Agricultural News
Farm Bureau Members Speak with Congressional Delegation About Issues Important to Oklahomans
Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:16:39 CDT
Oklahoma Farm Bureau President Mike Spradling recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., with a delegation of 40 members from Oklahoma. He spoke with Radio Oklahoma Network's Ron Hays about their meetings with various Congressional members and their staffs. He will appear on this weekend's "In the Field" segment on News 9 about 6:40 Saturday morning.
Spradling said it is very important to go to Washington and meet with Congress members on their own turf. He said it was especially important to meet with Oklahoma's two newest members in the House of Representatives, Markwayne Mullin and Jim Bridenstine, and cultivate new relationships.
There were three issues in particular, Spradling said, that OFB members feel strongly about and wanted to make sure our Congressional delegation understood where the members stood: the farm bill, immigration reform, and the Endangered Species Act.
Concerning the farm bill, Spradling said there are those who are pushing to remove the commodity title from the overall all farm bill. He said that might not be a prudent option at this point.
"I think the people who say that, and I really mean no disrespect to them, but don't quite understand really how government functions. We could certainly take out the nutrition bill and, of course, that's about 80 percent of the budget for the farm bill. But, then, that only leaves a very small portion to be divided up among 14 other titles. And I think the thing that most of the individuals, most citizens of the nation need to understand is that the farm bill is not just for farmers. There's something in there for everyone. Certainly the things that we're interested in is the commodity and conservation, those are the two main things. But there's something in there that affects everyone and when we talk about removing the nutrition from the farm bill, then we've pretty well lost all of our political pull and strength when it comes to budgetary matters and financing for the things we feel are so important, the main two things being conservation and commodities."
You can hear Mike Spradling's full conversation with Ron Hays by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
