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Election Day is months away, but work is being done right now by your fellow Farm Bureau members to help you choose candidates that are most likely to act favorably toward agriculture. Throughout Ohio, county Farm Bureaus are holding screening sessions that will identify potential members of the General Assembly who are deserving of being recognized as friends of Farm Bureau.

Races in approximately 20 legislative districts are being screened, according to OFBF Director of Political Education Deering Dyer. He said that candidates for those seats were provided a questionnaire compiled by OFBF and other business organizations. Office seekers who returned their survey are eligible to meet with county Farm Bureaus. From those meetings, Farm Bureau leaders will choose whom to support, and what kind of support to offer.

"A lot of other associations choose their endorsements from their state office, but in Ohio Farm Bureau, we don’t operate that way," Dyer said. "We’re a grassroots organization, so the counties comprising these legislative districts send representatives to the screening committee and they actually interview these candidates in the targeted races. Then, at the end of the interviews, they decide if they want to be involved in the race, and if the answer is yes, they select the candidate."

Farm Bureau’s blessing brings a lot of help to the potential legislator’s campaign, according to Dyer. "It includes a small contribution from our political action committee, and most importantly, the county Farm Bureaus have taken ownership in deciding that this is an agriculture-friendly candidate. The county groups often choose to get involved with literature mailings, door-to-door visits and grassroots activities to help get that person elected."

Not all statehouse races are being screened, Dyer said. Open seat races, where both candidates are new and neither has an existing relationship with Farm Bureau, are being analyzed. The second type of race to be screened is where reapportionment has pitted two deserving candidates against each other. "Through the recent redrawing of legislative district lines we have some instances where we have a friend of agriculture vs. another friend of agriculture in the same district so the counties have to make a decision on who they want to support," Dyer said.

Farmers know that having a General Assembly that understands and appreciates agriculture’s contributions to the state is vitally important. Candidates chosen in November will address tax policy, regulatory issues, school funding and a multitude of other topics that will impact farming. That’s why Dyer believes, "This summer’s candidate screening will be a big step in helping elect agriculture-friendly candidates to our statehouse."