California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass speaks to members and guests at the opening session of the organization’s 106th Annual Meeting in Monterey on Dec. 9. Photo courtesy of California Farm Bureau

SACRAMENTO REGION, CA (MPG) - California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass celebrated the organization’s accomplishments this year in an address delivered Dec. 9 at the Farm Bureau’s 106th Annual Meeting in Monterey.

Douglass, speaking in her first annual address after being elected last year to lead the Farm Bureau, focused on local achievements and on the organization’s strength in unity.

"'Stronger Together’ is more than a catchphrase,” she said of the Farm Bureau’s theme for this year’s Annual Meeting, which brought together farmers and ranchers from across California. “We can have extensive success as a state organization, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t have strong county Farm Bureaus.”

Douglass cited examples of the Farm Bureau’s impact this year in different parts of the state, beginning with the resounding defeat of Measure J, a Sonoma County ballot measure that within three years would have banned large dairies and poultry farms in the county.

“We recognized that something like this in Sonoma County could easily be replicated” in other counties “and across the country,” Douglass said. The Sonoma County Farm Bureau, with support from the California Farm Bureau and county Farm Bureaus, waged a more than yearlong campaign to defeat the measure.

“Not only were they successful, they were extremely successful,” Douglass said, with voters in the county rejecting Measure J by a margin of roughly 85% to 15%.

The state Farm Bureau president also highlighted the success of the Kings County Farm Bureau, which won a preliminary injunction in September protecting groundwater users in the Tulare Lake Subbasin from the additional pumping fees and well metering requirements that came with a probationary designation under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

“When we speak up and we speak out we can make a difference,” Douglass said.

She recognized several county Farm Bureaus that met goals of increasing their membership, including the Alameda, Calaveras, Humboldt, Inyo-Mono, Lake, Lassen, Marin, Monterey, Napa, Orange, San Luis Obispo, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Trinity and Tuolumne County Farm Bureaus.

The Lake County Farm Bureau, Douglass said, added more than 60 new members, increasing its membership by more than 20%. Meanwhile, in its first year, the new San Francisco Farm Bureau enrolled more than 100 members.

“Thank you for showing us what’s possible when we put our mind to something,” Douglass said.

The California Farm Bureau works to protect family farms and ranches on behalf of more than 26,000 members statewide and as part of a nationwide network of 5.8 million Farm Bureau members.