House Enrolled Act 1149 was the first bill Mike Braun signed into law as governor of Indiana. It tasks the Indiana State Department of Agriculture with creating a web portal for Hoosier farmers, agribusinesses, and consumers.
“The idea is just to have a one stop shop, so to speak, for anything to do with ag and how to either improve what you’re doing, expand what you’re doing, do something differently,” ISDA Director Don Lamb tells Hoosier Ag Today. “If you’ve got a question about anything do with agriculture and how we can do it better, you could find an answer to that on this portal.”
Lamb says the first step to creating this ag portal is hearing from you! He especially wants to hear from you if you’re actively involved in production agriculture.
“People who are producing food, producing products. I wouldn’t say that we wouldn’t listen to anybody, obviously, in the agriculture community, if it’s suppliers or researchers or anything like that, but the idea of this portal is to make it easier for people to become more involved in agriculture, production agriculture, and so that’s who we’re really focusing on this point.”
The input received from the survey will help influence what information is readily available on the new ag portal when it’s finished.
“What seems to be kind of the easiest picking apples? Where do we get the most interest? Is there a common denominator that people are looking for information on a certain subject? We can make some guesses about that, but hopefully the survey will kind of help solidify some of those thoughts.”
The survey takes about 2 minutes to complete, is anonymous, and does not ask for personal or business identifying information. After gathering data and building the ag portal, it is set to launch in 2026.
