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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Nunez

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/28/08

HB 239

SHORT TITLE NMSU Ag Producer Co-Ops

SB

ANALYST Haug

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$175.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Higher Education Department (HED)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 239 appropriates $175.0 from the general fund to the Board of Regents of New

Mexico State University for the College of Agriculture and Home Economics to assist

agricultural producers in the establishment of cooperatives.

This request was not submitted by NMSU to the New Mexico Higher Education Department for

review and is not included in the Department’s funding recommendation for FY09.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The appropriation of $175.0 contained in this bill is a recurring expense to the general fund. Any

unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2009 shall revert to the

general fund.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

The HED notes that improvement of agriculture from a traditional-subsistence structure to a

modern-commercialized one has created problems such as unemployment and a migration from

rural areas to urban centers. In recent decades, a new approach has appeared that is aimed to

House Bill 239 – Page

2

achieve rural development considering all sectors together in the economy as well as

socially. Small and medium scale farms located in rural areas have been considered a focal point

to create new employment and production. Cooperatives can make contributions to the rural

economic, social, and political development of a region by assisting small and medium farmers

in producing higher yields and providing a market for sale. For example, the organic wheat fields

of the Sangre de Cristo Agricultural Producers Cooperative. The co-op has come a long way

since it was formed in 1995 with help from NMSU and the New Mexico Department of

Agriculture. Organized to improve economics and reintroduce grain production in the sparsely

populated Costilla Valley, the co-op has done more than revive local wheat farming. It has

boosted incomes in rural Taos County where the median household income is less than $27,000

per year and nearly 21 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

GH/bb