The attempt to reorganize the state Department of Agriculture is dead for this legislative session, state Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward said Friday.
House Bill 1725 by Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, has been defeated twice in the House. Faced with such opposition, and well past the deadline for introducing bills, its supporters could have tried to insert HB1725's language into one of the dozens of "shell" bills filed by members.
"We are not involved in any efforts to revive HB1725 and we are not involved in any efforts to amend bills in the House or the Senate to try and accomplish the same result," Ward said through the department's spokesman, Adriane Barnes. "To our knowledge, no one else is involved in any effort to do that either."
Needing 51 votes in the 100-member House, the bill received 30 votes on March 17, and 44 votes three days later. Both times, more than 30 members of the House didn't vote or voted present. Douglas has said he wouldn't bring the bill up for a third vote.
Ward, Douglas and other supporters said the bill would save about $600,000 year through various management tools involving the Agriculture Department and its several entities, including the state Plant Board, the Livestock and Poultry Commission and the Arkansas Forestry Commission.
Opponents said the bill would harm a Plant Board that has largely operated free of politics since its creation in 1917 and could jeopardize special revenues collected by the department's various panels from the agricultural industries they regulate.
"Our attitude is, when this session is over with, we'll declare the bill dead," Don Johnson, executive director of the Arkansas Crop Protection Association, said Friday. That group, which represents pesticide and herbicide manufacturers, opposed the bill.
"We believe in a Plant Board that is above politics and is based on science," Johnson said. A recent meeting in Carlisle, he said, brought in opposition to the bill from seed dealers, seed growers, aerial applicators, soybean farmers, agriculture consultants, and others. The Arkansas Farm Bureau, with 190,000 member families, also opposed the bill.
HB1725 would have used a "type 4" transfer, giving the secretary of agriculture more management controls over the three main boards within the agency, as well as the Arkansas Farm Mediation Office, the Veterinary Medical Examining Board, and the state Board of Registration of Foresters.
With HB1725's apparent demise, the latter three agencies will remain under the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, Barnes said. "This was one of the main reasons for the bill, but everyone got sidetracked by things that weren't issues at all," she said.
Efforts to streamline operations at the department will continue under current law, Barnes said.
She also noted that the bill would have required the entire department to submit an annual report of its finances to the Legislative Council each year.
In an email Wednesday to about 30 farmers and representatives of agriculture interests, Ward wrote, "I am disappointed that efforts to make Arkansas agriculture stronger have been construed as a power grab.''
In his email, Ward said Hutchinson has "bent over backwards" to help Arkansas agriculture, such as speaking up on the importance of trade during a recent meeting with President Donald Trump.
"Regardless of whether you were for or against the bill, we will continue to work hard for Arkansas agriculture and continue to try to find ways to better serve you and the industry," Ward wrote. "I hope that we can all move past this and work together for the betterment of Arkansas agriculture."
Business on 03/25/2017