Senate Bill 461, the grain indemnity bill, passed the through the Indiana legislature this past week. This bill provided updates for the Indiana Grain Buyers and Warehouse Licensing Agency. It was a priority bill for the Agribusiness Council of Indiana.
“A lot of our members are the licensees that are affected by the regulations, the rules, that the grain buyers agency operates under,” says ACI President and CEO Bruce Kettler. “We’re pleased to see it. We know that there were changes that needed to occur. The legislature made that clear. The result of some lawsuits made it clear.”
Lawsuits like the one in Huntington County precipitated by the foreclosure of Salamonie Mills back in 2020. The bill made its way through the House and Senate with little pushback from legislators.
“A lot of the changes won’t directly affect farmers. They will affect more of our ACI members directly, because there will be changes in what’s accepted for an audited financial statement. There’ll be changes in the procedures that the agency uses if there’s a notice of deficiency at a licensee.”
Kettler says the process of writing this bill goes back to June of last year when all ag groups came together to work on this collaboratively. He says they didn’t always agree on every last point, but they wanted the bill to be positive for all of agriculture, and he thinks they accomplished that.
“Not only for the elevators and the folks that are buying grain, the licensees, but also for farmers. Because obviously, we want farmers to have a lot of opportunity for their markets, and ability to be able to have different markets that they can take the grain to. So, it was a good effort on behalf of everybody to make it happen.”
Hear more from Kettler about the grain indemnity bill and other bills they were watching throughout the session below.
