Stateline Farmer Prefers Fewer Regulations
Published: Friday, July 17, 2020
Lines get blurred from where Tim Miller farms just north of the Indiana Toll Road. His 1,250-acre family-owned operation is surrounded by folks who swear their allegiance to Michigan State University, so naturally, he chooses to root for Purdue University basketball.
And yet, he has all the respect in the world for MSU hoops coach Tom Izzo.
"He's a good guy," Miller said, "and a winner."
When you raise crops on both sides of the boundary, you know how to play each side against the middle when it comes to taxes, regulations and yes, even sports.
"You figure out how to do it better, and then you do it better," Miller said last Friday while standing on the shoulder of State Line Road in Indiana's Elkhart County, just a few short steps away from his thriving irrigated cornfield in Michigan's St. Joseph County.
A half hour or so earlier, Miller and his son Josh, 25, were working on a booster pump from a pivot end gun in one of their fields. They pointed out the fence line where Pure Michigan ends and the Crossroads of America begin.
While traveling west for less than a mile on the two-lane road from Miller's home to get to this place, a motorist makes the interstate transition seamlessly without the benefit of "Thanks for Visiting" or "Welcome to" signage.
There is no discernable distinction, except in the minds of bureaucrats and mapmakers, and sports fans. The corn, soybeans, potatoes and hay grown by Miller certainly don't seem to know the difference between his 800 Michigan acres and 450 Indiana acres.
"I always lived about a mile north of the line and it's just always been normal," said Miller, who also raises 30-35 beef cows and 4,500 hogs. "We own ground in both states and farm in both. I just see land.
"There's a little bit (of notoriety), I guess. They always refer to me as the guy up on the state line and we refer to them as the guys over the river—everything's different over the river."
Miller grew up on a farm passed down from his grandfather to his father about a mile west. He has a White Pigeon, Mich. mailing address and his vehicles all bear license plates from the Wolverine state, but his cell phone number begins with the 574 area code common to Hoosiers living in north central Indiana.
"We were Elkhart County residents for about 15 years and then we moved back into Michigan about a mile as the crow flies," Miller said. "I've only got a couple hundred acres out there where I live; most of my stuff is all here on State Line Road."
It's all pretty much the same, except where it's different, say, for example, with police jurisdiction.
"We've got a lot of regulatory stuff, and it overlaps," Miller said.
Real estate taxes on Miller's Indiana land used to be considerably less than they were on what he owned north of the line, but in recent years Michigan has narrowed the gap.
"One thing they've done in the last 15 years is, whatever I do in Michigan they accept in Indiana," Miller said. "They won't make me jump through all the hoops to get another license in Indiana like in the early '80s.
"They started getting smarter, but ag is still just totally over-regulated. We (farmers) try to be as efficient as we can be with what we put out here, but (lawmakers) act like money grows on trees and $3.50 (per bushel) corn just doesn't cut the mustard."
It helps to have a tax accountant well-versed in filing in both states. Miller's obligation is split up on a percentage basis. If 65 percent of what he makes is generated on soil in Michigan, its treasury expects to be paid accordingly, while Indiana's levy would be based on the 35-percent portion.
"Everybody loves me because I'm Santa Claus; they all line up to jab me," he said with a hearty laugh. "It's really a pain in the butt and everything goes double."
In Michigan, Miller can use the entire roadway to move equipment from field to field while Indiana requires him to stay on his side of the road as much as practicable.
"In Michigan, we can take potato-pickers up and down the road and sorry if you don't like waiting, but in Indiana you can get in trouble for doing that," Miller said. "The road usage is a little different in each state."
As a former Indiana resident who still owns land there, Miller maintains his USDA Farm Service Agency affiliation through Elkhart County.
On the regulatory side of things, Miller has to report water usage in both states. He manages his manure application according to Michigan's requirements with Indiana's blessing, as Michigan has among the toughest standards in the country.
Miller looks at most politicians with a wary eye.
"You've got to plan ahead," he said. "(Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) really got tough on CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), and I do have a CAFO. But instead of asking, 'In the last 20 years, have you been a CAFO estate, because if you have, you gotta plan for (making changes),' but most of these guys don't plan for anything.
"It's all whatever it is today. They have no insight. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle they're on. I helped (Indiana) Farm Bureau before my kids were in high school and they sent me to Indy and Washington, and boy, I got an education."
All things being equal—as if—Miller favors the way Indiana legislates agricultural affairs over Michigan's political landscape.
"Both states have somewhat shared ideas so it's very similar in both states now," Miller said. "But I think they're a lot more proactive in Indiana than in Michigan, and I'm talking ag industry-wise. They're just not as overbearing. Where Michigan can be more restrictive, Indiana is more open-minded and more on the cutting edge of the deal.
"In Indiana, they see it and move on it, end of story, whereas in Michigan they like to fight. I don't mind the fights if you know what you're talking about, but if you're not looking at the whole picture because you're beholden to a certain group, you're worthless. I really can't tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. All I can go by is what they vote on."
Miller is well-known on both sides of the state line, and last week was invited to display his tractor as part of a tribute at the funeral procession in Middlebury, Ind. for Dennis Smeltzer. Miller has been someone fellow farmers in both states have been looking to for irrigation guidance for four-plus decades.
"I know a lot of Indiana farmers and we have relationships with them," Miller said. "We're on sandy ground with less than 1 percent organic matter so we had irrigation up here in the '70s. We were the ones who went through the pain of learning through hard knocks.
"When we first got irrigation, we were running travelers and water-guide pivots, and then we moved up to electrics and put pivots in every corner and got a lot smarter with what we were doing."
Miller knows of other farms with land in both states to the east of him, but not so much to the west. He's delivering 6,000 bushels of corn a week to a nearby pork producer north of him and the Millers do custom picking for a farmer who plants corn and soybeans nearby.
While he said he identifies more as a Michigander these days, home is wherever the heart is for the rest of the family.
Miller's wife, Kelly, grew up on a farm in LaGrange, Ind. Josh helps run the day-to-day operation in addition to working in corn seed sales, and is getting his feet wet in crop farming on land he rents.
The Millers' oldest child, Zac, who was a standout pitcher at Ancilla College and is graduate of Purdue Calumet (now Purdue Northwest), is a quality supervisor for Ford Motor Co. in Chicago and lives in western Indiana.
Daughter Haley attended Ancilla on a softball scholarship. She lives on the farm but commutes daily across the state line to Middlebury, where she works as a sales coordinator for a boat manufacturer.
Youngest son David is a senior on a baseball scholarship at the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne and is doing an internship with an RV company in Elkhart.
But everyone still pitches in when they're back on the homestead.
"It's just a true-blue family farm," Miller said, meaning no offense to Izzo, given the maize-and-blue color scheme of his biggest rival, the University of Michigan.
A small, weathered cemetery takes up the northwest corner of an intersection not far from Miller's fields. When the time comes, he could feasibly be buried with his body in Michigan and his feet touching Indiana.
The idea makes him smile.
"I like that little cemetery," he said.
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