The Minnesota Senate Agriculture Committee advanced a bill to increase funding for the state’s Agricultural, Growth, and Innovation program. AGRI supports numerous programs, including biofuels infrastructure, crop research, meat processing and county fair grants. Without this funding bump, Minnesota Department of Agriculture Deputy Commissioner Andrea Vaubel said key programs will be affected. “As of right now, there’s some programs that the funding does go down,” Vaubel told the committee. “We’re talking about meat processing going down about $1 million, our bio-incentive payment program going down about $2.75 million, our biofuels infrastructure grant program also drops, and then the amount that we have for non-specified or non-earmarked funding also drops.: Vaubel said the non-earmarked funding allows MDA to be nimble and address emerging issues. The bill was laid over for inclusion in an omnibus bill.
News Categories
Latest RRFN Podcasts
Subscribe to RRFN
Get a weekly digest from RRFN to stay up-to-date on all the latest news in agriculture.