Minnesota's delegation travels the state to discuss the farm bill

Minnesota's congressional delegation has been taking a spin around the state in the past few weeks, meeting in conference rooms, barns and farmhouses patrolled by sleepy dogs and talking with farmers and hunger advocates about the farm bill.

On Friday, during an afternoon stop at the historic Oliver Kelley Farm outside Elk River, Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP whip in Congress, promised to keep the sizable nutrition title programs coupled with the twice-a-decade farm bill. Members of his Republican Party have criticized the federal food assistance programs — such as SNAP (once called food stamps) — as too costly.

"I have a position within the House," Emmer said. "They call it the whip. I think I can tell you with absolute confidence that [the nutrition programs] will not be separated out of the farm bill."

Earlier in the day, a GOP member who has objected to current SNAP funding as "unsustainable," Sen. John Boozman, of Arkansas, toured a farm in the southern Minnesota town of Oronoco with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Klobuchar and Boozman, the ranking member of that committee, spoke about the need to attach rural broadband funding to the farm bill.

"We used to think in terms of railroads, runways and water was how you develop an area," Boozman said. "If you're not wired, it just doesn't work."

Klobuchar also said she wanted to resolve a dairy disagreement with Canada through the farm bill.

"We're going to keep pushing that, as well, as just opening any markets that we can," the Democratic senator said.

The current farm bill — passed by a Republican majority in Congress and signed by then President Donald Trump in 2018 — expires in September. The bill is expected to cost more than a billion in spending on a range of programs from crop insurance to farmer's markets to rural sewers.

Earlier this month, Minnesota DFL Sen. Tina Smith, a member of Senate agriculture committee, hosted a roundtable discussion for farmers of color at the Good Acre in Falcon Heights.

Last week, Rep. Brad Finstad, a Republican from southern Minnesota's First District, toured an Organic Valley family farm in Goodhue County. Days later, Rep. Angie Craig, a Democrat from the southern metro who represents the Second District, met with organic farmers in a barn south of Northfield. Both members serve on the House Agriculture Committee.

On Friday at the Oliver Kelley Farm, Emmer joked he'd grown up as a city kid who always longed for the country as a parlay to opening up conversation on issues from farmer mental health assistance to the high price of fertilizer.

Fran Miron, a Washington County commissioner and Minnesota Farm Bureau member, pushed Emmer on one point, saying that a GOP debt ceiling package put forward by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would make cuts to ethanol and biodiesel subsidies.

Emmer said the measure was only meant to jump-start negotiations with the White House and he didn't expect it to become law.

"Rest assured as I sit here today, we will not be taking away the tax credit," Emmer said.

Emmer said he expected the House to take up a debt ceiling package Wednesday that also would narrow eligibility for federal food assistance by setting work requirements for more adults.

Staff writer Trey Mewes contributed to this report.