Farm Bureau hails Initiative 1 defeat

This year, it was the open space initiative and grazing rights.

At the 88th annual convention of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, chief executive officer Randy Parker reported on the federation's focus during the past year, while Lt. Gov.-elect Gary Herbert cast his sights to the issues that lay ahead.

In early 2004, the federation set its grass-roots machine in motion to oppose Initiative 1, Parker said in his executive annual report. Initiative 1 was a $150 million bond that would have paid to clean water, build parks, construct city buildings and preserve open space through a .05-cent sales tax increase.

"It was important to determine early on the role the Farm Bureau would take in this debate," Parker said. "Starting out, there was a long-standing foundation principle at the Farm Bureau that started that in motion, and that is our support for a republic form of government and our opposition to government by referendum. That ultimately said what we would do. Under the direction of the board of directors, we became engaged."

In addition to the "foundational principles," Parker said the federation also was concerned about the initiative's impact on private property rights, grazing permit buy-outs and non-elected commissions' use of tax dollars.

The federation joined other organizations, elected and appointed officials and others in voicing opposition, and the initiative failed on Nov. 2.

In coming years, Parker and Herbert said, property and grazing rights will be on the front burner.

"Utah public lands and protection of sheep and cattle grazing have long been a priority at the Farm Bureau," Parker said. "In recent years, we've been seeing more pressure on retirement, buy-outs, the conversion of livestock grazing to wildlife use and so forth."

The Utah and American farm bureaus worked with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to reform grazing management policies, and new proposals are forthcoming from the BLM, Parker said.

"Utah Farm Bureau's member policy supports the Taylor Grazing Act in allocating public grazing resources first to livestock," Parker said. "We've seen proposals surface from environmental groups and even some of our state and agency personnel to retire or convert livestock grazing rights to non-use or wildlife use."

The federation has challenged and will continue to challenge those proposals, Parker said.

Utah's farmers can expect action on issues critical to them, Herbert pledged.