For many of you, what goes on in Washington is hundreds or thousands of miles away. As you work feverishly to maintain a profitable farm operation, it’s easy to feel like you’re not being heard in our nation’s capitol.

But this summer there’s a chance to change that. The USDA is taking nominations for farmers and ranchers to serve on Farm Service Agency county committees. As you may know, the committees make important decisions about how federal programs are administered locally.

The way this works is elections for committee members occurs in certain Local Administrative Areas (LAA), which are FSA committee elective areas in a single county or multi-county jurisdiction. Producers interested in serving on the FSA county committee can locate their LAA at fsa.usda.gov/coc, and determine if their LAA is up for election by contacting their local FSA office.

Agricultural producers may be nominated for candidacy for the county committee if they participate or cooperate in a USDA program and reside in the LAA that is up for election this year. A cooperating producer is someone who has provided information about their farming or ranching operation to FSA, even if they have not applied or received program benefits.

Individuals may nominate themselves or others and qualifying organizations may also nominate candidates. USDA encourages all eligible producers to nominate, vote and hold office.

Normally I wouldn’t advise getting entrenched with any government program because it can be frustrating. However, based on what I’ve been seeing in the last couple of years, the USDA appears to be making farmers a bigger priority, rather than obsessing about climate change. I am seeing an emphasis on rooting out fraud, sharpening the agency’s focus and modernizing its program delivery in the field, which is long overdue.

What it comes down to is this: We have an ag appropriations bill and Farm Bill 2.0 coming down the pike. For these programs to operate well locally we need farmers involved in the decision making. So I’m going to encourage farmers to at least investigate what is happening with their LAA and consider getting involved. It’s better than watching from the sidelines.