Ohio has lost millions upon millions of farm acres in the past 70-plus years. But is that a bad thing?

Welcome to the Weekly Roundup, where we bring you the top stories from today’s Dayton Daily News and major stories from the past week you may have missed. I’m filling in for Josh Sweigart, who is on vacation.

This week, we look at the decades-long transition of Ohio’s land from agricultural use to development and ask farm owners, officials and experts about the impact. We also dig into the state of cybersecurity, with attacks increasing across the world.

Do you have a news tip or an issue you think our reporters should look into? Contact me at [email protected], or you can use our anonymous tipline.

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Farmland is eroding throughout Ohio. Are all of the new houses worth it?

Ohio lost 6.9 million acres of farmland to development between 1950 and 2000, representing nearly one-third of the state’s agricultural land.

• Big area of effect: Warren (third), Butler (fourth) and Montgomery (eighth) counties are in the top 10 Ohio counties by agricultural land loss to development between 2000 and 2023, according to a report released in April by Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

• What officials are saying: “Progress is inevitable. That being said, we have oversight as to what that looks like within the parameters of what is zoned. I don’t want to see more rooftops than is allowable.” — Jason Gabbard, a Clearcreek Twp. trustee who lives on his 12-acre family farm that five generations ago was 700 acres.

• The benefits of development: More jobs, diversifying the local economy, adding to the tax base and making more housing available, officials say.

• Impact of farmland: Food and agriculture together are the state’s largest industry and contribute more than $105 billion a year to the state economy and provide jobs to one in seven Ohioans, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

Cyberattacks on the rise as new techniques, advances like AI, give hackers leg up

Many high-profile cybercrimes involve targets like large companies or organizations, as happened recently when a May 20 cyberattack caused a systemwide technology outage at Kettering Health, fallout from which the hospital system is still recovering.

• Kettering Health: A ransomware group called Interlock claimed it stole 941 gigabytes of data, which includes more than 730,000 files, from Kettering Health’s network.

• Rising attacks: In 2024, a global cybersecurity organization reported a massive increase in the number of distinct eCrime campaigns using telephone-oriented social engineering techniques to gain initial access to a network, including “vishing” and “help desk social engineering.”

• One predictor: “When I see a sharp spike in the prices of major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, that’s when we typically see more ransomware attacks.” — JP Castellanos, director of threat intelligence at Binary Defense, a cybersecurity company in northeast Ohio.

• What they’re saying: “Ransomware gangs are becoming more sophisticated in their operations — how they exploit, negotiate and collect ransom. The number of such gangs has nearly tripled in past two years. ... Since most are overseas, you cannot rely on the threat of arresting them.” — Richard Harknett, director of the Center for Cyber Strategy and Policy at the University of Cincinnati.