Bright Lights of the Big City
(or, How a Country Gal Learned About the Farm Bureau
Policy Process and Lived to Tell About It)
Becky Crabtree
I attended my first West Virginia Farm Bureau
Resolutions Committee meeting in Flatwoods, West
Virginia on October 13. It was the second Farm
Bureau gathering of any kind I had ever visited - the
first being our local county board meeting a few
weeks earlier.
My husband and I have been members of Farm
Bureau for a couple of years because we feel like
this organization supports a way of life that we
love. We don’t make a living off our 30 acres;
shoot, we don’t even break even, but it gives us a
reason to be outdoors and to be lifelong learners.
The difference between reading about sheep care
and actually delivering lambs, for instance, is
quite a steep learning curve. Plus, we want our
grandchildren to at least know where their food
comes from and be able to make animal sounds
because they’ve actually heard them - not from
8 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
listening to an electronic toy. We love the way
we live and try to protect our lifestyle. Our
involvement prior to this fall was to pay our dues
and read the news magazine each month.
So, when we felt threatened by a planned
pipeline route across our pasture, I turned to the
West Virginia Farm Bureau for information. Our
pipeline policy, set by the American Farm Bureau
Federation, is to support all pipelines. Our news
magazine does not feature articles that promote
thoughts contrary to policy so the only information
available from WVFB is pro-pipeline. Good
business, but not as informative as I would’ve
liked. I bickered and groaned a day or two and
made phone calls and got the exact policy and read
it. It is on page 140 of the American Farm Bureau
Federation Policy book and reads: