Nomination petitions are being accepted through Aug. 3 for the Farm Service Agency County Committee. Interested persons should contact FSA to request a nominating petition.

Butler, Beaver and Allegheny counties are served by a five-member county committee. The three-county region is divided into five different Local Administrative Areas, or LAAs. This year, the election will be held in LAA Number 3, which includes the following Butler County townships: Jackson, Forward, Penn, Jefferson, Winfield, Cranberry, Adams, Middlesex, Clinton and Buffalo.

Elected county committee members serve a three-year term and cannot take their position lightly as members play an important role in the local implementation of FSA programs, and the Department of Agriculture wants to help ensure they represent America's agricultural mosaic.

That is why the USDA is trying to emphasize the election and reach out to all producers, especially minority and socially disadvantaged producers, to encourage them to participate in the local county committee election.

COC members are a critical component of the day-to-day operations of FSA because they help deliver FSA farm programs at the local level. Farmers who serve on COCs help decide the programs their counties offer and make sure FSA agricultural programs serve the needs of local producers. Committees make decisions on commodity price support loans and payments, establishment of allotments and yields, conservation programs and other issues.

Almost anyone eligible to take part in a local FSA program and of legal voting age may be a candidate for a COC.

The following persons also are eligible to participate in the election process: an owner, operator, tenant, or sharecropper; a spouse listed on the property deed; the spouse of an eligible voter in a community property state; a partner in a general partnership or member of a joint venture that has an interest in a farm as an owner, operator, tenant, or sharecropper; and someone who is not of legal voting age, but who supervises and conducts the farming operations on an entire farm.

Individuals may nominate themselves or others as a candidate. In addition, candidates can be nominated by organizations representing socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers. Nominations and elections are open to all eligible candidates and voters without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status or disability. FSA is committed to promoting diversity on its local COCs, so minority, female and other underrepresented people have a say in how the agency's programs are administered locally.

The COC system was first established in 1936. Today, there are more than 8,000 committee members serving three-year terms in 2,300-plus county offices nationwide, with 44 in Pennsylvania. Every year, elections are held for about one-third of these seats.

Nomination forms (FSA-669A) can be obtained from local FSA offices or USDA Service Centers or online at http://forms.sc.egov.usda.gov/eforms/mainservlet.

Details on FSA COC elections can be found in a fact sheet located at www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/publications/facts/html/cocelec08.htm.

A man absolutely hated his wife's cat, and he decided to get rid of it one day by driving it 20 blocks from his home and leaving it at the park.As he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway.The next day, he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away. He put the beast out and headed home.Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat!He kept taking the cat farther and farther, and the cat would always beat him home.At last, he drove far out into the country, turned right, then left, past the bridge, then right again and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there.Hours later, the man called home to his wife: "Ann, is the cat there?""Yes," the wife answered, "Why do you ask?"Frustrated, the man answered, "Put him on the phone, I'm lost and need directions!"Luke Fritz is executive director of the Butler County Farm Service Agency.