Biotech ballot — Washington AgMinute for Dec. 20, 2012

Organizers of Washington Initiative 522 requiring labeling of any genetically modified food sold in the state say they probably have the 241,153 voter signatures needed by Jan. 4 to get the measure before the Legislature in 2013 and on next fall's general election ballot if the Legislature takes no action.

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Efforts joined — Washington AgMinute for Dec. 18, 2012

The Washington State Horticultural Association and Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association hope to combine their lobbying efforts before the state Legislature convenes on Jan. 14.

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Legislative hopes — Washington AgMinute for Dec. 17, 2012

Policies sought by the Washington State Farm Bureau may meet a more receptive audience in the upcoming legislative session, says John Stuhlmiller, director of government relations for the state Farm Bureau.

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Farm Bureau experience is more than just a meeting

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — While the American Farm Bureau Federation is a serious, powerful farm lobbying group, those who come back year after year know it’s more than just the grassroots’ representatives deciding policy.

The annual meeting is a display of passion and humor, show business flair, and a chance to learn, vent and network.

President Bob Stallman as usual stirred members to be proud of the work they do back on their farms, feeding the world and protecting their way of life. This year he threw out tough messages for American politicians to do what is needed to help agricultural interests, warned that animal rights groups need to be stopped, and rallied his troops to play hardball against other parts of the world who present challenges to American agriculture such as South Korea.

Stallman and the power of the Farm Bureau cannot be ignored. There were policy heavy hitters attending the meeting in the last couple of days, talking to farmers on issues such as farm policy, animal ID and biofuels. The House Ag Committee Chair Collin Peterson, U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns and USDA Under Secretary Bruce Knight were among those who met with farmers.

Several countries in the European Union had representatives from their Washington embassies on hand to also listen carefully to whatever the politicians said, including being present at press conferences.

But the Farm Bureau meeting also helped show the passion and support that people have for their organization, their communities, and their neighbors.

As they met in the hallways and sat next to each other in the meeting rooms, farmers and ranchers from different states shared stories of blizzards and droughts and how they impacted their operations. They offered sympathy to each other, and talked about being united to seek disaster support.

There was a moment of silence during the general session after Bob Stallman told people of a recent tragedy involving a promising young farmer. In November, Jeffrey Michel won the North Dakota Farm Bureau Young Farmer and Rancher Achievement Award. In December, he was killed in an avalanche while snowmobiling with friends.

As for the other Young Farmer and Rancher competitors, they received a lot of support from the more than 5,000 people who are attending this year’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City. When one of the young couples accepted a prestigious award, the guy became rather choked up and shared how much the award meant to him and how devoted he’d be to Farm Bureau for the rest of his life. The thousands in the audience watched the stage and giant screens spellbound, right up to the back of the giant room and warmly applauded this next generation.

There is also the entertainment component of the meeting, from a well-known cowboy poet like Baxter Black to country music stars performing.

Well-known television journalist Sam Donaldson shared stories of interviews he had done with various presidents, but also shared messages on what makes a great leader.

He said a leader should have a complete plan. “Great leaders make great plans.”

A leader needs to build trust, earn it and talk straight.

A leader is with the people and not apart from the people. A leader gets out there, wants to know more about the people he meets, and wants to know more about what people want and need … even though a good leader also knows there are times to be tough and not give what people want.

A leader takes responsibility, and takes the blame.

A leader has persistence.

And, Donaldson said, sometimes it’s even more important to take a plan and modify it.

Donaldson made some blunt comments about Iraq and the problems Bush faces there. He stressed that Bush rewarded people who didn’t do a good job, and warned that it isn’t good leadership.

“A good leader rewards those that do a good job.” Giving awards to those that don’t deserve it doesn’t breed the trust a leader needs from people, he concluded.

Donaldson’s speech was timely. American Farm Bureau Federation, as well as state Farm Bureaus, has enjoyed strong leadership.

What helps make a good leader in this organization is that the leaders recognize the importance of the grass roots and follow their wishes when it comes to policies.

The organization also does a good job of rewarding those who serve it well, from the promising new farmers and ranchers to those who have served their Farm Bureau for decades.

