Arkansas Farm Bureau leader says farmers will rebound from tariffs, rains and floods

Arkansas Farm Bureau President Randy Veach announced earlier this month that he won’t seek a new term as the agriculture voice’s top leader. Veach said it is time for new leadership in an organization that he’s held major roles in for two decades.

“I struggled with it [not running] quite a bit, and I prayed about it a lot. And I think that’s what I need to be doing,” Veach said. “I’ve been on the board for 20 years, five of those years as vice president, and this is my 11th year as president. And I just felt like that that needs to continue to move along, and so I decided that I would not run again, and let some of those other good leaders, that’s behind me, to move up into that position.”

In an interview with Talk Business & Politics, Veach said that recent hits to Arkansas farmers from excessive rains across the Delta to flooding in the River Valley have compounded an already difficult situation in the ag industry due to two years of trade wars.

I think they would really like to see this resolved as quickly as possible,” Veach said of the U.S.-China impasse. “China was a bad player, and has been a bad player for a long time when it comes to WTO [World Trade Organization]. And they never have been brought to the table and made to comply with what the regs are in the WTO.

“We wanted somebody to get in there and do that. Now, the consequences have been pretty severe, and especially on top of that like we are now with the rains and everything,” he added. “It just seems like things just keep piling on us in agriculture. But we’re resilient, and we’re optimistic. And so, we’ll see our farmers and ranchers out there going at it hard every day to make this thing work.”

You can watch Veach’s full interview below.