Kendell Culp was re-elected as Vice President of Indiana Farm Bureau on Saturday at their annual convention. Culp will serve another 3-year term in the role.
Concern was raised about Culp’s position with Farm Bureau while also being an Indiana State Representative for District 16. He told Hoosier Ag Today that he just wants to do what’s right by his constituents and the Farm Bureau membership, of which there are 5,500 of those that overlap.
“We looked if there were any conflicts. As you know, the vice president, my role, is in charge of our political action committee. Obviously, I stepped away from that and the president appointed someone else to do that. So, since I stepped away from the political side of it, I did pick up our industry relations side, an area at Farm Bureau that we really were a little bit lax in. So, now I lead those industry relations efforts. We’ve had a lot of meetings with our industry partners, with agribusinesses around the state, because we want to make the tent bigger. There’s just so few of us in agriculture today, it’s really important that we all work together, and I think that is something that’s really important that I will continue to do as I move forward as vice president.”
Culp was asked what will happen if and when he is faced with a vote in the House that opposes what’s in the Farm Bureau policy book.
“I’ve thought a lot about that. Again, back to my district, which is made up of a lot of agricultural leaders, I’m going to look at that issue and I’m going to talk to my constituents in my district, and I’m going to get their input, and I’m going to look and see what our Farm Bureau members support and what they believe is correct. And then hopefully I can be the facilitator of that discussion. Because you know, a lot of times there’s additional information that comes in that maybe not everybody’s aware of, maybe there is an opportunity to collaborate and to reach a compromise on an issue that we didn’t really see before. So, I take that role very seriously and very personally, and I hope to be the facilitator if that issue does arise.”
Culp told HAT he’s humbled to be re-elected and is looking forward to continued work with Farm Bureau’s engaged and passionate members that are as excited about advocacy as he is.
