In addition to the changing demographics in rural communities and a changing

 constituency that Farm Bureau represents, the Farm Bureau organization itself needs to

 be examined as organizations today are different than the organizations that were formed

 almost a century ago, such as Farm Bureau.

 Florida Farm Bureau also should understand the motivations of its' volunteer

 members to retain the membership levels of its active members. As volunteers are the

 backbone of this organization, there is a great need for the retainment and recruitment of

 new volunteers for the organization. Additional research could be conducted in this area

 to determine exactly what motivates individuals to accept great responsibilities in Farm

 Bureau.

 Suggestions for Further Research

 This study could be the starting point for additional leadership research within the

 FFBF. Results from the qualitative questionnaire given to state leaders of the FFBF

 indicated that county board members needed specific leadership skills and abilities to be

 effective board members. If leadership programming was developed and made available

 to county board members, an experimental research design could be implemented to

 determine board members' leadership skills before they participated in such a program

 and after program completion.

 County Farm Bureau board members ranked themselves fairly high in proficiency

for all the competencies in the "Effective Board" theme area. The state leadership would

probably disagree with their high perceived proficiencies in this area as the lack of

proficiencies were determined in the interviews. Additional research is necessary to

assess the proficiencies of board members in regards to items listed in this theme area.