Committee advances bill to create agricultural online portal and regular inventory of lost farmland

House Bill 1149 would direct the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) to create an online portal that centralizes links and guidance from state and federal agencies for farmers and prospective farmers, and would require ISDA to update an inventory of "lost farmland" every five years.

Supporters said the portal is intended as a one‑stop resource to make it easier for rural farmers and small operators to find funding, permitting and regulatory information. Representative Dan Culp, the bill author, told the committee the portal would be "similar to the federal site which is www.farmers.gov" and said ISDA would host the portal.

The bill also would codify a recurring inventory of acreage converted from agricultural uses to other uses. Representative Culp and ISDA staff pointed to the department's earlier inventory, which reported a net loss of about 345,000 acres of land classified as agricultural between 2010 and 2022. Quentin Hayes, legislative director for ISDA, said the department intends the five‑year schedule to align with the U.S. Census of Agriculture and to broaden available data.

Committee members asked how the inventory assigns causes to land use change, whether gains as well as losses are captured, and how inaccuracies in county‑level maps would be corrected. Representative Culp and ISDA staff said the initial inventory used Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) property classification codes and that some county‑level anomalies were the result of differing assessor classifications; ISDA corrected a mathematical aggregation error that affected one category on the first maps and posted an updated map on its website. Hayes told the committee the fiscal impact of building and maintaining the portal was "undetermined" and that ISDA was "working on trying to fit it in within current appropriations."

Public and industry testimony emphasized the portal's potential usefulness to small and diversified farms. Mike Hoopengardner, an owner of a small dairy and value‑added operation, said the list of agencies and permits required to start and operate a farm had been onerous in his experience and called the proposed portal a "huge game changer." Adam Novotny of the Indiana Farm Bureau said the bureau supported efforts to improve access to accurate, timely regulatory information.

Committee members also asked whether certain conversions—such as land used for utility‑scale solar—were included in the inventory. ISDA said it did not include solar in the inventory because existing public datasets did not reliably record the previous use of land converted to solar, although ISDA posted a separate total acreage figure from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) showing land in solar installations and provided that information to the committee.

After questions and discussion, the committee voted to move the bill forward. Recorded roll call entries show the motion passed with nine yeas and no nays. The committee discussion noted the bill had been identified as a priority in the governor's Freedom and Opportunity agenda and that the portal would implement a recommendation of the Land Use Task Force co‑chaired by Senator Dorio and Representative Culp.

Looking ahead, ISDA said it would continue refining data sources, consider outreach strategies to make farmers aware of the portal (including press releases and district outreach), and attempt to implement the portal within existing appropriations if possible.