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Minnesota creates new office to support ‘emerging farmers’ [1]

['Madison Mcvan', 'More From Author', '- July']

Date: 2023-07

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is hiring a director for the Emerging Farmers Office as part of a larger push to diversify the agriculture industry.

In May, lawmakers approved $1.5 million in funding over the next two years to expand the Emerging Farmers Office. The director will do outreach and facilitate grant programs for new and underserved farmers, according to a job listing posted Saturday.

MDA defines “emerging farmers” as Indigenous, immigrant, veteran, LGBTQ, young or beginner farmers, as well as women and people of color, groups that have historically been excluded from traditional government assistance programs.

It’s the first state office in the country dedicated to supporting new farmers, MDA spokesperson Allen Sommerfeld said.

Increasing consolidation in the food and agriculture industry has made starting farms more difficult for beginners, especially those without connections to existing American commodity farms. In listening sessions with the Emerging Farmers Working Group, participants named access to capital, discrimination, land availability and land prices as barriers to starting their own farms.

Fewer than 2% of Minnesota’s 111,000 farmers are people of color, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, the most recent year data is available.

The Emerging Farmers Office, created by the Legislature in 2021, has only employed one person — an outreach and engagement coordinator — who serves as a point person at MDA for diverse people interested in agriculture, according to a report by the Emerging Farmers Working Group. The addition of a full-time director will increase the office’s capacity for connecting underserved farmers to the resources available to them.

MDA announced a $540,000 grant program in April to provide technical assistance and crop insurance subsidies to emerging farmers.

The Legislature also renewed funding for MDA’s low-interest loans, which includes a program for beginning farmers, and expanded the beginning farmer tax credit to include land transactions between family members.

The Biden administration has funded several initiatives to fight corporate consolidation in the agriculture industry, including grants to expand small-scale meat processing and incentives for domestic fertilizer production.

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[1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/minnesota-creates-new-office-to-support-emerging-farmers/

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