Locals call it “St. Joe.” They know that it got its name from the St. Joseph River, which connects to Lake Michigan. And they know that only four other counties in their state have more residents.
They also know that it has changed, and their valued farmland is shrinking.
St. Joseph County, Indiana formed in 1830. South Bend is the county seat and is responsible for nearly 40% of the county’s 272,000 population. After losing population during the Farm Crisis of the 1980s, St. Joseph County has steadily increased.
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That population growth and overall development are encroaching on farmland. A report by the Indiana Department of Agriculture shows that the county lost nearly 8,000 acres of agricultural land from 2010-2022.
The loss represents about 5% of the county’s farmland. What is to blame? Data centers? Solar farms? Residential development? All the above?
The Indiana Department of Agriculture conducted through the Inventory of Lost Farmland an examination of land use from 2010-2022. It looked at how land use changed, including how much land switched to agricultural use and how much transitioned away from agricultural use.
The report found that 3.5% of land changed from agricultural use to other uses:
Agriculture to residential – more than 370,000 acres
Agriculture to other – more than 68,000 acres
Agriculture to industrial – more than 41,000 acres
Agriculture to commercial – more than 27,000 acres
Agriculture to mineral – more than 2,100 acres
The report identified 1.7% of the county’s land that moved toward agricultural purposes:
Residential to agriculture – more than 328,000 acres
Commercial to agriculture – more than 25,000 acres
Other to agriculture – more than 21,000 acres
Industrial to agriculture – more than 13,000 acres
Mineral to agriculture – more than 800 acres
Factoring in all those changes leaves an overall reduction in the county of agricultural land from 1.5-2% according to the report.
This isn’t an exact science, as the report reminds us. “…one should consider that there are 92 county assessors in the state who implement Indiana’s property tax laws and assign property class codes to the best of their ability,” the report stated.
The report added that there are “bound to be differences in how certain non-routine properties could be classified year over year and from county to county. While the property class codes used by county assessors include a variety of different property types attributable to agricultural property, each individual parcel has the potential to be a mixed-used parcel, which means that there could possibly be more than one property designation that is applicable to the parcel.”
The individual county assessor’s assessment of which property tax code to use for land that has multiple uses could lead to challenges in uniform identifications.
“…it is possible that some mixed-use parcels containing agricultural property cannot be identified through a specific property class code,” the report stated.
The report also pointed out that the data does not distinguish between renewable energy and agricultural uses. The state’s latest statistics showed that there are 7,611 acres in operation for solar and 19,214 acres under construction.
“Since the focus of the report is on lost farmland,” the report’s authors wrote, “it’s important to note ISDA (Indiana State Department of Agriculture) is unable to conclude that a solar project was or is being built on farmland. There is no available data to identify the total amount or solar built on farmland. ISDA does not include wind energy in this number as those projects use significantly less acres.”
WSBT-TV in South Bend did a story on St. Joseph’s County’s share of the lost agricultural land featured in the report. Local leaders discussed how to strike a balance of meeting the growing needs of the expanding population and commercial development with the necessity to preserve prime farmland. Watch that story here.
