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Agricultural Utilization Research Institute seeks continued state support; AURI highlights new Waseca bioindustrial center
Summary
The committee heard testimony supporting an appropriation for the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI), which highlighted AURI's role in moving agricultural innovations from lab to market, recent capital upgrades, and a 45:1 return-on-investment claim tied to new sales and capital leverage.
Senate File 934, the appropriation request for the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI), was presented to the Senate Agriculture Committee on Feb. 12, 2025. AURI leaders described the instituteits statewide facilities and recent upgradesand asked the committee to continue funding to accelerate value-added agriculture and bioindustrial projects.
Federico Tripodi, chair of AURI's board, said AURIwhose mission is to accelerate expanded uses and markets for agriculturally derived productsaims to drive tangible economic impact. Shannon Schlicht, AURI executive director, summarized the instituteprograms that provide commercialization services, public initiatives and outreach ("AI Connects"), and described four facilities: Crookston (administration), Marshall (analytical lab), Saint Paul (office at the university), and Waseca (new bioindustrial innovation center opened in 2024).
Schlicht told the committee AURI closed roughly 100 projects in the prior fiscal year, hosted events reaching over 1,000 participants, and asserts the institute helped drive approximately $187,000,000 in new sales and de-risk about $87,000,000 in capital, supporting or retaining 717 jobs. She described program areas including food processing assistance, local meat-processing benchmarking, hemp-use trials for erosion control, and bioindustrial lab upgrades (mass spectrometry, elemental analysis, biomass-methane potential testing).
Tripodi and Schlicht said the Waseca bioindustrial innovation center expands AURI's capacity to run equipment tests and host clients and that one-time state funds recently used to upgrade equipment enabled new services to entrepreneurs across Minnesota. Testimony included specific examples: a seed cleaner and mobile storage project for camelina (cited earlier in the hearing), an anaerobic digestion asset used for renewable natural gas testing, and work with local companies on soybean meal blends for higher-value fertilizer products.
AURI's testimony concluded with a request that the committee favorably consider continuation of state support for AURI's programs. The bill was laid over for possible inclusion; no final committee vote was recorded at the hearing.
