While much of MFU’s team was in Scottsdale for the National Farmers Union annual convention, the state legislature barreled toward a March 22 deadline to hear new proposals.

The National Farmers Union Convention was held March 10-13 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Minnesota was well represented by sixteen delegates who participated in lively policy debate. MFU Secretary and St. Louis County president, Missy Bakker Roach, served on the NFU policy committee.

Minnesota was also celebrated with a number of awards including the Outstanding Leadership Award, 10 county leadership awards, two member achievement awards (Kelsey Love Zaavedra and Linda Larson), the Bruce Miller Award (Tim Velde), and the Meritorious Service Award (Rodney Allebach). Congratulations to all!

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke to the convention about the progress the administration has made on a number of Farmers Union priorities. The finalization of the USDA’s “Product of the USA” label claim for meat, poultry and eggs received enthusiastic applause. The rule will prohibit use of that label on any product that was not born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States. Other announcements included 42 grants made through the Local Meat Capacity grant program, as well as progress on implementing climate-smart agriculture funding and local and regional food systems investments.

In the end of lengthy policy debate, delegates to NFU passed six Special Orders of Business covering:

• Fairness for Farmers 
• Family Farming and the 2024 Farm Bill
• Family Farming and the Farm Safety Net
• Family Farming and Conservation
• Family Farming and Dairy Policy Reform
• Support for the Cooperative Business Model and the International Year of Cooperatives

These and our national policy will guide NFU’s continued work on the Farm Bill and other initiatives.

Count down to committee deadlines

At the state legislature, work continued apace as committees count down the clock to committee deadlines—just nine days remain to hear new proposals. In the agriculture committee, for example, that translates to just three regularly scheduled committee hearings in each body. Time is tight!

One top priority that needs to be heard in a number of committees ahead of that deadline is the MinnesotaCare Public Option (HF4745, SF4778) led by House Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, and Senate Health Finance Chair Melissa Wiklund, DFL-Bloomington, and a long list of 37 coauthors.

Also on healthcare, MFU is supporting legislation (SF4382, HF3700) from Sen. Rob Kupec, DFL-Moorhead, and Rep. Andy Smith, DFL-Rochester, that would require hospitals and health systems to provide more public notice before closing a hospital or eliminating certain services, and provide communities a chance to purchase a closing hospital. The bills were heard over the past week in the House and Senate health committees and could be included in an omnibus bill at the end of session.

The agriculture committees heard bills that MFU worked on this year. Last Wednesday, Chair Aric Putnam’s, DFL-St. Cloud, Committee heard two bills related to agricultural land. The first, brought forward by Senator Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, would require MDA to prepare a report on agricultural land trends (SF3913), including “legislative recommendations for ensuring that agricultural land is available to farmers.”

“If farmland prices are increasing because my neighbors and I are competing for productive land based on the value of what we can produce and market that’s one thing. And I get that,” said MFU Vice President Anne Schwagerl in testifying on the bill. “But if I’m competing against investors—who might live far from Minnesota—that’s another thing entirely.”

The second, brought forward by Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, would require MDA to establish an anonymous means for reporting suspected violations of Minnesota’s Corporate Farm Law or our ban on foreign ownership of farmland (SF3861). At present, this law is enforced based on complaints to the department, but some people might not want to risk a business relationship for the sake of reporting a suspicious transaction.

“We care about the corporate farm law because it helps ensure that family farmers have the opportunity to own the land that they farm,” said Melany Thomas, MFU’s Clay County Secretary-Treasurer in testifying on the bill. “That’s important for those farmers who can build equity, it’s important for our rural communities, and I think it’s important for food security as well.”

Neither of these proposals related to land ownership are revolutionary, but hopefully right sized for consideration during a short legislative session with little appetite for new spending or big programmatic changes. As Melany shared of the Corporate Farm Law portal, “this is a commonsense step to help streamline enforcement of existing law.”

