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Each September preceding the next session of the Texas Legislature, Texas Farm Bureau has a legislative seminar to begin focusing our membership on upcoming issues. On Sept. 15-16, more than 150 Farm Bureau members came to Austin for this year's seminar. By the time it ended, it was obvious that the 2005 session will be a busy one.
Fourteen members of the Texas Legislature, including Speaker of the House Tom Craddick, and three statewide-elected officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, laid out a barrage of issues to be addressed next session. The most discussed issues of the seminar were no surprise—taxes and water. However, other issues surfaced that are of great importance to TFB members—eminent domain, land vacancy, worker's compensation insurance, Trans-Texas Corridor, animal cruelty, annexation, and ag program funding. Some of the issues are very familiar to agriculture producers. Others are not, even though they could have a devastating impact on an agriculture operation.
Several of the speakers, including Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture and Livestock Rick Hardcastle, stressed the importance of grassroots involvement. Within the agriculture industry, and even the state of Texas, few membership organizations can boast the resources of the Texas Farm Bureau. Chairman Hardcastle challenged our members to be active on behalf of agriculture. With more than 200 county Farm Bureaus and over 370,000 member families, he said we must truly be the "Voice of Agriculture" to help rural legislators educate their urban/suburban colleagues about the importance of our industry to the state. It will be especially important with another round of debate over public school finance looming.
To better prepare our membership for the upcoming session, we will begin outlining these issues in the Notes From Austin column. With only three months before the next legislative session begins, now is the time to start focusing on the Texas Farm Bureau's agenda. Our greatest strength is our membership. If the members of Texas Farm Bureau have the information they need to personally advocate these issues to their "hometown" legislator, we will be successful.
