The Minnesota legislative session is entering its final week and Ag Commissioner Thom Petersen says there’s still a lot of work to be done. “It’s a bit of a mixed bag for agriculture, at the moment. We did pass the DAIRI bill and the governor signed that and that’s going to help farmers who enrolled in the Dairy Margin Coverage federal program, but the rest of the bills are kind of stalled out.” The ag finance bill is expected to be on the Senate floor Tuesday. “That bill has some clarifying language for our down payment assistance program for farms. It also has some changes to the seed potato statutes, which is important for our seed potato farmers up in northwest Minnesota. It also extends the farmer lender mediation program, which is set to sunset next year.”
