By Bill Petzold
Editor
AKRON — It’s not often a farmer gets a round of applause in his pole barn, but the owners of Bernia Farms were asked to take a bow Monday for welcoming Congresswoman Candice Miller and Thumb Area Farm Bureau chapters to their Akron farm for the ninth annual “Dinner on the Farm” event.
The event, the first hosted in Tuscola County, was attended by about 400 Farm Bureau members from Tuscola, Huron, Sanilac, Lapeer, St. Clair and Macomb counties.
Miller arrived about 5 p.m. and toured the property with co-owner Art Bernia. Miller’s visit to Akron followed the defeat of the farm bill Thursday in the United States House of Representatives, and it was a topic she spoke about early in her address to Tuscola County farmers.
“There’s a lot of disappointment here because the farm bill didn’t pass,” Miller said following her address. “Everybody worked on it really hard together. Whether it was Tuscola County or Sanilac County or all the counties I represent, Michigan Farm Bureau, everyone, we all put a lot of time and effort in and we thought it was going to pass and it didn’t. So it’s time for us to immediately start to pick up the pieces and reconstruct this thing into something that can reach a consensus. We’ve got to have a farm bill.”
Miller said that meeting with Tuscola County’s farmers gave her food for thought that she would take back to the nation’s Capitol.
“I’ll be in Washington by noon,” Miller said. “It’s very very helpful for me to get a first-hand feel for what people actually think about what happened, some of the issues, and to tell you the truth, I feel so much better after having had an opportunity to talk to people like these people in the Ag community. First of all, they are so decent. They are so faith-based, community-oriented, family-oriented — I’m just very proud and humbled to represent them in Washington and I’m their voice. I do recognize that. They’re not voting in Washington, they just have me, so I’ve got to do the right thing by them, and that’s representative government.”
In her address, Miller also stressed the need for tax reforms, increased energy production and said the United States should be very careful in becoming involved with the situation in Syria.
The evening also included addresses by Dan Wyant, a member of Governor Rick Snyder’s cabinet and director of the Department of Environmental Quality, and Tuscola County Farm Bureau president Nate Rupprecht.
Guests enjoyed a dinner catered by Norm’s Market of Richville in air-conditioned comfort in the Bernia’s pole barn. Art Bernia said it didn’t take much to get the barn ready to host a few hundred people, and that he appreciated the opportunity to speak to Miller about the defeat of the farm bill.
“It’s disappointing,” Bernia said. “It’s disappointing that they can’t come together and get it done. I really thought it would happen. … I think one of the biggest problems is a large portion of the farm bill has to do with food assistance, and I don’t think the general public realizes that. Tha’ts what the majority of the farm bill is about, it really doesn’t have anything to do with us here. And that’s where all the politics come into it. It’s frustrating.”
“We had a good turnout, we’ve got a nice crowd here, and it’s nice to see a lot of our neighbors and we’re just happy that it’s well planned and we appreciate the Congresswoman coming out. It was nice.”