Farm Bureau not really for farmers

Brian Fraley over at Dailytakes is suggesting that the Wisconsin Farm Bureau endorsement of Rep. Mark Green is a big deal because Governor Jim Doyle was courting the endorsement. Doyle may have been courting it by doing things Wisconsin farmers care about, but issues farmers care about take a back burner to conservative politics at the Farm Bureau. No one should be surprised by the endorsement and I'm sure the governor was not.

The Farm Bureau politics run very, very Republican and that stems from the fact that most of the members of the Farm Bureau are not farmers. An article a few years back noted:

"The Farm Bureau is perceived as the voice of farmers, when it is actually the voice of agribusiness," says Bob Ferris of Defenders of Wildlife. "It’s an organization that is seriously broken in terms of setting its priorities." Ferris explains that only 1.9 million of the Bureau’s 5 million members are farmers - the rest are policyholders of one of many Farm Bureau insurance companies or customers of other for-profit ventures.

Defenders of Wildlife found this by putting together a report called Amber Waves of Grain. The subtitle will give you a clue as to what they found: How The Farm Bureau Is Reaping Profits At The Expense of America's Family Farmers, Taxpayers And The Environment.

UPDATE: I almost forgot that 60 minutes did a piecs on this issue a little while back too. You can find a summary of it here.