Each week during the Minnesota legislative session, the Minnesota Farm Bureau will highlight its work with elected officials to support our members and agriculture. While we advocate for our members on a wide variety of topics, our Board of Directors set five priority issues for the 2024 state legislative session, and our efforts to advance those issues are highlighted below.

Recap: Week of February 19-23

Session is getting back to business during its second week with regular committee meetings and bill hearings. The agriculture committees heard presentations from the Department of Agriculture, the Board of Animal Health, and the Office of Broadband Development while the environment committees heard updates from the Department of Natural Resources and Board of Water and Soil Resources. 

On Thursday, MFBF Vice President Carolyn Olson attended committee meetings and visited with several members of the House Agriculture Committee. A focus of the House Agriculture Committee was discussing nitrates in the soil and updates from the Department of Agriculture and the University of Minnesota. We will continue to monitor these hearings as they strongly relate to farmers and their operations.

 Bills of note this week:

HF3389 (Pursell)/SF 4136 (Xiong) - Subsurface drain tile installation and modification reporting required.

Bill Summary: Requires the landowner to report any installation or modification of drain tile to the Board of Water and Soil Resources. House author amended bill to require reporting only at the point of real estate sale and placed liability on seller.

MFBF Position: Oppose as written; neutral to amended language.

Impact on our Members and Agriculture: This would create unnecessary reporting that is already conducted by county and SWCD authorities and penalize the seller for not disclosing drain tile at sale.

Action taken by MFBF: Notified legislators of our opposition.

Status: Laid over in House Environment Committee on 2/21/24. Not heard in Senate.

 

HF 3385 (Pursell)/SF 3558 (Kunesh) - Public waters definition modified.

Bill Summary: Expands the definition of public waters beyond the public waters inventory.

MFBF Position: Oppose as written.

Impact on our Members and Agriculture: New bodies of water not on the public waters inventory could be considered public waters by the DNR which would create additional requirements for landowners including buffers, management, reporting, etc.

Action taken by MFBF: Notified legislators of our opposition. Collaborated with other agriculture groups to provide public testimony.

Status: Laid over in House Environment Committee on 2/21/24. Laid over in Senate Environment Committee on 2/22/24.

 

HF 3550 (Hansen)/SF 3559 (Hawj) - Environment and natural resources provisions modifications and appropriation.

Bill Summary: Board of Water and Soil resources policy bill.

MFBF Position: Monitoring

Impact on our Members and Agriculture: This is a large policy bill and we are working to determine the implications of it on our members.

Status: Passed in Senate Environment Committee and referred to General Orders on 2/20/24. Passed in House Environment Committee and referred to General Orders on 2/21/24.