Urging lawmakers to ease regulations, area producers and agriculture experts testified before the House Agriculture and Rural Development Finance Committee at its field hearing held in the city Tuesday.

Wednesday, October 27, 1999

Urging lawmakers to ease regulations, area producers and agriculture experts testified before the House Agriculture and Rural Development Finance Committee at its field hearing held in the city Tuesday.

The Albert Lea hearing concentrated on pork producers and the troubles they face. However, other farmers discussed soy-diesel and ethanol.

The Albert Lea hearing is part of an 18-stop tour through rural Minnesota from now until December.

&uot;We felt that we needed to get out of St. Paul and listen to real people,&uot; said Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea. &uot;Not everyone finds it convenient to travel to St. Paul for hearings.&uot;

Hearings held in communities throughout the state are meant to make it easy for farmers like Marlow Wangen to participate in the legislative process without leaving their farms for an extended period of time during harvest.

Wangen, an Albert Lea livestock producer, was scheduled to address the cost of regulations.

Wangen told the House committee that if it wanted to make things easier for farmers, it &uot;needs to start with the MPCA.&uot;

&uot;What has hurt the state of Minnesota more than (anything) is the MPCA,&uot; Wangen said.

Because of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Wangen said he is forced to process in Iowa what he produces in Minnesota.

&uot;We couldn’t locate in Minnesota because of the MPCA, so I went to Iowa,&uot; he said.

Wangen was frustrated that producers have not been able to influence the MPCA’s policy making process.

&uot;They make all the rules, and no one in this room ever gets any input,&uot; Wangen told the committee. &uot;They make us live and die by these rules, but we never have any input.&uot;

In order to boost prices, Minnesota producers, and American producers in general need to be able to export hogs, two pork producers testified.

Dave Preisler, executive director of Minnesota Pork Producers, said Canada has a larger corner on the hog export market because that country lacks the &uot;political baggage&uot; that America carries.

Preisler realized that there was little the committee could do about it, but was simply explaining that Canada has a better record because, &uot;they don’t accidentally bomb embassies.&uot;

He also emphasized that America’s dollar, stronger than Canada’s, makes U.S. hogs more expensive.

But Preisler felt that the state government could work with the feds to ease burdens.

He proposed the state offer matching funds to finance a feasibility study &uot;so pork and beef producers could move up the chain.&uot;

Preisler added that the popularity of protein diets should help pork producers in the domestic market.

Linden Olson, chair of the National Pork Producers’ Committee on Producer Contracts and a Worthington-area pork producer, said three things are required to affect exports: environmental law, labor supply and community support.

He felt that companies are pulling out of America in favor of countries with more lenient laws and a more plentiful labor supply that will work at a lower wage.

Community support is required to keep the family farmer alive, Olson told the committee. He was in favor of labeling producers to indicate where they were grown.

Olson also felt that contracts between the producers and the packers need to be more regulated in order to protect producers.

&uot;Contracts were originally instigated by the producers, not the packers,&uot; Olson said. &uot;Everyone had a lot of good reasons in the beginning.&uot;

But packers began interpreting contracts in a way that would guarantee that they pay the lowest price to the producers, Olson said. He hoped more regulation on contract pricing would offer producers a fair price for hogs.

Members of the Soybean Growers Association and EXOL also had a chance to speak to the committee.

Roger Peterson, a Freeborn County farmer, had requested the committee review recent research on soy diesel.

&uot;It’s cleaner and it creates a market for homegrown soy,&uot; Peterson said.

Currently, farmers can &uot;achieve a profit level of $35 a bushel, but there’s a lot of oil left over,&uot; Peterson said.

Using soy diesel would be better for the environment, allow preservation of natural resources and reduce the dependence on foreign exports, he said.

&uot;The D-20 blend used in a vehicle with a catalytic converter will (produce) less emissions than any other engine today,&uot; Peterson said.

Peterson hopes to meet with the committee again to discuss the project more. He is proposing that all government vehicles use soy diesel.