16 CapitalPress.com
November 6, 2015
‘The challenges today are much more nationwide in scope’
VOTE from Page 1
Traditionally, there were
starker regional differences
within the AFBF over crop
subsidies and other farm
bill-related issues, said Stall-
man. “It’s something that we
used to have big fi ghts over,
but not anymore.”
While the organization
now has fewer internal dis-
putes, it’s facing greater ex-
ternal threats as the public
is farther removed from the
business of agriculture, and
some outside groups want to
change how the industry oper-
ates, he said.
National challenges
“The challenges today are
much more nationwide in
scope,” Stallman said.
Controversies over pes-
ticides, water, biotechnolo-
gy, animal welfare and labor
regulations have the AFBF
on the defensive, but they’ve
also given two underdog can-
didates hope for winning the
organization’s presidency.
“There’s a recognition now
that issues are national and not
regional. These are all issues
we face in Oregon and have
for a long time,” said Barry
Bushue, who is the Oregon
Farm Bureau’s president and
the American Farm Bureau’s
vice president.
Bushue and Kevin Rogers,
president of the Arizona Farm
Bureau, expect that the West’s
familiarity with contentious
farm issues and federal reg-
ulations will improve their
chances of winning.
Uphill battle
At the same time, their
campaigns face an uphill
battle precisely because they
come from the AFBF’s West-
ern region.
While the experts contact-
ed for this article maintain
that every candidate has a fair
shot, the reality is that only
one candidate from the West
— Allan Grant of California,
who served in the late 1970s
— has ever won the AFBF
presidency.
Because they have the
largest number of Farm Bu-
reau members, the Southern
and Midwest regions also
have the most voting dele-
gates and have dominated the
presidency since the AFBF’s
inception in 1919.
“It’s probably the biggest
challenge for Barry and my-
self,” said Rogers. “Barry and
I are probably at a disadvan-
tage.”
A large swath of the West
is owned by the federal gov-
ernment, which has led to
more confl icts over grazing,
water management and en-
dangered species than farmers
face elsewhere in the nation.
“It seems like we are put-
ting out a lot of fi res,” Rogers
said.
Bushue also comes from
a state where the legislature
and executive branch are con-
trolled by Democrats, who are
generally more prone to reg-
ulate agriculture and business
than lawmakers in conserva-
AFBF presidential candidates at a glance
American Farm
Bureau Federation
Barry Bushue
Zippy Duvall
Kevin Rogers
Don Villwock
Hometown: Boring, Ore.
Age: 65
Education: Bachelor of Science
in Biology, Oregon State
University
Family: Wife, Helen, and three
children
Farm operation: Grows multiple
types of fruits, vegetables and
nursery stock on 50 acres, often
selling directly to the public
Credentials: President, Oregon
Farm Bureau; vice president of
the American Farm Bureau
Federation; member of the
USDA Advisory Committee on
Biotechnology & 21st Century
Agriculture and the Executive
Committee of the United States
Biotech Crop Alliance
Quote: “Oregon is a very
diverse state that has vast
experience with the issues
facing American agriculture,”
Bushue said, referring to the
state’s unique familiarity with
various controversies.
Hometown: Greshamville, Ga.
Age: 59
Education: Attended the
University of Georgia
Family: Wife, Bonnie, four
children and three grandchil-
dren
Farm operation: Raises a
300-head beef cow herd,
750,000 broilers a year and
grows hay
Credentials: President,
Georgia Farm Bureau; member
of the American Farm Bureau
Federation’s board of directors;
served on the Georgia
Governor’s Agricultural Advisory
Committee and the Essential
Economy Council; member of
the Farmers Bank board of
directors
Quote: “They’ve laid the road
map for you, you’ve just got to
make sure you pave the road,”
Duvall said of executing farm
policies decided by state and
county Farm Bureaus.
Hometown: Mesa, Ariz.
Age: 55
Education: Attended the
University of Arizona
Family: Wife, Janel, and three
children
Farm operation: Along with
extended family, grows cotton,
alfalfa, wheat, barley and corn
on 7,000 acres
Credentials: President, Arizona
Farm Bureau; member of
American Farm Bureau
Federation’s board of directors;
serves on boards and commit-
tees for the USDA Air Quality
Task Force, Farm Bureau Bank,
National Cotton Council, USDA
Cotton Board, Farm Bureau
Property & Casualty and
Western Agricultural Insurance
Companies
Quote: (Regarding Farm Bureau
advocacy for agricultural issues)
“We need to help them be as
engaged as they possibly can
be.”
Hometown: Edwardsport, Ind.
Age: 64
Education: Bachelor of Science
in Agricultural Economics from
Purdue University
Family: Wife, Joyce, two
children and one grandchild
Farm operation: Grows 4,000
acres of corn and soybeans,
including identity preserved
varieties for food and seed
Credentials: President, Indiana
Farm Bureau; member of the
American Farm Bureau
Federation’s board of directors;
vice chairman, Farm Bureau
Bank; vice chairman, American
Agricultural Insurance Co.;
chairman, Farm Foundation
think tank; member, Presidential
Commission on 21st Century
Production Agriculture
Quote: “I’m ready to take the
offense. Agriculture has been
put back on its heels. We’ve
been more reactive than
proactive.”
