Hoosier Ag Today’s ‘Top Indiana Ag News Stories of 2024’
With 2024 coming to a close, we thought we take a look back, in no particular order, at the top ag news stories from Indiana and across the U.S. that you heard us cover during the past 12 months on Hoosier Ag Today.
The biggest story of the year may have been the volatility of the commodity markets and the continued drop we’ve seen in grain prices. If you take a look at the numbers at the close of trade on Dec. 29, 2023 and compare to the close on Friday, Dec. 27, 2024, the nearby contract for corn has fallen by 17 ½ cents a bushel, wheat is down by 81 ½ cents a bushel—but the biggest drop has been in soybeans, which has fallen by $3.13 a bushel this year alone.
Hoosier Ag Today’s market analyst Tom Fritz with EFG Group says one of the biggest factors pressuring the grain markets has been the competitiveness of corn and soybeans in South America—which he says will likely continue into 2025.
“It’s all about the big crop that’s going to be coming out of Brazil within the next month,” said Fritz. “We’re still trying to figure out just how big it is, but right now, it’s all about the soybean market and trying to find the bottom.”
While grain prices have dipping lower and lower over the past two years, the yields for Indiana’s corn and soybean crops have been climbing higher and higher—as Blake Russell with Channel Seed shared with Andy Eubank back in mid-October.
“Yields have been very good. We’ve had some great yields depending on location. A couple of places had a little bit of drought or a little bit of stress from different diseases, but overall, yields in both corn and soybeans have been very good and our yields have met or exceeded expectations for this year,” said Russell.
However, we heard back in September from Dr. Darcy Telenko, Field Crop Pathologist at Purdue, how Tar Spot was having an impact on corn yields and had been identified in all 92 of Indiana’s counties.
“With Tar Spot, those spores need a lot of leaf wetness for those initial spores to infect and cause the disease,” said Telenko. “In some areas, we’ve seen that where we’ve had the right moisture amount that turned on the disease, but the dryness also made it fluctuate a bit.”
She also told us how Red Crown Rot was rearing its ugly head and impacting Indiana’s soybean crops.
“This pathogen pretty much eats up the root system, so we’ve seen up to 50-percent yield loss of those plants,” according to Telenko.
On the livestock side, Indiana’s commercial poultry and dairy farms were spared from having positive cases of the bird flu virus. In March, the first case of the H5N1 virus was identified in dairy cattle—and now have been found across 16 states affecting nearly 900 different herds!
Dr. Bret Marsh, who was State Veterinarian with the Indiana State Board of Animal Health, told Hoosier Ag Today earlier this year how difficult it is to stop the spread of the H5N1 virus.
“Once [H5N1] is in a state—they start with two or three, and the next thing you know, it’s six and ten, etc. as it moves within those populations, so we’re trying to learn how this virus is moving. It appears that it’s through people and hands and feet and cattle movements, and so we have to be aware that this virus is clearly on the move,” said Marsh in August.
In early November, USDA began bulk testing milk supplies starting in states where dairy cattle tested positive last spring for the H5N1 bird flu virus.
Dr. Marsh also made news this year when he was named the new dean of Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He succeeded Dr. Willie Reed, who had served as Purdue’s previous Dean of the Veterinary College for 17 years. Dr. Marsh had served as State Veterinarian with the Indiana State Board of Animal Health for 30 years.
2024 was also a year that will bring about changes in leadership in our state and national leaders. Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) decided not to run for another term in Washington, D.C., and instead, decided to run for Indiana Governor. Republican delegates during the Indiana Republican Convention last June chose Noblesville minister Micah Beckwith as the GOP’s Lt. Governor candidate and Braun’s running mate.
In Indiana, the Lt. Governor also serves as the Secretary of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. During the Lt. Governor debate at the Indiana State Fair in August to discuss policies impacting Indiana’s farmers and rural communities, Beckwith said that Braun had a plan to lower property taxes on Indiana’s farmers.
“Farmers have seen an increase from last year to this year of 26.2% in property taxes. That’s insane. That’s absolutely out of control, and farmers need the relief—the Braun/Beckwith plan is going to bring that relief to farmers. We’re going to make sure that never again, will you ever be able to outpace economic growth of an area,” said Beckwith.
Braun easily beat his Democratic opponent Jennifer McCormick in November, and will become Indiana’s 52nd governor next month.
Braun has asked Don Lamb to continue serving as Director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) as a part of his new administration. Lamb was appointed by Gov. Eric Holcomb (R-IN) in March 2023.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump won the Presidential election in November and will return to the White House as President on January 20.
Trump has nominated Brooke Rollins to serve as his next U.S. Ag Secretary, even though it had been rumored that Indiana natives Kip Tom, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, and Ted McKinney, CEO of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), had both been among the top candidates for the USDA’s top job.
Trump’s previous Ag Secretary, Sonny Perdue, shared his thoughts on Rollins with Hoosier Ag Today’s C.J. Miller in early December.
“I love Brooke Rollins. I think she has a heart for America, she has a heart for working people, and certainly—from a Texas girl and graduate of Texas A&M—she understands the rural culture of America,” said Perdue.
Your lawmakers in Congress took until Friday Dec. 20th to decide to continue to extend the 2018 Farm Bill for another year. The House Ag Committee had advanced their version of a new Farm Bill back in May. However, Senate Democrats didn’t release the text of their version of a new Farm Bill until November 18 during the Lame Duck session. The 2018 Farm Bill has been extended through Sept. 30th of 2025.
Finally, the 167th Indiana State Fair saw another year of huge crowds with attendance surpassing the event in 2023, even though the 2024 Indiana State Fair was cut back to 15 days over two weeks in 2024—compared to 18 days over three weeks the year before.
On January 7, the first ever Miss Indiana State Fair from Noble County was crowned, as Alexxys Standish from Kentland, a student at Indiana University and a graduate of South Newton High School, was crowned Miss Indiana State Fair 2024 among 84 contestants representing their home counties. Standish will relinquish her crown and sash as Miss Indiana State Fair 2025 will be crowned during the Indiana State Fair Queen Pageant at the Corteva Coliseum on Sunday, January 5, 2025.
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