Legislative update: Agreement reached on ag bill
By Amanda Bilek, Senior Public Policy Director, Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA)
There are just a couple weeks of the Minnesota legislative session remaining, although DFL legislative leaders have a set a goal to finish session before the constitutional adjournment date of May 22. At the time of this update, there are still outstanding agreements that need to be reached on several state budget areas that have an impact on agriculture, including environment and energy, taxes, capital investment, transportation, health and human services, and commerce, but agreements have been reached on agriculture and dedicated funds for environmental projects (Legacy).
In late March, legislative leaders and Governor Walz announced a joint budget agreement with spending targets for various finance committees. The agriculture committees were given a spending target of $48 million, in addition to $100 million dedicated to broadband for rural development.
Although the House and Senate agriculture committees passed bills using the same spending target, a conference committee was needed to reconcile the differences between the two bills, and the committee reached an agreement over the weekend. We are still waiting for the final conference committee report, but here are a couple of notable finance provisions. It is important to note the finance amounts are the total for the two-year budget period.
Biofuels infrastructure – $6,750,00 for the Biofuels Infrastructure Program at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA). This budget item is a $750,000 increase over base.
Soil health – $1,250,000 for a Soil Health Finance Assistance program at MDA. This program was first funded as a pilot program in the previous budget cycle at $500,000, and applications for the program far exceeded available funds. In addition to the general fund appropriation for the program, an additional $3.5 million was included in the Legacy budget using dedicated funds from the Clean Water Fund.
Broadband – $100 million for the Border-to-Border Grant Program to continue the build-out of broadband across Minnesota.
Grain Indemnity fund – $10 million to establish a grain indemnity account to reimburse grain producers when an elevator or grain purchaser is insolvent and cannot cover commitments for grain purchases. The indemnity account would max out at $15 million, and the fee for grain producers would not trigger until the account balance was at or below $8 million. The language does include a refund provision, which would enable a grain producer to request a refund from MDA for any fees paid on grain sold. We will provide a deep dive into this new program in future posts.
Noxious weeds – $1,600,000 for noxious weed grants to combat invasive species and protect Minnesota crops.
International trade – $200,000 to increase the capacity at MDA for international trade staff to help expand markets for Minnesota agricultural products.
Crop protection – the House agriculture bill had included some concerning provisions on agriculture seed treated with a pesticide. Those provisions did not make it into the final agreement. The agriculture agreement does take some action on pesticides containing PFAS, and we will be summarizing those provisions in more detail in a future update.
Once we have a chance to review the final conference committee report, we will be providing more detail on the agriculture budget and policy provisions.
Finally, I would also note that the Legacy bill was also finalized, and throughout the session, MCGA advocated for specific provisions in the Clean Water Fund. A few highlights to note:
- $3.5 million for the Conservation Equipment Assistance Program, which is additional dedicated funding for the Soil Health Finance Assistance Program discussed above.
- $9.6 million for the Agricultural Best Management Practices Loan Program.
- $3 million for technical assistance, which supports several projects including Discovery Farms.
- $3 million to expand the Ag Weather Station Network. This is a new program at MDA that MCGA advocated for early in the Clean Water Council funding process.
There are still a lot of budget and policy issues that need to be resolved before the legislature adjourns, and look for more details in a future update.
