SS/SB 417 - The act creates the Farm Mentoring and Education Fund to be administered by an authority within the University of Missouri Extension Center. The act authorizes the general assembly to appropriate up to ninety-nine thousand dollars to the fund per fiscal year. The fund shall be utilized to provide educational training aimed at helping individuals plan and begin traditional and sustainable farm enterprises and to provide salaries for a program director and staff. The authority created shall fulfill the goal of facilitating new farms guided by principles described in the act. Any balance in the fund at the end of each biennium in excess of 200% of the previous year's expenditures shall be transferred to the general revenue fund. The act directs the authority to administer the educational programming from a different extension center located in a different region of the state from the preceding year's extension center. The rotation shall be made on an annual basis.
This act is similar to SB 1222 (2006).
ERIKA JAQUES