When Minnesota lawmakers return to Saint Paul Feb. 17 for the start of the next state legislative session, Land Stewardship Project’s members and organizers will be active in pushing forward our values and priorities. Before we go into what issues we will be focusing on in 2026, I’d like to provide some political context and a little lay of the land.

The 2025 session was characterized by a late start in the Minnesota House, power-sharing struggles, special elections, lawsuits, and a chaotic end to finalizing a state budget with the help of a one-day special session.As is normally the case after passing a state budget, 2026 will be a policy-setting year and lawmakers will spend the bulk of their time focused primarily on no-cost policy changes and laying the groundwork for the next budget-setting year in 2027.

The latest state budget forecast calls for a near-term surplus but a long-term deficit, and that will determine what, if any, supplemental money legislators may have to work with. We can expect that lawmakers will spend much of their time responding to actions at the federal level and figuring out how to deal with a myriad number of program cuts, including to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and health care subsidies. In addition, the assassination of Speaker Emeritus Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, along with the mass shooting at Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis, will no doubt make gun violence a major issue of debate at the capitol.

Finally, the 2026 election will be on everyone’s mind with all state Senators, Representatives, one U.S. Senate seat, the Governor’s office, and the Attorney General position on the ballot next fall.

In that context, what will LSP be focusing on during the session?

Healthy Soil, Clean Water
• LSP will continue to advocate for programs that support the adoption and scaling up of soil health practices. One such program is the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Soil Health Financial Assistance Program, which provides farmers resources for purchasing and retrofitting the kinds of equipment needed to build resilient soil in an economically viable way.

• We will also work to bolster supply chains that support the processing and marketing of soil-friendly “continuous living cover” crops like Kernza.

• The University of Minnesota’s Forever Green Initiative has made great strides over the years developing cropping systems that can help diversify our corn-soybean duo-culture; LSP feels it’s critical that this work continues to be supported with publicly-funded research and outreach.

• Nitrate pollution of groundwater continues to be a serious problem in southeastern Minnesota. The innovative Olmsted County Groundwater Protection and Soil Health Program has shown great promise for reducing fertilizer runoff by rewarding farmers for putting in cover crops, diversifying rotations, and utilizing regenerative grazing systems. LSP and our allies believe that expanding this program to more counties in the region would benefit the water, rural communities, and farmers.

Taking on Big Ag
• As the article on page eight of this Land Stewardship Letter outlines, rural communities are being gutted by unprecedented consolidation and monopolization in agriculture. LSP will be supporting partner legislation that brings additional resources to the state Attorney General’s office in its work to identify and fight the agriculture industry’s use of trusts, monopolies, and other unfair marketing practices.

• Minnesota is one of the few states where local government control of development is still strong. That’s why promoters of large-scale factory farms and frac sand mines, for example, show up at the capitol year-after-year in an attempt to weaken local democracy. As we have done in the past, LSP will continue to fight to keep local control strong. We will also be pushing for updating the permitting system for large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations so that it better reflects the reality of the massive volumes of manure these operations produce, store, and handle.

Fair Prices, Fair Markets
• As we’ve reported in past issues of the Land Stewardship Letter, recent sessions of the Minnesota Legislature have resulted in solid support for initiatives that get more locally produced food into schools and early child care facilities. However, demand for these resources continues to far outstrip what’s available. That’s why LSP and our allies will be introducing legislation to increase funding for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School and Early Care program to $10 million so that all school districts that want to can purchase fresh, healthy food from Minnesota farmers.

• In recent years, the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) Cooperative Agreement Program proved to be a highly effective way to get farmers paid a fair price for food that is then given to food shelves in their communities. As a result of federal budget cuts, during the 2025 session lawmakers created a Minnesota version of the LFPA. This is an exciting way to get more people fed while supporting a local farm-to-table economy. During the 2026 legislative session, LSP will be supporting proposals to increase funding for this new program so more farmers across the state can have access to viable markets while food access is increased in their communities.

More Farmers on the Land
• Since it was launched in 2022 as a way to help beginning farmers with the purchasing of farmland, Minnesota’s Down Payment Assistance Grant Program has been overwhelmed with applications. LSP will introduce legislation to increase funding for this popular initiative and to incorporate requirements that ensure all monies can be used to purchase farmland.

• We will also be pushing for the introduction of a bill that directs the state to create an action plan for increased farmland access, especially for beginning and emerging farmers. This legislation should identify policy solutions and investigate alternative land holding mechanisms.

• As Midwestern farmers grapple with economic problems that rival the 1980s Farm Crisis, they need more support than ever in the form of mediation services and mental health counselors. LSP will be calling for increased funding for highly effective programs such as the Farmer-Lender Mediation Program and Minnesota Farm Advocates.

Once the session gets going, LSP members will have plenty of opportunities to make their voices heard. You can keep tabs on the Land Stewardship Project’s action alerts at this link.

For more information, feel free to contact me at lschreiber@landstewardshipproject.org.

Laura Schreiber is LSP’s government relations director. For more on LSP’s state policy work, click here. This article originally appeared in the No. 2, 2025, Land Stewardship Letter.