Please read Professor Miller’s (Indiana University) Study of the impact of removing prime farmland from Agricultural Production. Also, Hoosiers need to be reminded of Indiana’s Agricultural Accomplishments and what our state contributes to feeding our nation and the world!
Here’s a link to the third-party study, we are District 70 page 18
https://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/studies/BeyondTheFarm.pdf
Indiana is 1 of only 3 states with over 50% of its land designated as Prime Farmland!
If we lose all this prime land for solar panels, what will happen? This is why the APA recommends no solar on prime farmland & other countries have done the same. We face a hungry future and a major increase in the costs of food if we lose this land.
Don’t have the patience to read all of this info, here’s a quick breakdown:
A 2015 Financial Report by Indiana University, Kelley School of Business: Beyond The Farm: A State and Regional Report on the Economic Contribution of Farms, Forests, and Related Industries reveals:
Agriculture contributes an estimated $44.2 billion to Indiana’s economy, and approximately $13 billion of that amount is the result of ripple effects such as related supply-chain purchases and spending by workers.
Indiana is the eighth largest agricultural leader in the nation, exporting just over $4.6 billion in 2017. Indiana’s agricultural output supports nearly 190,000 Hoosier jobs, and of those jobs, 107,500 are directly involved in agricultural production and processing.
Using the most recent census data available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, researchers at the Indiana Business Research Center found that agriculture creates $14.9 billion in value-added — an amount equal to nearly 5 percent of Indiana’s gross domestic product.