I did a story this morning on a clever new effort by the American Farm Bureau Federation to educate and persuade legislators about the ripple affect enacting Cap & Trade legislation will have on farmers and food production. Called “Don’t Cap Our Future,” the effort encourages farmers to sign the bill of a farm hat with the slogan “Don’t Cap Our Future,” and send it to their elected representative with information about how they’ll be adversely affected by these climate change bills.

This is probably the most clever grassroots PR technique I’ve seen in a while. The farm hat, or cap, is one of the most ubiquitous farm fashions. We have quite a few hats here at our house, including seed and chemical brands, livestock related brands, and of course, the immortal John Deere hat.

Growing up, we had literally hundreds of farm hats that Dad collected over the years. In fact, when I was in college we did an inventory, and Dad had amassed a collection of over 2,000! There are over 500 John Deere hats alone, all unique, no duplicates. Most of them are in storage today, but a select number are still on display in the dining room back home in The Boro.

AFBF President Bob Stallman talks about the “Don’t Cap Our Future” campaign on the FB website, and you can see the campaign in action on Facebook.