Russell Boening - President, Texas Farm Bureau Joins Houston Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, good morning, Jimmy, and thanks to the opportunity. Well,
I guess number one, I'm going to have to say,
we didn't.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Change our mind.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Our policy is still our policy that was set. We
set our policy once a year. Our members do that.
It's a grassroots process. Our position was misrepresented totally and completely.
We testified at a hearing July twenty fourth. We spoke

(00:30):
of our policy. We told them what our policy was,
and quite frankly and honestly, we do not have policy
explicitly banning foreign ownership.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
That is true.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
What is your policy? Why don't you tell us what
the policy is?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Our policy?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Our policy is that we're private property rights organization, very
strong and I guess to just I don't have it
written in front of me, but I'm gonna paraphrase it.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
We we are in favor of people being able to
sell their land with and we are we are against
foreign ownership if it affects right now, the way our
policy reads, if it affects distorts markets, if it distorts
our food.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Supply, and and and and.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Kind of would give them an unfair advantage in the
production of food. So that kind of sums up our policy.
Now there were two bills introduced in the last Texas
session and that that explicitly banned foreign ownership, uh from
our especially from our adversaries.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
And we did not oppose those bills. Uh. So I
guess from from.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
A point of view, it's yeah, it's kind of a
gray area. It's kind of a fine line. But that's
where our policy is now. And let me just finish
with this. We are we go through this every fall.
As far as policy development, it comes from our counties. Uh,
and they are in the process of doing that right now.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Uh. We didn't know.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
That those bills were going to be introduced last session.
We do know that they're going to be introduced again
in some form or fashion. I do expect our policy
to be tweaked somewhat.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I say tweaked it. It may be changed dramatically.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Well you don't, You're you're not really trying to advocate
one way or another. You're just saying now that you
will not oppose if the legislature decides to ban foreign
ownership from adversaries specifically, because that's correct, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Correct, And if our and if our policy changes somewhat,
we we may you know, we may quite frankly be
in favor of those bills. So again, it's kind of
it was kind of a timing issue to a certain thing.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
It sounds no way, it sounds like wrestling your policy
kind of. It depends on the membership. Is what the
membership wants, right.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
That's correct. That is very correct.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
So I'm a member, I know how I feel about it.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
And I think you've probably heard from a lot of
other members who feel the same way. We haven't leave
it at that for now, we have to run service.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Wait, thank you for coming on.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Russell Bainning, President of the Texas Farm Bureau, seven twenty
seven