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Danielle and Grace Perkowitz packed up and left Chicago two years ago for Houghton, Michigan, to start a career in goat farming. “I had a joke for years — I’m going to start a goat farm,” Danielle Perkowitz said, co-owner of BigGoat Farm. “What are we waiting for? Let’s do it.
” As beginner farmers, they said, they hoped for support from the Michigan Farm Bureau to get their farm started. But they found the Farm Bureau didn’t align with their values, both as small farmers and as queer women. “I think we like the idea of farming as rebellious, self-sustaining, and community oriented,” they wrote in an Instagram message to the Arnolt Center.
“The farm bureau doesn’t seem to capture those ideals. It also doesn’t seem inclusive or supportive of diversity in farming.” The couple is not alone in their concerns, as Investigate Midwest reported in 2022 .
Many members of state farm bureaus and the American Farm Bureau Federation noted similar concerns, and some have left their local farm bureau for alternative industry groups as a result. While farm bureaus across the Midwest lobby for agricultural issues, a seven-month long investigation by the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism, the University of Missouri, the University of Illinois and Investigate Midwest found that isn’t where the advocacy stops. A review of campaign finance records, social media, lobbying disclosures, websites, and policy books in nine Midwestern states revealed that state farm bureaus threw their weight behind political and social causes with little or nothing to do with farming: The Illinois Farm Bureau, the largest in the Midwest, claims a membership of nearly 400,000, with revenue of $57 million and expenditures of $55.
7 million in 2022, according to the most recent tax filings. The Minnesota Farm Bureau, the smallest in the Midwest, has nearly 30,000 members, revenue of $3.4 million in 2023 and expenditures of $3.
45 million. Farm bureaus in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin did not respond to multiple calls and emails for comment. The Ohio Farm Bureau is the only organization to respond.
Across the Midwest, farm bureaus are supporting policies that have little or nothing to do with agriculture: from the Indiana and Illinois farm bureaus favoring leaving “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance to the Missouri Farm Bureau opposing cloning humans. Farm bureaus in all nine Midwestern states researched for this story champion being grassroots organizations. Members vote on every policy included in a state’s annual policy book that directs the bureau’s political efforts.
National issues are sent with delegates to be discussed and voted on for the American Farm Bureau Federation’s national policy book, which helps direct its political efforts. With $35.5 million in revenue and $31.
7 million in expenditures in 2022, where the American Farm Bureau Federation directs its own political efforts matters. Darcy Maulsby, a fifth-generation Calhoun County, Iowa farmer, has been speaking with farmers in her area for years to get a policy around foreign ownership of farmland in the books. As an Iowa Farm Bureau member since about 1999, the former president of the Calhoun County Farm Bureau and current member of the board of directors, she knows the process well.
“We do want investment in Iowa, but we don’t want to have farmers shut out of an opportunity to own farm grounds.” Maulsby said. “It’s a real complex, tricky issue with a lot of legal ramifications, but you try and work with groups like (the) Farm Bureau to figure out solutions to this issue.
” There is no policy concerning foreign ownership of farmland in the Iowa policy book, according to Maulsby. (The Farm Bureau’s policy book is only available to members.) But even without the Iowa Farm Bureau’s lobbying for such a policy, Iowa and other states across the Midwest are taking action to bar or restrict foreign ownership of farmland.
In Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Iowa laws have been passed to limit or track foreign ownership of farmland. Meanwhile in Illinois, Missouri and Michigan, they are still in the process of passing legislation on the topic. “We have a support structure,” Maulsby said, “from the county level and the state level.
But really, this is all driven by the members.” A long-held common policy shared by the Ohio and Missouri farm bureaus is that there should be a higher threshold to amend the state constitution. Both bureaus have gone on to support legislation that would make their policy law.
The Ohio Farm Bureau donated $7,500 to “Protect Our Constitution,” a campaign in favor of state Issue 1 — a Republican-backed measure to raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments to 60%. In a special election held in August 2023, the measure failed. Whittney Bowers, the Ohio Farm Bureau’s director of state policy and grassroots engagement, said the bureau’s position was consistent with their policy.
The Ohio Farm Bureau supported changing the procedure to amend the constitution, Bowers said. “Our (support) was based on our policy,” Bowers said. “It has nothing to do with social issues.
” In Missouri, Senate Joint Resolution (SJR) 74 was prefiled on Jan.1, 2023, and would have required constitutional amendments to receive a majority of votes across the state as well as a majority of the votes in most of the congressional districts, raising the threshold to pass an initiative petition on the ballot. SJR 74 would have allowed rural districts to have more influence over constitutional amendments.
The bill was the subject of a 50-hour filibuster by Democrats on May 15, 2024. The legislation didn’t pass before the session ended on May 17. Currently in Missouri, to change the constitution an amendment must receive a majority of the votes across the state.
While both farm bureaus were lobbying for different bills to pass, efforts to add legal abortion to the Ohio and Missouri state constitutions also were in progress. In Ohio, the Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative, was approved by 56.78% of voters on Nov.
7, 2023. In Missouri, the ACLU turned in 380,000 voter signatures on May 3, 2024, double the minimum needed to qualify for the ballot. Had Ohio’s state Issue 1, from the special election held earlier in 2023, passed it would have — like SJR 74 — made legalizing abortion through the state constitution more difficult.
Ben Travlos, the director of state and local legislative affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, appeared before the Senate Rules Committee in late January 2024 to testify in support of SJR 74. During the hearing, Travlos expressed the Missouri Farm Bureau’s opposition to the current threshold for passing ballot initiatives. State Sen.
