While Michigan Rep. Julie Brixie, 73^rd District, grew up in Chicago, her family has deep roots in agriculture. As a child, she visited cousins who lived on a 2,000-acre cattle ranch in Nebraska.

A burgeoning interest in agriculture eventually prompted her to pursue a master’s degree from Michigan State University in crop and soil sciences and environmental toxicology.

“Even though I grew up as a city person, my parents thought it was important for my cousins and me to learn from each other’s environments,” Brixie said. “My cousins are farmers, and I ended up marrying someone who grew up on a small dairy farm in northern Wisconsin. That and my education are reasons I’m interested in agriculture, but of course being in Michigan as a state representative, one of the most wonderful things about Michigan is the agricultural diversity of our state.”

The wide range of specialty crops produced is one of Michigan agriculture’s defining characteristics, Brixie noted, something she believes needs to be protected. Specialty crop growers face a multitude of pressures, from insects, pests and diseases to navigating volatile economic and policy environments.

“We have so many specialty crops, and we’re very similar to California in that respect and different from other Midwestern states that grow a lot of corn, beans and wheat,” Brixie said. “One of the interesting things to me as a person in the legislature is how tied our specialty crops are to the sense of place in Michigan communities. It’s more than just the blueberry industry or cherry industry. Being that agriculture is the second-largest economic driver in Michigan, it’s important for economic reasons but also for maintaining our identity as a state.

“With all of the specialty crops we have, the small family farm is still a thing. They need a lot of support because the specialty crop industries can’t fund much research on their own. It’s really important for our agriculture university — MSU — to do research to help those folks in order for us to continue with the success of Michigan agriculture.”

Labor shortages, policy shifts and extreme weather are among the struggles farmers have relayed to Brixie. She said those are recurring themes from her conversations in recent years.

“One of the major things I hear about is the workforce and the availability of people willing to do the seasonal work that is so much a part of Michigan agriculture,” she said. “The ability of farmers to hire those workers with the changes we’ve had in some political administrations has become more difficult.

“Also, tariffs have had an enormous impact and have upended the entire agricultural industry, from the cost of tractors and other equipment to the amount of money farmers are able to receive for their products. Soybeans have taken a huge hit, for example. The global instability that has resulted because of the tariff wars that we’ve seen over the past year has had a terrible effect on our farmers.”

Changing weather patterns and extreme weather events have also led to mounting challenges, including widespread insect, disease and weed pressures. Brixie said that’s where MSU can play a leading role.

“This diversity of agricultural crops in Michigan leads to the need for these very specialized research opportunities,” Brixie said. “Climate change, climate variability, these are huge issues we’re facing. Whether it be the temperature of Lake Michigan or timing of rainfall or dry periods, all of these things impact the ability of crops to thrive. When we have these situations, you can experience new pests that come from other places in the world that can devastate an entire industry — whether that’s an actual bug, a rust, a mold or a mildew that’s growing on a specific crop.”

Alongside her colleagues in the legislature, Brixie has supported several programs through MSU AgBioResearch and MSU Extension that confront obstacles to agricultural production through research and community outreach.

Project GREEEN and the Michigan Alliance for Animal Agriculture, partnerships among MSU, Michigan agriculture industries, and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, are two state-funded endeavors aimed at short-term plant and animal agriculture challenges.

Brixie praised a project through M-AAA dealing with the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza as an example of MSU’s ability to respond quickly to needs in the agriculture industry.

“The programs at MSU like M-AAA have been able to respond very rapidly to issues like the bird flu that struck here and in other states,” she said. “At first, it really negatively impacted the poultry industry but troublingly jumped species to the dairy industry. Humans were being exposed as well. Through the existing network MSU has all across the state, they were able to do an amazing job. They really led the nation in assessing the risk and understanding how the pathogen spreads. I feel like we averted what could have been a worse disaster, and the dairy industry ended up in much better shape because of that MSU response.”

Along with Project GREEEN and M-AAA is a newer partnership among MSU, the Michigan Plant Coalition and MDARD called the Agricultural Resiliency Program. Brixie was one of the primary catalysts in its creation in 2024 to explore long-term plant agriculture problems related to extreme weather and water. State funding has allowed MSU to hire researchers and MSU Extension educators to fill gaps in university expertise in these areas.

Additionally, a competitive grants program has funded projects investigating solutions such as artificial intelligence-based forecasting platforms, water quality monitoring and nutrient runoff prevention technologies, and optimizing irrigation and fertilizer applications in tree fruit systems.

AgBioResearch Director George Smith said the discoveries by MSU scientists wouldn’t be possible without legislative support, and rural communities would be strained without them.

“I appreciate Rep. Brixie and her understanding that agriculture and farms of all sizes, including small farms, are the foundation of our rural economies,” Smith said. “That’s so important to the future, and there’s so much at risk if we lose that aspect of agriculture. As we talk about the role of AgBioResearch with support from the state of Michigan, there are so many examples of where our scientists are doing tangible research that can make a difference — generating new data that can inform policy or provide estimates of the impact of policies, or developing new tools and technologies that solve major problems.”

Smith puts the responsibility of continued communication with legislators on the shoulders of MSU and the agricultural community. Sharing stories about the impact of agricultural research is key.

“We’re grateful for Rep. Brixie’s support as well as our other legislators, and we will never take for granted that communication and being in dialog with our partners in the legislature,” he said. “It’s critical to talk about the whole host of issues that AgBioResearch and Extension are here to work on. We’re committed to doing that work, and it’s on us to continue telling that story.”

Brixie said she encourages constant communication, explaining its value to the legislative process.

“The fundamental thing I would like farmers to know is that we in the legislature want to help farmers in our state,” she said. “We understand the importance of farming in Michigan and how tied it is to our economy. It’s such a deep-rooted part of our culture. We’re here to help you, and we need back and forth communication in order to be the most effective at doing that.

“With MSU, please continue doing what you’re doing as a liaison between legislators and farmers. We talk to our own constituents but not necessarily someone from another district. For example, we had a town hall that MSU was gracious to participate in to talk about the impact of SNAP-Ed cuts. For issues like that with policy implications, it’s helpful for us to understand how it’s affecting people on the ground.”

This story originally appeared on the Agbioresearch story.