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Alliance Hopes to Create Unified Voice for Ag

Calling it a start toward creating a unified voice for agriculture, more than 20 national food and ag organizations have agreed to incorporate a U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman serves as chair of the USFRA steering committee.
 
"For a lot of years we've been defining agriculture by our differences rather than the things we have in common," Tolman said. "We tended to focus on that and be independent and create our own silos and we've heard from agribusiness, and consumer groups, and the Secretary of Agriculture and everybody, 'Why don't you farm groups get together?'"

Tolman says the alliance will stay away from the hot-button issues of farm policy and biofuels and will focus instead on enhancing the image of farmers and building consumer trust in today's modern food production systems. He says one of the messages will be "shared values."

"Farmers and ranchers are real people," Tolman said. "They want to preserve their environoment, they want to pass on their farms to their children and grandchildren, they want to have clean water to drink, clean air to breathe, and the want to have an abundant, reliable, reasonably priced food supply."

Past efforts to have agriculture speak with one voice have had only limited success, but Tolman says the challenges facing agriculture are much greater than ever before.

"I think all of us recognize that we are in a much more serious time and it's really impacting our ability to operate and do things," Tolman said. "You know we are getting rules and regulations and things that are not good for our sector but also not good for consumers."

Tolman says the new USFRA already has a broader base of support than previous unification attempts. Participants include livestock and poultry groups, fruit and vegetable growers, rice, wheat and corn producers, and many sectors of agriculture.