Fight over tree fund sticking point in Minnesota Legislature's dueling drought bills

No one doubts drought last year withered hayfields, sucked wells dry and cracked open earth in Minnesota. Farmers lost, in some cases, nearly a year's worth of income.

But seven months after Gov. Tim Walz proposed a $10 million drought relief package, bills have yet to pass both legislative chambers, stagnating in a dispute over a program to fund seedlings and shade trees lost in the drought.

Farmers are waiting.

Last year, Liz Dwyer — an organic produce and livestock farmer in Stearns County — planted more than 2,500 flowering plants, including dahlias, only to see five flowers bloom.

"Not only did I lose a tremendous amount of income," said Dwyer, who sells to a Twin Cities wholesaler, "this year I've had to pay to get all new tuber stock, just to get back to what we had before."

Up among pine and meadows in southern Cass County, Sarah Kuschel said the heat fried hay crops, driving her and her husband's herd of cattle to the pastures of South Dakota in search of hay. Some neighbors sold off cows.

"For the winter, we did not have enough to feed them," Kuschel said. "I didn't know how much that was going to impact our kids, not having their cows at home."

Meanwhile on Thursday afternoon in his St. Paul office, Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen acknowledged the fight over the seedling fund has flummoxed him, noting trees are often friends to farmers.

"It seemed like a natural link to put those things together," Petersen said.

Both the DFL-controlled House of Representatives and Republican-controlled Senate each passed bills with $10 million in relief through a mix of grants and loans.

But the House — in a proposal backed by the governor's office — also would deliver $13 million for the Department of Natural Resources to, in turn, pay towns, counties and tribal governments to replenish shade trees and seedlings also damaged during the 2021 drought. By the DNR's own estimate, more than 70% of its recent conifer plantings have been killed — with undoubtable long-term impacts to recreation and timber.

"I think Minnesotans appreciate their trees," said Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, during a conference committee meeting April 19. "Whether they're in front of their house or in their farmstead windbreak or they're involved in the logging community, ... it's part of who we are."

But Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, who chairs the Agriculture and Rural Development Finance and Policy Committee, has held fast in opposition to linking the DNR piece to the farmers' drought-relief bill, arguing ranchers are losing hay and selling off herds right now.

Westrom, who says the DFL's plan to fund tree planting will "slow down" relief for farmers, pressed DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen during the April 19 conference on the urgency for replanting trees.

"Hypothetically," Westrom asked, "if we pass this bill yet this week, will you be out planting trees next week because the money got passed this week?"

Later when Hansen noted the House would be giving away trees at the Capitol on Arbor Day, Westrom responded that the soil was still frozen out in his county.

DNR funding isn't the only distinction between the House and Senate bills. Differing eligibility rules for farmers to access a revolving loan fund and different approaches to a county's drought status are among a host of other disputes.

But the tree funding remains a central tension.

On Thursday, Rep. Mike Sundin, DFL-Esko, chair of the House Agriculture Committee, said he thought the sides were "close" on a deal that would aid "ag producers in Minnesota, large and small."

Meanwhile, farmers keep waiting.

Dwyer and her husband provide multi-colored cauliflowers and grass-fed beef to farmers markets in Minneapolis and St. Joseph. She said the drought forced them to lay off their one employee and pushed her husband to pick up a second job.

This year, they've scaled down from 100 members of their community-supported agriculture program to just 30. She racked up credit card debt to pay for seed.

"We drained our personal savings account," said Dwyer. "It's a miracle we're still farming."

For Kuschel, April's wet snows laid moisture into her pasture. But she sees the drought's impact lingering. Lately, neighbors have recounted the dryness of 1976 or the 1980s — arguing 2021 was worse.

"These were always the benchmarks that we heard about growing up — the really tough times," Kuschel said. "If this was worse than that, where does it leave us?"