A conference committee has approved a plan to improve habitat for bees and other pollinators.
Pollinators around the country are
suffering from a complex set of problems that is causing their numbers
to plummet. This could hurt agriculture, which relies on insects to
pollinate crops.
Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin,
sponsored a bill that requires the Department of Natural Resources and
the Department of Agriculture to ensure they keep pollinators in mind as
they are restoring habitat.
One way to help is by choosing plants to ensure there is always something blooming.
"We have bees that have colony
collapse. We have bees that are impacted by pesticides. We have just a
reduction in the number of pollinators, so this is an attempt to say
throughout the state we have the right habitat," Poppe said. . . .
As farmers get underway with their spring planting, some bee farmers in Minnesota are already counting their losses.
In the last couple days one major producer reported that thousands of honey bees suddenly died.
In 2005, Minnesota was the sixth largest honey producer in the
nation. But since 2006, millions of bee colonies have died off in
Minnesota and across the nation. ...
The
service that bees and other pollinators provide allows nearly 70 percent
of all flowering plants to reproduce; the fruits and seeds from insect
pollinated plants account for over 30 percent of the foods and beverages
that we consume. Beyond agriculture, pollinators are keystone species in
most terrestrial ecosystems. Fruits and seeds derived from insect
pollination are a major part of the diet of approximately 25 percent of
all birds, and of mammals ranging from red-backed voles to grizzly
bears. However, many of our native bee pollinators are at risk, and the
status of many more is unknown. Habitat loss, alteration, and
fragmentation, pesticide use, and introduced diseases all contribute to
declines of bees.
Republicans joked about a "buzzkill" in their tweets about the legislation written by the Austin-based chair of the Ag Policy committee. Apparently, they had no idea about the job-killing consequences of bee loss as they droned on to themselves.
Here's the CBS-MN clip:
Photo: A honeybee helping out an apple grower.
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Few Minnesotans would be surprised to learn that there's a Norwegian bachelor living on his family's farm near tiny Rollag, an uncorporated community in Clay County, or that said bachelor farmer is an active Lutheran.
A few more might be surprised to learn that Daniel Anderson, a teacher and principal who retired and returned to run the family place, is a gay man. But as Republican Sarah Janecek explained last fall in The bachelor farmer and the marriage vote, gay bachelor farmers have always lived quiet lives on the edge of the prairie, tending to their fields and families.
Anderson's hoping that the Minnesota legislature will allow families led by loving same-sex couples to enjoy the same protections of the law that other Minnesota families now enjoy.
"I believe the freedom to marry the person you love is a civil right," Anderson said, adding, "I believe love is
love. I believe everyone should have the same rights. For me it’s a civil right."
His notions of human dignity spring from his strong Lutheran faith. "I was raised
in the church and I a person of the church," Anderson said. "As a lifelong Minnesotan and a person of the church, my ideas about human rights and based in the teachings of Jesus Christ about love and acceptance."
Anderson came to believe that marriage equality is important when, as an educator and school administrator, he witnessed the experience of families led by same-sex couples.
"I know a
number of gay and lesbian friends in commited relationships, and I have known children attended my
schools, from families headed by same sex couples," Anderson said. "I
have seen the children of same sex couples be loved, provided for, nurtured--and protected from the bullying by other children and adults."
"These same-sex moms and dads had have to take
expensive legal steps to protect their assets and their children’s futures," he recalled. "To me, that’s unjust, unfair and unforgiveable
that our society doesn't recognize these
families. The law should be changed."
Anderson shared a heart-breaking tale of two friends whose inability to marry heightened the tragedy of one partner's death. "This couple was together for thirteen years. They took
all the legal steps that they could to protect their rights and property," Anderson said, his voice breaking in the phone interview. "One man diagnosed with cancer, and when he died, his partner wasn't allowed to witness the
death certificate, despite all of the money they had spent on trying to secure their rights as a family."
"The surviving partner was there when the man he loved died, but instead, his sister five states away--she wasn’t there--was the one to witness the death certificate."
The bachelor farmer believes that extending the freedom to marry for all couples will benefit the state as a whole. "It will make our state stable and attract all types
of individuals who respect and support diversity. Our economy will be boosted by talented individuals who will be coming here and sharing their gifts in the workforce," Anderson said, citing a study that found that same-sex marriage could boost the economy by $45 million.
"It will also protect the children and families of
same sex couples by giving the rights as other families in the state of
Minnesota," he added.
As a constituent of state representative Paul Marquart (DFL-Dilworth), Anderson thinks that his legislator should vote to extend the freedom of marry the one you love to all couples.
"State legislators need to protect
all their constituents," Anderson said. "If they vote
no, there will be people who are not afforded equal protection--second class citizens."
"Nobody is a second class citizens in Minnesota," he says.
"Everybody is a first class citizen. Everyone should have the same rights."
Photo: Rollag gay Norwegian Lutheran bachelor farmer Daniel Anderson shows off some home canning. It's pure, mostly. Photo via Facebook.
This original story is underwritten by a sponsorship by Minnesotans United for All Families.
The Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture conference committee meets at 1:00 p.m., and Bluestem hopes that the House conferees--Jean Wagenius, David Dill, Jeanne Poppe, Rick Hansen, and Andrew Falk--can prevail on keeping $190,000 for the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program in the final conference report.
Competitive grants for up to $25,000 are awarded to individuals or
groups for on-farm sustainable agriculture research or demonstration
projects in Minnesota. The purpose of the Grant Program is to fund
practices that promote environmental stewardship and conservation of
resources as well as improve profitability and quality of life on farms
and in rural areas. . . .
Eligible recipients include Minnesota farmers, individuals at Minnesota
educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and local natural
resource agencies. Priority is given to projects that are farmer
initiated. All non-farmer initiated projects must show significant
collaboration with farmers. . . .
The program objectives are to research and demonstrate the
profitability, energy efficiency, and benefits of sustainable
agriculture practices and systems from production through marketing.
Grants are available to fund on-farm research and demonstrations and may include, but are not limited to:
enterprise diversification and organic production using traditional and non-traditional crops and livestock;
cover crops and crop rotations to increase nitrogen uptake, reduce erosion, or control pests;
conservation tillage and weed management;
cropping systems to implement integrated pest management systems for insects, weeds, and diseases;
nutrient and pesticide management including prevention of entry into water bodies;
energy production such as wind, methane, or biomass.
