THE 2019 annual general meeting will pave the way for WAFarmers’ future – for the first time in years there are more than one nomination for the position of general president which is good for the organisation as it provides members with choice.
The nominations for vice president and the board are also crucial for the future success of the organisation as clear strategic direction is needed more than ever in today’s quickly-evolving agricultural industry.
I strongly urge all WAFarmers members to get involved – to make yourself familiar with the nominated candidates and exercise your right as a member to cast your vote for general president via the postal ballot.
Other positions will be elected on the day at the AGM on Thursday, March 14.
This election is pivotal in setting the leadership team that will be addressing a range of challenging political issues impacting your farming livelihood.
Recent issues regarding public disruption to our farming businesses by various anti-agriculture groups highlights the new and evolving battles that farmers are having to wage.
With animal activists, greens, environmental warriors and other ban-it interest groups driving increased public awareness of agricultural activities, farmers more than ever remain and will continue to remain in the spotlight over what we do.
Emotive and highly successful campaigns will continue to target our farming communities, and how we ‘farm,’ will remain under fire from these special interest groups in our society.
We live in a rapidly-changing world which we can’t hide from, as digital technology puts us all one video away from the internet.
The subject of our ‘social license’ has become the catch-all for many of these challenges and how WAFarmers tackles these issues on a public platform will become all the more important.
Society is becoming more and more disconnected from the bush and our primary producers, which means we need to find new ways to engage with the city.
This is an issue of a modern and affluent society for which we are grappling with, we can’t afford to turn a blind eye or believe that the highly emotive activist campaigns can be ignored.
We need a way forward and we need a new direction which will come out of the upcoming elections.
I urge you to involve yourselves in the WAFarmers elections and to attend our AGM and our conference Trending Ag on Thursday, March 14 and Friday, March 15.