The House of Delegates for the Iowa Farm Bureau met recently in West Des Moines on Sept. 9-10 to discuss and deliberate on policy for the 2027 policy year. Representing Marshall County Farm Bureau, was Matthew Burt, Voting Delegate, (pictured). 

For the first day of the conference, the State Resolutions Committee presented resolutions that came from grassroots policy discussion meetings and were approved by each County Farm Bureau during the summer months. The resolutions were approved either at County Annual Meetings or at a county policy meeting. Much of the input and discussion regarding the topics had come from county input, members comments, member participation in their county opinionnaire or online surveys. A statewide phone survey also gathers input from across the state. 

As the resolutions are presented, the Voting Delegates may move to edit, amend or strike the resolutions as presented. This process takes some time but helps the Voting Delegate body work through the statements to make sure that as a whole organization, we can come behind them and stand in support of them. In the second day's work, the Voting Delegate body will make any additional adjustments to each statement and then vote on them. Once adopted, the resolution statements become policy. Our members work hard to implement this newly adopted Farm Bureau policy each year with our elected leaders and decision makers. 

Policy adopted at the Summer Policy Conference by the Voting Delegate body of the Iowa Farm Bureau included policy discussed on windbreaks, sales tax, annexation and more. Some National issues were discussed 1031 property exchanges, cropland to pasture conversion and more. Iowa voting delegates will take those forward at the AFBF National Convention and advocate for those national issues to become policy for the American Farm Bureau on a national level. This happens at the AFBF National Convention that will be held in Jan. 2027 in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

This fall, our Farm Bureau leaders begin the process all over again. They begin to seek input from Farm Bureau members on topics that interest our members. We call that process, issue surfacing. Farm Bureau will encourage members to submit issues or topics that they would like to see researched or further discussed. Issue surfacing begins this fall and will continue until the end of the year. At that time, those issues surfaced are prioritized. Those that rise to the top are moved to the State Resolutions Committee for further research and education and may become a question on your County opinionnaire or issue survey that comes out in the spring.