(Jackson) The Minnesota Farmers Union (MFU) will host a public town hall in Jackson on Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Pizza Ranch. MFU President Gary Wertish talks about the focus of the meeting. 3-17 wertish cut 1 

"I wanna hear from the people that attend. We wanna hear what's concerning them, the issues that are affecting them and what they're concerned about. That's really the purpose of the meeting is more go around and gather you know let people's voices be heard. What we'll do at the end of it, we'll be doing a series of these around the state, and then we'll be writing up a report afterwards and we'll be giving that report to all our state and federal elected officials."

Wertish says this is a budget year for MN and that both sides need to work together. 3-17 wertish cut 2 

"Right now we have just a slight surplus but in the out years we're gonna have a deficit so the state legislature really has a big problem. They have to come together and you know right now we have a closely divided MN legislature so they are going to have to work together to come up with a solution to come up with a balanced budget. So that's at the top of the line at the state and basically MN Farmer's Union our top issue at the state is that we get a strong agriculture budget for the MN Department of Ag. Ag is such an important driver of the state's economy but yet on the state's budget its a very small percentage."

Wertish says there are unknowns when it comes to the Federal level of Goverment. 3-17 wertish cut 3 

"The federal level is just a lot of certainty on the federal level whether its farm bill or funding, its just a lot of uncertainty coming out of Washington DC."

The public town hall is being held at the Pizza Ranch in Jackson at 10 am Tuesday morning and is free and open to the public. You can pre-register at bit.ly/peoplestownhall. Minnesota Farmers Union is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the well-being of family farmers in rural communities.