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Minnesota lawmakers hope to boost dairy farm incomes

The leader of the Minnesota House Agriculture and Food, Finance and Policy committee says legislators are looking for ways to boost the incomes of dairy farmers across the state.

DFL Representative Jeanne Poppe of Austin tells Brownfield the dairy community is hurting and needs help.

“And sometimes boosting incomes means having them pay less on certain things. So if there’s a way to give them some money toward insurance that allows them to not have to pay for that. Maybe there’d be some funding for Farm Business Management that wouldn’t be something they’d have to pay out-of-pocket.”

She says the number of dairies able to stay in business is shrinking.

“And if they can (stay in business), then it might just be health insurance if we can do something along the lines of improving the cost for them, (or) improve the tax structure so they can have a bit of a boost there.”

Poppe says the dairy safety net in the new farm bill is an improvement, but Minnesota lawmakers want to do even more to alleviate the financial stress dairies are under.