Over one-third of FSA committee candidates were minorities

By KARI KRAMER | East Texas Edition

April 14, 2005 - The Farm Service Agency (FSA) County Committee elections have successfully been completed following an effort by administrators to encourage minority participation.

According to USDA information, the County Committees "oversees the local FSA operations and makes critical decisions on how FSA commodity, conservation, and disaster programs are administered in its communities." The committee in each county consists of three to five producers who serve three-year terms. Not all members are elected at once, but have staggered terms.

Late last summer, administrators executed a plan that involved recruiting minority producers for committee elections. The campaign was developed to target counties that had a significant amount of minority producers.

Raymond Lopez, FSA program outreach coordinator in Granbury, explained the initiative development.

"Selection of targeted counties was a directive from former Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman. Of the 206 county offices in Texas, we had 43 targeted counties. These counties were selected because they had over 8 percent minority producers," explained Lopez. "Secretary Veneman's initiative was for all county offices to increase our outreach efforts to our socially disadvantaged, limited resource producers and our minority organizations and make them all aware of our county committee elections and its nomination process."

The nomination deadline was Sept. 3, 2004. Of the 624 candidates in local administrative areas that had openings, 36 percent were minorities, according to Lopez. Having minorities on the committee helps better represent the area it serves.

"Minority producers not only contribute their vast knowledge and expertise on farming and ranching issues, but also offer our county committee boards diversity and fair representation and this creates a more positive environment in our organization," explained Lopez.

Elections were held in the fall and the final results were recently released. "Twelve Hispanic males, two Hispanic females, one African American male and 35 Anglo females (were) elected to County Committees this past year," said Lopez. He added that those minorities were elected in 15 counties.

A minority will be appointed to serve as an advisor in counties where a minority was not elected and a minority was not serving. This results in every county having a minority on the board.

"We still have a long way to go in getting more minorities on our committees," said Lopez. "We are making progress in various areas, but we need for our producers, regardless of their gender and race, to play a more active roll and vote during our elections."

According to Lopez, only 15.6 percent of eligible voters voted in the election.

"We urge all of our producers to please take an active role in their upcoming County Committee elections by submitting nominees and taking the time to vote," said Lopez. He added that planning for the 2005 elections has commenced and the agency will be making an effort to increase voter participation.