Improved soil, water and climate health goal of proposed farm payment program

In her third time before the House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee to talk about nitrate contamination, Carrie Jennings likened soil and water health in southeast Minnesota to a patient hospitalized following years of unhealthy habits.

More farmers in the region need to adopt multiple healthy practices to address the immediate crisis, said Jennings, research and policy director at Freshwater. “We know these practices when used together will work.”

Direct payments could encourage more farmers to adopt more practices that protect water, improve soil health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is the idea behind a bill heard by the committee on an informational basis Thursday.

Sponsored by Rep. Kristi Pursell (DFL-Northfield), HF4989, as modified by a delete-all amendment and then further amended, would pay farmers in 10 southeastern counties $20 per acre to participate in certain soil health practices through a new Karst Region Clean-Water, Climate-Smart and Soil-Healthy Farming Fund pilot program.

To be eligible for the funds, farmers would have to practice cover cropping, no-till or strip-till, and precision nutrient management. They would also have to follow at least two other practices that include: perennial cropping, interseeding (planting cover crops on the same field as cash crops), organic production, roll crimping, and managed rotational grazing.

Money for the pilot program would come from a 40-cent per ton fee on fertilizers that currently funds the state’s Agricultural Fertilizer Research and Education Council. The fee, which raises about $1.3 million per year, and the council, are due to sunset in 2025.

But there are proposals for the program to continue and, also on Thursday, the committee laid over HF3411 that would extend the council for another 10 years.

Rep. Paul Anderson (R-Starbuck) has doubts about eliminating the council, which has strong support in the agricultural community.

Pursell acknowledged change is hard, but said the fee can help farmers in other ways.

Payments under the pilot program would be available to farmers in Dodge, Fillmore, Goodhue,? Houston, Mower, Olmsted, Wabasha, and Winona counties as well as some townships in Dakota and Rice counties.

They are in the karst region of southeast Minnesota which has seen water quality issues due to nitrate contamination. The Environmental Protection Agency has directed state agencies to address the problem.

The amended bill would eliminate a goal to have 100% participation by 2050, a provision included when it was first heard March 19. 

[MORE: Watch the March 19 hearing]

The bill would also establish a working group to examine how the state might develop a carbon credit market where farmers would be paid by greenhouse gas emitters to store carbon in the soil.

Anderson would oppose a state-run market, which would likely be the first in the country developed through an agriculture department.

But Pursell doesn’t see the private sector growing fast enough to meet the state’s carbon reduction goals.