Indiana Farm Bureau will push lawmakers for more agricultural funding and additional property tax changes during the 2027 legislative session.

The organization announced its legislative priorities ahead of next year's budget-writing session. They include increased funding for state agricultural agencies, property tax and assessment reform and policies aimed at strengthening Indiana's food system.

Katie Nelson, Indiana Farm Bureau's executive director of public policy, said the organization hasn't determined exactly how much additional state funding it will request.

But one target is the Indiana State Department of Agriculture's Indiana Grown program, which Nelson said currently receives $250,000 and supports two staff members.

“We really want to focus on the Indiana Grown program, really bolstering and increasing that,” Nelson said. “It's not really enough to do any programmatic things for the state.”

Farm Bureau also wants funding to restore a second livestock market reporter and additional money for agricultural economic development, including international trade and attracting food-processing businesses.

The requests come as farmers face continued financial pressure.

Listen: Farmers facing uncertain future amid rising costs, trade wars

Nelson said grain farmers have been hit particularly hard, although the problem extends across agriculture.

“The issue is that input prices are up and markets are down,” Nelson said. “As our farmers are taking the crop out now, and then quickly we'll be shifting to planning for next year's crop, they're looking at prices for things like fertilizer, things like diesel prices, and kind of wondering how they're going to make that work.”

Property taxes are another priority.

Farm Bureau wants agricultural-use buildings moved from Indiana's 3 percent property-tax cap to the 2 percent cap, which would also provide those properties with a one-third deduction.

Nelson said farmers have reported large and inconsistent increases in assessments this year.

“We've had reports of those assessments doubling, tripling and being extremely inconsistent across the state, sometimes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars,” Nelson said.

Farm Bureau also wants greater statewide consistency in the assessment process, particularly for farms and agribusinesses operating in multiple counties.

The organization plans to weigh in on another issue expected to receive attention next session: the “Make Indiana Healthy Again” movement.

Nelson said Farm Bureau wants farmers included in those discussions but opposes Indiana creating its own broad restrictions on food ingredients.

She pointed to previously proposed ingredient bans in Indiana and California's Proposition 12 as examples of the kind of state-by-state regulatory differences the organization wants to avoid.

“We want to protect against that and really think that any regulations that are of that nature need to be handled at the federal level,” Nelson said.

Farm Bureau's priorities are developed through its county organizations and member delegates.

The 2027 General Assembly convenes in January.