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Ohio Farm Bureau brought forth 10 policies to be voted upon by delegates at the American Farm Bureau Annual Convention in Anaheim earlier this week, and all 10 were approved as national policy.

Highlights included implementing policy surrounding artificial intelligence, unmanned aerial vehicles or drones and farmland preservation.

Ohio Ag Net’s Ty Higgins talked with OFBF’s Senior Director of State and National Policy Brad Bales, highlighting some of the policies that started in Ohio that are now written in AFBF’s policy book.

“In the technology space, we have a history here,” Bales said. “Two years ago in Salt Lake City, we started the very first artificial intelligence policy. Mike Videkovich, who’s on our (state) board, was very instrumental in getting that passed, and so we built upon that.”

As artificial intelligence evolves, policy was presented to make sure that the images used in promoting such technology have a disclaimer on them that tells the viewer that the image is AI generated

“We want to make sure that we’re constantly taking a look at (AI) as a national organization, to make sure (our policy) is up to date as much as possible because (AI) is always evolving, so that was critical,” Bales said.

In terms of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, Bales noted that the national policy adopted was aimed at establishing criminal protections to protect livestock and herds from the unmanned aircraft.

“We’ve had some instances across the state where livestock were getting harassed by these devices,” Bales said. “We want criminal protections put in place to make sure that our livestock and our herds are taken care of.”

A national policy approach to farmland preservation was a delegate policy initiative for the delegates at the AFBF convention to tackle, but a necessary one as wind, solar and data centers continue to be constructed all around the country.

“We are losing hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland just in Ohio alone, over the past five years,” he said. “So what we really want to do is make sure that we’re taking a look at our farmland preservation strategy, and what does that mean as a national group? What is acceptable? What’s not when it comes to land use planning? Because as a private (property) rights organization, we don’t want to have government telling us what we can or can’t do, but at the same time, how do we make sure we’re preserving that farmland and we can be able to continue to do what we do when it comes to our livelihoods and our way of life? We’ve got to make sure that we have at least the foundation when we’re talking with policymakers on what to do. ”

Watch Bales’ entire interview.

Online Extra 

Ohio Ag Net talks national policy initiatives with OFBF Vice President of Public Policy Jack Irvin.