Over the 2013-2014 biennium, I had the honor of serving as the committee chair of Agriculture Policy in the Minnesota House. This provided the opportunity to be actively involved in crafting the budget for agriculture spending and defining priorities that are currently being carried out. As a part of the majority party, we prioritized our efforts to protect and enhance our agriculture sector and keep our food supply safe. After years of budget cuts, the DFL in the last biennium funded critical programs investing to keep Minnesota’s agriculture industry leaders in the nation. We funded a new program bringing surplus food from farms to food shelves for those in need, invested money researching diseases impacting animal agriculture, and created an avenue for research for perennial crops and invasive pests. We provided more than $17 million in property tax relief directly to our farmers. We’re proud of the turnaround in funding and support provided to put agriculture back on top. Once again this year, we are at the table working with the current House majority to continue our efforts.

This session, House DFL members are working in a bipartisan way to introduce a package of bills ensuring Minnesota maintains its status as an agriculture leader. Every economic indicator points to Minnesota having a budget surplus. Our House members on the agriculture committee are focusing on short and long term proposals that lift farmers up and provide the education our students need in an effort to help move agriculture forward for the next generation.

Establishing a system that allows us to strengthen agricultural awareness and increase opportunities for agriculture education into the future is essential. I am pleased to be the chief author on House File 1151, a bill taking on a number of issues in the area of ag-education. The bill expands opportunity for more high school students to have access to agricultural courses online and allows more students to get involved with FFA, which is a co-curricular activity. Another section of the proposal is providing regional ag-education advising rather than only school-based ag-education advising. This means current FFA advisers may have the opportunity to get paid for more of the actual days in the summer that they engage with students. This bill supports out-of-classroom experiences for FFA projects and supports regional advising as well by funding $1.5 million in grants to teachers. Creating educational and real-world opportunities for our children today will help our students become agricultural producers, suppliers, entrepreneurs and leaders of the future.

HF 1151 provides another $1 million in funds from the AGRI program to reimburse farmers who lease a portion of their property to schools for ag-education programs. To address the drastic shortage of ag teachers, this bill provides $1 million to boost the efforts of Southwest Minnesota State University to grow the Ag-Ed program they have developed and encourage the University of Minnesota, Crookston to again provide Ag-Ed. By growing the numbers of Ag-Ed teacher candidates, Minnesota schools can increase their ag course offerings and will have greater access to hire graduates from within the state rather than seeking graduates from our border states.

Encouraging more schools to provide access to courses in agriculture, providing greater incentives to our current ag educators to keep them working in our schools, and supporting farmers who want to partner with area schools for access to land for off-campus experiences are ideas that deserve consideration and discussion.

Agriculture in Minnesota supports more than 341,000 jobs and has an economic impact of $75 billion to Minnesota. There is a lot of discussion right now about how to grow our workforce and have skill building and career training to match the jobs. House File 1151 is a bill to do exactly that. I look forward to continuing the dialogue and the efforts to keep Minnesota’s Ag economy strong and growing into the future.

I can be reached by phone at 651- 296-4193, by mail at 291 State Office Building, 100 Martin Luther King Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155, or via email at rep.jeanne.poppe@house.mn. For those who would like to receive my e-updates from the Capitol, sign up on my legislative webpage: www.house.leg.state.mn.us/27B.