Gov. Braun holds fireside chat at the 2025 Indiana Ag Policy Summit

LEBANON, Ind. — Indiana Gov. Mike Braun spoke to dozens of farmers during a fireside chat at the 2025 Indiana Ag Policy Summit on Wednesday. There, the governor highlighted several policy decisions he says will ultimately benefit farmers.

”[Gov. Braun] is pro-agriculture, and as a farmer you want to hear that,” Chris Cherry with the Indiana Corn Growers Association said.

”[Gov. Braun] speaks our language,” Brian Warpup with the Indiana Soybean Alliance said.

Some of the updates included Gov. Braun’s decision to bring Indiana into the Make America Healthy Again movement. In April, Gov. Braun signed an executive order directing the ISDA to study Hoosiers’ access to local foods and find ways to improve farm-to-table consumption. That report is due next July.

”I think this opens up a ton of opportunities from farm to market and you’re still going to keep a ton of what’s in place in place because that’s not going away,” Gov. Braun said.

Gov. Braun also highlighted the USDA’s decision to create a regional hub in Indianapolis. The USDA has neither released an anticipated timeline for the hub nor any information on the number of employees expected to work in Indianapolis. The department has also not released any information as to where exactly the hub will be housed within Indianapolis.

“Getting anything out of D.C. will certainly make it closer to the people that interface with those agencies, not to mention it would probably reduce the cost by 60, 70, 80 percent,” Gov. Braun said.

This comes as the EPA announced plans to reverse its finding that greenhouse gases are bad for human health. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in Indianapolis on Tuesday.

“It’s not mutually exclusive to lighten certain regulations and still protect what farmers protect better protect almost better than anyone: the land itself,” Gov. Braun said.

Many Indiana Democrats have expressed concerns that the move could further jeopardize Hoosiers’ health and significantly increase their utility costs.

”It harms Hoosiers’ lives, it harms economic productivity. There’s a major expense to poor air quality,” State Rep. Carey Hamilton (D-Indianapolis) said.

One topic that wasn’t discussed during Braun’s fireside chat: the effects of tariffs on Hoosier farmers.

”62 percent of our soybeans are exported, so when there are tariffs on countries that we do business with, that affects the prices we sell our grain at, so now we’ve got to look at different marketing strategies for our product, mainly more domestic,” Warpup said.

”It’s hard to shine a positive light on agriculture right now with where commodity prices are and trying to get our trade back in fair order with China and some of the other countries we trade with,” Cherry said.