The program does not fund projects that duplicate previously funded projects. . . .
It's not a big program, but one that's useful for farmers, especially those in fast-growing sectors like community supported agriculture (CSA). It's not as if traditional production agriculture is starved in either chamber's bill, so the omission of the program in the Senate bill seems a casual error that can be easily corrected.
Here's the Land Stewardship Project's position on the project (via LSP's lobbyist Bobby King:
Funding for the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program. LSP
supports the House position that provides $190,000/ year funding for
this program. (HF 976 lines 6.7 – 6.20) There is no dedicated funding
in the Senate position.
Here's the House staff comparison and contrast chart. Perhaps the greater problem with the Senate bill is the absence of funding for the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Program, which would be developed by the Minnesota Department of Ag and a board composed mostly of farmers and local soil and water commissioners. Oddly, Republicans have objected that farmers would not have a voice in establishing the program's policies. The program is a priority of the Minnesota Farmers Union.
With the suspension of the sustainable food production diploma program at M State-Fergus Falls, a peculiar hostility to toward small-scale, innovative agriculture seems to be gaining steam among some state lawmakers and bureaucrats. This is unfortunate, as the local food movement has been a boon for small business and job creation for those who seek to serve consumer demand.
Update: Those who support fostering our state's sustainable farming sector might consider contact the senators on the conference committee to ask them to agree with the House bill and fund this modest program. Be polite to the legislative aides who answer the phones and listen to the voicemail messages.
David Tomassoni: 651-296-8017
Tom Saxhaug: 651-296-4136
Dan Sparks: 651-296-9248
Jim Metzen: 651-296-4370
Torrey Westrom: 651-296-3826
Photo: Sexy buffer strips, via MnDA.
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A push by agricultural groups to avoid an
evaluation this year by the state's legislative auditor has raised red
flags for some lawmakers.
Lawmakers on Wednesday directed the Office of the Legislative
Auditor to audit agricultural commodity councils, over protests from
some of those groups that the move is unnecessary and burdensome. Rep.
Andrew Falk, DFL-Murdock, said the "rampant amount of lobbying" that
some of the councils did to have their name taken off the short list of
potential audit targets was unusual.
Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, said he's
never seen that kind of pushback in his eight years on the Legislative
Audit Commission. Amundson did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Falk said he's heard from several farmers who don't understand what the fees pay for and wonder if they're
being used effectively. Falk said he doesn't expect an audit to show
any wrongdoing and that the audit may merely help farmers understand how
each organization works.
Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Pugmire reports in Commission approves nine audit topics:
. . .one commission member said he found it "highly unusual" that
there was some lobbying against an evaluation of Agriculture Commodity
Councils, which the legislative Auditor hasn't taken a look at in more
than 30 years.
Rep. Andrew Falk, DFL-Murdock, said the farmers who fund the councils want to know if their money is being well spent.
"If their books are clean, and if they're doing a good job, they have nothing to fear," Falk said.
Since the councils have power to levy checkoff dollars, that's a good thing.
Photo: Corn. We grow a lot of it in Minnesota, and by statute, a check-off is allowed to be levied by a farmer-led state commodity council.
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Last year's Farm Bill stalled in the House when Tea Party Republicans decided not feeding the poor was a winning meal ticket in the 2012 elections. That worked well for folks like Allen Quist, sent him back to his rural Nicollet County farm instead of the big hotdish contest in the Beltway.
. . .Some House Republicans, often from the rural Midwest, began proposing
putting food stamps—which make up more than 70 percent of the
Agriculture Department budget—into a separate bill. This would be a way
to reduce food-stamp spending or get the program turned over to the
states. These members seem to have forgotten that Congress created food
stamps as part of the farm bill in the 1960s, when the declining rural
population translated into fewer rural representatives in the House and
fewer votes for the farm bill, and that the number of rural
representatives continues to decline. . . .
. . . The participation in food stamps appears to remain higher than
anticipated, however, because wage rates are so low. Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack has suggested that the way to resolve the problem
is to help food-stamp beneficiaries improve their skills and get better
jobs.
Meanwhile, House Republicans press for cuts and most
Democrats resist. House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin
Peterson, D-Minn., said he has told his panel’s chairman, Rep. Frank
Lucas, R-Okla., that he wants to be part of any decision-making on
food-stamp cuts. Peterson also defended food stamps with a statement
that is sure to raise hackles in farm circles: “There is less fraud in
food stamps than in any government program. There is five times as much
fraud in crop insurance than in food stamps.”
Even an old Blue Dog can stay on point when the scent's strong even.
Leaders of congressional ag committees from both parties
seem optimistic that there will be a farm bill this year, but tough negotiating
remains, especially if committees have to trim spending even more than they did
when putting together bills in 2012. . . .
The House ag committee's ranking Democrat, Collin Peterson of Minnesota,
seems to be a strong supporter as well. But he is hearing complaints
from some of his farmer constituents about insurance not being limited
for very large farms. . . .
Just as a year ago, negotiating changes to the commodity
title of the farm bill and the spending level for the nutrition title remain
difficult.
Peterson said that more money
could be saved from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, if the
federal government and not states, determined the income level for eligibility
for what used to be called food stamps.
The federal threshold for food stamp eligibility is 130% of
the poverty level, Peterson said, but in red states, it's actually higher--200%
in North Dakota, 165% in Texas and 185% in Arizona, versus 130% in Peterson's
state of Minnesota.
"The states that you would think would use this (the
lower, federal level) are not," he said.
Peterson said he's urging his committee colleagues "we
should be looking at policy here, instead of a number."
A good point, dawg.
Photo: Minnesota Seventh District Congressman Collin Peterson.
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While conservatives like to whine about over-regulation, it's easy to appreciate the manure management advice the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is distributing to livestock farmers.
As a winter of heavy snowfall and freezing
rain gives way to warming temperatures, rapid melting and potential for
flooding pose challenges for manure management among the more than
25,000 livestock farms in Minnesota. Farmers who spread solid manure
during winter must ensure that it doesn’t run off with rapid snowmelt
flowing to ditches, streams and other waters.
