Montana Farm Bureau Convention

This week I've been in Billings at the Montana Farm Bureau Convention. This was my first convention and I really enjoyed myself. The purpose of the convention is to get all of the counties together. The first day we did a few classes, but after that pretty much the rest of the time was dedicated to policy development. On the county level I had put through four pieces of policy. They were:

We support legislation that designates acquiring a job under false pretenses as an illegal activity.
We believe it is the responsibility of the state, federal, or local government to clearly mark all boundaries and fence lines surrounding public lands.
We support legislation requiring that any boundary or fence line not specifically marked as public land shall be presumed to be private land and illegal to enter without the consent of the owner(s).
We support legislation that requires any allegation of animal cruelty to be reported within 10 days of the incident.

As many land owners know, especially those in areas with good hunting, your land is very easily trespassed upon. A lot of people around here own section after section and they can't possibly keep an eye on everything. I was hoping to use the second and third resolutions as a way to punish trespassers more harshly as well as create responsibility for the federal government when it comes to clearly labeling public lands. Unfortunately, neither of those passed on the State level.

The other two resolutions were in regards to groups such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States. Both of these animal rights groups and many others have began the practice of sending members to obtain jobs on farms and ranches in order to "catch" animal cruelty. They may video tape or take pictures of the farmers and ranchers working. Then they are known to photo shop the pictures or make new videos that can be easily misconstrued as  animal cruelty. In reality, these groups are not actually worried about the welfare of animals. They truly want to hurt agriculture, especially in the areas of dairy, meat, and eggs.

 Only the last piece of legislationg was passed on the State level. Mostly they disagreed with the wording of the policies, so I think I will put them through again next year with different wording. At the county meeting a few months ago I was actually voted on the Policy Development Committee as well as the Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee. At the convention I met some new people, learned a lot, and was given some great ideas on policy for next year.

Every year at convention, a few of our young farmers and ranchers compete in a discussion meet, which is basically an informal debate. They are given a topic, usually a problem facing agriculture, and they talk about the problem. The winner wins a trip to the National Convention to compete in a discussion meet with fellow state winners. I decided to be a spectator at the state discussion meet this year but I'm definitely going to compete next year.