Bill > HB1185

This bill makes several changes to Indiana law related to agriculture and environmental conservation. It adds a new purpose for using money from the Clean Water Indiana Fund, specifically for installing and maintaining "mesonet sites" (weather monitoring stations) and for data modeling from these sites in collaboration with state and federal agencies and Purdue University to aid agricultural decision-making. The bill also renames the "value added research fund" to the "agricultural market development fund" and expands its purposes to include making grants to farmers, producers, and agricultural businesses to support market development. Additionally, the bill requires the division of soil conservation to work with state and federal agencies and research institutions on mesonet sites, and it allows money from the grain buyers and warehouse licensing agency license fee fund to be used to supplement funding for implementing grain buyer and warehouse licensing and bonding laws, subject to approval by the budget agency.