And Stallman, as well as other former presidents of the Farm Bureau such as Dean Kleckner from Iowa, were often greeting, shaking hands and seen mingling with the farmers who have gathered here from all around the country.

Why has this organization continued to grow and become so powerful?

Yes, good policies and leaders have a lot to do with it.

But a lot of it also has to do with the winning formulas that the organization has developed, from involving grassroots members at meetings at counties across the nation, to educating and entertaining farmers and ranchers at this impressive meeting each year at the national level.

Read more of the Capital Press' coverage of the American Farm Bureau Federation conference here including audio coverage of Stallman's speech. Listen to the latest podcast on Stallman's remarks here.

Technorati tags: Agriculture

Trading one TV guy for another

There was a change in plans about who would be the keynote speaker at this year's American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Salt Lake City.

ABC newsman Sam Donaldson was picked to substitute for actor and former-U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson. According to the Farm Bureau, Thompson was "called away to shoot the TV series Law & Order," on which he costars as the gruff by lovable district attorney.

Perhaps it is true that Thompson's acting schedule got in the way, but it should also be noted that he is currently filling in for radio newsman Paul Harvey this week.

I'm not sure which speaker, Thompson or Donaldson, members of the American Farm Bureau Federation would get more out of hearing as a speaker. I do know who I would rather hear from. Even as a journalist, I don't have a lot of desire to hear Donaldson speak.

Thompson strikes me as a much more interesting character -- a lawyer, who was co-chief counsel on Senate Watergate Committee, went on to become an actor and later a U.S. Senator from his home state of Tennessee.

So while Farm Bureau attendees may be missing out, those of us who have time in our day to listen to the radio can hear Thompson's commentary on some of the items making news this week on the Paul Harvey radio show.

You can follow the developments at this week's American Farm Bureau convention on the capitalpress.com website.

Technorati tags: Agriculture, Farm Bureau, Fred Thompson, Sam Donaldson, Paul Harvey

So long, Mr. President

He did not serve the nation long in the White House, but he did jobs that needed to be done.

President Gerald R. Ford, who died last night at 93, did the dirty work for a nation. He cleaned up the messes of other presidents and never got the chance to establish his own legacy agenda by serving a full term in office.

I had the honor of meeting President Ford once. I was working for The Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs where Ford and his wife, former first lady Betty Ford, have a home in nearby Rancho Mirage. It was at their Rancho Mirage home where Ford died.

Rancho Mirage is, or was, known as the playground of presidents. President Dwight D. Eisenhower played golf there. The hospital in Rancho Mirage carries his name, Eisenhower Medical Center. That's where the world-famous Betty Ford Center for treating alcohol and drug addiction is located.

John F. Kennedy spent some leisure time in Rancho Mirage as well. As did Ronald Reagan.

But it was Ford who made Rancho Mirage his home after leaving the White House in 1977. Rancho Mirage and the Palm Springs area is one of those rare places where a former president, complete with Secret Service detail, can sort of blend in amid the wealthy captains of industry, former sports athletes, Hollywood celebrities and other famous and infamous types who call the area home. Oh, sure, the area knows they are there, behind the walls of the gated communities and private compounds. And the residents there are proud of their notable residents. They even name streets after them. Gerald Ford, Frank Sinatra, Ginger Rogers, Gene Autry, and Bob Hope, among others, have streets named for them that crisscross the Coachella Valley.

As a journalist I've had opportunities to photograph and interview a few famous people. When I was younger it was the sports athletes I was most interested in, people like Ervin "Magic" Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Clyde Drexler, Sean Elliot, Gary Payton. But there was also an interest in entertainment types, like Jay Leno, Garth Brooks, Huey Lewis and the News. I'd even covered parts of some presidential campaigns with candidates like Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis. Most of that was during my college days. There weren't a lot of celebrities or high-powered political figures coming to towns like Hermiston, Klamath Falls and Coos Bay, Ore., or Porterville, Calif. Although I did get a chance to interview former U.S. Sens. Bob Packwood and Mark Hatfield along the way.

