Jeff's Farmers Union Convention Speech

Jeff and I attended the Montana Farmers Union Annual Convention over the weekend and co-delivered a speech about our experience in the FUE program. I published my speech in the previous post, and below is Jeff's speech. 

Photo courtesy of Carol Bangs. 

Good morning, I’m Jeff Bangs, and as you can tell, I lost the coin flip to see which of us was going to talk first, so now I have the very difficult task of following my wife at the podium.

As I was walking down here this morning, a thought occurred to me. I wondered if we were the first FUE couple from Montana to have to speak about our experience in the FUE couples program with next year’s group of couples, as well as Harley and Irene Danielson, the program’s coordinators, in the audience?

I actually wish I’d thought of that sooner, because up until just a little while ago, I’d not taken into account that Harley and Irene would be here, so bear with me now, I’ve got to take a minute and take all of my “North Dakotan” jokes out of my speech (cross out with pen). Wow, honey you might have to come back up here, I don’t have enough material left to talk for very long!

In all seriousness, Harley and Irene do a fantastic job organizing this program, bringing in a variety of great speakers and trainers, and helping all of us couples get the most out of this great program as possible. So if I could get Harley and Irene to stand for just a moment, I’d like everybody here to help me thank them for all that they do for Farmer’s Union.

While I’m at it, we need to thank Farmer’s Union Enterprises for continuing to provide funding for the Couples Leadership Program. One of the stated goals of the program is to foster leadership among these couples, with the goal that those folks will then take on an active role both in their local communities, and within Farmer’s Union either in their local, state, or the National organization. 

Looking around the room over the past day of the convention, I’ve seen many of the Montana couples that have gone through the program, from the first year 8 years ago up until now. That group of people now includes board members, national convention delegates, committee members, and folks who are very involved in shaping the policies and direction of Montana Farmers Union. I’d say the program is doing exactly what it was created to do, so thank you again to FUE for having the foresight to create this program, and to keep it going with annual funding.

On to our year and a half in the couples program. Katie and I weren’t sure what to expect from a program that promised “leadership training,” but we knew we were interested in getting involved in Montana Farmers Union, and saw this as a great avenue to do so. As we got into our first meeting in Bozeman last summer, and got to know the couples we’d be training with for the upcoming year, we were a little taken aback, to be honest.

The couple from Minnesota, Bryan and Jennifer Klabunde, are a very well-dressed, well-spoken, very sharp couple of people, and Bryan was already very active in his state Farmers Union organization as the president of his home county. Jennifer has been very involved in helping to grow Minnesota’s membership, and has served on several committees relating to their state organization.

The couple from North Dakota, Mark and Mindy Heinz, have a very large operation and are also very involved with their local county chapter of North Dakota Farmers Union, and Mark already had a few years of service on his local co-op elevator board, and Mindy is the education director for the Rolette county local organization.

The Wisconsin couple, Jim and Lisa Soyring, have a good-sized cow-calf ranch that they’d basically built on their own, and Jim is a long-time union organizer and leader at his other full-time job off the farm, while Lisa, in addition to being very involved in their local 4-H organization, also performs the lions share of the day to day operations on their farm.  

So we definitely had a moment of “Holy cow, what are we doing in a group that includes this group of impressive people?”

However, as we went along through the year, it became clear that we all share the same concerns, regardless of our experience level or the size of our operations. We all think about land costs, the cost of our inputs, getting a fair price for what we produce, getting our products shipped in a timely and reasonably-priced fashion, and taking care of our land in a responsible manner.

As a bit of an aside, probably the most satisfying part of this experience for me was getting to know these impressive people, all involved in family farming in their various states, and emerging from our year of training with not only a network of colleagues that we feel like we can discuss farm issues with, but with a bunch of people who we’ll be friends with for the rest of our lives.

The fact that we all basically shared the same concerns, as I’m sure most of us in this room do, led us to many discussions about the importance of an organization like Farmer’s Union to stand up for family agriculture, and to help keep family farming as a viable option as a lifestyle and career.

Every person in our group has passion for the issues that we as an organization have chosen to advocate for, from COOL to the Renewable Fuel Standard to ensuring fair treatment from the railroads that ship our products, and many others.

I think that’s the true value in this Young Couples Leadership program, taking a group of people who are passionate about family agriculture, and giving them some tools to articulate that passion to those in positions of power, be it at the local, state, or national level.

The culmination of our year in the program was getting to participate in the National Farmers Union legislative fly-in in Washington, DC in September. The fly-in actually clarified and helped me to answer a question I’ve had about Farmers Union. I’ve always believed in the values and positions that this organization takes, our commitment to education, and our leadership in cooperatives throughout our ag communities. But when someone would ask me “why Farmer’s Union” or “What can Farmer’s union do for me?” I could never come up with the short, bumper-sticker answer that I sought.

However, at the fly-in, we took policies written by members at the state and county level, and lobbied for them at the USDA and in congress. And the folks back there were interested in what National Farmers Union had to say. So there’s an answer, to the “why farmer’s union?” question: We take policies, written by our membership, and take them to the highest levels of government, where those ideas and policies are heard by those in power. A bit long for a bumper sticker maybe, but it brought home for me what a great grassroots organization this truly is, and what a valuable job we as an organization do for family farmers across the country.

So please, everyone here, stay involved, because what we are all doing here as members of Farmers Union is making a difference in family agriculture all across the country.

I’ll close by saying thank you again to Farmer’s Union Enterprises and to Harley and Irene Danielson for this opportunity, and thanks to all of you for allowing us to share our experience with you this morning.