Hoosier Farmers Talk Ag Legislation with State Leaders
Published: Friday, January 19, 2024
The 2024 Indiana Legislative Session is shorter this year than in years past, accelerating the bill introduction process and narrowing the funnel for focal legislative items. Agriculturalists are campaigning hard to pass some impactful legislation in the new year.
Indiana legislators, Purdue Council for Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching (PCARET) members and Indiana Farm Bureau Members assembled last Tuesday afternoon for a legislative discussion session and luncheon. The INFB policy priorities were released at the gathering.
The legislative priorities are divided into three areas: rural viability, taxation and state fiscal policy, and land use and property rights.
"Two of the areas that will see the most movement and success—as we stand here on day two, it's really hard to gauge which will be most successful—but I think our rural viability area and some of the priorities we have there, I think we'll have a lot of conversations there, and then the land-use property rights," said Andy Tauer, INFB public policy director. "I think in terms of land-use property rights, that's where we'll start to see some things there."
Focal points within the three INFB policy areas include: rural infrastructure funding, broadband expansion, workforce and food security in rural viability; a farmland formula that decreases the reliance in farmland for sustaining property tax revenues and state and local tax reform in the taxation and state fiscal policy; and water quality, foreign ownership of farmland and farmland preservation in land use and property rights.
Little is expected to happen concerning taxes due to budget items not being in the legislation session rotation this year.
Some possible areas within land-use property rights include water transfer and rural viability and foreign ownership of land. He sees a possibility of one or two bills concerning water transfer and another couple of bills that are being drafted concerning foreign ownership of farmland.
"Legislators have until Friday to get their bills in and filed," he said, referring to Jan. 12. Once they are all filed the INFB team will "dive in and build a game plan, pick and choose which bills we're really going to get behind and work on, and those that we are going to try to work and make sure they don't get heard."
Due to a shorter session, the work pace will be much faster, and there are limited opportunities for farmers to meet with their district legislators.
"The big thing for this session is for members and folks in general to stay engaged in the process," Tauer said.
Tauer said attendance at the forum was strong and it showed connectiveness between Hoosiers and their government leaders.
PCARET member Mark Wenning of Henry County said the council is seeking additional support for the ag seed program, which secures larger research grants, but is also mainly attending to offer their thanks for all the work done to increase the budget for educator pay and the Purdue Crossroads program.
Majority Caucus Chair Travis Holdman (R-Markle) spoke during the lunchtime forum. He chairs the tax and revenue task force and the task and fiscal policy committee. He expects to have official recommendations for the 2025 budget session ready in May.
"With that said, you should not anticipate seeing much done with property tax, income tax—especially business personal property tax, which I know is on the mind of a lot of you folks here right now—but you should look for something to be done structurally and transformationally come January of '25," he said.
He explained that the business personal property tax farmers pay on machinery, etc. and the 30% floor that is paid would cost locals $170 million, so if that is taken away, a replacement would have to be implemented.
Despite this, he encourages farmers to "look for good things to happen in 2025."
Rep. Todd Huston (R-Fishers), speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, welcomed farmers to the forum.
"I always believed that you can do three things really, really well in your life, and I relate those to what we do in Indiana. And you are at the core of one of those things. We can grow things well, we can make things well and we can host people well," he said. "We are going to focus on things I think matter to many of you."
One item he highlighted was House Bill 1001, which is focused on expanding work-based learning opportunities and making sure youths have more opportunities both in college and the career space. The bill would introduce a new math and science credit opportunity for students who work on farms and learn agricultural math and science systems for agribusiness.
Huston also discussed the possibility of expanding property tax relief.
"We always want to make sure we keep agriculture at the top of the line as one of the things that makes Indiana great, both from the culture it created to also the economics—it just matters so much in our state," Huston said.
The INFB, PCARET and state legislators encourage Hoosiers to be active in meeting with legislators and voicing their concerns in order to ensure positive legislative action. There is one more available date in early February for Hoosiers to approach their legislators before the end of the legislative session.
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