(Des Moines, Iowa) – Iowa Food System Coalition representatives, Monday, announced a new plan for Iowa agriculture seeks to increase the state’s production of food rather than ethanol and animal feed. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports he plan, known as Setting the Table for All Iowans, outlines the coalition’s policy goals which include producing more locally grown food, getting more young people to become farmers and providing more financial assistance to farmers. Chris Schwartz, executive director of the coalition, said the plan is an opportunity to positively impact farmers, the economy and the local community.

From left to right, Chris Schwartz, Giselle Bruskewitz, Tommy Hexter and Aaron Lehman speak July 1, 2024 outside the Iowa Capitol about a coalition called Setting the Table for All Iowans. (Photo by Jack O’Connor/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Director of Grinnell Farm to Table food hub Tommy Hexter said many commodity farmers are struggling because most of the profits are going toward the middlemen like seed, equipment and marketing companies. However, Hexter said selling produce locally cuts out most middlemen and leads to more money going into farmers’ pockets. “Setting the Table for All Iowans provides an opportunity to build that system where Iowa’s farmers and small business owners can truly thrive,” Hexter said in the press conference.

The plan also focuses on how to retain and attract farming talent to Iowa through investments in obtaining refrigerated trucks, increasing the number of rural grocery stores and providing needed equipment to small businesses. President of the Iowa Farmers Union Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation family farmer, said investments like those are vital for the Iowa agriculture industry where there are more farmers above the age of 65 than below the age of 35.

Over the past two years, the Iowa Food System Coalition has organized a Food and Farm Day at the Iowa Capitol and invited legislators and state agencies to a food policy summit. One of the next steps for the coalition is to educate legislators about the plan so it can be used as a guide to create state policies, Schwartz said.

(Radio Iowa) – Smithfield Foods announced it is closing its Altoona ham boning facility to consolidate production volume at other locations in Illinois, South Dakota and Nebraska to improve the company’s efficiency. The Altoona plant has 314 employees and the company says it will meet with them to provide additional details about the transition plan, severance pay, and potential employment opportunities with Smithfield. Smithfield employs nearly four-thousand people in Iowa at its farms and its food-processing facilities in Carroll, Denison, Des Moines, Mason City, Orange City, Sioux Center and Sioux City.

The company that recently gained approval from state regulators for its carbon dioxide pipeline system in Iowa wants to proceed with expansion requests for that system starting in late August. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Summit Carbon Solutions has proposed new public informational meeting dates for 23 counties that would span about four weeks, according to documents recently filed with the Iowa Utilities Commission, formerly known as the Iowa Utilities Board. The first meeting would be Aug. 26 in Adams County.

The company must hold the meetings in affected counties before it can negotiate with landowners for easements and file petitions for permits to build the extensions.

The 14 proposed offshoots to additional ethanol plants from Summit’s initial proposal would increase the size of the system in Iowa by about 341 miles — or about 50%. The IUC indicated last week it would grant Summit a permit for the company’s initial proposal, which has about 690 miles of pipe.

The company hopes to transport captured carbon dioxide from ethanol producers in five states to North Dakota to be stored underground. The IUC has stipulated that Summit cannot start laying pipe in Iowa until it obtains permits in the Dakotas. It said the company can use eminent domain to force agreements with unwilling landowners to use their properties for the project.

North Dakota regulators are considering Summit’s pipeline route in that state and whether it would be allowed to pump the greenhouse gas into the ground. Summit has said it will reapply for a pipeline permit in South Dakota this month. The company hopes to start construction next year.

The IUC denied requests from pipeline opponents to consider the extensions along with the initial proposal. Those extensions and maps of their routes were unveiled in March while the initial permit process was still pending. Some argued, unsuccessfully, that parts of the system route should be revamped to shorten its overall length.

Instead, each of the extensions from the initial route will be subject to individual permits. Summit had hoped to hold informational meetings for them in April and May, but the commission rejected those dates without providing a reason.

Summit submitted new maps of the extension routes last week that increased their total length by about a half mile. A notable change was in Hardin County, where a proposed route moved slightly closer to Iowa Falls.

The new proposed meeting schedule — which has not yet been approved by the IUC — goes from Aug. 26 to Sept. 20 in the following counties: Adams, Bremer, Buchanan, Buena Vista, Butler, Clay, Fayette, Floyd, Greene, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Ida, Kossuth, Mitchell, Montgomery, O’Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Sioux, Webster and Worth.

The Iowa Utilities Commission, formerly the Iowa Utilities Board, announced its name change on Monday and said it was the result of a state government reorganization last year that removed the agency from the state Department of Commerce.