ST. PAUL — Minnesota lost 1,300 farms from 2024 to 2025. Now, Minnesota lawmakers are discussing a five-year extension of a program designed to help farmers struggling with debt, which is currently set to expire on June 30, 2027.
The Minnesota Farmer-Lender Mediation Act was first passed in 1986 and has been renewed multiple times since. The law gives farmers a 90-day window to work with their lender and a neutral mediator to renegotiate, restructure or resolve their debt to prevent foreclosure.
Sen. Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, the author of the bill to extend the program, said Minnesota farmers are in a similar position to those during the 1980s farm crisis, which is why it is essential for the program to continue.
“Ninety percent of the time, this program has enabled farmers to keep farming and bills to keep getting paid. It’s an incredibly important program,” Putnam said in a meeting of the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee on March 2.
The minimum amount of debt to qualify for farmer-lender mediation is $15,000. Lenders must first serve a farm with a mediation notice if they wish to foreclose upon it. The lenders then must wait 90 days before taking action.
When served with a notice from a lender, farmers are not required to participate in the mediation process and can negotiate with their lender on their own terms and time. This bill gives farmers access to mediators, but they are not forced to consult with them.
Mediation is free to farmers through the program and is paid for by the state government and University of Minnesota Extension Service.
The president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, Gary Wertish, said farmer-lender mediation does not take away the rights of the lender but slows down the process for the farmer.
“That’s important, because it gives some breathing room for farmers when they’ve had what might be the worst months of their career,” Wertish said. “They work with a trained team to assess options and come up with a mutually agreeable solution.”
In 2025, 1,747 mediation notices were completed, and 89% of those cases worked out a resolution, according to a summary of the 2025 program results. The farmer-lender mediation program has served more than 24,000 cases since it was created in 1986, according to the University of Minnesota Extension Service.
Farmers can voluntarily participate in this program even if they have not been served with a mediation notice. They can submit an application through the extension service or get a referral from courts, state agencies or local governments.
The committee approved the bill extending the program and sent it to the Senate Higher Education Committee for further review.
Report for Minnesota is a project of the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication to support local news across the state.
