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Farm and ranch leaders from across the state will gather for Arkansas Farm Bureau’s (ARFB) 90th annual convention Dec. 4 – 6 at the Hot Springs Convention Center. The event is expected to draw over 1,000 farmers and ranchers and will feature keynote addresses by ARFB President Dan Wright and Dwier Brown, the actor known for his role as John Kinsella in Field of Dreams. The convention will offer professional development and learning opportunities for ARFB members, with workshops covering the farm bill, drone regulations, row crop sustainability, financial literacy, livestock marketing, small ruminant production and more.
The ARFB convention will host the largest agriculture trade show in Arkansas with more than 180 vendors and projects on exhibit. The trade show is open to the public. It will feature a farmers market with vendors selling Arkansas products, including animal protein, produce, pecans, honey, jellies, baked goods, crafts, seasonings and other items. The ARFB annual business session, where voting delegates define the organization’s policy positions on items of importance to its members, will conclude the event. The delegate body also elects the organization’s president, vice president and members of its state board of directors in the business session.
Farm Bureau, as an organization, has two major responsibilities: insurance and farmer advocacy. The roots of Farm Bureau are in farmer advocacy and date back to 1919 where state-level Farm Bureau leaders from 34 states gathered in Chicago, Illinois to found an organization with the goal of “speaking for themselves through their own national organization.” It is a grassroots organization, which means that the strength of the organization is rooted in its many individual members, who are predominantly farmers. Farm Bureau is a general farm organization that provides advocacy and support to farmers who grow and raise livestock and commodities of all kinds. This is in comparison to a commodity organization which has a focus on one industry, such as corn.
In Arkansas, the ARFB provides both state-level and national advocacy on matters such as regulatory affairs, the agricultural economy, infrastructure, and other areas of relevance to an agricultural producer. One ARFB program we encourage our readers to consider is the Arkansas Ag Cast which is a podcast supported by the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation and hosted by Mr. Jason Brown and Mr. John McMinn. The primary podcast (found on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify) provides timely and relevant news covering a host of topics including the farm bill, commodity markets, and other agricultural policy topics such as the H-2A migrant labor program. The secondary part of the podcast provides a deep dive on one issue discussed in the primary part of an episode. For example, Dr. Ryan Loy was invited to provide a deep dive on the current interest rate environment, and that episode may be found here.
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