Developing and Evaluating Policy Language From Both Sides of an Issue

The first night we were in St. Louis we had a Mock County Farm Bureau Policy Meeting and drafted policy language to guide us through the rest of the module.  Prior to the trip we were each asked to research and prepare position statements and supportive documents for Farm Bureau as well as another stake holder group.  I was assigned the Natural Resource Defense Council.  This forced me to look at both sides of the issue and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both.  Throughout the module we each took turns role playing and debating “Cap and Trade” from both our assigned group and Farm Bureau (bound by the policy language we had developed).  We role played town hall meetings and press conferences, each taking turns defending opposite sides of the issue, trying to find common ground with some of the other groups if possible.   The last day we held another county Farm Bureau meeting to re-evaluate our policy.

·         Was it strong enough? 

·         Was it flexible enough to work with other groups? 

·         Did we need to make any changes to the policy? 

We did not all agree on what the final policy should be.  Some of the group thought our policy was too tight and did not allow us to compromise and work with other groups, while others of us thought the policy was right on where we wanted to be.  After much discussion we left the policy as it was.