AGRICULTURE

When a combine throws an error code during harvest, every hour waiting on a dealer technician is money lost in the field. Manufacturers built that dependence on purpose, locking the diagnostic software so farmers and independent shops can't do the work themselves. Repair restrictions cost American farmers an estimated $4.2 billion every year. This July, the FTC and five states forced John Deere to open its repair tools to farmers. Ohio's attorney general sat that case out, and the right-to-repair bill in our own Statehouse specifically excludes farm equipment. Colorado passed a real agricultural right-to-repair law in 2023. Ohio should be next, and I'll introduce it.

• Repair restrictions cost U.S. farmers an estimated $4.2 billion per year: $3 billion in tractor downtime plus $1.2 billion in excess repair costs. U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Jan 2023
• The FTC and the attorneys general of Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin secured a settlement requiring Deere to give farmers and independent shops the same repair resources as dealers for ten years. Ohio was not among them. Federal Trade Commission, July 2026
• Colorado's first-in-the-nation agricultural right-to-repair law took effect January 1, 2024, guaranteeing farmers access to parts, manuals, and diagnostic software. National Farmers Union, Apr 2023

Google is building a $500 million data center on more than 200 acres of productive farmland in American and Sugar Creek townships, for about 50 permanent jobs. It's part of a pattern: Ohio has lost roughly a million acres of farmland over two decades, and the American Farmland Trust projects we'll lose another half million by 2040, among the worst in the Midwest. Meanwhile the state's data center tax break cost $1.6 billion last year, twelve times what was forecast, while Ohio's farmland preservation program makes do with $6.5 million and a cap of $2,000 an acre. You cannot preserve farmland at $2,000 an acre when data center money is paying twenty times that. I'll fight to multiply preservation funding and make any megaproject subsidy contingent on staying off prime farmland.

• "We went from about 14.5 million acres of productive farmland to 13.5 million acres," per Ohio's own agriculture director. The state's response so far: $1 million in county planning grants. Statehouse News Bureau, July 2026
• Ohio is projected to lose 518,475 acres of farmland to development by 2040 under current policy, the most severely affected of seven Midwest states studied. American Farmland Trust, 2022
• Ohio's data center sales-tax exemption cost $1.6 billion in 2025, twelve times the state's $136 million forecast. Policy Matters Ohio, May 2026
• Ohio's farmland easement program offers up to $2,000 per acre and $500,000 per farm; the current round totals $6.5 million statewide. Ohio's Country Journal, Jan 2026

In 2021, the legislature gave county commissioners binding power to block utility-scale solar and wind projects. That power was used right here: Birch Solar, 1,410 acres in Allen and Auglaize counties, became the first solar project the state ever denied, after our commissioners objected. But when a 200-acre data center comes for the same ground, there is no state siting review at all, and townships without zoning have almost no defense. Whatever you think of solar, the double standard is indefensible. If local communities deserve a binding say over a solar lease a farmer chose, they deserve at least that much over a hyperscale data center they didn't. I'll introduce legislation giving counties and townships the same authority over data centers and megaprojects that they already have over renewables.

• The Ohio Power Siting Board denied Birch Solar, a 300-megawatt project spanning Allen and Auglaize counties, citing local government opposition. It was the first utility-scale solar denial in state history. Ohio Capital Journal, Oct 2022
• Data center siting controversies are mounting across rural Ohio, with townships scrambling to adopt zoning while projects face no state review comparable to the solar process. OSU Extension Farm Office, Apr 2026
• In Preble County, residents used a township zoning referendum to force withdrawal of a plan to rezone 300 acres of farmland for a data center. It's one of the few tools communities have. WDTN, 2025

A third of the farmers in Allen and Auglaize counties are 65 or older. Over the next decade, an enormous amount of our land will change hands, and the question is who gets it: the next generation of farm families, or investment funds that see western Ohio cropland at $12,000 an acre as a portfolio asset. Institutional investors already hold tens of billions in American farmland. Minnesota has barred pension and investment funds from buying farmland since 1971. Six Midwest states restrict corporate farmland ownership. Ohio restricts nothing. The Statehouse's only answer is a bill chasing "foreign adversaries," but the largest foreign holder of Ohio farmland is Denmark, and the bill does nothing about the hedge funds outbidding your kids. I'll push for a Minnesota-style limit on investment-fund land purchases, a public registry of who actually owns Ohio farmland, and first shot at the land for beginning farmers.

• In Allen County, 545 of 1,564 farm producers are 65 or older; in Auglaize County, 623 of 1,799. Both counties are more than 90% family farms. USDA Census of Agriculture, 2022
• Institutional investors like pension funds hold an estimated $26 billion in U.S. farmland. Minnesota law prohibits pension and investment funds from owning agricultural land; Ohio has no comparable restriction. Council of State Governments Midwest, Dec 2024
• Average western Ohio cropland reached a projected $11,856 per acre in 2025, with top land at $14,384. Values roughly doubled over the past decade. OSU Extension Farm Office, July 2025
• Foreign investors hold about 538,000 acres of Ohio farmland; the top holder is Denmark. The pending Statehouse bill targets "adversary" nations and leaves domestic investment funds untouched. Statehouse News Bureau, Mar 2025

Ohio lost about 1,800 farms in the last agricultural census, and the mid-size family operations that built this region took the biggest hit, while the number of farms over 2,000 acres grew. This isn't the free market working; it's a rigged market. Four packers control 85% of beef processing. Nearly two-thirds of hogs are raised under contract, on terms written by the integrator, often with confidentiality clauses that bar a grower from showing his own contract to a lawyer. Allen and Auglaize counties are both top-ten hog producers in Ohio, so contract terms are our terms. Minnesota and Iowa passed agricultural contract fairness laws: plain language, a right to rescind, no gag clauses, mediation before termination. Ohio growers deserve the same, and I'll introduce it.

