By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Last week a new consortium of farmer groups announced its plans to reach out to consumers with a new focus.
The group, U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), legally incorporated last week after 20 farmer-group representatives met last week and took a straw poll.

According to USFRA steering committee chairman and National Corn Growers Assoc. CEO Rick Tolman, 10 of those groups said they wanted to be on the new group’s board, and 14 of them said they wanted to participate in the group. Some indicated that they needed to consult with their leadership before proceeding.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm about doing this,” Tolman said.
Those 20 organizations have been asked whether or not they would like to affiliate with the new alliance, but more could end up signing on, said Hugh Whaley, a spokesman for the USFRA. Those that have yet to decide have been asked to respond by Nov. 1.

The steering committee, which has done most of the work so far, includes Tolman, U.S. Soybean Board CEO John Becherer, American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman, National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. CEO Forrest Roberts, National Pork Board CEO Chris Novak, and John Starkey, president of the U.S. Poultry and Egg Assoc.

“We’ve had three organizational meetings to see if we can get on concept,” Tolman said.

He said their tentative plan is to launch a three to five year campaign with a goal of raising $10-30 million a year. The ultimate goal? Get messages out there to the public that agriculture, broadly defined, can agree on.

“We ought to pool resources, we ought to agree on common messages,” he said. “We’ve been more defined by our differences in agriculture than by what we have in common. We also want to connect more with consumers.”

There are a number of consumer-oriented agriculture groups, in fact too many of them, Tolman said. When something happens that affects the agriculture sector, such as a food scare or a misguided animal rights campaign, agriculture’s response is often fragmented and therefore ineffective, Tolman said. It’s as if agriculture responds by spending $10 “a penny at a time.”

“It’s under-resourced,” he said of the different groups. “All these are good, but we want to unite ourselves. What are those messages, how can we build more trust with consumers?”

Tolman said he wants to help unite livestock farmers with those who produce crops. Sure, these different farmers have different interests, he said, but they also have a lot in common and they need to focus on those common interests.

What’s happened so far with the consortium is the result of about six months worth of planning, according to Whaley.

“There’s going to be a lot more information as time goes by,” he said.

On Nov. 5, the steering committee is supposed to meet via a conference call. By that time the group should be able to have a board in place. Shortly thereafter the board will elect a five member executive committee.

The executive committee will probably be doing a lot of the work in between board meetings, Whaley said.