Have you felt that feeling of loss as you watch farmland across the state fade to development? You have seen it happening with your own eyes, but the Indiana State Department of Agriculture has finally attached numbers to that feeling after being tasked by legislation to gather farmland loss data.

“We all know that we’re losing farmland,” ISDA Director Don Lamb says. “We can all see it out our backdoors. So, we had this feeling that farmland is going away at a rapid pace. The goal of this legislation was to make it more than a feeling, and put some numbers around it and create a foundation.”

ISDA released the Inventory of Lost Farmland in July, which pulls together farmland loss data from across the state that took place between 2010 and 2022. This report solidified those losses with numbers and provided a foundation for agricultural organizations and counties. But mostly, it has raised some questions.

Where were gains?

Numbers that were quick to jump out on the report were positive gains reflected in more than a dozen counties. These were not small gains either; most of them showed thousands of acres of farmland gained. Porter County alone was said to have gained more than 28,000 acres of farmland.

“That’s something that we looked at and were surprised by as well,” Lamb says. “There is a reality, though, that we gain farmland. But the big changes probably come more because of the way that land use was designated at the county level across the parcel.”

Lamb explains that these gains most likely came from reclassification of farmland in those counties, depending on the primary use of the parcels. He says inconsistencies in reporting over a 12-year period may have contributed to those numbers.

“Those are the kinds of inconsistencies that we would like to improve in the future if we can collect this information more frequently than over a 12-year period,” Lamb says. He says that with more than 92 county assessors and changes in those positions over the years, there is added potential for inconsistencies.

Next steps

An unintended consequence of those recorded gains could be cities feeling justified in taking more farmland for development. To this, Lamb says that local officials will need to take control.

“The goal of this legislation was not to give us a path forward but to give us information to use,” Lamb says. “If that really is something that is being said — that a city feels like they can develop more because farmland is gained — those are local conversations that are going to need to happen. I really doubt if that will go very far in a local conversation.”

Lamb is hoping this report will spur some productive conversation around preserving farmland. While he works with legislators to potentially shift this report to a five-year cycle, he hopes that those local governing bodies can find the answers needed to address rapid farmland loss.

“As the state looks at this, and as we think about what that means for us, it doesn’t answer very many questions,” Lamb says. “In fact, it probably creates more questions. But those questions can be and should be answered at a local level.”