Buried deep in House Bill 1249 is language that should be music to the ears of farmers all across Indiana. Katie Nelson, executive director of public policy for Indiana Farm Bureau explains what the bill, which is simply described as “various criminal law matters,” does for their members.
“…the final version protects against those unauthorized drones flying through barns from unauthorized spraying or for drones being used to harass farm animals or damage crops.”
This language was originally part of another bill that didn’t advance earlier in the legislative session, but Nelson says persistence from the INFB lobbying team and especially members kept hopes alive of including it in other legislation.
The issue stemmed from poultry farmers in Northeast Indiana that noticed drones on or near their farms and then just two or three days later, their flock was diagnosed with avian influenza.
“Whether that’s a coincidence, whether that was caused by it, either way, our farmers should have that protection. And they would call the sheriff, they would call various state agencies, and before this bill, there really wasn’t much protection for them to be able to point to and say, ‘This is illegal, we need to catch these people and prosecute them’. And so now, we believe there is increased protection. I don’t think it’s quite as strong as what we started session hoping for, but it’s certainly in a better place than what we had before.”
I asked Nelson on the latest Indiana Ag Policy Podcast what grade she would give the Indiana legislature on how they handled ag policy this year.
“I’m gonna give them a C, and that might be lower than what some people might think, right? Because there was a limited amount of legislation that we had to kill. There were definitely some, right? But there wasn’t a ton of really bad stuff that we were killing. But I would say that I am hopeful that our Indiana legislature will be more proactive and invest more in Indiana agriculture going forward, whether that’s in funding in the future or passing priority legislation. There were some good bills this year that would have done some good things for ag that never even got a hearing. And so, I’m hopeful that our team can be really proactive next session and that legislators will be as well.”
Watch the Indiana Ag Policy Podcast below or tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.
