Many Tooele County leaders have ag industry ties despite an increasingly urbanized constituency Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on agriculture in Tooele County. This piece examines the industry’s political influence. Thursday’s article will examine the industry from a cultural perspective.

There was a time when agriculture was the lifeblood of Tooele County. As the decades have passed, however, the industry has waned in terms of its economic and cultural importance — but not necessarily its political influence.

Despite the fact that few residents have ties to agriculture nowadays, ranchers and farmers continue to be major political players within the county. Two of the county’s incoming state representatives — Jim Gowans in the House and Ralph Okerlund in the Senate — have worked in the ag industry. Gowans owns a ranch in Vernon and Okerlund owned a dairy in Sevier County. A third representative, Ronda Menlove in the House, grew up on a farm. Sitting Tooele County Commissioner Bruce Clegg has been involved in family farming and ranching, and commissioner Jerry Hurst taught agriculture science and was a Future Farmers of America advisor at Grantsville High School for 30 years. Stockton resident Leland Hogan, a former Tooele County commissioner, is the president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, a powerful industry lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

And that’s just the current roster. Over the years, farmers and ranchers have exerted a political influence on the county that is increasingly disproportionate to the size of the local industry.

Utah Farm Bureau Federation President Hogan said the intertwined roots of agriculture and politics run deep in Utah. Many areas around the state were settled as places to either raise fruits and vegetables, grains or cattle.

“As those areas grew up, these agriculture people who were there became the political leaders as well,” Hogan said. “The reason Tooele was established is because it was a ranching community. It grew out of that to be what it is today, but its basis was to raise cattle back when it was originally settled.”

Hogan said farmer-politicians play an important role in defending not just agriculture but rural communities in general.

“It’s important agricultural people are in the political system in order to help make some of those decisions for agriculture and for the way that government works within the state,” he said. “We talk about water and air and roads, transportation, hospitals — all of those things are things that rural communities need, and those rural communities have been established because of agriculture.”

Gowans, who won re-election to the House in District 21 last week, has been involved with agriculture off and on his whole life. His 120-acre ranch in Vernon, where he runs roughly 100 head of cattle, began as an operation with his father and brothers, though Gowans is the sole proprietor now. He has four sons, two of whom are vocational ag teachers. The other is a veterinarian.

“So we’ve always kept pretty close to agriculture,” he said. “In fact, now that I’m retired [from teaching], I really don’t like to do too many things that interfere with my ranching. I do like politics because I have a chance to help people and give input where it’s needed.”

Gowans said ranching fueled his interest in politics.

“I have a pretty good background in what needs to happen in rural areas and dealing with development and water issues, which are big in Tooele County particularly,” he said. “I think the agriculture background gives me that kind of experience, although I’ve dealt in it through the years in many aspects. Agriculture has always been fairly big in Tooele County and it’s disappearing, so I want to be able to take a look at that. Somehow we’ve got to make it co-exist with what’s going on in the world.”

Hogan has served on a number of different state committees. He has been involved in the Utah Farm Bureau Federation — what he calls “the political advocacy side of agriculture” — since the early 1970s.

“That’s what led me to going onto the county commission,” said Hogan, who served from 1986 to 1994. “To give some input as to what happened in the county.”

Hogan said ag industry candidates appeal to voters for several reasons.

“Agricultural people, most all of them work for themselves and they’re looked at as honest and forthright — people who have to make decisions on a daily basis that affect their lives,” he said. “I think that’s some of it. Usually our ag people are fairly well known. They don’t move around a lot.”

He said although few voters have a present-day connection to agriculture, many have historical ties.

“We’re getting further and further from ag,” Hogan said. “If you go back 30 years, 3 percent of the population was involved in production agriculture. Now that number is almost in half. But all of us, if you go back a couple of generations, have some tie to agriculture.”

Commissioner Hurst said he believes those with ag backgrounds continue to be involved in politics because they care about the country and the environment.

“And I think agriculturists are good, hard-working people and see things that maybe need some work, so they get involved to make things better,” he said.

Mike Johnson, who ran against Hurst in 2006 for a county commission seat, said he doesn’t believe heavy ag representation in local politics is a bad thing.

“There are good people in all areas and fields, and these folks ran and were elected so apparently it reflects the will of the electorate,” he said. “It reflects our rural background.”

Hogan said the Farm Bureau Federation encourages its county presidents and county boards from each county in the state to become involved with their local governments.

“We encourage those people to become actively involved with their legislative leaders, as well as county commissioners, mayors, city councils, school boards, planning and zoning,” Hogan said. “All those places so when decisions are made they’re made with the full knowledge of the impacts and the unintended consequences that may come from decisions.”

Hogan visits Washington on a fairly regular basis to meet with congressional leaders.

Every November, at the Utah Farm Bureau’s state annual meeting, the organization revises its policy book.

“Then we try to influence legislation that will be in line with our policy,” he said. “We try to give every legislator — senator and House of Representatives — our policy book so they know where we stand.”

Policy revisions are debated at three to four different levels each year, and voted upon by the delegate body, which is made up from representatives from every county.

“One of the reasons that the Farm Bureau is looked at as an influential organization at the Legislature is because our policy comes from a statewide process and legislators can look at it and know it’s not just something someone thought of last night,” Hogan said.

Hogan said he visits with the county commissioners regularly, and Ernie Matthews, president of the Tooele County Farm Bureau, also speaks with commissioners when needed.

“We believe we have a good form of government in this country,” he said. “It’s slow moving, hard to change, hard to move it when it’s headed one direction, but it’s probably how it ought to be. If we could quickly go from one thing to the next it’d be difficult to have any stability.”

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com