Governor Mike Braun was the featured guest at the Taste of Shelby County Agriculture event last week. Hoosier Ag Today caught up with him there to discuss his priorities for Indiana farmers.
Property tax reform is obviously atop that list, and we discuss that in our full interview below, but he also revisited other priorities from his State of the State address he gave at the end of January, including the formation of a Farm Savings Account.
“I think that needs to be there when you do have the good years, you’re going to benefit from it to where you can lord it away. When you’re passing a farm from one generation to the next, that’s even gotten more complicated due to land values and we’re working on a something to make that easier to do through a state credit.”
That credit Braun is referring to would provide an adjusted gross income tax credit for retired farmers who sell or lease farmland or sell livestock to a qualified beginning farmer.
Braun has also been pushing for a portal to help farmers with any issues they may have at the state level.
“Where you can go to one place in our state government, and if you’ve got an issue, see where you can find help. We’re open to any good ideas. I mean, Indiana is the biggest manufacturing state per capita. Agriculture, it’s right up there. And you know, that is the essence and the foundation for probably 70 of our 92 counties. We don’t have manufacturing in a lot of the rural counties, so we got to keep that in mind too.”
HB 1149 is the bill that would require the Indiana State Department of Agriculture to establish and maintain that portal, similar to USDA’s farmers.gov. That bill passed the House and is now making its way through the Indiana Senate.
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