Expand Minnesota’s Rural and Agricultural Economy

The current federal across-the-board tariffs, volatile input costs, and cuts to rural health care have created major headwinds for our entire state, especially in rural Minnesota. These headwinds may well be constants, but they can’t be an excuse for not moving forward economically in Minnesota. As Governor, Amy Klobuchar will work with rural businesses and farmers to expand our rural economy by growing and producing more products, finding new markets, inventing things, and exporting to the world. That means partnering with rural businesses and helping them grow, expanding new markets and uses of products like biofuels, building local fertilizer production, supporting local food infrastructure, launching a Minnesota Innovation Network to cultivate new ideas across our state, and lowering the cost of farming. This plan has a particular focus on agriculture, with more to come as Klobuchar will outline plans for other economic sectors in the future.

This builds on Amy Klobuchar’s work in the U.S. Senate, where she has repeatedly reached across the aisle to deliver for rural Minnesota – teaming up with Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) to help rural businesses break into new international markets, working with Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) to make E15 available year-round to support farmers and bring down fuel costs, advancing the bipartisan Farm to Fly Act with Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) to expand sustainable aviation fuel and open new markets for farmers, and championing biomanufacturing to turn Minnesota crops into the products of the future. The Agriculture Committee was the first committee Klobuchar asked to be on in the Senate and as a member of the committee and current Ranking Member, she has worked with her colleagues to pass three bipartisan farm bills into law and is working on a fourth. And, as a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, she has put a major focus on workforce training, energy development, rural exports, and tourism in Greater Minnesota.

Klobuchar’s running mate, former Fergus Falls Mayor Ben Schierer, has extensive experience in rural economic development. As mayor, he worked to revitalize the Fergus Falls riverfront and bring local businesses back downtown. A former small business owner, he currently works with the West Central Initiative, a regional nonprofit dedicated to economic development.

• Increase markets for rural businesses. Partner with manufacturers, medical employers, and other businesses across Greater Minnesota to help them expand markets and grow. Work with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the federal Foreign Commercial Service, the Minnesota Trade Office (MTO) within the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), and the IRRRB, to open new domestic and international markets for rural businesses and recruit new businesses in Greater Minnesota. This builds on Senator Klobuchar’s bipartisan legislative work with Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) to help small-town and rural businesses reach international markets and grow exports.
• Connect rural businesses to international markets. Make sure rural interests are included in any efforts to recruit and expand business opportunities with other countries. Put a special emphasis on export training for rural and small businesses, including farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and innovators.
• Cut red tape for rural businesses. Give rural employers timely, predictable answers from state government so they can plan, expand, and build; pair the comprehensive permitting review and “One-Stop Shop” enrollment portal with firm response timelines and a single point of contact for a clear yes-or-no on permits, licenses, and land, without lowering health, safety, or environmental standards. Work with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise Minnesota, and the trades to streamline permitting and encourage expansions, relocations, and startups.
• Expand access to state land for local development. Create a clear process for cities to acquire state-owned and tax-forfeited land for housing, commercial, and industrial development.
• Promote and expand tourism across our state. Promote rural Minnesota, including our parks and trails, agritourism, farm-to-table restaurants, breweries, museums, music venues, theaters, and – to mention a few – iconic sites like Bemidji’s Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, Ironworld, Redhead Mountain Bike Park, the Central Lakes Region, Lake Superior, multiple river attractions, Mississippi River cruises, Tribal historic sites, and the world’s only SPAM Museum through Explore Minnesota. As a long-time lead of the bipartisan Senate Travel and Tourism Caucus and the lead author of multiple pieces of passed legislation on tourism, Senator Klobuchar will have a unique perspective on how to expand tourism in our state.

Strengthen local food processing and infrastructure.

• Expand local and regional meat processing, creating new opportunities for farmers to market their products. Build on successes in meat processing to build more capacity across other product types.
• Strengthen the food supply chain with regional food hubs, warehouses where small farmers aggregate product for sale to hospitals, universities, and other public institutions, bridging the gap between a family farm and a large institution. Expand support for local farmers markets and increase institutional purchases of local food for schools, child-care centers, and hospitals through Minnesota Grown and Farm to School.
• Support Minnesota Grown to help producers brand and market local products.

Lower the cost of farming.

• Lower costs for farmers and make farming easier. Expand the farm equipment sales-tax exemption to include fencing and grain-bin equipment, protect full first-year tax deductions for major farm equipment and machinery purchases, and update state programs so farms can access the resources meant for them.
• Build local fertilizer production and storage to create price stability for farmers by backing efforts to manufacture key inputs, including green ammonia, using renewable energy.
• Expand on-farm energy, supporting the development of on-farm solar, wind, and methane digesters.

Kids who grow up in rural Minnesota should be able to stay in rural Minnesota – but right now, too many can’t. Employers struggle to recruit workers who can’t always find a place to live. Parents can’t take or keep jobs when there’s no child care nearby. And families won’t put down roots in communities where they can’t access health care – yet rural hospitals and clinics are at risk of closing because of new Trump administration cuts. Amy Klobuchar knows that one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work for rural communities, and she will work to close these gaps: building more homes, expanding child care options, protecting rural health care, creating new opportunities for apprenticeships and one- to four-year degree programs and beyond in everything from health care to hospitality to agriculture to mining and manufacturing, and supporting beginning farmers so that Minnesotans can afford to live, work, and raise a family in rural Minnesota.

Increase access to affordable child care in rural communities.

• Expand rural child care by building on the great examples that already exist in rural Minnesota, from Luverne to the Iron Range, from Austin to Warroad, including expanding existing child care providers and supporting innovative models of care such as child care “pods.” Expedite state training and retention resources for communities with the most acute child care shortages, and help small child care providers reduce overhead while preventing fraud and waste with access to a child care operations hub.

• This includes always improving the excellent rail and port infrastructure that carries Iron Range iron ore, agricultural, and other products to the Port of Duluth and out to market. Use project bundling to combine multiple small bridge and road repairs into single contracts, cutting paperwork and overhead, and attracting more competitive private bids.