American Farm Bureau Federation
The American Farm Bureau Federation, more informally called the American Farm Bureau or simply the Farm Bureau, is a United States–based 501 tax-exempt agricultural organization and lobbying group. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Farm Bureau has affiliates in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Each affiliate is a Farm Bureau, and the parent organization is also often called simply the Farm Bureau.
Founded in 1919, the AFBF represents the 2 million farms in the United States, and is among the agriculture industry's largest lobby groups. Some observers contend that its federal lobbying efforts, which began in the 1930s, helped drive the subsequent three-decade shift to larger farms.
In 2022, the AFBF spent $2,120,000 on lobbying, including for policies benefitting the for-profit activities of state farm bureaus, such as federal subsidies for the crop insurance sold by affiliate companies. As early as the 1990s, the organization lobbied against climate policy in the United States, and until 2019, it denied that climate change was real.
AFBF itself does not sell insurance, but all but a handful of its non-profit state affiliates have affiliated for-profit insurance companies. Most of AFBF's revenue comes from dues paid by its nearly 5.9 million members, most of whom are not farmers but insurance customers who pay the dues as a condition of their policies.
Every year, the organization holds an annual convention and adopts new policies to guide its work. The convention is attended by farmer and rancher delegates from across the United States.
History
The Farm Bureau movement started in 1911 when John Barron, a farmer who graduated from Cornell University, worked as an extension agent in Broome County, New York. He served as a Farm Bureau representative for farmers with the Chamber of Commerce of Binghamton, New York. The effort was financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Lackawanna Railroad. The Broome County Farm Bureau was soon separated from the Chamber of Commerce. Other farm bureaus later formed in counties across the U.S., as listed with dates at "List of Farm Bureaus".In 1914, with the passage of the Smith–Lever Act of 1914, Congress agreed to share with the states the cost of programs for providing "county agents", who supplied information to farmers on improved methods of animal husbandry and crop production developed by agricultural colleges and experiment stations, which has evolved into the modern-day Cooperative Extension Service.
In 1915, farmers meeting in Saline County, Missouri, formed the first statewide Farm Bureau.
1919–1929
In 1919, a group of farmers from 30 states gathered in Chicago. They founded the American Farm Bureau Federation with the goal of "speaking for themselves through their own national organization". But they also sought to forestall populist organization of small farmers. "The inception of this national farm bureau association is taking place at a most opportune time," Harvey J. Sconce, president of the Illinois Agricultural Association, said at the meeting. "The United States is at present experiencing the greatest period of industrial unrest in its entire history. It is now just one year since the signing of the armistice. During this interval more than 3,000 strikes have been inaugurated in this country. Is it any wonder that production has dwindled and cost of living has so greatly increased? It is our duty in creating this organization to avoid any policy that will align organized farmers with the radicals of other organizations. The policy should be thoroughly American in every respect – a constructive organization instead of a destructive organization." Wrote Brian Campbell, now a professor at Berry College: "Farm Bureau began as a counter-move to various farm organizations that represented small farmers."The initial organization papers said:
The initial local and state farm bureaus had a social and educational function furthering the extension service efforts, and they also pursued the functions of pooled negotiating power for purchasing of supplies such as seed and equipment. The bureaus also pooled capability to provide fire insurance and vehicle insurance for their farms, via both negotiating power and self-insuring capability ; they were comparable in that respect to mutual insurance companies. In all of these functions, local and state farm bureaus thus became an analogue of a farmers' union or a trade association for farmers in the United States; the National Farmers Union was the other such effort, outside of small co-ops. More precisely, the local and state farm bureaus formed a network of such unions or associations with a national parent organization. They were thus somewhat analogous in that respect to a federation of trade unions – but with individual family farms being self-employed, the parallel with trade associations is the more relevant analogy.
1930–1939
In the 1930s, the American Farm Bureau Federation developed a lobbying presence in Washington, D.C., where it pushed for changes in New Deal programs to favor large farms with many employees over family farms. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party, a political party which represented small operators and favored radical programs, was left without power by the New Deal policies, and so in the 1940s the FLP and similar groups in the upper Midwest died or were merged into the Democratic or Republican parties.Along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Farm Bureau and other "advocates of a mechanized, highly commercialized agriculture helped initiate an abrupt two-decade shift to machines and wage labor." By World War II, the organization was "the most influential representative of large farmers."
