The Vermilion County Farm Bureau heard a message of “stay involved and keep communicating with lawmakers” during their annual meeting Tuesday evening (Nov 29th).
Mark Gebhards, Illinois Farm Bureau Governmental Affairs and Commodities Division Executive Director, pointed to several issues on both the domestic and international fronts. On the national level there’s a proposed law from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would require farmers to provide complete documentation of carbon emissions on their land to food and ag companies because the farmers are part of the production chain. Gebhards says this must be fought, because it simply doesn’t make sense.
As the sun sets on farming’s 2022 calendar year, Illinois Farm Bureau Executive Director of the Governmental Affairs and Commodities Division Mark Gebhards addressed Vermilion County Farm Bureau members during their annual meeting about constantly communicating with both state and federal legislators.
AUDIO: A rule that, again, around climate change initiatives, trying to address emissions; but taking it way, way, way too far. One of the things that’s been talked about is to remove, if you will, those raw commodities, those stakeholders, like our farmers, from that proposed rule that’s being discussed. Again, this is just completely unnecessary. It’s a burden that our farmers would not be able to make work.
Meanwhile, Gebhards says we all know about what the Russian invasion of Ukraine has done to the agricultural world. But keep your eyes on the China-Taiwan situation, because that would be much worse, several times over.
AUDIO: So if this conflict were to develop between China and Taiwan, it goes well beyond those two countries. And not only is Taiwan a very important country for us when it comes to semi-conductors, and all the chips and things that go into the electronics side of production; and things we need to make our technology work; but then you’ve got our exports that go over there. Whether it’s soy meal, finished meat products, etc. So the ripple effect, as you said, would be just huge.
It’s no surprise that there was also concern about the impending rail strike that would be detrimental to the shipping world. Gebhards told the Farm Bureau members that even if you think you know how state or federal legislators feel on a certain issue, keep communicating with them. Because they are always going to be asked during compromise sessions, “What are your constituents saying?”
