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Fewer farmers among South Dakota lawmakers

sd_capitolAn agriculture lobbyist says educating lawmakers is becoming a bigger challenge because of fewer farmers making laws.  South Dakota Soybean Association lobbyist Lorin Pankratz says there are fewer actively engaged farmers in the South Dakota legislature.

“Yes,” Pankratz told Brownfield Ag News, “that number gets smaller just about every election.”

Educating state lawmakers is getting more difficult than usual, said Pankratz, because the election brought turnover and resulted in fewer active farmers.

“Our challenge then is to help them understand what modern agriculture is about and what we do in agriculture, because it’s changed from the farm that you and I grew up on,” said Pankratz.

There’s a greater investment of time to be sure state legislators from non-agriculture backgrounds understand laws that affect farmers, according to Pankratz, interviewed by Brownfield Ag News at the South Dakota Soybean Association Convention in Sioux Falls.

AUDIO: Lorin Pankratz (3 min. MP3)

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