President Shannon Douglass delivers her annual address Monday in Anaheim at the 107th California Farm Bureau Annual Meeting, highlighting the organization’s accomplishments and upcoming priorities. Photo courtesy of California Farm Bureau

CALIFORNIA (MPG) - California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass applauded the organization’s principles and accomplishments this year in an address delivered Dec. 8 at the Farm Bureau’s 107th Annual Meeting in Anaheim.

Douglass, who is a diversified farmer and rancher in Glenn County, acknowledged challenges farmers face while expressing her conviction that Farm Bureau’s advocacy efforts will bring about positive changes. 

“Despite all the challenges we have in the world, all the challenges we have in agriculture, we still have a tremendously bright future,” Douglass said. “I believe that it's because of Farm Bureau that the future of California agriculture looks bright.”

The Farm Bureau president highlighted several of the organization’s achievements this year, including work by its policy advocates to reduce utility rates and to impact state laws pertaining to farmland conservation and protecting livestock from coyotes.  

“I think our voices were heard,” said Douglass, who was elected in 2023 to lead the Farm Bureau.  

Douglass also applauded the Farm Bureau’s decision this year to take a principled stand in support of the farm workforce. 

In August, the Farm Bureau president and California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas coauthored an opinion piece in The New York Times advocating that a pathway to legal status be created for undocumented farmworkers.  

“We simply talked about why this issue is important, why it’s important not only on our farms and businesses from a business perspective, but why it’s important from a people perspective—and how we value and appreciate the people that work on our farms and are involved in our communities and our families,” Douglass said. “We are going to continue fighting on the issue.”

During her address, Douglass celebrated efforts by several county Farm Bureaus to grow their membership this year, including the Lake, Nevada, Napa, Plumas-Sierra, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Solano County Farm Bureaus, while also acknowledging efforts by the San Bernardino and Alameda County Farm Bureaus. 

“We’ve got over 100 years of history—a whole century of work that’s been laid out before us,” Douglass said. “All that investment allows us to look ahead at a really bright future.”

California Farm Bureau works to protect family farms and ranches as part of a nationwide network representing more than 5 million Farm Bureau members. Learn more at www.cfbf.com or follow @cafarmbureau on Instagram, LinkedIn, X or Facebook.