• Ohio lost roughly 1,800 farms from 2017 to 2022. Mid-size farms of 140 to 1,000 acres declined most, while farms over 2,000 acres grew by nearly 150. Statehouse News Bureau, Mar 2024
• Four-firm concentration in cattle slaughter reached 85%, and USDA economists found packer-rancher price spreads widened substantially after 2015. USDA Economic Research Service, Jan 2024
• Minnesota and Iowa both prohibit confidentiality provisions in agricultural production contracts so growers can seek legal and financial advice. Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Some of the most productive farmland in America surrounds towns where one in eight families struggles to put food on the table. That's a supply chain problem we can fix. Local schools are already trying: Lima Senior, Bath, and Cory-Rawson have joined a food security hub with Rhodes State and Bluffton University to grow food for their own cafeterias. Then Washington killed the $660 million program that paid schools to buy from local farms, and Ohio CAN, which moved 4.6 million pounds of Ohio-grown food and paid over 170 Ohio farmers, died with it. Ohio's own farm-to-school grants total just $367,000 statewide. Michigan showed what the alternative looks like: its "10 Cents a Meal" program matched state money for locally grown food in two-thirds of its counties, until the legislature left it out of the school aid budget and the program went dark for this school year. That's the whole lesson. These programs work, and they disappear the moment a budget gets written without them. I'll fight for an Ohio version built to last, state dollars to replace what Washington cut, and processing capacity so local meat and produce can actually reach local kitchens.

• Area schools and colleges, including Lima Senior, Bath, and Cory-Rawson, formed the Northwest Ohio Food Security Hub to grow food for cafeterias in a region where about 1 in 8 families is food-insecure. Hometown Stations, Apr 2026
• USDA's termination of local food purchasing ended Ohio CAN, which bought from more than 170 Ohio farmers and delivered 4.6 million pounds of Ohio-grown food in its final year. WYSO, Apr 2025
• Michigan's "10 Cents a Meal" program matched state funds for locally grown food in school meals, reaching 270 sites across 66 of 83 counties and buying from over 130 farms and food businesses. Michigan did not fund it for the 2025–2026 school year, so no program is operating. 10 Cents a Meal Michigan

H2Ohio paid farmers to do voluntary conservation, and farmers showed up: more than 3,200 enrolled nearly 2.2 million acres, the highest participation in the program's history, and Auglaize River watershed farmers show some of the broadest adoption of conservation practices in the state. Then the legislature cut the program by roughly 40%, appropriating $165 million instead of the $270 million the governor requested. Asked about it, the House Speaker, from right here in Lima, suggested the cuts were justified. Smaller payments for the farmers doing the right thing, and less progress against the algae that still closes beaches at Grand Lake St. Marys. Farmers held up their end. Columbus didn't. I'll fight to restore full H2Ohio funding.

• The legislature followed through with steep cuts to H2Ohio, appropriating $165 million instead of the $270 million requested. Speaker Huffman suggested the cuts were justified because "a lot" of the money "was not spent." Lima News, June 2025
• More than 3,200 farmers had voluntarily enrolled nearly 2.2 million acres of cropland, the program's highest participation, before the cuts raised concerns about a rollback of phosphorus-reduction progress. WOSU, June 2025
• Auglaize River watershed farmers show broad adoption of conservation practices, per the Ohio Agriculture Conservation Initiative's watershed assessment. Farm and Dairy, May 2026

Farmers pay mandatory checkoff dollars on every head and every bushel, money that's legally barred from lobbying. In Ohio, investigative reporters found the beef checkoff board sharing staff, an office, and a phone line with the industry's lobbying association. The American Farm Bureau signed a deal with John Deere in 2023 agreeing to discourage right-to-repair legislation, trading away farmers' strongest fight for a promise Deere could cancel on 30 days' notice. And in Washington, a campaign to overturn animal welfare standards gets sold as saving family farmers while it's backed by the world's largest pork company, owned by a Chinese conglomerate, over the objections of independent hog farmers who already invested in doing it right. I'll stand with the organizations that answer to farmers, and I'll say plainly who the others answer to.

• Ohio ranchers documented that the checkoff-funded Ohio Beef Council and the lobbying Ohio Cattlemen's Association shared identical staff, office, phone, and fax, despite a legal firewall. Investigate Midwest, Feb 2018
• Under the 2023 memorandum with John Deere, the American Farm Bureau agreed to encourage state Farm Bureaus to refrain from supporting right-to-repair legislation that goes beyond the MOU's commitments. The MOU is non-binding, and Deere can walk away on 30 days' notice. OSU Extension Farm Office, Jan 2023
• Independent hog farmers who invested in higher-welfare housing oppose the "fix" pushed on their behalf; Smithfield, owned by Hong Kong-based WH Group, already sells compliant pork profitably while funding repeal efforts. The New Lede, June 2026