By Rep. Jeanne Poppe

The Minnesota Legislature completed its 2019 session with a bipartisan budget that moves our state forward in many ways.

It was especially beneficial for agriculture.

From assisting struggling industries to funding new and innovative programs, our investments in Minnesota’s farmers weren’t solely confined to the agriculture portion of our budget, it was spread throughout in a multipronged approach.

The Agriculture, Rural Development, and Housing portion of Minnesota’s budget contains the bulk of our funding for agriculture and food. As an area of our budget that consistently has some of the most bipartisan support, many of our priorities stayed the same throughout session, such as our focus on farmer mental health. Our consensus budget invests $468,000 over the next biennium in farmer mental health, ensuring that our rural communities have access to counseling services, funding mental health programming at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and supporting the work of the Farm Advocates program.

Other highlights include the work that’s been done to expand our markets during this period of record-low commodity prices and ongoing trade wars. Our budget includes an additional staffer for trade and marketing at MDA, as well as $5 million for a state-of-the-art Soy Innovation Campus. We’re also establishing mutually beneficial markets by connecting our local farmers to Minnesota’s schools and food shelves.

More economic hits to our agricultural economy are not pleasant to think about. Our budget takes responsible measures to ensure that MDA is well-funded in preparation for future catastrophes, which includes prevention efforts against diseases such as African swine fever. We’re also increasing funds to fight the spread of invasive plants such as Palmer amaranth.

We’ve also invested in areas that may typically be seen as outside the norm for traditional agriculture and food economies, such as our budget work to establish a prosperous hemp industry in Minnesota. Funds are also available for beginning farmers wherever they come from, including the urban farms that are becoming more established in our state.

Assisting our dairy farms was an issue so important to the Minnesota Legislature that we provided funds from two different budget areas. Outside of the $5 million invested in our agriculture budget, an additional $3 million came from our Jobs & Energy section for the Dairy Assistance, Investment, and Relief Initiative. The substantial investment of $8 million ensures the majority of our dairy farmers will have the ability to buy into the Dairy Margin Coverage program created with the 2018 federal farm bill.

The 2019 tax bill includes several provisions to assist Minnesota’s farmers, including our efforts to conform to the federal expansion of allowances for section 179, which allows farmers to expense up to $1 million of qualifying equipment purchases. Farmers will also see a property tax cut of 50% on their existing school district building bonds, and a 70% property tax cut on new school building bonds.

I am pleased to report the positive outcome of the 2019 legislative session for agriculture in Minnesota. The budget bills negotiated within this session made important and meaningful agricultural investments, totaling more than $130 million, that highlight our determination to support Minnesota farmers.

Poppe is the chair of the Minnesota House Agriculture and Food Finance and Policy Division.