Nomination petitions are being accepted through Aug. 2 for the Farm Service Agency County Committee. Interested persons should contact the FSA to request a 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. This year, the election will be held in LAA 2 and LAA 4.

LAA 2 includes the following Butler County townships: Lancaster, Muddy Creek, Center, Franklin, Donegal, Oakland, Butler, Connoquenessing, Clearfield and Summit.

LAA 4 includes the northern townships of Beaver County: Darlington, North Sewickley, Marion, Franklin, South Beaver, Chippewa, Daugherty, Rochester, New Sewickley and Brighton.

Elected county committee members serve three-year terms and cannot take their position lightly because county committee members play an important role in the local implementation of FSA programs and because the agency wants to help ensure they represent America's agricultural mosaic. That is why the United States Department of Agricultures trying to emphasize the election and reach out to all producers, especially minority and socially disadvantaged ones, to encourage them to participate in the election.

Committee members are a critical component of the day-to-day operations of the FSA because they help deliver farm programs at the local level. Farmers who serve on committees help decide the kind of 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 the committee. The following people 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. 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. The FSA is committed to promoting diversity on its local committees, so minority, female and other underrepresented people have a say in how the FSA's programs are administered locally.

The committee system was first established in 1936. Today, there are more than 8,000 committee members serving three-year terms in more than 2,300 county offices nationwide, with 44 here 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, USDA Service Centers or online at http://forms.sc.egov.usda.gov/eforms/mainservlet.

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

Luke Fritz is executive director of the Butler County Farm Service Agency.