INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — In helping introduce the state’s Indiana Agriculture Strategic Plan for the next decade, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch noted one crucial natural resource the state has in agriculture is its workforce.

 

“What is truly great about Indiana is the people … Our pioneering spirit is alive and well because of Hoosiers,” she said.

But Indiana does have abundance of other natural resources that spring more readily to mind when thinking of the farming and harvesting industries.

For one, 64 percent of the state’s acres  were in farmland as of the 2012 USDACensus of Agriculture – this compares to just over 40 percent on a national scale.

There are also 4.8 million acres of woodland, mostly privately owned.

Justin Schneider with Indiana Farm Bureau noted at a late-June meeting on the Plan that Hoosier farmers are already doing much to protect natural resources while still producing. For instance, there’s more manure application being done to fields through precision injection rather than spreading on top of soil and potentially contributing to runoff.

But not everything is perfect – for example, there’s the emerald ash borer to stillworry about, a devastating wood-boring beetle that has spread to most states including Indiana. According to an April report from WFYI, the state Department of Natural Resources said the insect had killed nearly all mature ash trees across the northern two-thirds of Indiana. And Schneider said parts of the state still have overgrazing leading to erosion and runoff of soil.

The first of four broad strategic initatives under the Plan’s natural resources stewardship and environment effort (one of its seven “priorities” through 2027) is to foster collaboration among government entities, industry, non-government organizations and academia, on topics of legislative and regulatory issues, energy innovation – and conservation.

“There is intentional action to make sure that we talk and collaborate,” Schneider said, referring to the 12 “action” items under natural resources in the document, as well as the “we” of more than 40 government offices and organizations related to agriculture, as well as industry.

The other three initiatives are:

•Develop data-driven, transparent agriculture advocacy strategies for constituent groups that will allow for the success in a public policy sphere

•Strengthen the relationship between environmental stewardship and economic returns to sustain a vibrant and diverse agricultural industry

•Elevate the importance of resource stewardship as the cornerstone of a successful agricultural economy 

 

Indiana Conservation Partnership and Agricultural Nutrient Task Force coordinating efforts to improve management of water, land and air and communicating research findings to farmers.

Another is for the Indiana Office of Energy Development to expand market access to biofuel for consumers; still another is for the Department of Agriculture to measure, promote and increase adoption of science-based best practices that lead to economic gain.

Another of the seven priorities in the Plan is public relations and outreach, since the best efforts in any industry won’t get noticed – or bought – if people aren’t told about them. Or, as Dan Dawes with AgriNovus Indiana observed, “Rarely does anybody buy anything unless they are aware of it.”

 

There are a few action plans under public relations in the Plan, left mostly tothe state’s ag department and Indiana’s Family of Farmers to oversee. These include reviewing the best practices of other states successfully promoting agriculture, and developing a statewide campaign for promotion to consumers here.

The Indiana Agriculture Strategic Plan is ambitious; it contains nearly 90 of these action plans under its seven priorities to be executed within the next decade – many due much sooner than 2027. Harold Cooper, CEO and general manager of Seymour-based farmer cooperative Premier Companies, closed out the June 26 unveiling of the document by paraphrasing a quote from 19th century poet Robert Browning.

“If your reach doesn’t exceed your grasp, what’s a heaven for?” he mused. “Today, I think our reach exceeds our grasp.”

Read more about the action plans, and how you might become involved, online at http://in.gov/isda/3547.htm