Today, I had an exciting morning followed by a slower afternoon. I attended 1 committee meeting and a senate session. I had a good time and really was interested the committee meeting which discussed the farm bill of 2019.
The bill consisted of expanding the definition of agritourism to include hunting, fishing and shooting sports, and implementing a state hemp program. The committee meeting was like all the other committee meetings except there were the addition of 90 more farmers and concerned citizens. The amount of attendees at the meeting was so large that there had to be an overflow room for extra audience members. I found the meeting enjoyable because it was the first piece of legislature I felt was humanized.
In the past few days, its been committee about documenting logistics, rewriting regulations and setting conditions, not about person stories and impacting legislature to the community. But, with this bill, there was an impassioned public forum of at least 30 speakers. All farmers from different parts of the state discussing how Hemp is a product that must be preserved and how the expansion of the definition of agritourism would extremely reduce the quality of life for wildlife and farm animals.
The speakers were great because all the rhetorical strategies and attention getting devices that I learned in English and in debate were used towards persuading representatives to change or validate their choice of passing or failing a bill. Overall, it was a refreshing and exciting experience. I’m glad that I got to end my time at the NC legislature on a extremely high note.