Manure-contaminated runoff not only threatens water quality, it
reduces the value of manure as a crop nutrient. If possible, farmers
should refrain from spreading manure during periods of rapid melt. This
may be even more important in some areas this year because of frozen
snow conditions. In January and February the snow was saturated by rain,
and then froze. This prevents surface-applied manure from soaking in to
the soil, and more susceptible to runoff.. . .
Governor Mark Dayton may have come out against a one-year moratorium on industrial sand mining while a Generic Environmental Impact Statement is conducted, but a story by Stephanie Hemphill at Minnesota Public Radio illustrates why grassroots citizen groups in Southeastern Minnesota are asking for both.
. . .The EQB is a multi-agency oversight
body that received a petition to do an in-depth study of the possible
environmental effects of frac sand mining. . . .
That kind of study would take
several years and cost a lot of money. In the meantime, the agency has
produced a 90-page report that summarizes the issues.
So far the questions outnumber the
answers regarding possible impacts on the environment, the economy and
local communities, said EQB planner Jeff Smyser.
One of those questions involves a very scary thing: sinkholes. Probably not Florida-scale sinkholes--and the water quality concerns that are related to sinkhole-producing karst geology are a whole lot more vexsome:
The report includes . . .maps of
southeastern Minnesota's unusual geology, known as karst geology, where
rich deposits of silica sand are found. That makes it tricky to predict
underground water flows, Smyser said. The limestone bedrock easily
creates sinkholes and causes unpredictable groundwater flows.
"It's kind of difficult to know
where the water's going to go, just what effects use of groundwater,
discharge of processing water is going to have because of that karst
geology out there," he said. "So that's a real tricky question that's
real hard to answer at this point."
A number of silica-sand related bills are working their way through the Minnesota legislature. Senator Matt Schmit's SF786 provides for a GEIS and a one-year moratorium; Schmit has also introduced a bill that creates setbacks to protect fish and sensitive natural areas in the driftless region. Rep. Hansen's HF906 creates standard and a technical assistance team team to help local government regulate sand mining; he also has a bill to protect wellheads and natural areas in the region.
A
number of bills are moving this spring through statehouses across the
country that would, in varying ways, make it a crime to secretly
document animal abuse and food-safety concerns at farms.
This
kind of legislation isn't new to our area. Minnesota lawmakers have
considered it occasionally in recent years, and Iowa last year passed a
law that makes it a gross misdemeanor to sneak into a farm and record
video of animal abuse.
These laws limit the public's right to know where their food comes from, and -- yes -- they are ultimately bad for business. . . .
Let's
be clear: We don't condone strident work produced with little context.
Reasonable things happen on farms every day that would scare a sheltered
little city kid. The vast majority of farms in our area and across the
country are owned and run by reasonable people who would be just as
horrified as the rest of us at the abuse that's been documented. Good
investigative work is produced by somebody who takes the time to gain a
deep understanding of an industry and documents violations, not
incidents worthy only of shock value, to advance the common good. . . .
And the
food industry, starting with the farmer and ending with the grocery
store that sells the product, should welcome any effort toward
transparency that builds trust among consumers. Transparency builds
loyalty, which grows the bottom line.
The argument isn't new--and let's hope legislators remember the lesson from the last time this got thrown in the hopper.
Photo: Happy cattle and farm family pose for the camera.
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Minnesotans have a way of forgetting their past sometimes. The hard truths of the 1862 US-Dakota War and its terrible aftermath, lynchings and penny auctions, the guard called out to protect management--these things get buried under Minnesota Nice and then we have a little pie.
Few of those young people we know who've slept in parks as part of Occupy or resisted pipelines have heard of the powerline protests of the 1970s, when farmers objected to a high voltage powerline crossing their land on its way from North Dakota to near the Cities. They toppled transmission towers, they smeared themselves with pigshit and sat in the pathway of construction, and in the end, they lost.
One artifact of that time of struggle is a unique and rarely used Minnesota law called "Buy the Farm," which was designed to require utilities to do just that. With the construction of the CapX2020, a $2.2 billion project to upgrade the Midwestern electric grid, the shortcomings of the law's language have become clear.
Two news reports in the St. Cloud Times and the Winona Daily News tell parts of the story.
When the Lindbergs learned their Clearwater farm was along the route chosen for the CapX transmission line from Monticello to Fargo, N.D., they reluctantly decided to move. They believed a state law known as “Buy the Farm” would require the utility companies to purchase their entire property, not just the strip needed for the power line.
. . .The Lindbergs are among several landowners and attorneys who say the CapX utility companies’ delays, legal challenges and unnecessary burdens violate the spirit of the 1977 Buy the Farm law. They want changes in the law to give landowners affected by a high-voltage transmission line more rights and protections.
Xcel Energy and Great River Energy, two of the 11 utilities building CapX, say they have purchased dozens of properties and have contested only those that either aren’t eligible under law’s requirements or don’t fit its intent.
The utilities say the law hasn’t been tested in 25 years, is vaguely worded and lacks details about how the process is supposed to work.
“Because the law leaves so many blanks, we are trying to figure out where the lines are,” said Steve Quam, lead CapX attorney. . . .
The law was designed to give homeowners and farmers a way to move if they didn’t want to live next to a high-voltage transmission line. If the utility condemns part of a farm or residential property for an easement for a transmission line, the landowner can choose to compel the utility to purchase the entire property.
Some landowners questioned why a power company should have the same authority to condemn property as the government. State lawmakers agreed that the power of eminent domain is necessary for projects such as power lines that benefit the public good, Merriam said, but they decided to give landowners additional rights, too.
“The Buy the Farm provision was an attempt to change a little bit of that balance of power,” Merriam said.
The law applies only to lines 200 kilovolts or higher, of which there have been very few built in the last quarter century. The 345 kV Monticello-to-Fargo line was the first of the four CapX lines that will eventually stretch across the state, so the property owners along that route were among the first to test the law. . . .
Northfield Democrat David Bly has introduced HF0338, which modifies the law. One indication that the law cuts across partisan lines like a high voltage transmission line? Bly, one of the more progressive legislators, is joined by ultra-conservative Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe) in sponsoring the bill. Marohn reports:
Legislators have introduced several bills that would affect transmission line projects. One sponsored by Rep. David Bly, DFL-Northfield, would require the utility company to tell a landowner within 90 days whether it plans to accept or reject a Buy the Farm election.
