<b>By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER<br>
Ohio Correspondent</b> </p><p>

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Food labeling and wildlife damage were two of the top issues on the minds of Ohio farmers as delegates established the official policies for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF) during the group’s recent annual meeting in Columbus.</p><p>
Other topics delegates addressed included school funding, Ohio’s commercial activity tax, raw milk sales and commodity checkoff programs.</p><p>
“Labeling of our food products was a key issue,” said Keith Stimpert, OFBF vice president of public policy. “We need to work with other parties. We’re in this food provisions, or food system, together.</p><p>
“Retailers, farmers, processors – even consumers – need to work together to make sure that we’re providing valuable, meaningful information to folks and that should be science-based in its review and not be misleading.”</p><p>
While the policy refers to all kinds of labels, the main concern was the artificial bovine somatotropin (bST) issue, Stimpert said. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may soon approve the use of bST which, when injected into cows, increases the production of milk.</p><p>
The discussion centered on the need to maintain freedom of choice for farmers and consumers, Stimpert said.</p><p>
OFBF believes farmers should be free to utilize production technologies that are proven safe; food consumers should have a choice of buying products with those technologies.</p><p>
Wildlife damage to farms, nurseries and orchards has been significant, and OFBF struggled with that, too.</p><p>
“The delegates were concerned about establishing some type of abatement program to help fund practices to reduce the damage,” Stimpert said.</p><p>
While damage from black vultures and other critters was considered, most of the discussion concerned deer.</p><p>
“We want to work towards reducing the population to 250,000,” Stimpert said. “There was a lot of discussion about how to get there. The delegates want to reinstate the in-season damage permits that were taken away this year.”</p><p>
OFBF Executive Vice President Jack Fisher also saw wildlife management as an area of concern for Farm Bureau in the upcoming year.</p><p>
“We’ve got to work collectively with society about wildlife management,” he said. “There are a number of animals in several different species, deer being the most prevalent, but there are others – wild turkey, raccoons and coyotes – that cause a lot of financial damage in our industry.”</p><p>
Another key area of concern for OFBF involves livestock production, Fisher explained.</p><p>
Society has a new interest in how animals are raised and what they are fed.</p><p>
“We have to have a better educational method, a better dialogue with our consumers relative to why we do livestock practices, what inputs we need and how we continue to provide a wholesome food supply with reasonable input costs,” he said.</p><p>
A third issue of concern he mentioned was regaining customers’ confidence in food safety.</p><p>
“I know that we have the safest food in the world, but our customers, when they have a constant bombardment through the media on E. coli, recalls and those types of scenarios, I think we have less science-based information and more emotional information judging our food safety, so we need to recapture that,” Fisher said.</p><p>
“Overall, we continue to see less and less folks who have experience and knowledge about the industry of agriculture,” he added.</p><p>
“So Ag in the Classroom, agricultural education, is probably the overriding theme that we need to do with our customers in 2008.”