According to this New York Times article, the head of the national Farm Bureau is busy racking up enemies.

He called on farmers to be more aggressive in opposing the climate bill and any other attacks on agriculture, including characterizations of “factory farmer, industrial food and big ag.”

The NYT notes that the level of rhetoric used by the Farm Bureau has racheted up. This is the part that amazes me. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce went down the same path recently, wound up losing some of its big business partners, and generally looked foolish.

There have already been two signs that the Farm Bureau may be overreaching.

1) The South Dakota Corn Growers Association, “considered a resolution opposing cap and trade but ultimately took no position.” They couldn’t get immediate passage of the resolution out of the SD Corn Growers?

2) According to the NYT article, the Farm Bureau has publicly dissed scientists who signed a letter asking the national Farm bureau to discuss climate change with them. Scientists don’t take kindly to that, and it will sway other scientists and academics.

This would just be the usual politicking, but the national Farm Bureau doesn’t seem to realize it has a big vulnerability — its Farm Bureau Financial Services arm. If national Farm Bureau wrecks public opinion of the Farm Bureau name, the financial services business could be hurt.