Barbara Washington, D-Kansas City, questioned him about how the current rules for passing a ballot initiative have previously benefited the farm bureau and its members. “The initiative petition process, as it stands today, provided our farmers in this state the Right-to-Farm, is that correct?” she asked, which Travlos affirmed. Right-to-Farm was passed in 2014 as Amendment 1 with 50.
12% of the vote and would not have passed under the threshold stipulated in SJR 74, the legislation that would have changed the rules. When Washington asked for clarification about opposing the current petition process after benefitting from it, Travlos said, “A lot of our members are concerned about the ease of changing the Missouri Constitution, which is why they’ve been taking the stance they have on wanting to call for initiative petition reform to make it more difficult to change and amend the state’s constitution.” The Missouri Farm Bureau has long supported making it more difficult to amend the state constitution via initiative petition, and said, in several policy books, “A constitution should be a framework for action rather than a collection of special-interest taxes and programs.
” The Missouri Farm Bureau also has long opposed abortion, according to several of its policy books. “We oppose abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger,” the Missouri Farm Bureau said in several of its policy books. “We oppose government funding of abortion.
Partial birth abortions should not be performed under any circumstance.” Missouri voters in November will consider a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights in the state. The Missouri Farm Bureau did not answer several emails and phone calls requesting comment.
Farm Bureau representatives declined to comment on its policy book when a reporter went to their Missouri headquarters. The American Farm Bureau Federation does not participate or comment on policy making at the local and state levels. Mike Tomko, the director of communications at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in an email, each state farm bureau is autonomous.
Ten of 19 goats owned by Danielle and Grace Perkowitz sit and lay on the couple’s BigGoat Farm in Houghton, Mich. Maulsby, the fifth-generation farmer, was born into farming. Her family has been working the same land in Calhoun County, Iowa, since 1889.
She joined the Iowa Farm Bureau because she liked how it developed agriculture policy through a grassroots system. She has been heavily involved with Iowa’s policy process, contributing several policies that have made it into the state policy book. But she doesn’t agree with every policy that has been passed.
“You’re not going to win on every issue you care about. But that’s the same as when you vote for a senator or representative or the president,” Maulsby said. “It would be very rare that you would agree on absolutely everything that that person stands for.
” At the local level, the farm bureau is involved in the community. Every year Maulsby, other volunteer board members, a local veterinarian and banker, and the district conservationist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, go to South Central Calhoun and Manson Northwest Webster Middle School to participate in an agriculture career day. They talk about their work to show what types of agriculture careers students could have without leaving the county.
Annually, the Calhoun Farm Bureau also donates to local food pantries, Maulsby said. “One of the things we’re passionate about is helping provide safe, affordable, abundant food supplies,” Maulsby said. “And part of that means taking care of those in need right in your local community.
” Farm bureaus represent around 1.3 million farmers across the nine Midwestern states researched for this story, but not all members think that the organizations represent them. Heather Wright Wendel, owner of Apple Acres Farm in Houghton, Michigan, is a member of the Michigan Farm Bureau for insurance but said the organization’s lobbying does not represent her views.
“I’m basically helping them lobby, which doesn’t align with small-farm values,” Wendel said. “I feel like they’re out for large corporate interests.” Wendel also noted that the farm bureau lobbying does not support sustainable farming or regenerative agriculture, which she said prioritizes soil health and limits the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
At her solar powered farm, she said she values sustainability, focusing on upcycling and boosting native plant life. The farm bureau does not share those priorities, she said, but supports farms with heavy machinery, growing one crop (monoculture) and other industrial practices, such as automation, to produce as high a yield as possible. All of which, Wendel added, makes farmers highly vulnerable to market fluctuations.
“The farm bureau is entrenched in that setup,” she said. “There are people making lots of money off of it.” A hen with two chicks on Heather Wright Wendel’s solar-powered farm in Houghton, Mich.
Farm bureaus exercise influence through advocacy and lobbying, and, in many states, grow their own candidates. The Arnolt Center found that farm bureaus in Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin have programs of varying length and intensity that train farmers to run for local or statewide offices. Participants are taught a variety of lessons including campaign strategies in Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and media training in Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Participants’ individual policy positions were not part of the training, said Dan Hughes, a former Nebraska state senator of Venango who attended the training in August 2013. “My district was very heavily Republican ..
. if you want to get in the ideology, that’s pretty much where (the) Farm Bureau is at,” Hughes said. “I don’t think very often that I would have been opposed to overall issues – the implementation or the nuances is probably where we would have differences.
” These programs teach farmers across the Midwest how to win elections. Missouri State Sen. Rusty Black, R-Chillicothe, was invited to forums back when he taught agriculture and now while he is in the legislature.
Forums have ranged from 30 to 250 people, Black said, and covered topics like funding for roads and broadband. He said generally a Farm Bureau employee presents on the topic, followed by a bureaucrat to help explain the government’s goals, and wrapped up with a question and answer session. “(I am) always willing to listen to that organization,” Black said.
And there is always a need for prospective candidates. As the Michigan Farm Bureau notes on its website, “In the era of term limits there is a constant need for farmers to run for office.” This story first appeared in Investigate Midwest and is republished under a Creative Commons license.
This story was reported in partnership with Investigate Midwest by Annika Harshbarger, Char Jones and Haley Miller of the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University and Komlavi Adissem of the University of Missouri. Christy Avery of the Arnolt Center contributed reporting. Talia Duffy of the University of Illinois as well as Emily Hook and Zeke Shapiro of the Arnolt Center contributed research.
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