House committee advances bill to let farmers donate conservation easements without state purchase funds

Representative Culp presented House Bill 1234 to the Indiana House Agriculture Committee, proposing a statewide framework that would allow farmland owners to donate or bequeath agricultural conservation easements to protect land for continued farming without a state appropriation to buy those easements.

The bill matters because state officials and witnesses told the committee that Indiana has lost hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in recent years and that a donation-based easement program would let landowners preserve agricultural use while seeking federal and philanthropic matching dollars.

Representative Culp described the proposal as a voluntary program to “accept donations or bequeaths of a conservation easement from farmland owners,” and said it would not include a state appropriation to purchase easements. Chris Reynolds, Midwest regional director for American Farmland Trust, urged support and said the bill would “lay the vital groundwork to give farmers and landowners the option to protect their land for future generations.”

Witnesses cited a state inventory showing large farmland loss: the committee heard that…