success rate of 89 percent.

• Legislative: The Farm Bill and Trade Promotion Authority rank at the top for success in 2002. The Farm Bill, in particular, was an exceptional accomplishment for Farm Bureau and agriculture—principally due to the efforts of Congressmen Larry Combest and Charlie Stenholm.

I could go on and on. We have had an absolutely superb 2002. These are success stories we can use to sell TFB to prospective members. But I am reminded of the aircraft logic that the three most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago. We must get on with the business ahead of us. We must sell ourselves and our organization for what we plan to do in the future.

Before I conclude, I must address services to members. It is no secret that a large part of Farm Bureau's success over time is due to the wisdom and foresight of those who came before us in putting together successful service to member programs. Farm Bureau's success in this regard is unmatched by any other association. But we can still do better and provide improved services. Toward that end, your Board of Directors decided this year to take an important step to secure the Texas Farm Bureau insurance program for the future. They have chosen to take full control of our investment in the regional casualty insurance company to better serve the needs of Texas members. This is an important step to maintain a strong service-to-members-only program.

To the average member and to you and me as policyholders, this change will essentially be a transparent one. But for the future, it will be a critical change.

I am proud of your Board of Directors and the business-like manner and attention to detail of their leadership. I am even more proud to work for an organization that looks to the future. I want to thank each of you for your efforts in the past year—as well as those of our very dedicated staff to help make 2002 a successful Farm Bureau year.

We look forward to an even brighter 2003.