Michigan’s agriculture sector will be at the Capitol in Lansing Thursday. The Senate Ag Subcommittee will hear testimony on Sen. Roger Victory’s Senate Bill 885. That bill would direct $1.4 billion into the state’s rural communities and food security systems.
“There’s three buckets—there’s a food security bucket; a rule development bucket; and education, workforce and talent development,” says Rebecca Park, legislative council for Michigan Farm Bureau.
Thursday’s hearing will bring in representatives from all of Michigan’s major food and agricultural businesses.
“We expect to have representatives from Meijer and SpartanNash, economic development folks from Lakeshore Advantage, a farmer who’s going to talk about the need for additional protein processing,” she says. “We also have another farmer who’s coming all the way from the UP to talk about the state of UP fairs in general and infrastructure challenges specific to the UP.”
If this bill were to pass, Park says it would be one of the biggest agriculture asks in Michigan’s recent history.
“The bill takes a holistic view of Michigan agriculture and looks at the challenges we’ve had in part because of COVID and some of it is longer-term—such as bovine TB,” says Park. “With this once in a generation, one-time dollars coming down from the federal government, [we are looking at] how can we make some really critical, long-lasting, innovative investments in Michigan agriculture.”
S.B. 885 is in the full appropriations committee in the Senate. Park says there will be continued dialogue with lawmakers to relay this bill’s importance to Michigan’s food and agriculture industries.
