lines. Accordingly, general farm organizations became less effective in representing the

interests of producers, for interests of different commodities were often competitive.

New organizations, specialized by commodity, began to appear such as the American

Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and the National

Cattlemen's Association. General farm organizations, such as the AFBF differ from

commodity organizations. Commodity organizations are principally devoted to

promoting domestic and international sales of their commodity, affecting legislation

favorable to commodity producers, and supporting research to develop new products and

uses of the commodity. Their primary focus is national and international in scope,

although most of the major commodity organizations have state and local associations in

regions that produce the commodity they represent. They are unlikely to have a local

agenda unless a local issue of direct relevance to commodity producers arises (Hobbs,

1995).

 Specialized commodity organizations, such as the National Cattlemen's

 Association or the National Corn Growers are more effective in pursuing narrow policy

 goals than general agricultural organizations. The consequences to this piece-meal

 approach to policy making by many specialized groups is the neglect of the farming

 sector as a whole (Mooney & Majka, 1995).

 During the early years of Farm Bureau, it was unique as compared to other

 organizations because of the strong financial support it enjoyed. High dues for

 membership, support from agribusiness, and effective governmental subsidization

 through the Cooperative Extension Service all contributed to a powerful resource base for

 Farm Bureau (Mooney & Majka, 1995).