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 six priority issues for the 2022 state legislative session, and our efforts to advance those issues are highlighted below. 

Recap: Week of March 14-18, 2022

During the week, our public policy team and leadership connected with elected officials and other policy influencers to share our member's stories and build relationships to reinforce our position as a leader in agriculture issues in Minnesota.

We are quickly approaching the first legislative deadline! To reduce the logjam at the end of the session, the legislature sets three committee deadlines. The first deadline is for committees to act favorably on bills in the house of origin, the second deadline is for committees to act favorably on bills, or companions of bills, that met the first deadline in the other house and the third deadline is for committees to act favorably on major appropriation and finance bills. The deadlines do not apply to the House committees on Capital Investment, Ways and Means, Finance, Taxes, or Rules and Legislative Administration, nor to the Senate committees on Capital Investment, Finance, Taxes, or Rules and Administration.

This year’s deadlines are: 

  • 1st deadline - March 25, 2022
  • 2nd deadline - April 1, 2022
  • 3rd deadline - April 8, 2022

Farm Bureau priority issues continue to advance at the state capitol this week (please note this is not an inclusive list of bills supported or opposed by MFBF):

S.F. 3481 (Westrom) Meat cutting and butchery training grant appropriation and S.F. 3320 (Rarick) Meat and poultry processor training grants appropriation. MFBF supports both bills; Director of Public Policy Amber Glaeser testified in support for both bills in front of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The bills were both laid over for possible inclusion in a future omnibus bill. Both bills support MFBF’s 2022 priority issue to address food and agriculture supply chain challenges.

S.F. 3737 (Westrom) Agriculture best management practices grant program creation and appropriation. MFBF supports this bill that creates a grant program for voluntary soil health practices; during the Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, Director of Public Policy Amber Glaeser testified in support of this bill and MFBF joined eight other organizations in a coalition letter of support. The bill was laid over for possible inclusion in a future omnibus package. This bill supports our 2022 priority issue to lead the way in sustainability.

H.F. 4274 (Lippert) Drainage registry information portal established. MFBF opposes this bill. It was heard in the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee and laid over for possible inclusion in a future bill. 

H.F. 2929 (Marquart) School building bond agricultural tax credit amount increased. MFBF supports the Ag2School Tax Credit; it was laid over for possible inclusion in a future tax bill. This bill supports our 2022 priority issue of investing in the future of agriculture.