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Wisconsin Ag Coalition sets state budget priorities

Several of Wisconsin’s agricultural organizations are optimistic the next state budget will continue to fund some successful programs.

Jason Mugnaini is Wisconsin Farm Bureau’s director of government relations and also lobbies for the state’s ag coalition.  He tells Brownfield one issue stands out as something farm groups would like the Legislature and Governor to address. “At the top of the list, we’d love to see some rural and agricultural tax relief.”

Mugnaini says one successful program that needs to be funded again is the Agricultural Road Improvement Program, or ARIP. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t expect that we were going to have the impact from this program that we had. The nation’s first agricultural-specific road program, a 150-million dollar investment, improved transportation for 15-million tons of agricultural commodities. That is a twelve-billion-dollar economic value in improved transportation outcomes.”

Another program Mugnaini says he’s hoping gets support in the next biennial budget is the local meat and dairy processing grants. “Those two programs have really helped build processing capacity so that farms can increase their size if necessary or that more farms can come on with new products.”

Mugnaini says the last state budget helped many farmers grow or adapt to serve new markets. “Some of those grants up in northeast Wisconsin focused on dairy goats and meat goats and because of that, now, you have a thriving new livestock commodity stream in goats in northeast Wisconsin which we think is really great, and it’s driving meat in the industry.”

Mugnaini says the Wisconsin Initiative for Agricultural Exports is another valuable program that deserves another round of funding. “While the rest of the country is facing an agricultural trade deficit, which is a major, major, major concern, Wisconsin over the last two years actually increased its agricultural exports by almost 2%.”

Mugnaini says the funding from the last biennial budget allowed Wisconsin leaders to go to trade missions and expos around the world, opening new market opportunities. “One of the success stories, the tiny little country of Bahrain in the Arabian penninsula of the Persian Gulf, they increased cheese imports from the State of Wisconsin by over 8,000%. I mean, it’s a small country but those are directly tied to initiatives that we brought from the Wisconsin Legislature.”

Another successful program the Wisconsin Ag Coalition would like to see expanded is the Producer-Led Watershed Protection grants, where Governor Tony Evers has proposed doubling the funding from one to two million dollars.

Democratic Governor Evers will be presenting his budget proposal this month, and the Republican-controlled Legislature will then make its changes before sending the budget back to the Governor for his signature.

AUDIO: Wisconsin Farm Bureau’s Jason Mugnaini discusses the Wisconsin Ag Coalition’s priorities and state budget wishes with Brownfield’s Larry Lee.