Governor Jesse Ventura just passed into law a bill that exempts long-standing pasture operations from those regulations.
"This provision removes a significant regulatory burden on small to midsized livestock operations … and will help people who got out of livestock production in recent years to get back into it," says Rep. Doug Peterson, who authored the bill.
The exemption applies to ag land on which livestock have grazed any time after Jan. 1, 1990.
"The rule of thumb is that if you had cows on a piece of ground any time since 1990, you can put cattle back on that land today just as if they never were gone," says Peterson, of Madison, MN.