Indiana Farm Bureau Members Dive Deep on Policy Issues in DC

Indiana Farm Bureau members were in Washington, D.C. last week weighing in on policy issues critical to the success of agriculture. Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron told Hoosier Ag Today last week in D.C. that they have 7 individuals on what they call Issue Advisory Committees for American Farm Bureau.

“It ranges from energy to farm policy to water and natural resources. It’s issue groups that will dig into the topics a lot deeper, the issues, and understand them and help us develop good policy. But that will go back to the local level and it’ll go through the resolutions process. But it just gives us an opportunity to take several days to dig into it, understand the issues, and it’s our grassroots members.”

While in D.C., Kron and others met with Indiana Senators Todd Young and Jim Banks to discuss policy issues impacting farmers back home. It’s been a little while since Indiana hasn’t had representation on the Senate Ag Committee. HAT asked Kron if that was a concern of his.

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d say ‘concern’. We sure would have liked to have seen Senator Banks on there, and we did work and tried to get him there and it didn’t work out…I will say we have two of them on the House Ag Committee in Congressmen Jim Baird and Mark Messmer, so we’re well represented there.

“We’re going to go have conversations and talk about the farm bill,” Kron continued. “Labor is one of our top issues and H-2A and labor rates. So, we’re going to be talking about issues like that that impact the pocketbooks of Hoosiers.”

Kron told us they also discussed biofuel tax credits and Senate confirmations with Young and Banks while adding they’ll be out to D.C. plenty more in the weeks and months to come to advocate for Indiana farmers.