Farm Bureau's policy on the 2012 Farm Bill was one of the key topics discussed by the delegates to the 2012 AFBF Convention this week. They supported a strong safety net designed to help farmers through catastrophic revenue losses, but not to guarantee a profit, and they supported conservation programs to protect natural resources.

Several resolutions initiated by delegates to NEFB’s convention in December were adopted at the national convention. They include:

· support for a federal balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
· preventing non-marginal land from being enrolled in CRP; upport for allowing producer-generated GPS measurements when verifying crop acres with the Farm Service Agency;
· support for exempting cattle under 18 months of age or going directly to slaughter from any government-mandated livestock traceability program;
· support for continued use of the hot-iron brand as an official identification method; and
· indexing the estate tax to reflect the current high cost of farm land.