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May 4, 2001
Gov. Perry signs
agricultural policy bill
By Mike Barnett
Editor
Gov. Rick Perry signed an agricultural policy bill on April 9 that recognizes the importance of farming and ranching to the Texas economy.
Senate Bill 331, sponsored by Sen. Tom Haywood (R-Wichita Falls) and Rep. David Swinford (R-Dumas), and supported by Texas Farm Bureau, lays out state policy to help guide future state programs affecting agriculture.
"This bill provides a road map for Texas legislators in the future to decide which avenue the state should take to preserve its agricultural industry," said TFB Associate Legislative Director Gary Joiner. "It's not binding future legislators. It just says these are the goals the state should have to keep agriculture profitable, competitive and vital."
Joiner said the bill made it through the House and Senate, "98 percent as we expected. It was a hole the rural leadership felt we needed to fill."
A related bill that establishes a state agricultural policy board is currently winding its way through the Texas House.
HB 453 by Rep. David Swinford would create a nine-member board that would recommend strategies to enhance agricultural production, income and employment, that would benefit consumers, and that would promote efficient use of natural resources. Texas Farm Bureau has no specific policy on the creation of this board.
The major points of SB 331 say that "the agricultural policy of this state must address and consider":
•Water availability, including planning for water supplies and drought preparedness and response, by ensuring that a high priority is assigned to the agricultural use of water.
•Transportation, by ensuring an efficient and well-maintained farm-to-market road system and intermodal transportation to provide adequate transportation for agricultural products at competitive rates.
•State regulatory issues, by preventing the state from imposing laws/ regulations that would be inconsistent with the efficiency and profitability of agricultural enterprises, while at the same time protecting the health, safety, or welfare of citizens of this state.
•State tax policy, by encouraging tax policy that promotes the agriculture industry, including production and processing.
•The availability of capital, including state loans or grants authorized by Section 52-a, Article III, Texas Constitution, by facilitating access to capital through loans and grants authorized by the Texas Constitution for agricultural producers who have established or intend to establish agricultural operations in Texas.
•The promotion of Texas agricultural products, by promoting the orderly and efficient marketing of agricultural commodities and enhancing and expanding sales of Texas raw and processed agricultural products in local, domestic, and foreign markets.
•Eradication, exclusion or control of injurious pests and diseases that affect crops and livestock and noxious plant and brush species.
•Research and education efforts, including financial risk management, consumer education, and education in the public schools, by encouraging promotional and educational programs involving all segments of agriculture and maintaining a solid foundation of stable and long-term support for food and agricultural research, while improving accountability and gathering public input concerning research.
•Promotion of efficient utilization of soil/ water resources, by encouraging efforts to sustain the long-term productivity of landowners by conserving/ protecting the basic resources of agriculture, while working within federal mandates relating to natural resources.
•Rural economic and infrastructure development, by enhancing, protecting, and encouraging the production of food and other agricultural products.
•Protection of property rights and the right to farm, by promoting and protecting agricultural activities that are established before nonagricultural activities located near the agricultural activities, and are reasonable and consistent with good ag practices.
•Preservation of farmland, ranchland, timberland and other land devoted to agricultural purposes, by encouraging the development and improvement of the land for the production of food and other agricultural products consistent with the philosophy of a private property rights state.
•Food safety, by continuing to support production of the safest food in the world with regulations based on sound scientific evidence.
•Efforts to participate in the formulation of federal programs/ policies, by addressing the development of federal policy that affects this state.
•Promotion of rural fire service, by seeking opportunities to improve the sustainability/ effectiveness of rural fire service to protect the general public and natural resources.
•Promotion of value-added agricultural enterprises, by promoting efforts to increase the value of Texas agricultural products through processing, management practices, or other procedures that add consumer benefits to agricultural goods.