The bill also would provide Buy the Farm landowners with all the rights under the state’s eminent domain law, including minimum compensation and relocation expenses. The House Energy Policy Committee heard testimony on the bill Feb. 12 but has not acted. No Senate hearings have been scheduled.
After years of regulatory wrangling, the high-voltage power line known as CapX2020 is about to become more real for Wisconsin land owners along its path.
In the past few weeks, the utilities behind the transmission line have notified hundreds of people who live and own property between Alma and Holmen that 150-foot towers will soon stand in their yards and fields, with 345-kilovolts of power humming along overhead.
Next begins a lengthy process of negotiation for the rights to the land, but unlike their counterparts in Minnesota, Wisconsin residents don’t have the option to sell out and walk away.
A joint initiative of 11 utilities, including Xcel Energy and Dairyland Power Cooperative, CapX2020 is a $2.2 billion project to upgrade the Midwestern electric grid. The 780 miles of new transmission lines will include a 150-mile section of 345-kilovolt line from Hampton, Minn., to a new station to be built in Holmen.
CapX2020 says the project will upgrade an outdated system, meet future demand and deliver alternative energy. Opponents argue energy demand is declining and the lines will actually carry coal power to the east while local customers bear the $500 million cost — an estimated $211 million for the Wisconsin portion — and suffer damage to health and property values.
Though so far unsuccessful, opponents said they aren’t through fighting the line, which received final approval from Minnesota and Wisconsin regulators last spring.
Go check out what's rumbling there.
Photo: Black helicopters and powerline construction. Really. Via KVSC.
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In fact, Bluestem hopes you'll don your tinfoil hat and find somewhere as far away from the Minnesota River Basin as possible.
But if you're like the farmers, land owners, river rats and county commissioners up and down the river who've been working to make sure that Lake Pepin doesn't silt up--and dirt stays in your own pasture or field like any sane property owner would desire--the group's new Local Resource Management Scorecard is pretty nifty, packed with helpful information:
To view aggregate results from the counties in the Minnesota River Basin or to read about how the categories we chose relate to sediment, please visit our County Evaluation Overview Page. If you live in the Minnesota River Basin (in blue) you can click on your county . . .! The map also features the overlapping watersheds for every county in Minnesota; hover over your county to see.
...The mission of the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance in developing this scorecard is to:
1) Recognize county successes in remediation of sedimentation and compliance with state and local regulations and best practices.
2) Recognize accountability in monitoring and enforcement of regulation.
3) Identify county specific obstacles to reducing soil erosion and keeping water on the land.
4) Identify specific opportunities and solutions to address these obstacles.
5) Encourage cooperation and collaboration among local units of government to plan and address the unifying water quality issues of the Minnesota River Basin, where appropriate.
6) Provide a means for counties to more easily share information on their processes, funding sources, success rates, and areas in need of attention.
Go check out the scorecard, which is chock-full of great information. Here's a video from the Alliance with more information about the project:
Rep. Dan Fabian, R-Roseau, did not speak on the floor, because of the
many visitors on hand for opening-day festivities, but was as upset as
Hamilton.
Fabian, who trapped a wolf last month, said he feared that
environmentalists who could control the committee will eliminate laws
such as the new one allowing wolf trapping and hunting.
“I have a lot of support from people up north,” he said. “There is a lot of apprehension about this.”
Whatever the merits of keeping or ending the hunt, House Republicans will lose their ability to tie it politically to "urban environmental extremists" in the DFL as of today. According to the Morning Take:
WOLVES: via news release, VERBATIM:
“Today, legislation will be introduced into the Minnesota State Senate
to reinstate a five-year moratorium on recreational wolf hunting and
trapping. Chief author, Sen. Chris Eaton (DFL - Brooklyn Center), will introduce SF#666, co-authored by Minority Leader Sen. David Hann (R - Eden Prairie), Sen. David Senjem (R- Rochester), Sen. Terri Bonoff (DFL - Minnetonka), and Sen. Sandra Pappas
(DFL - St. Paul). The bill calls for a five-year wait before another
wolf hunting season can be proposed, and only for population management
purposes after other options are explored.”
Bluestem didn't get the release, but we'll hazard a guess and assume it's from Howling For Wolves. On February 18, the Wisconsin Gazette blog posted Minnesota activists pursue bill against wolf hunts:
Activists with Howling for Wolves, a nonprofit in Minnesota organizing
against the hunting of wolves, expects a bill to be introduced in the
state senate to impose a five-year ban on recreational wolf hunting,
trapping and snaring.
With Senate Minority Leader David Hann and former Senate Majority Leader David Senjem on board, House Republicans like Fabian can't honestly spin this as a "Republicans love rural, DFLers side with urban environmental extremists." Whatever urban/suburban vs rural split may or may not exist on this issue (Bluestem suspects that opinion also is divided along lines other than mere geography), the move in the Senate is not just bipartisan, but boldly bipartisan.
There's also the question of gubernatorial calculus in David Hann's support for the bill. Hann is being consistent with the Senate amendment to the Fish and Game bill that he offered in 2012 to delay the hunt five years. Senjem supported the Hann Amendment, as did the DFL sponsors. It was defeated on a 26-40 vote, but at over one-third of the senators who voted no were defeated in the November elections or retired from the Senate.
Perhaps it's time to reconsider the wisdom of exploiting perceived urban/rural divisions for political gain, particularly partisan electoral strategy. More on this as the session continues.
Photo: A timberwolf with spunk.
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The House voted 124-5 Thursday to extend the sunset date of The Farmer-Lender Mediation Act by four years.
Sponsored by Jeanne Poppe (DFL-Austin), HF251 now moves to the Senate where it is sponsored by Sen. Dan Sparks (DFL-Austin).
The bill would change the expiration date of the act — which requires
a bank or other creditor to offer mediation to a farmer before
enforcing a debt secured by agriculture property such as land, livestock
or crops — to June 30, 2017.
Although the law was enacted 27
years ago during the farm crisis of the mid-1980s, nearly 3,000
mediation notices, involving 1,087 farms, were received in fiscal year
2012, the fourth-highest total in the last 10 years.
“The
Farmer-Lender Mediation Act was enacted in 1986, when there was severe
financial stress in the agriculture economy, and farmers across the
state were in distress, and lenders as well were in distress trying to
figure out how to actually assist the farmers,” Poppe said. “The bill
was enacted in order to allow the farmers and lenders to have a
cooling-off period and in order to be able to mediate the dispute that
they had in order to resolve the problems, in order to pay the bills and
set up the payment plans.”
