9/04/01

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS

Soybean farmers in four states of the Mid-Atlantic are may get their “voice” back in the wake of a meeting last week near Chestertown, Md.
That “voice” belonged to the Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association and, until the closing years of the 20th Century, was heard frequently in the legislative corridors of Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and in the halls of Congress on issues and policies impacting the soybean industry.
But the “voice” fell silent when, for a variety of reasons, the association fell into disrepair and, in effect, ceased to exist.
However, it did not cease to exist on the books of the American Soybean Association of which it had been a valued affiliate. Last week, nine members of the ASA executive committee, gathered in an annual retreat at Chesapeake Farms (the former Remington Farms) between Chestertown and Rock Hall on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, invited representatives of MASA to confer on reviving their organization.
Accepting that invitation were Jonathan Quinn, a Warwick (Cecil County) farmer who, as vice president, remains as titular head of MASA — the one-time president resigned several years ago — and Susan Arnold, long-time secretary/treasurer of the organization.
They received this assurance from Bart Ruth, ASA president and a farmer from Nebraska. “It’s important you realize how valuable the Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association is to the national organization,” Ruth said. “There are 75 congressman in the four states of the Mid-Atlantic. You are located near the seat of national power and they need to hear from you on policies and issues that impact us all.”
The only soybean organizations, as such, which exist in the four states now are the four soybean checkoff boards which administer the national soybean checkoff programs in their states. Under federal law, however, checkoff board members are prohibited from any activity which might be considered “lobbying” and checkoff revenues can be spent only on educational, promotional, research or market development projects.
In states which have soybean associations — Virginia in the Mid-Atlantic region, for example — educational and promotional activities by the associations are funded by the checkoff boards but legislative and policy initiatives by the associations are funded solely by membership dues.
State soybean associations need 100 dues-paying members to qualify for affiliation with ASA and 200 members to earn a seat on the ASA board. As of July 31 of this year, according to ASA figures, none of the four MASA states meets even the 100-member qualification.
According to Julie Hawkins, executive assistant to ASA CEO Steve Censky, Maryland has 80 members, Delaware 33, New Jersey 55 and Pennsylvania 50. That adds up to 218, a sufficient membership to be awarded a seat of the board if MASA can be resuscitated.
Other executive board members assured Quinn and Arnold that the situation in the Mid-Atlantic was “not unique”, that even in some of the larger soybean states maintaining membership and “lighting a fire” in existing members often presents a challenge. And President Ruth offered ASA’s assistance in getting the Mid-Atlantic “moving again” in such areas as membership recruitment and leadership training. The Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association originally included five states but the fifth, and largest, Virginia, pulled out in the mid-1990s and formed its own association. That departure forced MASA to close the doors of an office it maintained in Salisbury, Md., which had been staffed with two fulltime employees, and steadily diluted the vigor of the organization.
The association was chartered as an ASA affiliate on March 24, 1970. It celebrated its 25th anniversary at its annual meeting Jan. 12, 1995 at the Sheraton in Dover, Del.
The first office of the association, prior to Salisbury, was on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland. Its “resident agent” was the late Joe Newcomer, a University of Maryland Extension agronomist.
The list of members of the association’s first board of directors and the signers of the articles of incorporation reads like a “who’s who” of Mid-Atlantic agriculture. In addition to Newcomer, the first directors were Edward R. Ralph of Georgetown, Del.; Olin Gooden of Woodside, Del.; Kenneth R. Hostetter of Hanover, Pa.; James R. Justin of Rutgers University; and Edward B. Edelen of Bryantown, Md.
Other signators of the incorporation papers were Edward L. Wisk of Georgetown, Del.; Francis J. Webb of Dover, Del.; J. D. Phillips of Townsends Inc. in Millsboro, Del.; E. Frank Connolly of Easton, Md.; Alfred W. Frosch of Hurlock, Md.; Dale Reagan of Federalsburg, Md.; Robert McClain of A.W. Perdue & Son Inc. of Salisbury, Md.; Wayne Shaff of Salisbury, Md.; Charles A. Bruce of Princess Anne, Md.; Edward J. Allen of Prince Frederick, Md.; Hobart Nicholson of Snow Hill, Md.; Ralph Adkins of Snow Hill, Md.; and Roscoe Brown Jr. of Easton, Md.
The presidents of the association, through the years, were: Olin Gooden, 1970-’72; Hilyard Simpkins, 1973-’74; Francis Winkler, 1975; Leon Schmick, 1976-’77; Bill Bradley, 1978-’80; Homer Torbert, 1981-’82; Fred Pew, 1983-’84; Hank Spies, 1985-’86; Keith Carlisle, 1987-’88; Preston Ware, 1989-’90; Pat Boova, 1991-’94; and Doug Corey, 1995.