Just Rambling: It was a beautiful afternoon and even a more beautiful night on the day of October 6th, 2011. I say this for two reasons –first to emphasize that the day and night were beautiful and we should always try to appreciate the natural blessings that God has provided for us in this world but secondly to point out that the weather wasn’t an excuse that could be used for not coming out to the Political Forum held on this evening at the Willie Davis Recreation center located in Farmerville, La. This political forum sponsored by Union Cattlemen Association and funded by Bob Riser, Riser Farms, Rick Hill, Foul Play Farm and Van Bennett, Ag Trader USA was our attempt to become better informed and to help the agriculture community of both Union and Lincoln Parishes to become better informed and acquainted with the three candidates running for the District 12 (Union and Lincoln Parishes) Representative seat. A total of 380 invitations were mailed out with many others invited by word of mouth but less than 30 showed up for the forum. This race didn’t feature an incumbent with two new opponents—the incumbent retired and this race involved three new candidates to the political scene. You would think that people in agriculture would be more interested in getting to know and selecting their political leaders—especially since less than two percent of the population is involved in production agriculture. Maybe this was just a fluke night when most everyone was obligated to do other things. I hope so ! I hope this wasn’t just complacency on the part of the Agriculture community—if so our future may not be so bright. If we sit back and allow political leaders to be elected that may not know the importance of agriculture or care about the importance of agriculture then we have only ourselves to blame. We in the Agriculture community must be proactive just as so many other groups are. We must educate our future leaders on the importance of agriculture to our communities, to our state, and to our nation. We in agriculture must speak with a unified voice—all commodity groups. Even though we as commodity groups sometimes have our differences we shouldn’t allow these difference to hurt our industry. A strong agriculture industry is vital to the strength of this nation and we must elect people that understand this. If you have the opportunity to attend political forums in your community, your parish/county or your state please do so. If we don’t impress upon our political leaders the importance of the agriculture industry, especially production agriculture, it may soon be too late. Be proactive– let your agriculture voice be heard. Van Bennett