Sen. Paul Thomas

Velva

Rep. Jared Hagert

Emerado

In the 2023 session, we passed bills to address the limited growth and advancement of animal agriculture. That legislation provided the regulatory freedom and framework necessary to attract high capital, value-added animal and production agriculture investment in our state. Two bills currently working their way through the 69th legislative session would build on this success by providing financial incentives for continued investment in agriculture.

HB 1332 provides for value-added agriculture facility incentive funding within the Agriculture Development and Diversification Fund (ADDF). This funding provides grants of up to $30 million for a production facility that is new construction on an industrial ready site located within the state. The project must also have capital investment of at least $350M and leverage regional agricultural producer capital investment, as well as have a competing offer from at least one other midwestern state, produce a new agriculture product or variant of an existing agriculture product that provides domestic supply and diversifies the market, and have an estimated economic contribution of at least $20M when fully operational. The first 50% of grant money is available upon certificate of occupancy. Full grant dollars become available when the facility reaches 50% of production capacity.

At the same time, SB 2342 utilizes the ADDF to provide grants to develop a value-added milk processing facility. Grant funding under this subsection is limited to the lesser of $10M or 5% of the total construction of an in-state facility capable of producing at least three million pounds of milk each year. This grant becomes available on upon the facility reaching 100% production capacity. The dairy industry in North Dakota has faced many challenges in recent decades due to loss of local processing locations, lack of labor, and the high cost of modern efficiencies, such as robotics. This program, along with the changes made last session, provide the regulatory environment and public, private partnership that will help bring dairies and milk processing into our state.

These two proposed bills demonstrate the state’s commitment to attracting value-added agriculture production projects while requiring the recipient to have skin in the game. It leverages state dollars in a way that diversifies our economy while bringing true economic benefit to our farmers and our rural communities. Please support HB 1332 and SB 2342 so we can continue to ensure that these agriculture projects are developed in North Dakota and that our agriculture industry remains vibrant for generations to come.