FBFM merger plans explained

Plans for the statewide merger of the various FBFM associations were announced during the 93rd annual meeting of the Pioneer Association in Bloomington last week.

FBFM, or Farm Business Farm Management, will form one large association early next year. A letter was just mailed out to cooperators in the past few weeks, detailing the organization’s strategic planning efforts and merger timeline.

A new board is expected to be in place by January 1, 2018 with nine directors serving. Also, the FBFM by-laws are in the process of being rewritten.

“Those by-laws will include a new nine member board,” CEO Dwight Raab explained.

According to Raab, staff has been added at the state office and there are many things the different organizations within FBFM do together already. During the last state board meeting, the group approved an update to the FBFM analysis program. Software will be rewritten as a web-based platform.

Also during last week’s meeting of the Pioneer Association, the by-laws were updated to allow for an extra term for the directors. Current guidelines state directors can only serve four consecutive two-year terms and they want to change this to five. With the change, there will not be a large turnover of directors during the merger process at the state level.

Following the presentation of financial reports, field staff comments and suggestions from delegates, the nomination and election of directors took place. Area directors include: Tom Schlatter, Doug Grunloh, Jason Johnson, Gail Fisher, Phil Weihmeir and Don Immke.