MARLBOROUGH, Mass. — For five days, Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF) members attended American Farm Bureau Federation’s (AFBF’s) Annual Convention and IDEAg Tradeshow in Nashville. They returned home yesterday with a deeper understand of the challenges and opportunities facing present day agriculture.
“In addition to attending workshops, MFBF is allowed one voting delegate for the AFBF annual business meeting,” said MFBF President Ed Davidian. “I was proud to represent the Commonwealth and vote on resolutions that direct AFBF on how to advocate on a federal level on our behalf.”
According to an AFBF news release, among other things, delegates approved measures supporting:
- an improved Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program to decrease risk-management disparities across counties;
- a flexible cotton support program that considers cotton seed, cotton lint or both to help beleaguered cotton growers;
- strengthened and more flexible risk management and safety-net programs for dairy farmers;
- permission for workers to seek employment from more than one farmer under the H2A program;
- trade and trade agreements that strengthen market opportunities for U.S. agriculture;
- elimination of sunset provisions in trade agreements, to give certainty to businesses into the future
- modification of NAFTA to improve market access to difficult Canadian dairy markets, in addition to improved food-safety standards for imported products;
- an end to use of non-GMO labels on products that do not have GMO alternatives;
- support for the use of gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR, along with a voluntary and uniform labeling program for such products; and
- a $1 per member increase in dues paid by state affiliates of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
To learn more about the convention, please visit http://annualconvention.fb.
–Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation
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