On the House side, last week Chair Samantha Vang’s, DFL-Brooklyn Center, wrapped up work on a number of policy and technical bills from MDA. The only consternation on the committee came a lawmaker sought to amend a bill updating the laws regulating grain buyers. The amendment, which was adopted by the committee on a split vote, took the interest earned off of the principle held in the grain indemnity fund and put it into a new program to provide debt relief for farmers who sell at farmers markets.

While a potentially significant program for farmers market farmers in our membership, MFU shared concerns about this amendment with committee members because of the funding mechanism. The ability for the grain indemnity fund to grow interest is an important policy design that will protect the fund long-term and better ensure that it can cover farmers losses when grain elevators fail. Lawmakers said they wanted to keep the bill part of the discussion and so we’re looking forward to continued conversations. If you have thoughts on this proposal—or you are a farmers market farmer who would benefit from debt relief—we’d love to hear from you!

On Tuesday, the House Ag Committee heard a bill to ban school hatchery projects which was narrowed to bar hatching waterfowl. The Agricultural Educators Association led in talking about how schools do these projects responsibly and the value of these projects for students who are interested in agriculture.

Also on Tuesday, the Senate heard Chair Aric Putnam’s bill to require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for livestock projects over 10,000 animal units (roughly 7,000 cows) (SF4234). At present, any project with over 1,000 animal units is required to undergo permitting which includes an Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW). In his opening remarks, Chair Putnam highlighted that when that law was passed in the late 1990s, no one was anticipating 10,000 or 20,000 cow dairies.

Though they did not testify and weren’t mentioned explicitly, much of the conversation centered on Riverview LLP’s efforts to expand in western Minnesota. At present, they own nine of the 10 sites permitted above the 10,000 animal unit threshold contemplated in the bill.

“This is not a position that our organization came to lightly,” said MFU’s Government Relations Director, Stu Lourey, in testifying in support of Chair Putnam’s bill and referencing an extensive discussion at MFU’s last Full Board meeting. Stu went on to share how MFU believes that rural communities would be better served by development that is more distributed. That said, there’s no question that our dairy industry is rapidly consolidating, which makes a conversation about an additional permitting threshold timely and important. MFU raised concerns about the draw on groundwater, what happens to consolidated operations during disasters, and the social and economic effects of continued consolidation.

Right to Repair moves ahead

Right to Repair took a big step forward this session with the bipartisan introduction of Rep. Kristi Pursell’s, DFL-Northfield, bill that would remove the exemption for farm equipment in Minnesota’s Digital Fair Repair Act, ensuring farmers and independent repair shops have fair access to the parts, tools, manuals and diagnostic equipment needed to repair modern farm equipment (HF4800). The House bill is newly bipartisan, with Rep. Nathan Nelson, R-Hinckley, and Rep. John Burkel, R-Badger, both signing on as coauthors. Sen. Kupec will be introducing a companion in the Senate.

Following work from MFU last session, MFU President Gary Wertish was recently appointed to Minnesota’s new Prescription Drug Affordability Board Advisory Council, which will assist the Prescription Drug Affordability Board (PDAB). Tony Lourey of Kerrick was appointed to the Board, which will have the authority to review, investigate and set upper payment limits on high-cost prescription drugs. MFU supported the creation of PDAB last session as part of the ongoing work of making healthcare more affordable and accessible for farmers and rural Minnesota.

Finally, during his State of the Union address on Thursday, President Biden highlighted his investments in family farms and called out the impact anticompetitive conduct like price fixing is having on costs across the economy. The speech followed his creation of a Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing that will work across the executive branch to help address the ways anticompetitive conduct drives up costs for Americans. Leading that strike force will be Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter at the Department of Justice (DOJ) whom MFU hosted in Minnesota in October.

Gov. Walz will give a State of the State address on Tuesday, March 26.

As always, if you have questions, thoughts, or concerns about MFU’s legislative work, please reach out at stu@mfu.org or (320) 232-3047 (C).