CongressDaily | by Jerry Hagstrom | September 10, 1999
American Farm Bureau President Dean Kleckner, who is being challenged by Texas Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman, told CongressDaily during the congressional recess he did not want to respond to charges by Stallman that, under his leadership, the Farm Bureau has become too partisan - and that he has been spending too much time traveling internationally and not monitoring trade agreements closely enough. Kleckner said he does not think the contest for the Farm Bureau presidency, which will be decided at a convention in Houston in January, should be fought out in the media. Some of that criticism of the Farm Bureau's trade approach surfaced at an American Sugar Alliance meeting in Napa, Calif., in August. Appearing on a panel on trade, Kleckner told the cane and beet growers the United States has to "open" up to more agricultural imports if it is going to gain market access to other countries, but added he recognized that all commodities cannot be treated equally. A member of the audience questioned whether commodity producers can align themselves with agribusiness - as the Farm Bureau has done - in the formulation of trade policy. Kleckner said, "We're all in it together. We sink or swim together," but added that if there are disagreements, the Farm Bureau "will go with our policy developed by growers."
At another session, Jackie Theriot, a Louisiana sugar grower, announced he wanted the audience to know that, as a member of the Louisiana Farm Bureau, he disagrees with the Farm Bureau's policy under Kleckner that labor and environmental issues should not be raised in the next round of trade talks. Theriot said U.S. producers will be at a "disadvantage" if sugar is imported from countries with low labor and environmental standards. In addition, Dennis Meyer, a Bernard, Iowa, farmer and Farm Bureau member, Friday released to the press a letter he wrote to Kleckner in August saying he has "trouble making sense of AFBF's current dairy and trade policies." Meyer wrote that "while free trade might make sense for corn or wheat, it doesn't make sense for the average dairy farmer in this country. The lower cost exporting nations in the Cairns Group are ready and able to undercut us in our markets as well as in the European Union and Japan, the only two other strong dairy markets in the world."
Stallman is emphasizing trade policy in his campaign. A Texas Farm Bureau delegation returned from Cuba last weekend and a spokesman for Stallman said Thursday that Stallman and other Texas Farm Bureau officials "are pushing hard" to convince the House leadership to back the amendment in the Senate FY2000 Agriculture appropriations bill that would liberalize agricultural and pharmaceuticals trade with Cuba. Kleckner led his own Farm Bureau delegation to Cuba earlier this year.
