ST. PAUL – Legislation Rep. Paul Anderson, R-Starbuck, authored to improve farm tractor safety passed the Minnesota House on Wednesday.
Anderson's proposal creates a new tractor rollover protection pilot grant program to mitigate dangers posed by unstable tractors. His bill provides $250,000 for this voluntary program and a separate provision allows for additional funds to be raised from the private sector to support the initiative.
"The main objective is to help make farming safer," Anderson said. "You can never hope to eliminate all the threats from danger that comes with the territory of farming, but tractor rollovers account for a significant number of accidents. This is one way we can bring down that number."
Anderson said the cost of installing rollover protection devices is between $1,000 and $1,500 per tractor, a factor that sometimes discourages implementation. Under provisions of the bill, the maximum cost to a farmer for installing roll-bar protection on a tractor will be $500.
"It is one of those things where dollars are tugged many different ways and it is easy to put off installing roll bars because there might be other expenses that appear to be more pressing," Anderson said. "Sometimes folks never get around to it and the consequences can be tragic."
Anderson's bill passed as part of a House omnibus package. Other provisions related to agriculture which advanced include funding for livestock disease prevention and response funds in the event of a future agriculture crisis. This follows last year's record investments in agriculture with significant funding to address the avian flu crisis which struck Minnesota.
Other parts of the omnibus bill featured provisions related to job growth, energy, the environment and natural resources. Notable items approved under those categories include $40 million in new funding for broadband internet expansion and $5 million for workforce housing targeted at Greater Minnesota.
There also is a new grant program to assist Greater Minnesota communities struggling with child care shortages and a repeal of the statute allowing for the unionization of independent day care providers. Child care providers earlier this year overwhelmingly voted down unionizing their industry.
"This repeal is in response to the position taken by providers, many of whom felt this was a top-down push to unionize an industry that hadn't been asking for it," Anderson said.
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