Q&A with Randy Kron, Indiana Farm Bureau president and 2024 Indiana 250 honoree
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After Randy Kron graduated from Purdue University in 1983, he got married and started a farm. As first-generation farmers, he and his wife grew yellow corn, white corn, soybeans and wheat in Vanderburgh County.
Today, Kron still owns the farm, but he’s also president of Indiana Farm Bureau and serves on the board of the Indiana Grain Indemnity Corp. He spoke with Inside INdiana Business about his quest to share farmers’ stories and being a 2024 Indiana 250 honoree.
Tell me about your career at Indiana Farm Bureau.
My wife and I got involved with Indiana Farm Bureau because our local county farm bureau president asked us. We didn’t know a lot about it. As we were growing our farm, I realized there were a lot of decisions being made in our nation’s capital that were impacting our pocketbook. I wanted to have a voice somewhere, and the Farm Bureau was that channel. There were people making decisions on ag issues that knew nothing about agriculture.
My wife and I were involved in the [Young Farmers & Ag Professionals] program. With that, you get several trips to D.C. and advocate on behalf of agriculture. I’ve served as our county farm bureau president in Vanderburgh County and later had an opportunity to serve as a district director. There are 10 districts in Indiana. The district director serves on the board of directors for Indiana Farm Bureau.
Indiana Farm Bureau is the parent company, but we also own an insurance company, Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance. So you’re on the board of directors for all affiliate companies. That was a learning experience, but it was a great experience. I learned, studied and understood the insurance industry a little more and then got elected vice president of Indiana Farm Bureau, which means you’re the vice president of all the affiliate companies, too.
Eight years ago, I was elected president and have enjoyed it all the way. When I first started, I never thought that was the path I would be taking, but I found myself enjoying helping others be advocates for agriculture. I was raised in my family that you give back to your community, and my mom and dad were big advocates for that. I felt like I could give back to the agriculture community.
Fortunately, I have a phenomenal wife who’s still home helping run the farm. Our son graduated school and then came home, so he’s doing the day-to-day management of the farm. We try to engage a lot of younger farmers, and that’s not easy because fewer of them are going back to the farm, more consolidation. Trying to help young ones understand how to be advocates for agriculture is critical because not many people understand agriculture and what we do.
What challenges have you faced during your time with Indiana Farm Bureau?
Agriculture is cyclical. It’s not the most profitable industry to be in sometimes, and we’re experiencing that right now. If [young farmers] go to school and graduate, there are better jobs outside of the industry, and a lot of them don’t come back. That’s why you see consolidation because it’s hard work, and it’s not the highest-paying job. It’s very rewarding, but it’s a real challenge to get them to come back to the farm.
My wife and I were fortunate in the eighties. It was tough, but there was a lot lower cost. Now, trying to get started, it’s a big hurdle. You almost have to have a mentor, somebody helping you, taking over a farm, or most of them get passed down to family members like our son is taking over ours. We started with 66 acres and growing corn or soybeans. My wife worked off the farm. We wouldn’t have survived if she hadn’t done that for several years.
What successes have you achieved with Indiana Farm Bureau?
In the eight years I’ve been president, we’ve had membership growth every year. That says a lot about our organization because it’s a paid membership. Our members must be seeing value in what we offer, or we wouldn’t be growing membership.
A few years ago, as I was out in the counties talking to our members, a lot of them talked about the lack of health insurance or the availability of affordable health insurance. We found that was one of the factors keeping some of our younger generation from returning to the farm. A lot of members around the state worked together, lobbied the legislature and passed special legislation so we could offer a health product for sole proprietors.
What we found out since we started that was about a third of those who took our health plans were uninsured. That tells you we were serving a big need out there. I’ve had a number of young farmers tell me it’s allowed them to return to the farm full-time.
Tell me about the tax and water task forces created by Indiana Farm Bureau.
During my time as president, we’ve only had a couple of other task forces. So to have two of them in one year is extremely unusual. That tells you how important these issues are.
We’ve always had concerns about water quality. Farmers are good stewards of the land, and they want to do things right. But the LEAP District is what propelled this one. When you start moving water around, and where they want to pump the water from the Tippecanoe area, there’s a lot of agricultural irrigation wells up there, and that’s a concern to our members.