In a study of the organization's New Deal period during the 1930s, Christian McFayden Cambell concluded that it was "...largely controlled from the top. Its leadership is self-perpetuating, and its policy, although nursed through an elaborate procedural labyrinth, is rarely permitted to wander very far afield. 'The Farm Bureau's cherished belief that its policy was made at the grass roots and adopted by democratic process turned out to be partly illusion,' concluded Christiana McFayden Cambell in her study of the organization's New Deal period. There appears to be no reason to change that assessment today," Samuel R. Berger wrote in Dollar Harvest ''.''
Since 2000
By the 21st century, the AFBF, through its state and local affiliates, was entwined financially with large agribusiness corporations. "In recent years, its insurance affiliates have bought stock in companies like Cargill, ConAgra, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Tyson and Archer Daniels Midland, all major food industry players. The Southern Farm Bureau Annuity Insurance Co. once owned more than 18,000 shares of Premium Standard stock," The Nation wrote in 2012.Bob Stallman, a Texan, served as AFBF president from 2001 to 2016, earning a salary of $832,216 in his final year. Duval took over in January 2017, earning a salary of $648,111 in his first year.
In 2020, around 500 dairy farmers and haulers received letters demanding repayment for milk shipped to Dean Foods, just before the company filed for bankruptcy. AFBF, which called the demands a "predatory shakedown", was one of several groups that provided legal assistance to the farmers and haulers.
In 2023, AFBF announced several memorandums of understanding with equipment manufacturers, establishing repair agreements that make manufacturers' tools, software, and manuals available to farmers under "fair and reasonable" terms so farmers can make needed repairs. Under these, AFBF also agrees not to lobby on right to repair legislation, and to “encourage state-level Farm Bureaus to recognize the commitments made in the MOU and refrain from promoting “right to repair” legislation at the state or federal level”. In January, MOUs were signed with John Deere and in March, with CNH Industrial, Case IH and New Holland Agriculture.
Lobbying
A 2012 investigation by The Nation detailed the large-scale federal and state political operations of the Farm Bureau, and alleged the Bureau recruited political candidates to affect legislative elections and appointments to state committees.As of 2012, the organization retains 22 registered lobbyists. From 2002 to 2012, the Farm Bureau spent $16 million, which was 45% of the total amount spent by the 10 largest agribusiness interests in the U.S.
The Farm Bureau supported the Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2014, a bill that would amend the federal tax laws to permanently extend and expand certain expired provisions that provided a bigger tax deduction for businesses that donated food to charitable organizations. The Farm Bureau argued that without the tax write-off, "it is cheaper in most cases for these types of businesses to throw their food away than it is to donate the food".
The Farm Bureau has lobbied for increases in federal subsidies for crop insurance, which "is a small, but significant piece of Farm Bureau insurance companies’ portfolio. In 2011, they collected over $300 million in crop insurance premiums", The Nation wrote in 2012.
Climate change
The Farm Bureau has long opposed regulation or taxation of greenhouse gases and climate policy, justifying its actions by denying the scientific consensus on climate change. "For decades, the Farm Bureau has derailed climate action, deploying its political apparatus and 6 million members in a forceful alliance with conservative groups and the fossil fuel industry," Inside Climate News wrote in 2018.Starting in the 1990s the organization participated in the Global Climate Coalition, which lobbied in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.
In 2003, Farm Bureau economists joined the Heartland and Hudson Institutes in publishing a paper that "called state or federal regulation of greenhouse gases 'unnecessary, enormously expensive, and particularly injurious to the agricultural community.
In 2010, the Farm Bureau's official position was that "there is no generally agreed upon scientific assessment of the exact impact or extent of carbon emissions from human activities, their impact on past decades of warming or how they will affect future climate changes". The climate change session at the Farm Bureau's national meeting that year was entitled "Global Warming: A Red Hot Lie?" It featured Christopher C. Horner, a climate change denier and lawyer for the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, a largely industry-backed group that strongly opposes limits on greenhouse gases. At the meeting, delegates unanimously approved a resolution that "strongly supports any legislative action that would suspend EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act". Right before the meeting, the Union of Concerned Scientists sent the group a letter pointing out that its climate change position runs counter to that of every major scientific organization and urged it to support action on climate change. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said that farmers have more to gain from cap and trade than they stand to lose.
By 2019, the Farm Bureau had ceased to publicly deny climate change, but remained opposed to non-market-based solutions, including opposing taxes on carbon uses or emissions. Politico called it a “longtime, powerful foe of federal action on climate."