By Rep. Paul Anderson
It was a sad week of violence and protesting in Minnesota and all across the country. Before rushing to conclusions, we need to let the process work through the facts of each case. In the Minnesota incident, the only information available so far is what’s on a Facebook video. I have received emails demanding that laws be changed in an effort to keep such tragic incidents from happening again. One even went so far as to say that police should not be allowed to take their firearms out of their holsters until “shots have been fired in their direction.”
In my opinion, it would be very difficult to legislate what law enforcement can or cannot do in certain situations. Each situation can be dramatically different and can change in a moment’s notice. For example, approaching a stopped car in the dark of night could be totally different from doing the same thing during daylight hours. For the most part, law enforcement does a good job under difficult circumstances. And to offer opinions, like our governor did, that if the shooting victim had been white he’d still be alive, is inappropriate until all the facts concerning the case come out.
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It’s been a busy summer so far of attending meetings and going on tours. In late June, Minnesota Milk hosted a tour of dairy operations in southeastern Minnesota. The Hastings Co-op Creamery has not only survived as the industry consolidated, but it’s grown and is looking to construct new facilities. We also visited an organic dairy farm in the area and were told of the expanding market for organic milk and other dairy products. There are currently 119 organic dairies in Minnesota, with another 23 in the process of converting. That’s a huge growth curve, and officials with the organic co-op at the farm said the demand is there to absorb that increase in production.
Last week I attended the summer conference of the Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators. Attendance by teachers was excellent with well over 200 on hand. Ag educators work at three levels, with our public schools being one level, and post-secondary and Farm Business Management being the other two. Increased funding from the Legislature has helped the FBM program replace retiring teachers and add new ones. Ag classes and FFA programs are expanding at many high schools around the state. And post-secondary schools such as Ridgewater in Willmar and Alexandria Technical and Community College do a great job of training students for the many positions available in agriculture-related fields. As one instructor commented, “It’s a good time to be in ag education!”
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No two years on the farm are ever the same, with the weather playing a major role in that statement. Where our farm is located, just south of Lake Minnewaska in Pope County, we couldn’t buy a decent rain from the middle of May all the way through June. My good neighbor keeps weather records, and he said that the total at his place for the month of June was only 1.2 inches—the second driest June in his 40 years of farming. Our crops were showing definite signs of stress. Then, on the night of the Fourth of July, with only a 20 percent chance of rain, we finally received around an inch. That must have primed the pump because by week’s end we had close to 4 inches with another storm moving our way as I write this on Monday morning.
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