As Planting Season Begins, Details of Green Acres Legislative Reforms Slow in Getting to Farmers
Land Stewardship Project Fact Sheet on Green Acres
Revisions Released this Week
CONTACT: Bobby King, LSP staff, 612-722-6377 (o); 507-450-7258 (c)
Heidi Morlock, LSP member and Belle Plaine farmer, 952-492-5314
4/29/09
BELLE PLAINE, Minn. — The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is calling on the Minnesota Department of Revenue to work aggressively with counties to communicate to farmers and landowners about the legislative reforms made to the Green Acres program. These reforms were signed into law April 3, but few landowners know the basics of these changes, such as that they create a grace period until the 2013 assessment to comply with the new law.
“As the growing season begins, if farmers make decisions based on last year’s laws, then we are going to lose land in conservation, more trees will be cut down and marginal land plowed,” said Land Stewardship Project member Heidi Morlock, a Belle Plaine farmer who is enrolled in Green Acres. “Farmers are anxious and there has been very limited communication to let them know the details of the reforms that have passed into law.”
To address this, LSP has created a four-page fact sheet detailing the reforms and how farmers and landowners can use them to keep land used for conservation enrolled in Green Acres. LSP is mailing the fact sheet to hundreds of farmers and landowners across the state this week, and making it available at www.landstewardshipproject.org/pdf/green_acres_2009_factsheet.pdf. The free fact sheet is also available by calling LSP’s Twin Cities office at 612-722-6377.
The 2009 “reforms” were made by the Minnesota Legislature in an attempt to address the problems created when it dramatically changed the program during the 2008 legislative session. The 2008 changes threatened farm conservation practices and were harmful to farmland preservation efforts. Many of the most controversial and harmful of the 2008 changes were repealed or amended this year.
Among the 2009 changes were:
- Repealing the change of the payback period from three to seven years.
- Repealing the exclusion from Green Acres of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) and Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) acres.
- Amending the distinction between “productive” and “unproductive” acres.
The Land Stewardship Project, along with 21 conservation groups and most of the state’s farm groups, called for a full repeal of last year’s changes. Dozens of farmers traveled to the Capitol and testified at five hearings. They spoke passionately about how the 2008 changes were harmful to good stewardship, and called for a repeal of the changes as the only way to restore trust with farmers and landowners when it came to the program.
However, Rep Ann Lenczewski and Sen. Tom Bakk, Chairs of the House and Senate Tax Committees, respectively, along with Rep. Paul Marquart and Sen. Rod Skoe, Chairs of the House and Senate Property Tax Division Committees, respectively, effectively opposed a full repeal.
“The reforms didn’t go as far as we wanted, but they are a big improvement over the harmful changes made last year to the program,” said Morlock. “Now the changes need to be communicated to farmers — and communicated quickly.”
