LANSING, Mich. — Michigan’s new service tax, restructuring the state legislature and environmental oversight are samples of the policies Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB) members will discuss and vote on during the organization’s 88th annual meeting Nov. 27-30 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in downtown Grand Rapids.

Hundreds of farmers from Michigan’s 67 county Farm Bureaus will serve as voting delegates, charged with adopting organizational policies on state and national issues. Resolutions adopted at the meeting dealing with state issues will direct MFB action in 2008.

Adopted resolutions on national issues will be forwarded to the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) for consideration at its annual meeting Jan. 13-16 in New Orleans, La.

On Oct. 1, state legislators approved a service tax package aimed at raising more than $600 million in additional revenue during the next fiscal year to help close a hole in the state’s ailing budget. The package calls for raising the state income tax from 3.9 to 4.35 percent, extending the state’s existing six percent sales tax to include 23 additional services and reforming teacher health and retirement benefits.

Under the sales tax extension, Michigan’s agriculture industry would pay the six percent sales tax for warehousing and grain storage services, technical consulting services and landscape services.

While lawmakers in both the state House and Senate voted last week to repeal the service tax package, no final decision will be made until they return from a two-week break, which started Nov. 9. During MFB’s annual meeting, delegates will be asked to reinforce their opposition to the state’s service tax. An amendment to MFB policy calls for the discontinuation of the use tax on services, which the state’s largest farm organization says would make Michigan’s $60 billion agricultural industry less competitive in the marketplace. What are termed by some as private, midnight antics that surrounded the legislature’s approval of the new service tax and the legislature’s general sluggishness to balance a budget is fueling the push for an amended elections policy that considers support for a part-time legislature.

In the past, MFB has supported investigating a part-time legislature. However, this year’s delegates will vote on proposed policy that states, “MFB would consider supporting a part-time Legislature, providing other legislative reforms are implemented to maintain a balance of power between the three branches of government. “Such reforms might include timeframes for budget approval, greater legislative oversight of state departments and the rules process and review of the legislative compensation process.”

An existing MFB policy regarding agricultural pollution prevention and environmental protection has been rewritten to express MFB’s growing discontent with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

The policy states that MFB “has lost confidence in the ability of DEQ management to objectively address agriculture.”

Consequently, the policy suggests that the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) should have “an increased role in providing regulatory certainty to Michigan agriculture.”

This would include making MDA the state agency responsible for developing, administering and regulating permits to operate and site certain concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

“This policy would not take away the DEQ’s authority to administer National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits for CAFOs that have had verified discharges of pollutants to Michigan waterways,” said Sarah Black, director of the MFB Public Policy and Commodity Division. “What this policy suggests is making the MDA the responsible agency for any permitting required of CAFOs that have not discharged pollutants and to not intend to.”

Other policies up for discussion cover topics such as energy, animal care, renewable energy, water use, establishing a Michigan Ag Council and dozens of other issues.