The American Farm Bureau Annual Convention concludes Wednesday in Utah. Our Sabrina Halvorson caught up with Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron in Salt Lake City where he addressed some of the major concerns on the minds of INFB members.
Atop the list is the issue of water quantity, not something that has been a major concern in Indiana in the past, but now that the state-lead LEAP Project in Boone County is trying to take somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million gallons of water per day from Tippecanoe County, the conversation has heightened.
Kron says they’re trying to figure out what rules agriculture needs to play by in this water quantity discussion.
“We have protections for residential wells, but past that, our legal counsel says it’s basically the biggest straw wins. And so now we’ve put together a task force. We’re trying to figure out what rules. I hesitate to say the word ‘regulation’ because in Farm Bureau, we try to fight regulation, but we’ve got to have some rules around this.”
Kron continued, “I don’t want to wait ‘til we have a crisis. It might be five or ten or twenty years, but we need to figure out where agriculture is on the priority list and does manufacturing take precedent. And can they move it from one watershed to another? And who has that right to do that? We’re a home rule state. So, is that the local counties? Can the state do it? Who owns it? We have several dozen questions and we’re trying to sort this out. But it’s going to be a big issue. And we’ve got to get it right because it will have precedent around the state for future development areas because there are a number of areas that do not have underground water aquifers. So, we’re working on it. We’re kind of at the beginning stages trying to figure this one out, but it’s going to be important to our members.”
Kron also touches on labor and Prop 12 in his conversation with Halvorson. Take a listen to that interview below.
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