Dear Neighbor,
Before we get to actual legislative business, I want to congratulate Joe Gill, pictured above, for receiving a Minnesota House resolution (which I presented him Monday) honoring him for his work in promoting agriculture. Joe was named Communicator of the Year by the MN Farm Bureau and currently serves as west region vice president on the National Association of Broadcasting Board of Directors. Joe has been at KASM Radio in Albany since 1999 and does a great job of covering ag. I enjoy going on the air with him Tuesdays during the legislative session. He also has conducted radio shows in my legislative office while visiting the Capitol for special ag. events. Congrats again, Joe.
Among highlights from this week in St. Paul, I attended Rural Finance Authority meeting at the Ag. Dept. and we received an update on the state of agriculture in Minnesota. The chief economist from the Ag. Dept. called our nation’s current trade war with China the largest in history and expressed concern for the impacts of Chinese tariffs.
A couple of interesting factoids include China consuming one-third of the world’s production of soybeans. Also, China, Canada and Mexico are the three largest consumers of Minnesota’s soybean exports, accounting for half of our production.
We also received information from the Rural Finance Authority, which partners with local lenders to provide affordable credit to farmers. An RFA program geared toward helping beginning farmers get their operations off the ground has been very successful, with heavy demand. The RFA also helps existing operations by assisting in loan restructuring. I have authored a bill this session to appropriate $35 million to RFA so it can provide more of these services.
On a final note, the Greater Minnesota Jobs and Economic Development Finance Division has conducted a few meetings. I serve as the Republican lead on that committee, so I will be closely involved with issues and bills it takes on. For instance, we received an overview of a disaster-relief fund that was created in our state a few years ago to help provide more prompt and efficient responses without having to go through all the logistics of calling a special legislative session at the Capitol.
The disaster fund has performed well and needs to be replenished in order to continue functioning. I’ll pass along more as things unfold.
Sincerely,
Paul