Agriculture omnibus finance bill repassed by House

The omnibus agriculture finance bill — initially passed in the House without a vote against it — was repassed by the House 77-53 Tuesday.

A 10-member conference committee reached agreement on a final version of the legislation Monday evening. The Senate repassed the bill Tuesday. It now goes to Gov. Mark Dayton.

Sponsored by Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-Mountain Lake) and Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake), SF780*/HF895 would appropriate more than $100 million during the upcoming biennium to fund the Department of Agriculture, Board of Animal Health and Agricultural Utilization Research Institute.

Those General Fund direct appropriations include:

• Department of Agriculture - $101.88 million
• Board of Animal Health - $10.77 million
• AURI - $7.29 million

The bill would also provide funding for farmer-led councils meant to help implement the state’s buffer laws; provide money for research to prevent avian influenza; establish a pollinator habitat and research account; appropriate funds to manage the state’s industrial hemp pilot program; and fund reimbursement payments for destroyed or crippled livestock.

Hamilton said the bill was largely the same as the House originally passed, although it contained some Senate provisions related to wolf-livestock conflict prevention, money to connect immigrants to farming opportunities and “hard numbers” for some appropriations to the Agricultural Growth, Research and Innovation program.

Rep. Clark Johnson (DFL-North Mankato) thanked Hamilton for the work he had done on the bill but urged members to vote against the bill so negotiations on it could continue and more money could potentially be added to fund an operating adjustment for the Department of Agriculture, among other needs.

“This is not the evening to turn down additional funding for agriculture,” Johnson said. “Let’s finish the negotiations.”

Rep. Jeanne Poppe (DFL-Austin), a member of the conference committee, said the bill had some problems and mentioned the “slicing and dicing” of the AGRI funds and the need for staff to oversee the state’s response to noxious weeds.

She told Hamilton, “You have done good work with the little money you have, but we could use a little more.”