4-1 IAT Legislature

Russ Hendricks is the Director of Government Affairs for the Idaho Farm Bureau and I sat down with him to discuss what happened with the Idaho legislature given that the legislature had just wrapped up its latest session. I asked about our core areas of concern in agriculture. "On the agricultural side, there were a number of bills that were favorable. The bill that provided additional funding for the FFA program and to be able to help our kids come up through that process. House Bill 470 actually provided money that the governor had recommended earlier and that Idaho Farm Bureau had a producer on the task force that came up with the recommendation to get some funding to help control wolves here in the state. We realize that we are not going to get rid of wolves anytime soon but this will at least keep them from expanding rapidly and help address those wolves who have become a problem in many areas that are deprecating on the livestock on private property and who are also causing problems with our big game herds across the state. I think the legislature did very well this session. They addressed a lot of the agricultural issues that we had concerns about so as far as a grade I'd give them an A- or a B+.