A group of nearly 80 Minnesota Land Stewardship Project members met this week with Congressman Collin Peterson, House Ag Ranking Member, to talk about the new farm bill. Canby area farmer and LSP member Darwin Bach says they asked for more funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program.

He says they also asked the Minnesota Congressman for a fix for the Conservation Reserve Program in the farm bill and to increase the cap on acres.

Bach says Peterson’s number one priority is fixing the Margin Protection Program for dairy farmers by making it a tiered program to incentivize smaller producers to sign up for it. He says that same type of tactic should be used to improve the crop insurance program.

Bach says Peterson thinks there’s room to increase the overall funding in the farm bill because in past programs agriculture has taken several rounds of cuts.