Source: Capital Press Research
tive-leaning states.
In Bushue’s view, this ex-
perience has prepared him for
the battles facing the AFBF
president in coming years.
As the national Farm Bu-
reau’s vice president, he also
oversees the process for set-
ting the organization’s poli-
cies, which are based on rec-
ommendations from state and
county Farm Bureaus.
“I’m a real policy wonk,”
Bushue said.
Rogers, meanwhile, is a
cotton grower who serves on
the National Cotton Coun-
cil and USDA Cotton Board
— positions that have made
him well-versed in the issues
facing many farmers in the
Southern region, where the
crop is most common.
“It gives me a tie to some
of those folks. It gives us
some commonality,” he said,
noting that he’s also built rela-
tionships in the Midwest due
to affi liations with insurance
programs in that region.
“Obviously, it doesn’t
guarantee anything, but it’s
one man, one vote,” Rogers
said.
Policy is certainly an im-
portant aspect of the AFBF
president’s job, but the role
is entirely about compelling-
ly advocating for AFBF po-
sitions, not in deciding what
they should be, said Stallman.
The organization’s policies
are set through a grass-roots
process that begins at the
county level, he said.
A ‘style thing’
Unlike the race for the
U.S. presidency, the AFBF
Mateusz Perkowski and Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Courtesy of American Farm Bureau Federation
Voting delegates gather at the 2015 American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Convention last
January at the San Diego Convention Center. They will elect a new national president at this year’s
convention in Orlando, Fla.
candidates aren’t expected to
take a stance a on farm poli-
cies. They just need to con-
vince people that they’ll be
persuasive in lobbying for the
group’s positions.
“It’s sort of a style thing.
How you present yourself,
how you communicate,”
Stallman said. “The rest of it
really is about carrying out
orders.”
Apart from communica-
tion skills, the candidates are
being judged by their ability
to competently lead a large
organization, he said.
When running for offi ce in
2000, Stallman — then the Tex-
as Farm Bureau’s president —
campaigned largely on a plat-
form of improving the AFBF’s
fi nances and management.
The national organiza-
tion’s fi nancial reserves had
run low and its internal de-
partments needed to work
better together, he said.
State Farm Bureau organi-
zations are generally bigger in
the South and Midwest, which
may account for why dele-
gates have traditionally elect-
ed candidates from these re-
gions when voting for AFBF
president, Stallman said.
Regional advantage
Candidates from large
Farm Bureau states are also
perceived to be more thor-
oughly vetted through a “fi l-
tering process,” since the
elections for state president
are more competitive, he said.
Both Zippy Duvall of
Georgia and Don Villwock
of Indiana credit managerial
experience as a major asset in
the race.
Overseeing the Indiana
Farm Bureau’s sizable bud-
get and staff is a full-time
job for Villwock, who is also
president and chairman of the
state Farm Bureau’s insurance
company and serves as vice
chairman of the Farm Bureau
Bank and the American Agri-
cultural Insurance Co.
“Experience is always
important,” Villwock said.
“American Farm Bureau is a
big business.”
Duvall, meanwhile, prides
himself on the “business turn-
around” he’s led at the Geor-
gia Farm Bureau.
Through technology up-
grades and improvements in
member services, the state
Farm Bureau was able to
make its insurance program
and other products more com-
petitive, he said.
“We were able to stop our
membership loss and now we
have growth in our member-
ship,” said Duvall.
All four candidates have
been making their case while
Founded: 1919
Mission: “AFBF is the unified
national voice of agriculture,
working through our grassroots
organizations to enhance and
strengthen the lives of rural
Americans and to build strong,
prosperous agricultural
communities.”
Total membership: 6 million
President’s total compensa-
tion*: $842,453
Employee salaries and
benefits*: $14.35 million
Organizational status: Tax
exempt as 501(c)(5) agricul-
tural organization
Total revenue*: $25.5 million
Revenue source: Primarily
membership dues, some
investment income
Grant spending*: $340,000
Total assets*: $68.8 million
Total debt*: $13.9 million
*Financial information from 2012, the most
recent year for which tax data is available.
Source: American Farm Bureau Federation
Capital Press graphic
traveling around the coun-
try in the months before
the vote, which will take
place Jan. 10-13 during the
AFBF’s annual convention
in Orlando, Fla.
Delegates for the elec-
tion aren’t chosen until late
in the year at the state level,
so the candidates are focus-
ing on face-to-face meetings
with state Farm Bureau pres-
idents, who generally have a
great deal of infl uence in the
race.
One person poised to have
an outsized impact on the
election is Larry Wooten,
president of the North Caro-
lina Farm Bureau, one of the
state organizations with the
most delegates.
