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Following are excerpts from OFBF President Bob Peterson’s address to delegates at the General Session during this year’s annual meeting in Columbus.

Are you a forward thinker, a visionary? I hope you will be this week. Dag Hammarskjold, a Swedish diplomat and 1961 Nobel Peace Prize winner, said: "Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road."

I’m not sure that is always good advice for walking through a barnyard, but to set a course for Ohio agriculture it is.

Many people view their journey through life as a road or a path, but I sometimes feel it is more like a river, a river of change. We as leaders of this great organization must guide Farm Bureau along this river of change. At times the river is calm, wide and deep. These are easy times to lead and be involved. At other times, the river of change is turbulent, rocky and dangerous.

Collectively, we need to be proud of how we have guided Farm Bureau through this dangerous part of the river. We have survived and been successful. We have been involved in the issues in the appropriate place. When the Mad Cow story broke, AFBF and OFBF provided honest, accurate, fact-filled information to the media immediately.

When livestock issues flared up locally, county Farm Bureau leaders explained to their friends and neighbors why livestock operations have value and rose to the challenge. Many of you local leaders are here today, and I congratulate you.

We were involved politically. Of the 118 state races we were involved in, friends of agriculture won 113. An unbelievable percentage of success, that is the result of hard work and preparation by our Farm Bureau government affairs staff and county Farm Bureau leaders making wise choices in open seat races and then supporting these candidates.

Be proud that Farm Bureau ran the rapids in the river of change successfully.

But get ready. We have more rocks and rough water ahead. For at least the next few years, I expect more and greater challenges. The turbulence will come fast and hard, so let me share some of the rocky issues further downstream:

• The next farm bill debate will begin in 2005 recognizing a growing federal budget deficit, a president who believes in less government involvement and more trade. Should we fight to defend the current farm bill, or prepare to negotiate parts of it in order to gain regulatory reform and more access to markets?
• We are all supporters of the Homeland Security Agency for good reasons, but weren’t we all supporters of the Environmental Protection Agency 30 years ago for good reasons? What impact will Homeland Security have on our ability to farm and process products profitably? Will they at times show the same lack of common sense and good judgment we sometimes see from the EPA?
• If we lose the ability to site livestock operations or land apply manure, will the entire livestock industry move to South America? Will the U.S. consumer really prefer its meat raised and processed under foreign health and sanitary standards? What happens to Ohio grain prices if we don’t have livestock?

These are just some of the challenges we will face together over the next few years.

I look forward to developing, preparing and refining our policy this week. With vision, courage and wisdom over the next few years we might ride the wild river of change very successfully. We might even be able to proudly repeat this phrase from Ronald Reagan’s retirement address: "We meant to change a nation (or organization) and instead we changed the world."