Gov. Josh Shapiro and Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding recently highlighted areas of Shapiro’s 2024-25 budget that focus on agriculture and rural communities.
Proposed investments include:
A total of $10.3 million in Agriculture and Conservation Innovation funds would support innovative manufacturers and provide opportunities for farmers to be more efficient and productive.
The state would spend $5.6 million to reform the Dairy Margin Coverage Protections, protecting dairy farmers from price fluctuations.
A $5 million state laboratory would be built in western Pennsylvania to help diagnosis and mitigation of future avian influenza outbreaks.
A total of $1.7 million would be spent on cloud computing solutions and migration of state laboratory data to a more advanced information management system.
A new state program would use $655,000 on agricultural seed certification and trade assistance.
A pest detection program would use $145,000 for dogs to prevent pest outbreaks without the use of pesticides.
Shapiro and Redding also toured New Holland Agriculture’s Lancaster County 341-acre campus. The campus includes a 700,000-square-foot equipment manufacturing plant for agriculture and conservation machinery and a 150-acre test farm.
The campus provides a Pennsylvania-certified earn-while-you-learn Ag Equipment Service Technician Apprenticeship for skilled technicians who can service cutting-edge, computerized equipment.