A helping hand for ag

PALMER — Gov. Sean Parnell Friday signed two pieces of legislation aimed at helping the state’s agriculture industry.

“The changes are helping so I really want to thank you guys for supporting our industry,” Don Berberich, head of Mat-Su Farm Bureau, said in introducing Parnell.

The first piece of legislation Parnell signed allows boroughs and cities to put to a vote of the people a break on property taxes levied on buildings used in farming.

“The farmers, with their weathered hands and determined spirits, they’re God’s gifts to us,” said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer.

She said the inspiration for the bill came from farmers who are her constituents and told her they were throwing away produce because it didn’t make economic sense to pay taxes on storage facilities. Hughes said working farms might make up a small part of the state, but there’s plenty of arable land out there.

“I’m looking ahead to the day when there will be agriculture throughout the state,” she said.

Parnell said the tax break is just one piece of a larger strategy involving targeted tax cuts. Another was a payroll tax break he pushed for.

“You’re going to be paying less this year in payroll taxes,” he said.

The second piece of legislation was the work of Bill Stoltze, R-Butte. It was a resolution calling for the creation of a state “Food Resource Development Working Group.”

Stoltze touted work done in the Legislature to bolster agriculture, including one that promoted locally grown foods for inclusion in school lunches.

“They’re eating healthy,” he said of school kids who benefit from the program, saying that it has had statewide impacts. “It’s not just about agriculture, it’s also fish.”

Parnell said the working group is an important step for Alaska because it, as a sub-cabinet level group, will be the closest to the governor that such a group has ever been. The group will focus on barriers to agricultural expansion.

“We can indentify those barriers and get them out of the way,” Parnell said, adding that the goal is to get “more Alaska Grown products into our economy.”

Parnell paired his signature on that resolution with a second signature on an executive order calling for the creation of the working group. Parnell said he doesn’t issue a lot of executive orders, but they are effective in highlighting issues that matter to the state.

“Agriculture matters and it matters big for Alaskans,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.