Don't Cap Our Future

Don’t Cap Our Future. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Don’t cap our future – is the theme of a new grassroots campaign from the nation’s largest farm organization.  The goal is to defeat climate change legislation in Congress.

LYON: The new campaign is called “don’t cap our future.”  It is a campaign to energize the Farm Bureau grassroots, to have them sign a farmer cap and then deliver that to a U.S. Senator’s office in their state to demonstrate our opposition to the climate change/cap-and-trade bill. We’ve heard a lot from the members of the Farm Bureau who are looking for some type of avenue to demonstrate their opposition to this.  And this is a national effort to have every state Farm Bureau, every state Farm Bureau member get involved and show their opposition.

Cody Lyon is director of grassroots and advocacy for the American Farm Bureau Federation.  He says the consequences of proposed cap-and-trade legislation far outweigh the benefits because it would impose higher food and energy costs on everyone.

LYON: The participants of this campaign are the farmers and ranchers.  The ones actually producing the food and the fiber and the fuel for everyone.  They’re concerned about the increased costs for their fuel, for their fertilizer costs. They’re very concerned about what this is going to mean long-term for them.  They’re concerned about what the cap-and-trade program is going to mean long-term.

Lyon says the legislation would affectively cap the nation’s future.  So the symbol of the campaign will be a simple farm cap.  Farmers and ranchers from all 50 states will be presenting caps with don’t cap our future stickers on them to their senators.

LYON: Before the bill starts moving any further along in this process, we want to make sure that the senators have heard from farmers and ranchers in their state.  We want them to know they’re hearing from actual producers, people who have a legitimate concern for what their operation is going to be like. 

Lyon explains why this grassroots campaign is so very important.

LYON: The messages are being delivered in every state in the nation by farmers and ranchers.  These are the farmers and ranchers who own operations from dairy, livestock, to traditional row crops, specialty crops.  No matter the size of their operation from a dozen acres up to several thousand acres, several hundred to several thousand head of livestock.  They’re the ones who are concerned about this.  They’re the ones who are going to talk to their senators about it.  They’re the ones that are going to make sure that that they don’t cap our future campaign is a success. 

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.