Julie Anna Potts

Julie Anna Potts is a person American farmers should listen to when she speaks and she did just that at the recently held 78th annual meeting of the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. Potts is Executive Vice President of the American Farm Bureau Federation and she understands Washington politics better than most. “I have been in Washington ever since I graduated from college. I’ve worked in policy, in government, in communications and on the hill and certainly in the public policy arena and agriculture for my entire career. I have seen a lot of opportunities to affect and influence what happens on the hill, what happens in the administration and what happens in the courts. I have never had the opportunity, never seen this organization with greater opportunity to have influence in the executive branch as I do right now.” Potts says the American Farm Bureau gets its strength from the states. “I think one of the biggest strengths of Farm Bureau is the fact that we have strength in every state. That gives us a kind of influence and breadth that other organizations in agriculture just don’t have. What Farm Bureau does is it gives its engaged members tools to be able to do that effectively whether it’s communication training or Hill visits. Practice at doing those kinds of things, Farm Bureau is very good at that.” The American Farm Bureau boasts a membership of 6 million with over 70,000 from the state of Idaho.