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Once a regulation is in place, all parties to whom the regulation applies should comply with the regulation. If Farm Bureau members believe strongly enough that a regulation needs to be changed, that should be addressed by attempting to change the regulation and/or the underlying law.

Regulatory compliance can be consistent with a balanced ecology. Compliance efforts improve community relationships for agriculture by proactively working with community partners and avoiding negative publicity. Compliance efforts will maintain a clean environment by sustaining natural resources and preventing pollution. Compliance efforts create a strong economy by avoiding unnecessary expenses of fines, legal costs, investigative costs and civil liabilities while providing positive employment opportunities and creating economic activity. Farm Bureau can assist its members with regulatory compliance to reduce individual business risks while maintaining a positive image of agriculture in each community.

Education: Noncompliance is often attributed to people being unaware that a regulation exists or being unaware that it applies to their businesses. Once this is established additional efforts to educate about how to comply are helpful.

Resources: Most farm businesses do not have the resources to hire a compliance officer to keep up with all regulations and how to comply with them. Farm Bureau can be helpful by identifying resources and when needed, developing resources that are not elsewhere available. These resources could be in the form of fact sheets, manuals, meetings, web resources, member services, etc.

Enforcement: Farm Bureau can assist members by providing information on how to comply before enforcement results in fines or operation restrictions. Farm Bureau can also assure that the enforcement activities of government agencies are limited to the authority established in laws and rules.

Individual members are encouraged to contact their county Farm Bureaus to discuss regulatory compliance issues.