HF 4477 Summary

• Reorganizes the Noxious Weed Advisory Committee membership by separating the University of Minnesota's horticultural science, agronomy, and forestry departments into three distinct representatives and adds township and county governments as separate categories.

• Clarifies the Commissioner of Agriculture's enforcement duties under seed law sections 21.71 to 21.78, including sampling, inspecting, and testing weed-seed infested agricultural seeds, and establishing rulemaking authority for restricted noxious weed-seed lists.

• Creates a new Seed Program Advisory Committee with defined duties to evaluate plant species for invasiveness, control difficulty, and other factors to recommend prohibited or restricted noxious weed seed designations, with three-year reevaluation cycles.

• Requires the Seed Program Advisory Committee to include a minimum of six seed industry members representing multinational, national, regional, and Minnesota companies, plus representatives from universities, crop improvement organizations, the grain industry, farmers, and other agencies.

• Establishes that restricted weed seeds must not exceed 90 per pound in agricultural seeds or grains, while prohibited noxious weed seeds must not be present at all, with the commissioner publishing and revising weed seed lists at least every three years.