By Jeremy Brown

We’ve all read the headlines condemning agriculture, and we should take those attacks personally. Because they affect each one of us—farmers and ranchers in Texas and across the nation.

We get angry and blame lack of knowledge. But we should channel that anger into productivity. To fuel our passion and share our stories.

That’s how we make progress, and it’s working. Consumer trust in agriculture is growing. We’re plowing the ground and planting seeds of information, assurance and transparency. That cultivates and strengthens relationships with our consumers.

I have a confession to make. I never meant to stay this long.

Nearly three decades ago, I was employed by Texas Farm Bureau—28 years, five months and 29 days to be exact. I was much younger then, searching for my calling with visions of my own business dancing in my head.

Then something funny happened. I started to believe. For the first time in my life, I was truly involved with the issues of agriculture. I witnessed the daily struggle of farmers and ranchers trying to stay ahead. I saw an organization with a steel resolve to make life better on the farm and ranch.

By Russell Boening

These are excerpts from President Russell Boening’s address at the organization’s 82nd annual meeting in Arlington.

Texas Farm Bureau has demonstrated the ability to unite the farm and ranch families of Texas, in effect creating another kind of family—a people united by a common bond of belief and of mutual interest.

You’ve witnessed the organization working for Texas agriculture and many of you have been part of that.

We strengthened eminent domain laws. We’ve come a long way, but there is more to be done.

This blog was originally posted on Dec. 10, 2012. 

By Mike Barnett

Your profitability as a farmer or rancher ranks low on the list of concerns of those who consume your products. I call them customers.

I’ve noted this fact in a survey or two and was reminded of it the other day when a Facebook friend posted some tidbits he had read from an article in the excellent publication Livestock Weekly.

According to the article, consumers believe the priorities for those farmers and ranchers who genuinely try to make a living from agriculture should, from first to last, be:

By Gene Hall

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not been shy about pushing for a new clean water rule that extended its already considerable authority over land everywhere in the nation.

In doing so, EPA ignored previous Congressional decisions and Supreme Court decisions. They claimed a joint mission with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Now, documents have surfaced that the Corps was not all that keen on the EPA trampling over the facts.

EPA ignored public comments and engaged in a massive public relations program to sway those comments their way. This is more than playing fast and loose with the facts. This is astonishing arrogance that is confident nothing is standing in the way.