The bill was co-sponsored by Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake); Andrew Falk (DFL-Murdock); Jay McNamar (DFL-Elbow Lake); Roger Erickson (DFL-Baudette); and John Petersburg (R-Waseca).
There was no discussion of the bill on the floour--Bluestem's sources say the program is a win-win for both farmers and farm lenders--before the House voted on it.
So who silently voted against this bi-partisan, pro-farmer legislation? The roll call indicates five Republicans: Drazkowski, Gruenhagen, Kieffer, Leidiger, Runbeck.
Now, Bluestem can understand why suburban legislators like Andrea Kieffer, Ernie Leidiger and Linda Runbeck might not bother themselves to learn about how this program, which is run through the University of Minnesota Extension office like so much technical assistance available to farmers.
Just not her bi-partisan, pro-farmer bills apparently.
But since none of the handful of Republicans who voted against the bill raised any objection to it, we may never know just what issues our Rural Defenders were having last Thursday.
Photo: Glenn Gruenhagen is a friendly guy who doesn't like a mediation program for farmers and lenders.
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The West Central Tribune's Tom Cherveny, one of Bluestem's favorite Greater Minnesota news reporters, contributed a fine piece, online Sunday, about local food monument, Carlson Meats. The 100-year-old business has helped feed folks from the youngest souls to the Dalai Lama.
It was a few decades ago and Chuck Carlson’s dad was crossing the Canadian border when the officer saw his Grove City address and told him: That’s the town with the meat market where he gets his best meat.
Only recently, his son’s mother-in-law was shopping for potato sausage in Phoenix, Ariz., when the man next to her felt obliged to inform her: “I know where you can buy the best potato sausage in the country. It’s a little meat market in Grove City.’’
It’s also where Chuck Carlson continues to make potato sausage according to the recipe that his grandfather made his own 100 years ago.
Chuck and Kristin Carlson are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Carlson Meats in Grove City under the ownership of the Carlson family. William Carlson purchased the business in January of 1913. He stayed with the business until his death in 1954.
His son, Willard, returned from service in World War II to work alongside him. Willard and Luella continued the business to 1983, when third generation owners Chuck and Kristin Carlson formally took over. Chuck got started in 1975, one year after marrying Kristin, the co-worker he had met at Glacier National Park. Chuck said he had returned to help out “for a while.’’
Not all of their customers arrive from locations as far-flung as the Canadian border and the Arizona dessert, but many do come a ways. Carlson Meats is one of only a couple of dozen small- to medium-sized processing facilities in Minnesota that are United States Department of Agriculture Inspected plants.
Producers of everything from buffalo and lamb to yak for the emerging local foods market rely on Carlson Meats for their processing because of it. The yak man has his pastures north of Cold Spring, where he once served the meat to the visiting Dalai Lama. . . .
One of the great gifts from the University of Minnesota's horticulture program has been the development of cold climate wine grapes. The work has allowed Minnesotans to develop a small but flourishing local wine industry, and the state's pretty river valleys are now dotted with wineries.
Bluestem hopes that at some time in the future, House Assistant Minority Leader Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, branch out from being a hired hand for Christiansen Family Farms and Feedlot and start crushing sour grapes at his own vineyard. He's highly practiced at the art of the whine, and we think he might as well bottle this stuff.
Our career guidance advice is prompted by an article in today's Forum Communications chain by veterans political reporter Don Davis. In the Worthington Daily Globe, it's running under the title, Chairwomen aim to give ag interests a voice.
Davis reports:
The chairwomen announced that the House Agriculture Policy Committee
will join the House Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture
Finance Committee when it discusses farm program financing.
It is
an effort to answer strong criticism rural Republican legislators
leveled against Democrats who control the House. They say ag funding is
threatened to be overwhelmed by the other issues, especially since the
finance committee chairwoman is a strong environmentalist. . . .
Wagenius said it was her idea to invite a committee chaired by Rep.
Jeanne Hoppe, DFL-Austin, to her meeting when farm programs are
discussed. While Agriculture Policy Committee members would not have
vote in the finance committee, they could ask questions and make
comments.
Poppe said the joint committee meetings will give her
committee members a chance to “provide some guidance” to the Wagenius
committee.
Poppe’s committee is dominated by farm-area
representatives, while the Wagenius panel does not have an ag majority.
Some lawmakers belong to both committees.
Rep. Rod Hamilton,
R-Mountain Lake, and other Republicans brought up the issue early in the
legislative session because they said farmers’ voices would be
diminished under the new committee structure. They also pointed to the
fact that the two most powerful House leaders are from Minneapolis and
St. Paul, as are many committee chairmen.
Poppe said rural
Republicans did not complain when their party was in power several years
ago and the committee structure was similar.
Poppe herself
discussed the controversy while speaking at the ag group’s monthly
policy meeting after no one brought up the issue. “It’s better to put it
on the table.” . .
Davis cites objections from legislators and Agri-Growth Council members who believe that there might not be enough time to hear all of the budgets under the finance committee's authority.
Fair enough.
Given that reality, perhaps Hamilton, Torkelson and the rest of the guys could stop the bitching and start the pitching in.
The rural Republicans seem to have time to whine and whine about the committee structure, and now that the two ag committee chairs have offered a compromise, to whine some more. Bluestem is reminded of the old codgers at church suppers who complain about the communion wafers being too spicy while teams of women bustle about in the kitchen.
Time of the essence? Man up, guys, and get to work. You're not that special.
Photo: Marquette grapes, another sign that Minnesota agriculture is getting more diverse.
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Rod Hamilton likes to say he defends rural Minnesota. And while he hasn't introduced any bills so far this session, he has revised his map of "rural" Minnesota since 2011.
Hamilton concurred, saying, “We in rural Minnesota used to go along
to get along, gosh shucks, but my friend, [former Democratic] Senator
Jim Vickerman, advised me to hold my ground but still be approachable.
“When
29 of the 22 committee chairs are from the metro area, and after you
consider Rochester and Duluth, only four chairs are from greater
Minnesota, we have to make our points and advocate strongly for this
area.”
This is curious stuff, and not just because he transposed 29 and 22.
