Corn Growers Focus On Tax Fairness

Dec 30, 2015

Directors of the Indiana Corn Growers Assn. have laid out a 2016 state legislative agenda focused on local road funding, property tax reform, and tax fairness for E85 fuel. The ICGA board approved the priorities this week ahead of the January start to the legislative session.

Farmers are calling on the General Assembly to increase funding for local roads and bridges.

"All across our state, local roads and bridges are crumbling," said ICGA president Mike Nichols, a farmer from Spencer County. "The legislature needs to step up and improve the condition of local roads to help us move equipment, crops, livestock, and inputs to and from our farms."

Numerous proposals have been revealed ahead of the spring legislative session. While Corn Growers aren't taking a position on any specific proposals yet, they are clear that local roads and bridges must be a priority.

"The state can't be solely focused on highways, cities, and towns," said Nichols. "Roads benefit our entire economy, and farmers are focused on improving local infrastructure."

Corn farmers have also outlined a reform of the state's farmland property tax formula as a 2016 priority. Rates have been driven up by over 33 percent in the past five years, and farmers are seeing increasing property tax bills while net farm income has fallen precipitously.

"The formula for property taxes on farmland does not take real-world conditions into account," said ICGA vice president Sarah Delbecq, a farmer from DeKalb County. "We need a formula that accurately values farmland while not forcing drastic cuts to struggling local school districts."

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.