A bill to keep an inventory of the farmland that has been lost in Indiana over the past 12 years to new homes, industries, warehouses and commercial developments will now become law.
“I thank the governor for signing the bill and I’m just looking forward for the Indiana State Department of Agriculture to get started on that,” says Indiana State Rep. Kendell Culp about House Bill 1557, which he wrote and was signed by Gov. Holcomb on Thursday.
The legislation requires the Indiana State Department of Agriculture to put together a report of all the farmland across Indiana that’s been lost from 2010 to 2022 and what that land is being used for now.
“I’ve heard a lot from citizens in Indiana about the concern of food security and loss of farmland to any number of uses, so I thought it made sense that we would take a look at the amount of land lost and also what uses it was lost to,” says Culp. “Once that gets put together, then we’ll have that data and we’ll see if any follow-up legislation needs to happen in the future.”
Culp says this report, which will be released no later than July 1, 2024, will help impact future legislation to protect Indiana’s current farmland.
“I considered some farmland preservation legislation during this session but realized that we didn’t have the data and the facts we needed to see if that was even justified,” according to Culp. “This gives us that information. Once we get that, we can determine what the loss has been per county. We can put an economic value on that for commodity prices and that lost production, and so we can really slice that information in the number of ways.”
Culp, who’s also a farmer in Jasper County, says the recent loss of farmland has had a huge impact on Indiana’s rural communities.
“For many of our rural communities, agriculture is the economic driver. That’s where the impact is going to be felt if you have less and less farmland available,” says Culp. “It has a big impact on those small businesses in those rural communities, so we’re anxious to get this data and see where that leads us.”
Culp has also written House Bill 1132 that would create a land use task force. That bill passed both the Indiana House and Senate and will also be headed to Governor Holcomb’s desk for his signature.
Click below to hear C.J. Miller’s news report for Hoosier Ag Today.
