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Trump returns for AFBF’s 100th

President Trump found a friendly audience at the 100^th American Farm Bureau Convention. The president found little resistance to his desire to build a wall on the nation’s southern border. A big part of his speech to the American Farm Bureau focused on immigration issues.

“I want people to come into our country,” Trump told the estimated 6,000 in the audience, “but they have to come legally, they have to come in through a process.”

The president received a standing ovation at that point and others in his address. Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall told Brownfield after the speech he wasn’t surprised at the reaction.

“I think it’s real clear that our people support him and his efforts to secure the border,” Duvall told Brownfield Ag News following the speech. “That’s what our policy says; we want to see the border secured.”

There’s another aspect of the immigration issue that President Trump touched on that met with the crowd’s approval.

“You know when we have proper security people aren’t going to come, except for the people we want to come because we want to take people in to help our farmers, etc., very important,” he said. “We’re going to make that actually easier for them to help the farmers, because you need these people.”

Minnesota Farm Bureau President Kevin Paap was especially pleased by that line.

“The highlight of that was having ag labor come up,” Paap told Brownfield, “recognizing the importance of having that ag labor force for agriculture across the U.S.”

Paap, however, still has concerns about the Trump Administration’s stance on renewable fuels. Paap was pleased with Trump mentioning year around E15, “but we’ve got some real concerns with the hardship waivers,” he said, “and other things where we’re losing some of that market share.”

The president concluded with his assessment of the role agriculture has played in the founding of the U.S.

“Farmers,” said the president, “have always led the way.”