Agri-Business Council of Arizona, Inc.

Each year, the Agri-Business Council hosts an Annual Business Meeting. This meeting is one of two major events ABC holds each fiscal year to benefit the entire agriculture community in the State of Arizona.

This year’s Meeting was held on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 8:30am at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. In honor of the 30th Anniversary of ABC this year, Central Arizona Project produced a video highlighting ABC and its purpose, associations and efforts to protect and maintain water flow and agribusiness in the State of Arizona. A special thank you goes out to Central Arizona Project, Studio 522 and all of those who helped contribute to the video. If you would like to view the video, please contact us for a copy.

We were thrilled to welcome nine speakers to our event. Our speakers included: Susan Bitter Smith, President of the Board of Directors of Central Arizona Project, Lorri Gray, Lower Colorado River Regional Director for the Bureau of Reclamation, Larry Walkoviak, Upper Colorado River Regional Director for the Bureau of Reclamation, United States Congressman John Shadegg, Jim Holway, Professor of Practice at ASU, Marco Antonio Camou Loera, Undersecretary of Agriculture in Sonora (SAGARHPA), Dan Keppen, Executive Director of the Family Farm Alliance, Alan Stephens, President of Western Progress and Lori Faeth, Policy Advisor with the Office of the Governor, State of Arizona.

We also presented three awards this year to show our appreciation to some wonderful and deserving representatives of and advocates for the agricultural industry. Our first award went to Grant Ward who received the 2008 President’s Award for his time and service as President of ABC. He was unable to attend, so thank you to his associates at Maricopa-Stanfield for accepting the award on his behalf! The Special Recognition Award went to Bill Scott for years of leadership and service to the Agri-Business Council and Agricultural Community at large. The third award was the prestigious Water Buffalo Award given to Charles Slocum, ABC Executive Committee Member for over 25 years. This award was presented by Congressman John Shadegg for Charlie’s years of service and his continuous support of agriculture and water rights in the State of Arizona.

Thank you again to all who participated and made this such a fantastic event. We especially want to thank our four sponsors for their generous support of this year’s annual meeting. The sponsors include Central Arizona
Project, Salt River Project, Farm Credit Services Southwest, and Central Arizona Project Association.

2008 Photos