There are less than 36 hours left in this year’s Minnesota legislative session, and we still do not have an Agriculture Bill. Backstory: House DFLers had publicly stated that there will be no Agriculture Bill this year if a ban for the pesticide/herbicide paraquat is not included (click here to read more on the situation), and House GOP members have stayed firm that they will not accept that language related to paraquat. The Agriculture Policy Bill that the Senate passed on Thursday did not include the paraquat ban language. That means a paraquat ban is not viable this year, and holding out for such a ban should not be a reason to not pass an Agriculture Bill in the House.
There is a path forward though! Rep. Paul Anderson has an amendment that will be voted on today by all Representatives which includes key provisions that the Land Stewardship Project has been fighting to pass this year. They include fixes to the Farmland Down Payment Assistance Program to make it work better, extending the spending deadline for the Meat Processing Retain and Train Grants to help build the workforce for local meat processors, and additional funding for the popular and oversubscribed Farm to Food Security Grant modeled after the federal Local Foods Procurement Assistance (LFPA) program.
Please take two minutes to e-mail your legislator and
ask them to vote YES on an agriculture deal!
There is a real cost for not doing anything for agriculture this year. We need to pass the bi-partisan policy changes to the Down Payment Assistance Program. If we don’t extend the funding deadline, we lose $800,000 this year. That’s approximately 40 farmers who will not be supported in buying their first farm.
In a time of great food access need, $300,000 would be left on the table for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program or Farm to Food Security. This is the kind of public policy that helps our farmers and communities.
Not extending the spending deadline for the Meat Processing Retain and Train program means losing more than $500,000 which would go to train the next generation of sorely-needed meat processors.