LANSING – New Michigan Agriculture Director Don Koivisto said his predecessors were on the right track, at least in terms of managing the department, but he told Gongwer News Service that he is not planning any departmental restructuring or major changes in direction. But Koivisto said he plans to work more on partnerships to achieve his goals.
He has been in the post about seven months and said there is little room for change in the structure of the department. “With each of the divisions we have they deal with a unique aspect,” he said. “I don’t see wholesale reorganization being the answer to anything.”
He said given the size of the staff and the budget, there is also little room for moving resources between divisions. “It’s not the case that we could have a whole lot of cutting or reorganization,” he said.
But he is working to improve efficiency where possible to get more done.
Koivisto said he will also work more with some of his sister agencies.
Like the prior two directors, a key priority for Koivisto is economic development in the agriculture sector, and he said he has been working with Michigan Economic Development Corporation CEO James Epolito to be sure the programs that agency has reaches growers and processors.
“We want to see agriculture continue to grow,” he said, noting that it accounts for $63.7 billion of the state’s economy.
While Koivisto’s new A-Team initiative is designed to give current and prospective farmers and processors a single point of contact with the state for getting questions answered and work started, he said many of the tools that program will use come from the MEDC.
“We have some people who know agriculture, but the MEDC has the economic tools,” he said. “To really make things work we have to work together.”
And he expected that joint work in the coming months would yield some development and expansion announcements, particularly from processors.
But the department also has some of its own programs as well. “We’re in the infancy stages of promoting Select Michigan products,” he said. “We want to continue to drive that even harder than we have.”
Koivisto did argue, however, that not all growth is good. He said he hoped to see growth in the biofuels area slow a bit. “Let your research catch up with your production,” he said, noting some recent studies that highlighted the negatives of biofuels.
Koivisto predicted that growth of confined animal feeding operations would continue in the state, as it has across the country. And he was not sure that regulation of the facilities would change.
There is a workgroup trying to develop new legislation on the issue. “It’s questionable whether there will be an agreement,” he said. “I don’t like to predict a solution.”
And he said there is not another state that could serve as a template for how best to regulate the facilities.
No agreement on new legislation would leave the department to continue promoting its voluntary Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program, which helps farmers develop plans to avoid environmental problems on their farms.
“People don’t understand how many farmers voluntarily ask questions (under the program),” he said, adding that most farmers were concerned about ensuring that their operations did not harm the environment.
The most difficult part of the job, Koivisto said, is preparing for the unknown. Like the two highest profile issues of late, bovine tuberculosis and Emerald Ash Borer, he said problems usually give little warning. “It’s constantly changing,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to be dealing with.”
Where the food supply is at risk, which Koivisto said was the department’s primary responsibility, the department will continue to push to prevent and eradicate problems. He said the department would continue a priority on inspecting grocery stores to be sure they are clean and safe and would continue to react quickly to reports of food-borne illness, including recalls where necessary.
The department is also continuing its steady, though slower, efforts to eradicate bovine tuberculosis. “I’ve been very proud of the group that’s been doing that work,” he said.
But he also said the effort is going to take even greater cooperation between Agriculture, the Department of Natural Resources, farmers and hunters.
With the discovery of a TB-positive deer in Shiawasee County, the farthest found from the core of the infection, Mr. Koivisto had urged that officials continue working with farmers even if testing shows no further infection to be sure they are taking precautions to protect their herds.
He said Tuesday those efforts need to be spread statewide. “We’re working with producers to make sure they’re taking what wildlife mitigation efforts that they can,” he said. Even in areas where the infection has not been confirmed, farmers need to be working to keep their animals separate from the wild deer that could be carrying the disease, he said.
He argued there are enough hunters in the state to help thin the herd, but he said he has been working with the DNR to expand the hunting seasons in some areas to be sure hunters are taking the targeted number of animals.
His department is also working with farmers and other landowners to expand the area available for hunting. “A certain segment is worried about liability and they’re worried about their herds,” he said.
While there is little the state could do, beyond hunter safety programs, to prevent hunters from mistaking a cow for a deer, he said there is law designed to protect landowners from liability for allowing hunters on their property.
“We need to assess whether the recreation trespass act is doing the job as intended,” he said. “Between our TB people and (DNR’s) wildlife people we can get an accurate assessment on that.”
If the act turns out to be deficient in some way, Koivisto said he would push legislation to fix it. If the act is working, he would push informing property owners that it is there and will protect them from lawsuits by hunters using their land.
But the Emerald Ash Borer, an Asian import that affects forests but not the dinner table, appears to be on the receiving end of a thrown towel. Koivisto said the agency would continue, at least for now, prohibitions on moving firewood and some ash products, but he said officials are under no illusion that they will be able to stop the spread of the little green beetles.
“We tried to quarantine it to the lower part of the state,” he said, noting there are now two infestation areas in the eastern Upper Peninsula. “It appears in all likelihood that it’s going to advance across the UP and go into Wisconsin.”
He indicated the firewood movement restrictions could be lifted if the beetles are found in the western UP in the coming years, meaning all attempts to control them have failed.
“There comes a point where you’ve done as much as you can do,” he said.
Department officials said there are still efforts underway to slow the spread of the beetles. Spokesperson Jennifer Holton said results should come in this summer on the release of parasitic wasps in four counties last year and other efforts are under way.
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