News

Indiana Farm Bureau delegates set 2023 policy

Indiana Farm Bureau member delegates approved policy that will guide the organization in 2023.

Indiana Farm Bureau Vice President Kendell Culp says member delegates set policy positions for issues impacting agriculture and rural communities around the state.

“This does culminate our policy development process for the year,” he says. “The policy adopted (during the delegate session) today is the official policy. This is what we will now publish, this will be put out on our website and sent out to all our legislators, so this will be out there really for everybody to see what Indiana Farm Bureau stands for.”

The 234 delegates discussed several issues this year including grain marketing, broadband, energy, and more.

Culp tells Brownfield some farmers are concerned about grain failures.

“A couple of years ago Salamonie Mills and Agland Grain both had grain failures and so a lot of our members, those farmers in those areas, lost grain that was stored there. There’s been a lot of work in the General Assembly addressing that, but there’s a lot of issues about what the state knows about the financial position of a grain warehouse and how quickly it reacts to that,” he says. “I think some of our members got caught in that and didn’t know that warehouse was in financial despair and lost some of their grain. We put language in that helps the producers have more confidence in that grain buying warehouse or elevator that if there is an issue, they want to know sooner than later, and they don’t want to wait to find a closed sign on the door to find out that grain isn’t going to be paid. The other thing, members voted against forcing farmers to have grain priced out at the end of the marketing year.”

Broadband continues to be a priority for the organization. He says there is a lot of new language in the INFB policy book on that topic.

“Broadband is one of those issues that all levels of government—federal, state, and local— have a stake in, have dollars to invest, and really need to collaborate and work together,” he says. “We talked a lot about different grants to make sure they actually get to the last mile so our rural members have the opportunity to take advantage of having that broadband in the same speed that people in a more urban setting have.”

The Indiana Farm Bureau Delegate Session took place at the Hendricks County Fairgrounds.

  • Closing the broadband deserts in Indiana will require collaboration by county, state and federal governments pushing to focus funding specifically in these areas. There is tremendous pressures to spend rural broadband funding to add an additional service provider in areas that already have the availability of gig-speed Internet. Collaborate with the existing ISPs to help serve these areas like the state is doing with Next Level Connections and the rural citizens and businesses will benefit immensely.

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!