. . . the rural caucus attracts between 30 and 40 House and Senate
Republicans each week. The cast of legislators is ever-changing, as all
Republicans are invited to attend.
In the group’s first meeting, members elected Sen. Doug Magnus of
Slayton and Mountain Lake Rep. Rod Hamilton as co-chairmen of the
caucus, while [Dave] Senjem, Rep. Mary Franson of Alexandria and Iron Range
Rep. Carolyn McElfatrick were picked to sit on the caucus’ executive
committee. . . .
Mary Murphy's district, which includes two Duluth precincts, is "Duluth" but so not in any way rural. Of course.
Okay then.
With that sort of shifting geography, it's easier to understand why Greg Davids told PIM in 2011:
Surprisingly, the Preston Republican and Taxes Committee chairman opted
not to join the rural caucus, saying he does not like the “splits” that
can result. He added: “I’m a member of the Minnesota House of
Representatives caucus.”
However, even Davids' reasonableness had its limits, and he joined in the whining about committee structure this year.
Early this month Minnesota Representative Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) had been sounding a partisan battle cry about the possibility that agri-fund dollars might be spent on urban projects.
A top priority will be to protect money in the agri-fund from being
raided for non-agricultural proposes as the budget is put together this
session. I want to work on strengthening ag education, both through
funding to our local K-12 system and by supporting farm business
management programs at Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
institutions.
Riverland Community College is one of the shining
examples of how this program should work. Extensions of farmer-lender
mediation and Minnesota Agriculture Education Leadership Council, and
cleanup language for the $5 million exemption to the estate tax for
farmland that was passed in the last budget should also be addressed.
Back in December, Bluestem wrote that in Representation Rod Hamilton to defend rural Minnesota against his own worst fears, that you were positioning yourself as the Republican lead to warn rural Minnesotans about how much Democrats in Minneapolis hate us, especially those who are tillers of the soil and the keepers of livestock.
This frame was something we recognised from past years when former Marshall-area state representative Marty Siefert, and Steve Sviggum before him, led the Republican caucus in the house, although in those days, those dirty hipsters mostly just didn't share rural social values as the caucus defined them.
It wasn't so much about agriculture during their tenure--and that would have been a hard one for Kurt Zellers to pull off from Hennepin County. Those appeals to those social values didn't pan out so well in November, however, so on to the Old McDonald defenders riffs it is.
Since the first day of this session, Bluestem's been sad to see you more than live up to our expectations, as you go on and on (and on and on) about agriculture committee structure and leadership. You've gone on the floor of the House, in letters-to-the-editor of rural papers serving swing districts where Democrats were elected, and in your own column.
Most Minneapolis lawmakers spend their careers thinking the only
important activities happen within the metro area, and telling folks in
Greater Minnesota how to live.
Forgive us if we find that a little hard to believe. The last time Bluestem's editor saw Rep. Jean Wagenius, whom others in your caucus (Rep. Drazkowski comes to mind) call an "environmental extremist," she was at the Minnesota Farmers Union convention just before Thanksgiving, taking time to listen to farmers. While exceedingly civil in the tradition of the organization, those farmers weren't shy about sharing their concerns.
I can't say I heard her tell anyone how to live.
Help for Beginning Farmers: You Know You Want To
Nor does that seem to be the preoccuption of Speaker Thissen, unless you consider some of the past legislation he's introduced as telling us how to live. I suppose that we could see HF 3290 from the 86th session that way.
That's an bill in which there are:
Income tax credits provided to encourage beginning farmers, beginning
farmer program administered by the Rural Finance Authority modified, and
money appropriated for beginning farmer individual development
accounts.
Pretty rough stuff by a guy from the mean streets of Minneapolis telling people in Greater Minnesota how to live, I thought, until I read the bill and thought it sounded familiar.
It's pretty much identical to HF0860, a bill which you introduced in the 87th session, in which "Beginning farmer program tax credits provided." My former state Representative, Ron Shimansky, was a co-sponsor, as were DFLers Terry Morrow and Kent Eken.
That the sponsorship passed from Thissen to you with the change in control of the House isn't surprising. What is disappointing is that the Legislature hasn't passed the bill. Bluestem can't think of any group of farmers organized in Greater Minnesota--from the Land Stewardship Project to the Farm Bureau--that doesn't want programs to help beginning farmers.
It's even more apparent that the state should be working on this, given the unfortunate fact of Congressional ag leaders--and funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program--being left out of the fiscal cliff deal.
Getting together with Speaker Thissen and Representative Eken and re-introducing this legislation--then getting it passed through both ag policy and the environmental, natural resources and agriculture finance committee--might be a better use of your time than drafting divisive, urban-bashing columns.
Had I continued to serve as chair of the now eliminated House
Agriculture and Rural Economies Finance Committee, I planned to use the
majority of these funds (Agri Fund) for rural development and ag literacy and
education programs — things like 4-H, FFA, and Farm America. Now they
appear to be gone in favor of economic development programs which may or
may not assist rural Minnesota.
Really? That's a foregone conclusion? You so lack ability as a legislator that you can't make the case for 4-H and FFA? Or other types of rural development that helps the whole state? We're willing to bet that you can, if you spend less time submitting letters newspapers in swing districts and grandstanding in front of the cameras in the House chamber. Or writing inflamatory sentences like:
Minnesota cannot survive without our farmers and agriculture, so why is
the House majority attempting to demonize the men and women who put
food on everyone’s table?
. . . I was disappointed to read my colleague Rep. Rod Hamilton’s letter
in this newspaper attacking specific DFL legislators over the issue of
how the agriculture committees are structured and accusing DFLers of not
representing our rural districts. The session is barely a week old, yet
Rep. Hamilton would rather fan political flames than join together in
working productively on important agriculture issues.
Traditionally,
we have successfully advanced agriculture issues in the Legislature in a
bipartisan fashion. For example, in 2011, the agriculture budget was
the only finance bill we passed with broad bipartisan support before the
state shutdown. Rep. Hamilton’s negative tone is not the right
approach. As Chair of the Agriculture Policy Committee, I believe that
we will present a stronger voice for rural Minnesota by working together
as both Democrats and Republicans.
Challenging the advocacy
skills or commitment of rural members just because they are DFLers and
now are the majority caucus of the Minnesota House is not helpful in
getting to the outcome we all desire.
