farms

Gov. Mike DeWine has released details of his plan to improve water quality in Ohio, starting with preventing toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie. DeWine says the program will start in the Maumee River watershed near Toledo but he wants to eventually broaden it to the rest of the state. 

After weeks of heavy rainfall and flooding, 15 percent of Ohio farmland has gone unplanted. In states like Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska this usually triggers an uptick in farms filing for bankruptcy. But a report from researchers at The Ohio State University shows Ohio farms have not followed this trend.

The state is giving farmers another opportunity to apply for loans as they deal with severe weather and flooding that has kept many farmers from planting their crops.

The Ohio Treasurer’s Office is reopening its Ag-LINK program which can grant farmers up to $150,000 in loans.

The program usually operates between January and March, but Treasurer Robert Sprague said this can help those struggling with flooding.

Ohio’s agriculture director asked the federal government to help the state’s farmers, many of whom have been unable to plant crops because of rainy weather.

Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Dorothy Pelanda said she’s traveled the state and witnessed firsthand how record rainfall has devastated farmers. 

A bill passed by the State Senate this week is heading to the House, and would change the way farmers pay property taxes.

Since the 1970s, the state has used a formula to determine taxes based on farmland’s agricultural value, as opposed to full market value. In recent years, those numbers have risen quickly due to several factors, such as the taxation of land used for conservation  – such as cover crops -- at the same rate as regular farmland.