But when I was in Victorville, Calif., we did have our own resident celebrities there. Former Republic Pictures singing cowboy and 1950s TV stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had their museum in Victorville, just down the street from the newspaper office and they lived in nearby Apple Valley. A few other celebrities came to town once in a while for the San Bernardino County Fair, or to visit the Rogers.

And earlier this year, just down the road from my old stomping grounds in Porterville, I did cover actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to the World Ag Expo in Tulare.

But when I moved to Palm Springs in 1999, it was not unusual to run into a well known person while out for dinner or walking downtown. Lots of well-known and well-to-do folk were at least part-time residents of one wealthy enclave of the Coachella Valley or another.

For much of my early tenure at the Palm Springs paper, we referred to President and Mrs. Ford as part-time residents of Rancho Mirage. It was President Ford himself who set us straight on that. During a meeting with our editorial board he told us that he was a full-time resident of Rancho Mirage, thank you very much. He and his wife considered Rancho Mirage their permanent home and they maintained a vacation home in Colorado.

Ford was in his late 80s at the time of the interview on May 1, 2002, but it was remarkable to me how attuned he remained to domestic issues and foreign affairs. His speech was slurred ever so slightly at times, an apparently holdover from the stroke he had suffered at the Republican National Convention in 2000. But if his tongue was slowed slightly, his mind had not been. He talked to our editorial board about a wide range of issues, from our own sports section, which he said he read daily and told us he'd like to see more coverage of some sports outside the Pac-10, to national and global security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. I was impressed and awed by Ford. I would even say I was inspired by him. I was honored to get an opportunity to meet him and to shake his hand. I keep a photo of that meeting with the former president in my home office and another photo of that meeting is on a file cabinet in my office at Capital Press too.

I was proud to have played a role in getting Ford to come speak to The Desert Sun's editorial board. The idea was hatched one day when I was talking to then editorial page editor Cindy Uken. I had been on the editorial board for about two years, and Cindy had directed the editorial page for more than a year. We talked about what we would like to see and do with that editorial board. There were no shortage of people who wanted to meet with our board. We had guests at almost every weekly meeting. We were talking about how we would like to be more influential in state, even national, matters. And I said something about how we should take advantage of all the influential people who lived in our community and invite more of them to come speak to us. "Wouldn't it be great to have someone like President Ford come meet with us periodically on major issues…," was something close to what I uttered. I think I threw out a few more names too, like Lee Iacocca perhaps to talk on business issues. Who knows who else I mentioned. But the idea took root. And Cindy made it happen. And before we knew it, President Ford had accepted our invitation to meet with our editorial board. In many ways it was sort of my last hurrah on the editorial board. I came off the board a short time later. But what a way to go out, after having a chance to meet a former president.

Ford was a key figured in helping the nation recover from some of the most devastating crisis of the 1960s and 1970s. He served on the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President Kennedy. He was appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace after being charged with tax evasion. Ford became president when Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up led to his resignation. Ford also oversaw the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from the long conflict in Vietnam.

Ford expressed no regrets for his pardon of Nixon, which was highly controversial at the time and probably cost him any shot at being elected outright in 1976. He firmly believed he did the right thing for the nation.
As he said after taking the oath of office on Aug. 9, 1974:

" My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. ... As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate."

Ford was honored in May 2001 with a "Profile in Courage" award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation for his bold step in pardoning his predecessor.

In all, he spent less than three years in the Oval Office, but it was a key three years in our nation's history. He and his wife Betty also contributed to countless causes in my former Coachella Valley home and in communities around the country where they lived or had ties. Betty Ford herself has displayed remarkable courage for her public disclosures of her battles with chemical dependency and breast cancer. Her courage and her strength in admitting her weaknesses has given many people, women in particular, strength to fight their own battles with hope and courage.

As a fellow native Nebraskan, I was honored to meet President Ford and to shake his hand on that day four and a half years ago. I left that meeting with a much greater appreciation for the man as a leader and statesman. I join a grateful nation in grieving for him and offer my own humble condolences to the Ford family. Thank you for sharing your husband, father and grandfather with the nation.

Rest in peace, Mr. President.

Related Stories:
• President Ford dies at 93
• President Ford recalled as excellent administrator and respected leader

Related Links:
• Read Cindy Uken's column on President Ford