MARSHALL — U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach made some stops in Marshall last week, to discuss topics affecting southwest Minnesota, like agriculture, local officials said.

A group of businesspeople, including area farmers, were invited to a meeting with Fischbach at the Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 19, said Chamber president Brad Gruhot. Gruhot said Fischbach and her staff wanted to hear about agriculture and business concerns at the meeting.

“A lot of the discussion was around the agriculture economy – the demand for corn and soybeans, as well as labor issues,” said Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes, who attended the meeting.

Members of the press were not invited to the meeting at the Chamber office.

In an email newsletter this week, Fischbach shared photos of herself meeting with Minnesota Rep. Chris Swedzinski, Marshall city officials, local businesspeople and the interim president of Southwest Minnesota State University last week. Fischbach also visited ATZ Manufacturing, the Marshall business that created the Trackchair.

Agriculture was also one of the topics Fischbach discussed in an interview with Marshall Radio last week. In a news story posted on the Marshall Radio website Aug. 20, Fischbach said workforce shortages were a challenge for agriculture.

“Particularly in the ag community, workforce is an issue,” Fischbach said in the interview. “We’re looking at those visa programs, seeing if there’s something we can do to smooth them out, make them better. A lot of the ag folks asked for removing the seasonality on some of those visa programs, so we’re looking at that, seeing if there’s some way we can improve it.”

“We understand the need, we understand the concerns, but we do have to get it through Congress,” Fischbach said.

Marshall Radio reported that Fischbach also highlighted some provisions of the “Big Beautiful Bill” that would have an impact on Minnesotans.

“We really tried to focus on what people were concerned about,” she said in the interview. “We extended the child tax credit and increased it for a short time. We increased the estate tax exemption to $15 million and indexed it permanently. We increased the standard deduction. There were things that we did not only for those middle income families but for small businesses to make sure that they had the research and development deductions.”

“If we had not passed this bill, people would have seen a 24% tax increase,” Fischbach said in the Marshall Radio interview.