(Mibiz) - While new bills seek to grow the membership of an agriculture industry council funded by licensing fees from Michigan alcoholic beverage makers, the changes still exclude one key sector and its supply chain from the group.

According to Paul Vander Heide, the president of the Michigan Cider Association and founder of Spring Lake-based Vander Mill LLC, it’s a classic example of taxation without representation being perpetuated against the hard cider industry.

Currently, state licensing fees paid by alcohol producers — including the makers of beer, spirits and cider — are earmarked to the state’s 30-year-old Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council to fund grape research and promote the state’s wine industry. To date, only traditional winemakers and grape growers have been represented on the council, despite it being supported by the other industries.

That’s an issue lawmakers hope to address via competing bills in the state House and Senate.

But neither of the bills in their present form make provisions to include representatives from cideries on the council, despite their being classified as small winemakers.

“We’ve been specifically excluded from the council because it specified grape wines,” Vander Heide told MiBiz. “Just in the last year and a half, they’ve started knocking on the door because the top five cider producers in the state produce more than the grape industry statewide.” 

While industry groups for brewers and distillers applaud the legislation for including additional sectors in the council and promoting the agricultural interests of all alcoholic beverage producers, others are not as convinced. Those groups argue adding more members to the council will dilute its already meager budget.

The research the group funded helped improve the grape-growing practices for Michigan’s climate and marketed the state’s wine-growing regions.

To date, Michigan-based craft breweries and distillers have pushed to reform the makeup of the council to represent their interests, and specifically to fund agricultural research to bolster their in-state supply chains.

“For me, the bigger issue has to do with agriculture and the development of more substantial agricultural products for beer production,” said Scott Graham, executive director of the Michigan Brewers Guild.

Graham said the state’s fledgling hop and barley industry are positioned similarly to where grape growers were 30 years ago when the industry council first formed.

Larry Bell, founder of Bell’s Brewery Inc., agreed that more research is needed to create a viable Michigan-based supply chain for the brewing industry.

“We’re not growing the best quality malting barley in the state,” Bell told MiBiz. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t, but that takes research. … That’s the kind of information you get over a decade.”