How Growers Can Best Cut Through the Noise of Politics

It would be just about impossible for an American to escape talk of politics these days. The president is a lightning rod, assuring saturation coverage available through the media today that can be accessed through numerous devices, right down to our ubiquitous smartphones.

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But as much attention as the presidency gets, whomever is elected in 2020 will likely have less impact on your life than someone most people can’t even name, their county supervisor. Or, for urbanites, their city council member.

After all, the president is not going to dictate when your trash gets picked up, when your roads get repaved, or whether that giant proposed development near the highway is approved.

Besides that, you’re probably not going to have a lot of influence on who gets elected president. But you can have a huge influence in all sorts of ways on your local elections. Because of that, I have to applaud the recent effort by the California Association of Pest Control Advisers (CAPCA) to get their members politically involved at the local level.

CAPCA has a lot of influence on California agriculture, as they make many of the decisions on how the state’s numerous acres of fruits and nuts are farmed. That’s because California has the nation’s toughest pesticide restrictions, and it’s the PCA who is on the front lines.

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It’s not that the organization hasn’t been politically involved in the past. It’s just that the members have let CAPCA’s officers and administrators handle the lobbying of their representatives in the past. That’s not enough today, notes CAPCA President and CEO Ruthann Anderson in an editorial published just prior to the association’s annual meeting last month.

“The unfortunate reality is that there are groups far more organized, who are flooding these same decision makers with anti-pesticide messages,” she wrote. “The influence of these groups was built on relationships and keeping regular meetings on the books with regulators and legislators alike.”

Anderson notes that as CAPCA has grown over the years, the state office and leadership has been responsible for lobbying. But that’s not enough anymore; they need help.

“Although CAPCA staff will continue to engage in these discussions, there is value for CAPCA members to walk into their local office as a constituent to address the impact of a local ordinance, or proactively educate decision makers on the realities of what is being faced in the field,” she wrote. “Your professional voice as not only a licensee, but a constituent, carries the message further than the CAPCA staff alone.”

Incidentally, what Anderson says about the value of a single constituent’s voice is true in my experience.

Most leaders of grower organizations will tell you that while they are perhaps better prepared to address a given issue, the voice of a single grower from the representative’s district often carries more weight.

Politicians count votes, first and foremost.

Whether as a member of a grower association or simply taking it upon yourself, I encourage you to speak up, especially at the local level, where your voice carries the loudest. I have said this in this space many times, but today it is truer than ever, because the percentage of the U.S. population involved in farming decreases every day. Time to take a stand.

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