Poppe's concerns are echoed by Wagenius's vice chair, Andrew Falk, in an article in today's Sauk Centre Herald. Now, Bluestem not only knows young Falk, but his father, Murdock-area farmer Jim Falk, so it's hard to imagine any of the Falks not standing up for farmers and rural Minnesota, much less engaging in "demonizing" farmers.
Representative Andrew Falk (DFL-Murdock) is the vice-chair of the House Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Finance committee. He has been an active farmer his whole life, and has served in the legislature since 2008.
"I really believe that Rep. Hamilton is trying to make hay with this simply because he's upset about no longer being chair of the Ag Finance committee," Falk stated.
Falk stressed two important points on the matter.
"First, Dennis Ozment, who retired in 2008, was chair of the former House Ag, Environment and Natural Resources committee in the 2005 and 2006 sessions. While I haven't served with him, I've since gotten to know him and think highly of him," Falk said. "This structure was not an issue while Republicans were in charge. This seems like petty partisanship to me.
From 2007 to 2010, agriculture finance was a part of the House Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Finance committee. Rep. Al Juhnke (DFL-Willmar) chaired that committee before he lost re-election in 2010.
Ozment, a fire captain, represented Rosemount and Dakota County, which, although part of the metro area, still includes farms, and parts of Goodhue and Washington Counties. The committee also had the same name for a stretch in the 1990s, when it was chaired by former St. Paul representative C.Thomas Osthoff.
Indeed, Osthoff chaired the committee at height of the "Hog Wars" in Renville County. While some tried to frame the controversy as simply city folks moving out to the country without anticipating the smell of manure, if we're honest about the fight, we'll recall that the citizens of Renville County ended up electing DFLer Gary Kubly in that fight, certainly no ally of "Big Pig" but no enemy of farmers, either.
And the Sauk Centre Herald article goes on, with Farmer and Representative Falk adding that he'd like to talk to you and Rep. Wagenius, who holds some farmland of her own, about your concerns:
"My point is that throughout the years, agriculture has been included with other committee focuses," Falk said. "I know Rep. Wagenius. She has a farm in Douglas County with 50 acres. Between the work of her and myself as vice-chair, we won't let agriculture be diminished."
And Falk's quite willing to work with you on preserving that funding from ethanol payments for rural projects:
When asked about Hamilton's concern about agriculture funding, Falk replied, "If he knows of specific bills being introduced that take funding away from ag and put it to other areas, I'd like to know about them. In terms of something like the expiring ethanol producer payments, I'd like to focus on gearing that funding towards next-generation renewable energy. I don't want us to get into these rural vs. metro fights, especially in the opening week of the session."
Bluestem looked up the funding you're concerned about, Representative Hamilton, and it looked like the enabling legislation funds rural development projects through five years.
Write More Pro-Rural Legislation, Fewer Partisan Letters
If someone drops a bill in the hopper proposing to change that, take Vice-Chair Falk up on that. You and the Caucus might have to forego setting up your 2014 campaign rhetoric to do this, but maybe really working for rural Minnesota, rather than a return to power on the part of your caucus, is more important--especially given the demographic loss of power for all of rural America, regardless of party.
You haven't introduced any bills yet, as far as your page and the revisor's office reveal. Those proposals for ag youth education from last session? The ones you didn't have a co-sponsor for? They're good ideas.
Maybe you should talk to the chair and the vice-chair of the committee whose structure and leadership you scorn and see if they'll co-sponsor them. Of course, FFA and 4-H don't have to be just rural organizations; indeed, engaging urban kids in agriculture education is the bee's knees, if you ask us.
But Bluestem might not be the ones to help you out with that, Representative Hamilton. Reach across the aisle and chambers to check out freshman Senator Foung Hawj, from St. Paul's East Side. He's on the right committees and prior to getting elected, he received an award from the USDA for efforts related to urban agriculture. You might have some common ground.
In short, write fewer letters and more legislation for farmers.
Sincerely,
Bluestem Prairie
P.S. Speaking of common ground, Representative Hamilton: please quit framing urban and rural as environmentalist versus farmer. We've been going to watershed meetings and listening to farmers talk about erosion and water quality. We're pretty sure we heard farmers in the Le Sueur River Watershed say that they'd rather see the soil staying on their creeksides than becoming sediment choking Lake Pepin. Dividing people upstream and down doesn't help anybody.
Graphic: A Rod Hamilton meme.
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Lockout. It’s a word we’re all too familiar with in Minnesota. First,
let’s be clear what a lockout is: It’s the opposite of a strike. The
employer withholds work in order to gain concessions from workers.
While
we see the National Hockey League player lockout coming to an end,
Minnesota still has three major lockouts on its hands. Musicians of the
Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra have been
locked out since the fall. And one of the most egregious examples is in
the Red River Valley, where 1,300 skilled and highly trained workers who
turn beets into sugar have been locked out for nearly 17 months by
their already profitable employer — American Crystal Sugar.
Besides
the fact that these employers all are located in Minnesota, there is
another common thread. All three employers are represented by the
Minneapolis law firm of Felhaber, Larson, Fenlon and Vogt at the
bargaining table.
While those lawyers prosper, the rest of us are missing the sweet music from two orchestras, And sugar beet farmers, as well as locked-out workers--are paying for those billable hours, as Knutson continues:
Crystal Sugar’s farmer-shareholders haven’t been spared pain in this
lockout either. Shareholders have typically been paid about the same per
ton of sugar beets — or more — as shareholders in the nearby Minn-Dak
Sugar Cooperative. But this year, Crystal Sugar has estimated a beet
payment of $59 per ton, while Minn-Dak’s latest estimate is for a
payment of $74 per ton.
These lockouts continue to hurt workers, employers and communities. So, why are they continuing?
The
only ones who seem to be benefitting are the employers’ lawyers. Are
these attorneys giving their clients the best advice? Will these
lockouts leave wounds that are too deep for time to ever heal?
This isn't the first time Bluestem has seen this: management hiring a law firm with a rep for union busting. Is it in the best interest of the shareholders? Bluestem suspects there are farmers who'd love to have that $15 per ton to spend on their operations in their own communities, rather than watch management cut checks to a Twin Cities law firm and other costs of the lockout.
Photo: One big old pile of sugar beets--and American Crystal Sugar shareholders got $15 less than another area co-operative members. That's a lot less money to spend on their Main Streets.
