Size doesn’t matter: Small state ag department doing big things

VINCENNES, Ind. — Indiana has one of the smallest state agriculture departments in the nation — and Don Lamb would not have it any other way.

Lamb, the director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, was the speaker at the first Shop Talk of the season hosted by the Indiana Corn Growers Association and the Indiana Soybean Alliance’s Membership and Policy Committee.

The meeting was held on July 24 on the farm of Susan and Mike Brocksmith in Vincennes.

Additional events featuring congressional representatives, scheduled to start with a catered breakfast at 8 a.m., are planned Aug. 8 on Ron Hensley’s farm in Daleville, Aug. 12 on Tim Gauck’s farm in Greensburg and Aug. 15 on Brian Warpup’s farm in Warren. Get more details and register for free at https://tinyurl.com/2vvbyrs4.

Lamb is a second-generation farmer from Boone County, where he and his family — including his father, brother and nephews — grow corn, popcorn, seed soybeans and seed wheat and own the AgRecycle composting business and Lamb Farms Agronomy.

Lamb explained ISDA oversees the Indiana FFA staff, the Indiana Grain Indemnity Fund, the Division of Economic Development international trade efforts, the Indiana Grown local food marketing program, the Policy and Regulatory Affairs team and the Division of Soil Conservation.

There are 70 employees on the ISDA staff — and half of those people are devoted to soil conservation and work throughout the state, he said.

“We’re the ninth largest farming state and the seventh largest exporter — and we’re the 38th largest in size — so that means we’re doing pretty good,” he said.

“Except for the really small states in the Northeast, we have the smallest Department of Agriculture — by far.”

In most other states, Lamb said, the Department of Agriculture has a lot more regulatory functions, likely managing programs of the Office of the State Chemist, the Board of Animal Health, the Department of Environmental Management, the Department of Natural Resources and the Food Protection Division of the Department of Health.

“I think it’s a really good thing that we have a small, nimble Department of Agriculture, where we can be more proactive in what we do,” he said. “We’re more advocates for farmers. That’s what we should be doing.”

That position allows ISDA to be “a good teammate,” Lamb said, citing the Department of Health’s efforts to stop and prevent salmonella outbreaks on cantaloupe farms in Knox County.

“We want to be right in the middle of that — the Department of Agriculture should be in the middle of everything like that, where you’re advocating for safe food, but you’re also advocating for the farmer to not be overregulated and things like that,” he said.

“I’m really glad that’s not my responsibility. I don’t have to be the regulator of that, but I can be an advocate for that. And I think that’s an advantage that Indiana has in that way.”

Lamb praised Team Ag Indiana, a partnership between Indiana Farm Bureau, Purdue Extension and state organizations representing beef, corn, dairy, pork, poultry, soybeans and others.

“When I say it’s nice to be a small Department of Agriculture, it’s nice to be a small Department of Agriculture when you’ve got a lot of other really good people working in agriculture — and Indiana has got some great people,” he said. “Right now, it feels to me like the unity among the folks in agriculture is really good.”

Lost Farmland

Lamb shared the results of an inventory of the lost farmland in Indiana. It was requested by the Indiana General Assembly last year.

From 2010 to 2022, Indiana lost about 350,000 acres of farmland to another use.

“We want that economic development, we want our rural areas to have good jobs, we want our kids to be able to come back and do anything else they want to and things like that, then with the jobs comes housing — and to be honest with you we still need more housing and we as farmers don’t like to see houses come up, but we also don’t have enough housing to support new industry when we get it in our rural areas — so, it’s a little bit of a challenge there,” Lamb said.

This information can now be used to develop policies that balance economic growth, food security and the preservation of agricultural land, he said.

“We’re big on property rights,” he said. “When it comes to farmland preservation, I want to preserve farmland and I want to do it voluntarily and I want to really think about it strategically.”

Economic Value

Lamb said Team Ag Indiana is now working on a study to determine the value of agriculture to a local economy.

“We know the churning of the dollars of agriculture — you think about seed, fertilizer, chemistry, labor, the LP gas that goes into the dryer, all the other things that agriculture produces, there’s a lot of money that goes back into a local economy from the farm,” Lamb said.

“We think we need some of those options for development,” he said. “Somewhere in the middle, agriculture makes economic sense to a local economy, but I don’t know where that is. And, again, it’s a little bit like this other study, whatever the study says, you have to accept it. The truth is the truth.”

State Funding

Looking to the future, Lamb suggested additional funding for Indiana Grown, the Sweets and Snacks Expo and other trade shows to promote food products like Illinois does, and the Hoosier Homestead Award Program, which recognizes farms that have been owned by the same family for 100, 150 or 200 years.

Other states also spend a lot more on soil conservation incentives, Lamb said.

“I’m not a big government spending advocate. But at the same time if there’s ways we can encourage people to get into it for the first time, I think we should be doing that,” he said, noting the benefits of cover crops.

ISDA is participating in 11 international trips to promote Hoosier products in foreign markets this year, Lamb said.

Most of the funding for the trips comes from federal sources, he said, such as the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We can go fairly inexpensively around the world to market our products,” he said.

Speaking Up

Lamb encouraged farmers to tell their story — even if they are tired of being told to do so.

“We don’t give ourselves enough credit for what agriculture is to our state,” Lamb said.

“We don’t think too much about feeding the world; we’re thinking about how to make a living for our families, how bring our kids back to the farm. So, it’s a little easy to start to get kind of jaded towards that story of telling our story of agriculture.

“But I just want to encourage you that we really do have to do that. We’re such a small part of this state population-wise, we’ve got to stick together, we’ve got to tell our stories, we’ve got to talk about how good agriculture is.

“And the thing that I also think we forget is that we don’t have to apologize for anything. Farmers are extremely smart. They’re extremely good businesspeople. There’s a lot to be proud of in how we do things.”

“Remember, we really are the backbone of our state and we need to have that confidence when we tell our story, when we go to the Statehouse,” he said. “We are really important to the state in so many different ways.”