2026 Candidate Questionnaire

A major challenge facing Indiana farmers is access to land, as skyrocketing land prices and mounting pressures on natural resources make the business of farming significantly more difficult, especially for young and beginning farmers. How will you ensure the next generation of family farmers can farm high quality, affordable land?

• Drew Cox: I support the Young Farmers Success Act, which would allow full-time employees or managers of qualified farms to be eligible for student loan forgiveness. This bill adds full-time farming and ranching jobs to the definition of public service work. Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, workers could have their remaining federal student loan balance forgiven after 120 qualifying payments (ten years). I also support the Next Generation of Farmers Act, which would expand loan opportunities for beginning farmers through the USDA Direct Farm Ownership Loan program. The three-year experience rule would be reduced to one year. Agricultural policies aside, I am advocating for a foreign policy that does not denigrate other nations (such as China). Our current foreign policy has harmed markets for US farmers. I believe our government should incentivize hemp farming.
• Jim Baird: As a farmer, I believe the future of American agriculture depends on whether the next generation has a real opportunity to farm. Young and beginning farmers need a practical path to productive land, affordable financing, and the knowledge to build a successful operation. Passing a strong, long-term Farm Bill is one of my highest priorities. That includes supporting beginning-farmer programs that provide access to farm ownership and operating loans, training, and technical assistance. We need to invest in the next generation of farmers and rural leaders, whether they are taking over a family operation or starting one of their own. Protecting the quality of our farmland matters just as much as access to it. I support voluntary conservation programs, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), that help farmers care for their soil and water while keeping their land productive. My goal is to keep family farming within reach for young people and ensure that rural America remains a place where they can build a livelihood, raise a family, and lead their communities.

Family farmers need access to fair and competitive markets, and corporate consolidation in the food system has harmed farmers, consumers, and our communities. What policies will you pursue to promote competition, fairness, and transparency in agriculture?

• Drew Cox: I support the Farmland for Farmers Act. This bill would block large corporations and investment funds from purchasing or leasing new agricultural land. As farmland continues to change hands, the price continues to increase. High land prices provide an advantage to corporate buyers who view farmland as a way to

• profit from renting, which comes at the expense of small farmers. Corporations like Monsanto have a near monopoly in the industry which increases prices, hurts farmers, and prevents farmers from even reselling their own seeds. Since the Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United in 2010, Monsanto has poured millions into lobbying and thereby protected their monopolistic power. In addition to overturning Citizens United, we need antitrust laws to break up these corporations and create more competition in the marketplace. I believe that farm subsidies should be based directly on input cost per acre. Our current subsidies disproportionately help big farmers.
• Jim Baird: Family farmers deserve fair treatment, transparent markets, and a real opportunity to compete. My approach is to strengthen independent farm businesses and expand their options for selling what they produce. I support eliminating the federal estate tax so families can pass their farms to the next generation. I also support immediate write-offs for qualifying equipment investments and preserving the deduction of up to 20% of qualified business income. Those policies help farmers keep more of what they earn and reinvest in their operations. Expanding markets is equally important. I support the House Farm Bill’s proposal to at least double funding for the Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) program to help American agriculture reach more customers overseas. Here at home, I support year-round E15 sales to expand market opportunities for our corn farmers. Farmers should have more opportunities to sell their products, not fewer. Getting a strong Farm Bill across the finish line is essential to providing the certainty and tools our producers need to compete.

Modern farm equipment requires software tools to diagnose and complete repairs. Manufacturers have withheld access to these tools, which has contributed to inflated repair costs and service delays. What is your position on guaranteeing farmers the Right to Repair – the right to fix their own equipment or go to a mechanic of their choosing?

• Drew Cox: I support Right to Repair laws that would require manufacturers to provide farmers with fair access to service information and affordable replacement parts. Manufacturers' repair restrictions lead to unnecessary downtime and high repair costs for farmers.

• Jim Baird: I support farmers’ right to repair the equipment they own or take it to a mechanic of their choosing. Farmers have the knowledge, experience, and technical ability to work on sophisticated equipment. They should have access to the diagnostic tools, software, parts, and repair information necessary to do that work. During planting and harvest, time matters. A farmer cannot afford to lose a good weather window because a machine is down and the tools needed to fix it are unavailable. A repair delay can affect an entire season’s work. Farmers should not have to sit idle waiting for service when they or a qualified independent mechanic can make the repair and get the equipment back in the field. That choice should belong to the farmer.

In recent years, Indiana has undergone rapid growth in data center construction and development. This has placed enormous pressure on local resources and made it harder for quality farmland to stay in production. What is your position on the rise of data centers, and are you supportive of ensuring community input and local control over their development?

• Drew Cox: While costs continue to rise for everyday consumers, data centers have received hundreds of millions in subsidies in the state of Indiana. Data centers are seemingly unrestricted with regard to how much water they consume. There is no federal legislation that protects consumers from absorbing the high utility cost of data centers. I support a moratorium on all new construction until communities can decide how they would like to regulate data centers.
• Jim Baird: Local control should be the deciding factor. Whether a community wants a data center should be determined by the people who live there and their local elected officials, not imposed by state or federal government. I support meaningful community input and a transparent decision-making process. Farmers, landowners, and other residents deserve an opportunity to understand how a proposed project could affect farmland and local resources, ask questions, and have their concerns heard before decisions are made. When a community chooses to move forward, state and federal governments should support it with clear guardrails to help protect local interests and manage the demands of the project responsibly. That support should strengthen local decision-making, not replace it.

• Economic development should serve the community. The people who will live with a project’s effects should have a meaningful say in whether it belongs there.