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Blue Dog Collin Peterson is angry about the short shift farm programs got in the fiscal cliff deal. Minnesota's Land Stewardship Project, which works on local food, sustainable farming and economic justice issues in rural Minnesota, isn't pleased either.
That's a wide spectrum of ag grumpiness--although there's no sign yet that producers are ready to tractorade to DC. Yet.
Many farm groups sought changes that would have given farmers
protections, such as in the case of bad weather, while eliminating
controversial direct payments to farmers.
They didn't get them because the 2012 Farm Bill didn't get a vote in the House--although the Senate and the House Ag Committee approved it. Instead, Davis reports that the reset button was hit, and Congress has to work up a new bill. Meanwhile, the fiscal cliff deal cut out or didn't fund some important projects for conservation, new farmers and other pieces of the puzzle that help rural communities.
Farm policy takes a dramatic step backwards in the fiscal cliff deal
brokered in Congress and soon to be signed into law by President Barack
Obama. Rather than moving forward with much-needed financial and policy
reform Congress and the Administration prioritized continued excessive
commodity subsidies.
After expiration of the farm bill on October 1, 2012 and the
inability of the U.S. House to deliver a bill for conference, pressure
was on to include a farm bill extension in the ongoing fiscal cliff
deal. But along with a few other plums, what ended up being the center
point of the farm bill extension was continuation of the egregious
commodity program known as direct payments – subsidies provided to
producers with no regard for current production or market realities. The
fiscal cliff deal and all agriculture policy within it was initiated by
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Vice President Joe
Biden.
Extending direct payments was unexpected since nearly everyone in
agriculture has recognized the $5 billion a year in subsidies for this
commodity program as outdated and in need of reform. There is no logical
explanation for the extension of direct payments other than it panders
to southern commodity growers in favor with Senator McConnell.
And while wasteful commodity spending was extended, frozen out of the
late-breaking deal was virtually any support for new farmers, rural
development and even disaster aid; despite the worst drought gripping
our country in decades.
Another major failure was the decision not to remedy a funding
hang-up that will prevent farmers from using the Conservation
Stewardship Program (CSP) in the coming year. CSP is aimed at supporting
farmers who are maintaining and improving soil and water conservation
on their active farm land. The program has been popular in the Midwest
and nationally with 50 million acres now enrolled by farmers and
ranchers.
To add insult to injury, Congress gave the wealthiest Americans
increased exemption from estate taxes, a measure that is not only
fiscally imprudent, but will serve to keep more land locked up in the
hands of the heirs of large landowners and decrease new farming
opportunities.
All in all family farm agriculture loses in the fiscal cliff deal –
reverting to the policies of old and disregarding the growth areas in
this sector of our economy.
LSP continues to be committed to advancing a farm bill and
agriculture policy that provides for prosperous rural communities, a
healthy environment and more, not fewer opportunities in agriculture. In
the coming year we will renew efforts to demand reform and
accountability to wasteful and detrimental spending while supporting new
farmer and conservation provisions.
While Peterson and LSP don't always see eye-to-eye, clearly there's a lot of shared frustration over ag and rural America taking a back seat (or no seat at all) in Congress. When it comes to making cost-cutting elimination of programs like direct payments, the Senate and House Ag committees got that work done but had it disregarded, while far less costly but innovative programs that farmers and consumers want are cut or left without funding.
Urban readers: remember this the next time you blame Minnesota's farmers for direct payment subsidies. That's not what they've asked Peterson and Walz for in a farm bill.
And while Bluestem doesn't agree with all the cuts the House Ag committee made in the now-moribund 2012 Farm Bill, Peterson does have a point here:
The ag committee cut $35 billion in the bill it passed, but House
leaders never allowed the full body to consider. That cut was sought by
top Republicans, but Peterson said other committees did not comply by
finding cuts in their parts of the budget.
“The committees that were irresponsible and didn’t do their work got
what they wanted, and the Agriculture Committee got screwed,” Peterson
said. “It is a little hard for me to swallow.”
Hard not to be grumpy about that.
Photo: We're all Grumpy Cat now.
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National Farmers Union's government relations staff has posted a Fiscal Cliff/Farm Bill Extension Update that illustrates some of the reasons for the vulgar language flowing from the lips of MN Seventh District Congressman Collin Peterson.
Turning to the ways in which the compromise will affect rural Minnesota, Bluestem is pleased with some provisions like the extension of the wind energy production tax credit, but not so happy to read about developments like these on the nine-month extension of the Farm Bill:
The provisions included in the fiscal cliff deal were not a straight
extension of the 2008 bill, and the legislation provides no mandatory
funding for the energy title, specialty crop and organic provisions, and
beginning farmer and rancher programs, among others.
Land Stewardship Project, Minnesota Farmers Union and the Minnesota Farm Bureau have all worked for beginning farmer and rancher programs. With the aging of the state's farmers and high economic barriers to entering agriculture like the price of land and equipment (even for smaller operations), the programs are growing in importances for producers and consumers.
Late last night the House of Representatives passed Senate-negotiated fiscal cliff compromise legislation, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (H.R. 8 ),
sending the bill to the president’s desk and finally putting to rest
the negotiations that had dominated the lame duck session of the 112th
Congress. The Senate had previously passed the legislation in the early
morning hours of Jan. 1.
Included in the legislation was a one-year extension of the 2008 Farm
Bill, in addition to numerous provisions reauthorizing various expiring
tax rates and credits. The final extension was a great disappointment.
Congress had every opportunity to pass a new five-year farm bill by the
end of the year but chose instead to ignore its rural constituents. In
addition, the extension that was finally included in the fiscal cliff
bill was not the version drafted by the chairs of the House and Senate
Agriculture Committees, but one that was developed by Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., without input from agriculture leaders.
Lovely. Forum Communications' Ag Week has more in Bad step for ag?
Photo: Western Minnesota cattle farmer and LSP staffer Terry VanderPol explains dirt to new farmers. It's soil science, people.
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All of the statements, opinions, and views expressed on this site by Sally Jo Sorensen are solely her own, save when she attributes them to other sources.
The opinions, statements, and views of contributing writers are their own.
Sorensen, editor and proprietor of Bluestem Prairie, served as a New Media training and strategy consultant for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party from October 2009 through mid-April 2010. She now serves clients in the business and nonprofit sectors.
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