MN SF4399

Establishes a farm down payment assistance grant program providing up to $15,000 per eligible farmer to help with initial farmland purchases.

Limits eligibility to Minnesota residents who intend to farm the land themselves, have never owned farmland, and gross no more than $250,000 annually from farm product sales.

Requires grant recipients to match grants with an equivalent amount of other funding and own and farm the purchased land for at least five years.

Imposes a 20 percent penalty on the grant amount for each year a recipient fails to own and farm the land during the five-year commitment period.

Appropriates $3,000,000 in fiscal year 2023 from the general fund to the commissioner of agriculture to award and administer the grants.