By Charlie Elrod, Ph.D.
President and CEO, Natural Biologics, Inc. and V.P. NEAFA
There are a lot of different forms that NEAFA’s advocacy efforts take. You have heard a lot about the work with our lobbyists; Rick Zimmerman in years past and Hinman Straub starting this year. Many of you have participated in our annual lobby days where we meet with legislators and their staffs to highlight issues of concern to agriculture. Some of these are budgetary, such as advocating for funding for PRODairy, FarmNet or the Diagnostic Lab. Others are more policy-oriented such as opposition to the banning of neonicotinoids as a seed treatment.
One advocacy effort which you may be less aware of is the practice of “signing-on” to letters which add our support, or opposition, to various topics. Generally, this takes the form of a draft letter coming from another organization such as NY Farm Bureau, NEDPA, AFIA or others. The issue could be local, such as the proposed neonic ban in NY, or national, such as improving port access for agricultural crops. Our process has been to circulate the letter among the board members and get their vote on whether to add our endorsement to the effort. Going forward, the communications committee suggested, and the board approved, that we publish on the NEAFA website all the letters which our board of directors has agreed to sign-on to. In that way we hope to keep you better informed about our ongoing efforts to support better agricultural policy.
Below are some of the letters the board has agreed to endorse in the past few months:
Along with 65 other ag organizations from across the U.S. we supported a letter to President Biden encouraging the US Trade Representative’s consultations with Mexico concerning its ban on imports of biotech corn.
A memorandum of support to VT’s governor for funding for the Working Lands Enterprise Fund and grants to small and mid-sized ag producers which were included in the Governor’s budget, but were cut in the legislature.
Along with 67 NY-based ag entities we opposed the Senate and Assembly bills which would ban the use of neonicotinoids as seed treatments in NY.
With 23 national and regional ag groups we wrote to the U.S. Senate and House chairs of the Committees on Environment & Public Works and Transportation & Infrastructure in support of the Safer Highways and Increased Performance for Interstate Trucking (SHIP IT) Act.
These are just a few of the state, regional and national issues which we have weighed in on your behalf. If we continue to speak up, hopefully we can influence policy and funding in support of prudent legislation to support the industries which provide food, feed and fiber for our country and the world.