Animal Ag Alliance

Animal Agriculture Alliance summit underway in D.C.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 3:43 PM
by Ken Anderson

The Animal Agriculture Alliance is holding its 8th annual Stakeholders Summit in Washington D.C.

One of the speakers is Aaron Putze, executive director of the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers. Putze says he continues to stress the importance of ag groups working together to grow the livestock sector.

“We don’t have the luxury in agriculture to be duplicating efforts—to be recreating wheels,” Putze says. “We don’t have enough time, we don’t have enough resources, we don’t have enough people.”

The Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2009. Putze says the key to Iowa’s success has been maintaining focus.

“We’re not out talking about a new issue every other week, or following a different path every other month,” he says. “We’ve stayed focused and I think that’s why the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers has been a real bright spot and has been modeled by other organizations in other states.” Link

I would like to tweak one of Mr Putze’s comments here. He says that we don’t have enough people but I would say that we don’t have enough people actively engaging in promoting and defending our industry. Groups like Mr. Putze’s Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers have done a great job of organizing efforts to promote our industry, but they need the support of the producers. And by that I mean active support. We all need to find spare minutes in our days to make these efforts even stronger.