In 2015, for example,
North Carolina alone had 27
delegates, compared to 32
delegates for all 13 states in
the Western region.
Wooten said he will in-
form his state delegates about
which candidate he prefers
and why, but the fi nal deci-
sion is ultimately up to them.
In contrast to the nation-
al presidential race, howev-
er, infl uential Farm Bureau
leaders do not make their
endorsements public or cam-
paign for certain candidates,
he said.
“It’s not something you’d
issue a press release about,”
Wooten said.
Running for AFBF’s pres-
idency differs in another sig-
nifi cant way: The candidates
aren’t gauged by how effec-
tively they attack each other,
and disparaging fellow con-
tenders is seen as damaging to
an individual’s own chances
of winning.
“I’d be very disappointed
in any candidate who would
do that,” Wooten said. “We’ve
got enough of that going on in
national politics.”
Ruling stems from class-action lawsuit brought by berry pickers
REST from Page 1
could have earned if they had
kept working. Workers must
receive one rest period every
four hours.
The ruling stemmed from
a class-action lawsuit brought
by berry pickers at Sakuma
Brothers Farms in Skagit
County. The farmworkers ar-
gued that pickers were entitled
to paid rest breaks, which are
offered hourly wage earners in
other industries. The company
argued piece-rates compen-
sated workers for rest breaks,
an argument the court unani-
mously rejected.
According to L&I, employ-
ers must compute a worker’s
hourly pay by dividing the
piece-rate earnings by hours
worked in one week.
The employer must then
multiply the hourly wage by
time spent on breaks and add
the amount to paychecks.
Piece-rate workers must be
paid at least the state’s mini-
mum wage of $9.47 an hour.
A three-page statement by
L&I includes hypothetical
worksheets to show producers
how to calculate pay.
“It’s going to be complicat-
ed,” said Rick Clyne, a Wash-
ington Farm Bureau safety
director. “It creates two sets of
calculations for every individ-
“When the court creates a new law as they have
done here, it would not be fair to make it retroactive.”
Dan Fazio, Washington Farm Labor Association executive director
ual piece-rate worker.”
Fazio called L&I’s guid-
ance “fi rst rate” but incom-
plete.
Unknown is whether the
rule exposes growers to back
wage claims. The Supreme
Court said it wouldn’t rule on
that issue because Sakuma’s
workers were asking for paid
rest breaks in the future, not
to correct the past. The work-
ers and the farm already had
reached an out-of-court settle-
ment on back pay. “We take no
position on the retroactivity of
this rule,” the unanimous court
wrote.
“When the court creates
a new law as they have done
here, it would not be fair to
make it retroactive,” Fazio
said. “Unfortunately, no one
knows whether this newly cre-
ated regulation is retroactive.”
Workers can fi le back pay
claims with L&I, or go directly
to court. L&I spokesman Tim
Church said the agency has not
made any decisions on wheth-
er it will apply the court’s rul-
ing to back pay claims.
In calculating pay, L&I’s
instructions assume all work-
ers take a 10-minute rest period
ever four hours. Clyne sug-
gested employers schedule rest
periods, rather than leave break
times to individual workers.
“It should be a defi nite
time,” he said. “It will create
logistical problems in a fi eld
where we don’t have conveyor
belts to shut off.”
Said Fazio: “The court is
apparently requiring employ-
ers to schedule rest breaks and
to prove that workers actually
take the breaks.”
L&I says it has fi elded
questions about whether other
occupations and compensa-
tion systems will be affected
by the ruling. Church said the
department has not issued any
guidance in response to those
questions.
Fazio said the labor associ-
ation will ask L&I to fl esh out
the policy.
“If agriculture employ-
ers need to pay separate and
different rest break pay, then
what about truck drivers who
are paid by the mile or the
Nordstrom shoe salesperson
who is paid a commission?”
he asked.
Ryan: It’s possible to get smaller immigration-related policy passed
RYAN from Page 1
for him. With most House
conservatives wary of any-
thing that could constitute
“amnesty” for the 11.5 mil-
lion immigrants living here
illegally, Ryan has offered
repeated assurances, before
and after becoming speaker
last week, that he will not
pursue comprehensive im-
migration legislation as long
as Obama is president.
In several interviews
aired Nov. 1, Ryan said it’s
possible to get smaller im-
migration-related
policy
passed.
“If we believe and have
consensus on things like
border enforcement and in-
terior security, then fine,” he
said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Obama issued directives
a year ago that gave tem-
porary relief from depor-
tation to about 4 million
immigrants in the country
illegally, along with permits
authorizing them to work in
the U.S.
Asked Sunday on NBC’s
“Meet the Press” about his
previous support for a “path
to citizenship,” Ryan empha-
sized something different,
saying: “Well, legal status is
what I was talking about.”
Legal status versus citi-
zenship is an important dis-
tinction, partly because only
citizenship confers the right
to vote. His office said Ryan
supports “earned legal sta-
tus,” noting that this could
eventually lead to citizen-
ship through existing chan-
nels.