Rosella Mosby

The Washington Farm Bureau and the ex-Yakima County Farm Bureau are in an unfolding dispute over whether the state board had grounds to kick the county chapter out of the state organization.

The Yakima chapter was ousted in September after crediting Country Financial insurance agents with sponsoring its annual dinner. Country Financial and the Farm Bureau-endorsed Western Community Insurance Company are competitors.

Yakima President Mark Herke said the sponsorship was too good to pass up. The chapter’s relationship with the state board was strained already over whether county chapters can speak independently on political issues, he said.

County chapters can differ with the state chapter’s positions, but only if they give advance notice to the state organization, according to an agreement county chapters must sign.

The Yakima chapter wants to speak freely on state and federal issues, even if they conflict with the state organizations’s position or lobbying tactics, Herke said. The Yakima chapter is more conservative, he said.

“That’s our big thing, right there. Our biggest thing is advocacy,” he said. “I know when I’m being shoved in the closet and having it nailed shut.”

County delegates set state positions, Washington Farm Bureau President Rosella Mosby said in an email to Capital Press.

“If the county works on state issues, it must coordinate with the state Farm Bureau under the agreement, just like states have to coordinate with (the American Farm Bureau) in federal matters,” she said.

“Otherwise, the county is going against what the counties, as delegates, decided at our annual meeting,” Mosby said. “The county was never denied involvement; they failed to follow the process and disregarded the structure of the Farm Bureau.”

The break leaves the Farm Bureau without a chapter in the state’s second-largest farm county. Yakima County produced $2.2 billion in farm goods in 2022, according to the Census of Agriculture, second only to Grant County.

The county chapter renamed itself the Yakima-Klickitat Farm Association, extending into a neighboring county. The chapter has more than 200 members, Herke said.

The Yakima chapter balked at signing an agreement this year recognizing the Washington Farm Bureau’s “general jurisdiction” over all matters involving state legislation and was suspended for three months. The Yakima chapter eventually signed the agreement in July.

The breaking point occurred over a few days in the fall. Washington Farm Bureau Administrative Vice President Ron Saacke admonished Herke in an email for accepting Country Financial’s sponsorship.

Washington Farm Bureau ended its relationship with Country Financial in 2022 and became partners with Western Community Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the Farm Bureau Insurance Company of Idaho.

Accepting Country Financial’s sponsorship broke the agreement with the Idaho insurance company, according to Saake, who told Herke to “post the mistake on your social media and webpage.”

Herke wrote back asking to see the agreement. Two days later, Mosby informed Herke the state board had voted unanimously to terminate the Yakima Farm Bureau.

The Yakima chapter was asked to immediately remove Farm Bureau logos and references from its correspondence, website and social media.

Herke said in an interview the county chapter accepted Country Financial’s sponsorship because three agents were willing to pay for the dinner. “A county board that turned that down should be fired,” he said.

The Yakima chapter’s lawyer, John Maxwell, wrote to Mosby and Saacke arguing the agreement between the Washington Farm Bureau and county chapters does not dictate obedience to the state.

The state Farm Bureau’s attorney, Timothy Bernasek, wrote back, disagreeing with Maxwell. The agreement allows the state board to terminate county chapters, he stated.

“Accordingly, there is simply no basis for legal action to be undertaken against my client,” Bernasek stated.

Herke said he doesn’t know whether the rift will heal and the Yakima chapter will return to Farm Bureau. “It will take a sea change,” he said. “We didn’t leave them. They left us.”