Challenges Piling Up for Ag Industry, Lamb Says
Published: Friday, March 21, 2025
Two state agriculture leaders gave their respective "state of the industry" reports during the annual Indiana Milk Quality Conference last Wednesday in Plymouth.
Don Lamb, director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, and Steve Obert, executive director of the Indiana Dairy Producers, shared what's on the horizon for Indiana agriculture.
Both leaders see many positive things happening in agriculture and dairy farming, but they are also concerned that the Trump administration's policies are creating uncertainty for their industries. They also cited other non-policy concerns such as high input prices, inflation, labor shortage and bird flu.
Conservation programs and food aid are among the targets of the White House's budget axe.
Lamb said Indiana farmers are prepared to keep moving forward with conservation, despite the indefinite pause of three statewide conservation programs and staff furloughs.
"I think agriculture does conservation well, anyway," he said. "I think we have to keep that in our mind. If there are programs that go away I still give agriculture credit for saying, 'You know what? We're going to do the right thing, anyway.' That needs to be our attitude."
Lamb supports a leaner, more efficient federal government, but at the same time he understands it is causing pain in Hoosier farm country.
"I'm a conservative, small government kind of guy," he said. "So many, many things that are happening I really agree with. The hard part is real people are dealing with it."
Lamb said that Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, like President Trump, wants to "pull back" on the size of government, but Lamb said ISDA is one of the few state agencies that needs more money, not less. As he noted, "Conservation is not a cost; conservation is an investment in our quality of life."
Compared to other states with a strong agriculture industry, Lamb said ISDA is four to five times smaller in terms of its budget and staff, he said.
"We think we can do good things for agriculture in the Department of Ag," Lamb said.
But if ISDA has to work with fewer dollars, Lamb said he'll find a way.
"Farmers do it all the time," he said. "You just have to work through that exercise."
He added that the governor wants to get the most return on investment from taxpayer dollars.
"In agriculture, we have a lot better opportunity to do that than some places in government," he said. "I'm just really proud of agriculture."
Lamb served under Gov. Eric Holcomb for one year and continues to lead ISDA under the new administration.
"I really like what's going on in Indiana," he said, referring to Gov. Braun. "He is business minded."
All agency heads meet every two weeks, providing an opportunity for leaders to communicate.
Part of Lamb's job as ISDA director is to create opportunities for economic development in the food and farming sector. He thinks Indiana has a great business climate. One ISDA program that has a lot of potential is the Indiana Grown program.
"I want agriculture businesses to be here," he said. "You know and I know that, in your world, the money turns over about seven times if it's a food product. If we can raise it, process it and sell it locally, there's no doubt that that's the best thing that we can do for agricultural development in Indiana."
Looking ahead to the 2025 crop season, Lamb said corn and soybeans farmers are facing an uphill climb. The cash-flow projection at his family-owned farm in Boone County is negative for this year.
"It's the hardest projection I've ever seen as a row crop farmer," he said. "It's really hard to figure out where you're going to save enough money to project a profit."
Combined with bird flu, tariffs, budget restraints and negative cash-flow projections, the problems facing farmers right now are "piling up," Lamb said. The poultry industry has euthanized roughly 7 million birds due to the bird flu outbreak.
"Man, the stress that those poultry farmers are going through right now is really, really tough," Lamb said, "and then that bleeds over into these other industries."
The stress is real and should serve as a reminder that farming is "all about people."
"Right now, there is a lot of pressure—a lot of stress, a ton of stress—in agriculture on lots of different levels, so it's going to be important how we treat each other in the upcoming year," he said.
During his time at the podium, Obert shared that cattle prices are strong but heifer inventories are at a 25-year low.
"Crossbreeding, in response to lower beef cattle inventories, has been a large driver in this situation," he said. "What it's done is really make milk production growth rather flat. Not only are we hanging onto cows that normally we would have sent to market a little bit sooner, but those cows are not milking at the levels they would if we had higher culling rates."
Low grain prices, which have negatively impacted the profit situation for crop farmers, have been good for dairy farmers—feed costs have dropped.
"Our industry has enjoyed, especially in the third and fourth quarter of 2024, fairly positive margins," Obert said. "We went into 2025 having rather optimistic hopes for 2025. Since the middle of January, we've seen futures drop about a dollar and a half. Some of that is tempered right now, but some of that is the seasonality of our prices."
One of the positive trends is a 3% increase in fluid milk consumption in the Southeast. Milk from southern Indiana flows to the Southeast.
"We're starting to see some potential growth here in Indiana. We know of a large farm project that's going to get started in Rush County here any time. We know that a board of zoning of appeals has approved of another large project in Warren County. So, I think Indiana is poised to see some growth in their cow numbers in the next few years."
But there are also some storm clouds on the horizon. As IDP executive director, Obert is concerned about mass deportations and tariffs.
"We know, especially on our larger farms, mass deportations could really dry up our workforce and make it more difficult to keep our staffs intact," he said.
Last time the U.S. imposed tariffs, it resulted in a trade war and lower milk prices.
"We're kind of on the edge of our seat when it comes to those things," he said.
Regarding immigration enforcement, he said the U.S. needs to strike a balance.
"Obviously we need to secure the border," he said. "We don't need the bad guys in this country, but we need to protect our current workforce. That is the policy position of Indiana dairy producers."
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