More than 350 farmers from across Pennsylvania met with members of the state General Assembly on National Agriculture Day to discuss priority issues affecting farm families. It's called The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau's State Legislative Conference. Farmers expressed concern about state funding and talked with lawmakers about concerns ranging from transportation funding to pension reform.
Farmers told lawmakers that they depend on the maintenance and safety of roads and bridges in order to keep products flowing to and from the farm. "Having milk trucks, feed trucks and other essential deliveries diverted by road and bridge repairs or new lower weight limits can cause major headaches and increase costs to the farm," said PFB President Carl T. Shaffer. Shaffer said farmers are also deeply interested in efforts to reform the public pension system, because the burden of unfunded liability would likely fall on all Pennsylvanians through higher property taxes. Since farm families necessarily own large amounts of land, they say an increase in property taxes would be especially devastating for them.
Farm Bureau members also lobbied lawmakers to increase funding for the Animal Health and Diagnostic Commission Laboratories. They believe the labs have been grossly under funded over the past five years. "We need to ensure that programs like the Diagnostic Labs, which help protect our food supply and animal agriculture, are adequately funded to protect consumers and the farming community, added Shaffer. The farm bureau also called for a more than 5% increase in funding for Agriculture Research and Cooperative Extension programs administered by Penn State.
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau is the state's largest farm organization with a volunteer membership of more than 55,000 farm and rural families, representing farms of every size and commodity across Pennsylvania.
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