Former head of California Farm Bureau Federation played instrumental part in many ag issues
California Ag Today enjoyed a recent conversation with Bill Pauli who farms wine grapes and Bartlett pears in Mendocino County on the North Coast.
Past California Farm Bureau Federation President Bill Pauli
Pauli was one of many that interviewed at the California Farm Bureau Federation’s 98th annual Conference in Monterey earlier this month.
Pauli served as President of the California Farm Bureau Federation during some very challenging times. “I started clear back in 1981 as a vice-president of the California Farm Bureau, and culminated with president in 2005.
“During that period, I was heavily involved with CALFED and the Delta issues, which are so important to us and for which we’re seeing the issues today with the Delta and water supply and water management and availability,” Pauli said.
CALFED was created because of the importance of the Delta to California. The majority of the state’s water runs through the Delta and into aqueducts and pipelines that distribute it to 25 million Californians throughout the state, making it the single largest and most important source of water for drinking, irrigation and industry.
“I was also involved in a lot of the worker compensation issues, because when Governor Schwarzenegger came in, that was the big issue, or rates and what we were paying. That was always the important issue for me. We had all the other issues related to labor over that period of time, along with the environmental issues that continue to expand.
It’s not news that California Farm Bureau carries the water for almost all the other farming organizations in many ways noted Pauli.
“The thing that’s so unique about the California Farm Bureau, and our county farm bureaus in every county of the state, is that we represent all of agriculture.
CFBF represents 450 different commodities for the individual grower all the way down to the local ag level in California.
We have the big, broad-picture issues, but there’s also the local issues that are so important to the individual producer,” Pauli said.
