September is a busy time for agricultural producers.  Summer is winding down and the things everyone has to get done before the first frost pile up faster than you can get to them.

Fall is also when a lot of county Farm Bureaus have their annual or resolutions meetings.  Wyoming Farm Bureau staff members work to get to those meetings so they can visit with the members as well as serve as a resource for counties should they need some additional information.  Resolutions are an important part of this time of year since the resolutions which start at the county level begin the grassroots process which help set policies at a state and even national level.

These meetings are also an opportunity for fellow agricultural producers to get together and visit about how their summers have gone.  The conversation will always touch on the weather since that is what drives the agricultural producer’s lives.  But prices for this or that is also a favorite conversation.  This year the late spring and early frost has had an impact on the crops.  When you are a general agricultural organization like Farm Bureau you will find some folks having a good year and some folks having a bad year.  This year the price of corn and hay is down, but the livestock folks, especially the cattle producers have had a good year.  Some of this is due to the lower prices for corn and hay, but after a good grass year in most of the state, it’s hard not to be happy if you’re raising calves.

We're certainly getting a good response from our folks at the county meetings in signing post cards to send in to EPA to “Ditch the Rule.”  It's interesting that the Agency is spending a lot of time and money lobbying the public about how harmless they say this rule change is.  The Agency, along with their allies in the environmental community are pulling out all the stops in an effort to convince folks that they just want to save us.  Try telling that to Andrew Johnson and all the others who have faced fines of up to $37,000/day.

We certainly want to encourage folks to take the time to sign a post card and get it to us here at the state office to send in or go to http://ditchtherule.fb.org/ and submit comments electronically.

I'd also like to remind folks to renew their membership in Farm Bureau so we can continue working to make sure agriculture can keep growing the food we all need.

By Ken Hamilton, Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation Executive Vice President