Weeks before an official announcement was made, a small delegation of Hoosiers went to Washington, D.C., to pitch Indiana as a potential home for one of the newly named U.S. Department of Agriculture “regional hubs.”
The delegation, which featured U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, met with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on June 10. Banks requested the meeting with Rollins on behalf of Indiana stakeholders.
The group also included Indiana State Department of Agriculture Director Don Lamb as wellas Karen Plaut, Purdue University’s former executive vice president of research (she retired shortly after), Mitch Frazier, the former CEO of AgriNovus (he is now president of IBJ Media), and representatives of Corteva Agriscience, Elanco and Beck’s Hybrids.
“The topic just became, ‘If they’re going to do that, we really ought to make sure that we have an opportunity to have one of those hubs. And what do we need to do to make that happen?’” Lamb told State Affairs.