Family farms receive Hoosier Homestead Award

At the Indiana State Fair, Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch and Indiana State Department of Agriculture Director Bruce Kettler honored 88 families with the Hoosier Homestead Award for their longstanding commitment to Indiana agriculture.

To be named a Hoosier Homestead, farms must be owned by the same family for more than 100 consecutive years, and consist of 20 acres or more in size or produce more than $1,000 in agricultural products per year.

“I want to congratulate all of the recipients of this prestigious award,” said Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Indiana’s Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development. “Our state, economically and socially, depends on our farming families, and we owe a great deal to the work they do.”

Families are eligible for three different distinctions of the Hoosier Homestead Award, based on age of the farm. They are Centennial (100 years), Sesquicentennial (150 years) and Bicentennial (200 years).

Since the program’s inception in 1976, more than 5,500 families have received the award.

“Keeping any business in operation for more than 100 years is no small accomplishment, let alone in the same family,” Kettler said. “There is something special about generational farming in Indiana, and it was an honor to recognize these families—their legacy—at the great Indiana State Fair.”

The following list includes the 2018 summer Hoosier Homestead Award recipients:

Families are recognized semiannually — at the Indiana Statehouse in the spring and at the Indiana State Fair in the fall.

For more information about the Hoosier Homestead Award program, please visit www.isda.in.gov. Photos from today’s ceremony will be posted to ISDA’s Flickr page by Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018.