By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Giving farmers financial incentive not to sell their land has been stripped from legislation approved at the Indiana Statehouse.

House Bill 1165, authored by State Rep. B. Patrick Bauer (D-South Bend) would have offered farmers up to 50 percent of the value of their land if they agreed to a restrictive covenant prohibiting future development of the property.

The House Agriculture Committee unanimously passed the measure, but the language in the bill further along in the process was removed once housing developers expressed opposition to the proposed financial incentive, Bauer said.

The full House on Feb. 18 and the full state Senate on March 29 voted to assign the task of farmland preservation, in general, to a legislative summer study committee. The goal is for the committee to recommend ways of preserving farmland, for possible action by the legislature in 2020.

Bauer said he will attempt to restore the original language of the bill for reconsideration prior to the legislature adjourning for this year on April 30. “Right now, it is what it is,” he said.

He explained the chances of reviving the bill this year are slim but the proposed financial incentive, since it wasn’t formally defeated, remains an idea for a study committee to look at. “So, it’s not totally dead. Instead of walking, it’s crawling, but it’s still moving forward.”

Bauer has firsthand knowledge about the issue of vanishing farmland. He was raised on a farm later developed into upscale housing and retail space in Granger.

He was also involved in a successful fight to keep a coal gasification plant from going up near his and other nearby farms. Currently, he owns two vegetable farms in Indiana and Michigan.

He noted many farmers want to continue in agriculture but can’t resist the money developers put on the table for their land. He thinks providing financial incentive not to sell would reduce the availability of land and drive up what developers have to pay for property.

Under his original proposal, the Indiana State Department of Agriculture would have administered the money to farmers agreeing to relinquish their development rights. The funding pool would have been supplied partially with federal dollars available for such efforts.

Bauer said financial help also would have been sought from the state and other entities such as conservation groups with an interest in protecting the land. He said similar programs elsewhere are beginning to work in keeping farmland in production.

Among the supporters of the bill and the new version of the legislation is Indiana Farm Bureau. Justin Schneider, INFB director of government relations, said a cash incentive for keeping farmland in production has its place, but a plot banned from development could end up surrounded by new construction years later if adjacent farm ground owners don’t exercise the same cash back option.

He feels a more effective approach would be restrictions within specific geographic areas through measures like zoning. Such programs already exist in states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Michigan.

“You’re going to protect a region. You’re going to protect part of a county. It’s an identifiable geographic area where farmland preservation programs go on,” Schneider said.

He expects the preservation methods in those and other states to be among the tools examined during the study.