ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Farmers and ranchers from across the Sunflower State were recently able to learn about legislative issues, advocate policy with lawmakers and engage in valuable conversations about agriculture.
In January, Kansas Farm Bureau hosted its annual Day at the Statehouse, and KFB Ninth District Field Service Representative Kori Davis said those on hand also had a chance to hear from Farm Bureau’s lobby team as to what priorities will be the focus of this year’s advocacy efforts.
The Day at the Statehouse actually took place over two days, Jan. 20 and 21, and Davis said this year’s event took place during the early days of the legislative session.
“They’d only been in session about a week,” she said. “Not a lot had been done. Everybody was getting in the swing of things, and committee hearings were just getting started. Our event consisted of one day of getting some updates of what Farm Bureau’s priorities are.”
With 2026 being an election year, Davis said the majority leaders of both the Kansas Senate and House came to visit with the KFB group and give updates.
“The next day, we went to the capitol,” she said. “Members visited with their area representatives. There’s a lot of different committee hearings, and they would go and listen to whatever community hearing they wanted to. The actual day at the capitol was just for members to go and network and visit with everybody on what their issues were.”
For this year, Davis said KFB’s highlighted policy issues of concern are energy, water and property taxes, which she said are problems are statewide.
“I don’t know how much the election, with the governor being in her last year, if some of those discussions will be delayed until next year,” she said. “Some of the campaigning might have some impact on the session, but I think they’re trying to make it a short session so people who are running for re-election can get out and start campaigning this spring.”
Under the topic of water, Davis said concerns are primarily with the amount and quality of the resource in the state. In Seward County, discussions are still ongoing as to whether to bring wind energy to the county, and Davis said solar energy is a concern for some as well.
“They’re still hot topics, and discussions of how those energy companies come into Kansas, especially this area, how that affects the farmers and how everybody could work together and make it a good thing for everybody,” she said.
As far as agriculture is concerned in Southwest Kansas, economically speaking, Davis said times are tough, particularly with the prices of everything going up for farmers from equipment to fertilizer.
“Grain prices haven’t gone up to compensate for some of that,” she said. “It’s tough right now in agriculture, but we’re resilient out here. Those are things we go through. There’s been tough times before. Agriculture’s strong. We need it. That’s part of Southwest Kansas, a very important part.”
Wheat harvest is on the horizon, and Davis said getting more moisture would help out greatly with getting more of the state’s most productive crop.
“We’ve had such nice weather with 80 degrees in February and the end of January,” she said. “I think we’ll probably end up getting winter eventually, but if we get some moisture in early spring, that’ll help the wheat crop a lot.”
Davis said events such as Day at the Statehouse are very helpful for both producers and farm leaders.
“Whether it’s a Kansas Farm Bureau group or a water group or other ag groups, they enjoy when those groups actually take the time to go to Topeka and sit in those committee hearings, knock on their door and visit with them,” she said. “They see them when they come back home, but to show they care enough to go see what they’re doing in Topeka and have those conversations even with those representatives on the other side of the state. It’s very impactful.”
As part of KFB’s policy making process, the organization hosts area Issue Surfacing meetings, and this year’s meeting for the Ninth District will be Feb. 24 in Hugoton.
“It’s a time for members to come together and start talking about issues we need to be looking at as a state organization,” Davis said. “These will be policies we’ll vote on at our annual meeting in December. It’s a year-long process. Members come and talk about our current policy. Does anything need to be tweaked, or are there new policies we need to research as we move forward to look at next year’s policies?”
Overall, Davis said she felt this year’s Day at the Statehouse went well.
“We had a good showing of members there,” she said. “It was really informative. At our reception, we had a lot of the representatives come to that. That shows they’re wanting to hear from members. It was a good event, and luckily, the weather was nice this year for everybody to travel to Topeka.”
