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A busy year ahead for Wisconsin Farm Bureau president
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Bill Bruins has been re-elected president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, a position the Waupun dairy farm has held since 2003. He feels the organization “is as strong as it has ever been,” citing the strong membership, the financial status of the organization, Rural Insurance and the increasing involvement of young members.
One of the main focuses of Farm Bureau is representing agriculture in government and Bruins says the current “Recall mania” is making it quite difficult to get anything accomplished in Madison. “We are not going to see any major progress on any of our concerns until after the recall is settled and done.” Speculation is if the recall effort against Governor Walker is successful the election will not be held until next summer at the earliest.
Bruins has also been appointed by Governor Walker to serve on the Department of Natural Resources Board, he feels Secretary Cathy Stepp is making “good improvements in organizational structure and process and procedures.” One of the conflicts Bruins sees is the dispute over farmland exemplified by the DNR Stewardship Program and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture’s Working Lands Initiative. Bruins says DNR and the DATCP boards are going to hold a joint meeting in February “and one of the issues we are going to talk about is land use.”
The Farm Bureau board will meet this month to establish the top issues for the organization for the next year. Bruins says one of those is sure to be a situation developing in central Wisconsin where law enforcement has begun ticketing manure haulers who are exceeding weight limits on roads. “How are we going to move forward with maintaining local roads with the current tax structure and maintaining our current farm practices hauling manure and end products?” Bruins says he is going to establish a task force in the organization to come up with ideas as to how to resolve a very serious issue.
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