More than 260 delegates from across the state met in Indianapolis over the weekend to consider the policy that will guide Indiana Farm Bureau for the next year. Indiana Bureau President Don Villwock says, “Delegates reaffirmed our quest to seek permanent and lasting property tax relief as we go into the next session of the Indiana General Assembly,” The policy reads, “We support permanent and substantial measures to free Hoosiers from the burden of property taxes.”

Delegates added language that supports lowering the property tax cap for farmland, farm buildings and machinery to 1 percent of assessed value. Currently, the cap for homesteads is 1 percent of assessed value, but farmland is capped at 2 percent, and all other property, including farm equipment, is capped at 3 percent.

Annexation is also a big concern – and it is directly tied to property taxes since in many cases, it’s the “lack of tax revenues caused by the caps that have caused local leaders and administrators to expand their assessed valuation by annexing farmland,” Villwock explained. “That is a growing concern all across the state of Indiana.”  The new policy states that “Municipalities should have to collect signatures from 65 percent of the land holders in order for the area to be annexed.”

Farm Bureau’s grassroots members rely on quality roads for transporting commodities and their high-investment equipment. Therefore, road funding was another important issue for delegates.

The longest discussion of the day involved unmanned aerial vehicles as they affect agriculture. UAVs or “drones”, are increasingly used in agriculture for crop scouting and gathering agronomic data, but there are still very few regulations governing their commercial use.

“Eventually, the regulatory framework will probably be pursued by the American Farm Bureau Federation rather than state by state. However, Farm Bureau members do have concerns for their own privacy and trespass by drones, which may be a state level discussion in the future.  It’s still a new issue, it’s uncharted waters, and we’re building the rules as we go. It was interesting to see the level of concern that members have. And I think that will be a growing area of rulemaking by the Federal Aviation Administration,” he said.

Also approved by delegates was language that seeks to clarify the roles of the Indiana State Fair Commission and the Indiana State Fair Board.

At the federal level, the delegates approved language on crop insurance that will be sent to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s resolution committee. Villwock says, “They reemphasized the need for crop insurance on the national scale and reaffirmed crop insurance as the key safety net.”