What they’re fearful of is if you move a lot of water away from there, is there enough remaining for them in their irrigation wells? They don’t want to flip the switch in July and go to water their crop when it’s hot and dry and nothing comes out. Our members across the state are concerned. They’re like, “If they could do that there, they could do that in my area.”
What we’re working towards is trying to have some guidelines. Our members voted that they want, one, a statewide monitoring system, so we know what’s going on underground. And two, some protections for agricultural uses. When I say agriculture, it’s more than irrigation. It’s also a lot of livestock facilities. And the food processing industry requires a lot of water.
We’re not against economic development by any means, but we have to do it smartly. Let’s make sure if we’re going to move water around—because some have plentiful amounts and some have none—we just have to do it right.
Farmland taxes went up 26% on assessed value last year and 20% this next year. The year before, I think it was 16%. We’ve seen substantial increases in farmland taxes. This is happening at a time when the farm economy is having a downturn. USDA said about a month ago they expect farm income to be down 25%. Purdue has made some projections that agriculture will break even at best. Having taxes go up 10-20% in a year isn’t reasonable for anybody.
So we’re looking at, how do we cap that? How do we slow that down? Also, we’re looking at other income sources to partially offset. Because you give one group of taxpayers a break, it just shifts to others. We’re looking at how we can find other revenue sources so we can come up with a fair system that’s more balanced, more dependable and more predictable.
Indiana Farm Bureau is an advocacy organization, and we’re going to work with our members to help them tell their stories. We’ll lobby and advocate to legislators to make sure they understand what’s going on so we can have positive outcomes. Our organization is about bringing like-minded people together, predominantly about agriculture, but some of our issues are rural community issues, too.
You’re an advocate for high-speed internet access for families, farms and businesses. Tell me about that.
It’s critical. There are a lot of state and national dollars coming into the mix. There are a number of us in Vanderburgh County who worked very hard—with the help of county commissioners and some of the [American Rescue Plan Act] dollars—to get high-speed internet available at every house in Vanderburgh County. I’m proud of that. Now we have to duplicate that 91 more times around the state. That’s our focus now with the dollars out there, filling in some of the holes.
Everybody needs high-speed internet. It’s important in agriculture for a lot of the technology that we use. That’s how we farm better, with all the equipment. At our farm, we have two iPads running plus several other monitors. And it requires internet capacity to be able to do those things, to be able to farm the way we want to, to be sustainable.
It’s economics, too, that’s important. But also in rural communities, it’s about our young adults having access. For school, it’s a broad issue, and we’ve worked hard to help get it to the last acre. We’ve made strides, but we still have more to do across the state.
You also focus on educating the public about agriculture and the importance of farmers. Tell me about that.
The trouble is, most farmers are introverts, and they just want to do the work and move on, and they don’t want to deal with anybody. We’ve got to get better at telling our story and helping connect the farms to the consumer. If they understand what we’re doing, they will understand we are good stewards. We’re taking care of the soil. We’re taking care of our livestock.
Part of our job at Indiana Farm Bureau is to help our farmers understand the importance of that, and it’s going to be critical moving forward. It used to be that consumers didn’t seem to ask many questions. Now they’re asking a lot more questions about their food, where it’s coming from and how it’s taken care of. We’re happy to answer those questions. We have a good story to tell, but we’ve got to get better at telling that story and explaining what we’re doing.
What are you most proud of in your career?
Starting our farm from scratch. Being a first-generation farmer, that’s not easy to do. Others have done it, but I’m very proud of that. With Indiana Farm Bureau, it’s the health plans. We’re helping bring the younger generation back to the farm. That will pay dividends down the road.
We’re getting fewer farmers every year. There’s more consolidation and retirement. They get bought out or taken over by a neighbor farm. But if we can bring some of those younger ones back, maybe we can slow that down a little bit. The health plans are not the magic bullet by any means, but they will help.
How do you feel about being named a 2024 Indiana 250 honoree?
Humbled and honored. I didn’t know they were submitting this, so I was surprised when it happened. I’m blessed to be a part of an organization and lead an organization. We’ve got 270,000 members. About 65,000 of them are farmers across the state. It’s an honor to lead that.
This award says a lot about their hard work and our members. It’s a true honor and a privilege. I’m glad to bring a little attention to agriculture because sometimes we’re that forgotten industry. This will help bring some attention to that.