Minnesota

With the 2018 farm bill on the horizon, Senate leaders have re-jiggered membership of the Senate Agriculture Committee, adding Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska and newly appointed Democrat Tina Smith of Minnesota to the panel.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture set a June 20 cut-off date for spraying the weedkiller dicamba on GE soybeans and barred application of the herbicide when temperatures top 85 degrees, said the Associated Press.

State agriculture commissioner Doug Goehring announced “North Dakota-specific” rules on use of the weedkiller dicamba on GE soybeans in the new crop year. They include a ban on spraying when temperatures top 85 degrees and a total cutoff of dicamba use after June 30.

State officials should set a cut-off date for spraying dicamba on genetically engineered soybeans as well as a temperature cut-off of 85 degrees to reduce greatly the chance of damage to neighboring crops, says a task force of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. The state restrictions would be in addition to the more stringent rules recently adopted by the EPA.

Minnesota ruled that biofuels will need to contain a mix of 20 percent soybeans or other renewable fuel sources, cutting the amount of emissions while boosting demand for soybeans, said MPR News. "This is an opportunity to add value to farmers' products," state agriculture commissioner Dave Frederickson said last Thursday, according to the report. "Given the fact that the first B10 mandate actually added about 63 cents per bushel, on every bushel sold, we're hoping to double that as we move into a B20 mandate."

In the latest court ruling in a 20-year tussle over gray wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the U.S. Appeals Court for the DC Circuit put the predator back on the endangered species list, says MLive Media Group. The Interior Department delisted the Great Lakes wolves in 2011, saying the wolf population had recovered enough that federal protection was no longer needed and states could take over management of the animals.

Farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota produce around 60-80 million pounds of plastic every year, from bags to hold silage to tunnels that protect crops. But in the past two years, thousands of farmers in the two states have joined a program run by Arkansas-based Revolution Plastics to recycle their plastic waste.

Illinois Rep. Mike Bost, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, faces a potentially strong challenger in Democrat Brendan Kelly, says Roll Call, which rates the race as "likely Republican" instead of the previous "solid Republican." The Capitol Hill publication also said St. Louis County commissioner Pete Stauber, a Republican, will run for the seat held by Minnesota Democrat Rick Nolan, an Agriculture Committee member who narrowly won re-election last November.

Fourteen-term Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, a regular target of Republicans as a Democrat in a GOP-leaning district, told Roll Call that he's running for another term. "Yeah, I'm running. I've got 700 grand in the bank," the Democratic leader on the House Agriculture Committee told the Capitol Hill newspaper.

A trade group for solar power says installation of solar panels is surging in southern Minnesota, especially in utility-scale projects, reports The Associated Press. In one instance, a farmer decided to lease a rocky eight-acre field for installation of solar panels with a total capacity of 1 megawatt of electricity and an annual rental payment that is "a lot more" than it was generating as a cattle pasture.

It's up or out for six-term Minnesota Rep. Tim Walz, a longtime member of the House Agriculture Committee. He's running for the Democratic nomination for governor, reports Minnesota Public Radio, in a race with three other announced candidates to succeed Gov. Mark Dayton, who is retiring.

As part of a pollinator plan announced last fall, the Minnesota Agriculture Department sought regulatory authority over seeds coated with neonicotinoids, blamed by some environmentalists for the decline in bee populations. Committees in the state House and Senate rejected the proposal, says Minnesota Public Radio.

Come November, 11 months from now, Minnesota farmers will be required to leave a 50-foot strip of permanent vegetation along waterways to filter runoff from their fields – a landmark conservation effort. However, Minnesota Public Radio says some county officials are asking for a delay because of confusion over how the law is supposed to work and a lack of money for them to enforce it.

The Mississippi River, rising from Lake Istasca in northern Minnesota to flow 2,340 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, "is heading toward an ecological precipice," says the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a special report. In five years, 400 square miles of forests, marshes and grasslands in the upper Mississippi have been converted to agriculture and urban development, "endangering the cleanest stretch of America’s greatest river with farm chemicals, depleted groundwater and urban runoff."

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed an amendment to the California Seed Law, exempting “non-commercial seed sharing activities from industrial labeling, testing, and permitting requirements,” says Shareable.

When state officials said many rivers and streams around Edgerton in southwestern Minnesota were unsafe for swimming and fishing because of agricultural run-off, it wasn't news in the local paper.

In FERN’s latest story, in partnership with The New York Times, reporter Ted Genoways explains how Tim Walz, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, is taking the fight to Republicans in rural America.