Growing Relationships with Urban Lawmakers

By Sunny Andersen

Geography and large membership numbers put urban county Farm Bureaus in a unique position to advocate for agriculture with elected officials.

Raghela Scavuzzo, associate director of food systems development with Illinois Farm Bureau; Lauren Williams, senior associate director for national affairs with New York Farm Bureau; and Martha Moore, senior vice president of government relations at Virginia Farm Bureau, recently shared how their organizations are effectively connecting with city-based policymakers.

Scavuzzo said ILFB is focused on “growing our community together.”

“What we’re building in our system is more than just ‘take them to a farm,’ we wanted to build relationships and work on deeper conversations,” she explained.

Williams notes that New York has over 8 million city and suburban residents who have little exposure to agriculture. To set the stage for constructive conversations between farmers and urban legislators, NYFB hosted a reception in Queens.  

“From our perspective, we really wanted to provide an experience for urban legislative members to realize there are farms in New York that are able to operate at the commercial level,” Williams said.

Shifting focus and utilizing contributions and endorsements is helping VAFB to build long-term relationships with legislators. Offering nonstructured farm visits while legislators are travelling to party caucus events and providing opportunities to participate in roundtables with members is “increasing farmer transparency and building trust,” Moore said.