Fairness Campaign assails Kentucky Farm Bureau for right-wing political stance

[BridgeTheGap]

The first car Hampton “Hoppy” Henton ever drove was a Chevrolet Biscayne.

“It was an ugly thing,” recalls the 62-year-old Woodford County farmer, “but it ran.”

The Hentons insured the Biscayne with Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance, the commonwealth’s largest property and casualty insurance provider, because, as Henton puts it, “The Farm Bureau is just something you’re born into. My father was a member, and I’m a former director at the state and county levels.”

But the self-described “yellow dog Democrat,” whose 200-year-old family farm pre-dates the commonwealth, finds himself regularly chafing against the Farm Bureau’s conservative political stances, which he claims distract from the bureau’s true agenda, which increasingly favors big agribusiness over family farms like his own.

“They’ve got policies against gay marriage and against the right of farmers to unionize,” he says. “You tell me what the hell does any of that have to do with agriculture?”

http://leoweekly.com/news/down-farm