Montgomery County 4-H and Extension held “Outdoor Day Camp” for all area youth in grades 4-8 on Tuesday, June 9th at Viking Lake State Park from 9am – 3pm. With 10 excited youth signed up for the busy event, the day began with get to know you games. Youth were then divided into small group. One group focused on fishing; youth learned about their poles, how to bait, cast and even got to try out their fishing luck in the lake.

The second group was kayaking; youth learned about water safety, how to paddle,
and got to play around in the kayaks on the water. The third group focused on leaf identification; youth learned a few common Iowa trees, looked for their leaves, and identified other leaves they found around the park. Participants enjoyed a lunch grilled on site along. The warm afternoon consisted of several more small groups.

The first group learned about the environment and make wildflower seed bombs; the second group went on a nature scavenger hunt; the third group learned about solitary bees and created nests to put out to help the bees in our areas; and the last group was outdoor cooking where youth learned about cooking with a Dutch oven and cooked banana smores! Youth finished the day with some team building activities and some outdoor games.

If there is anything you would like to learn more about, see a presentation on, or attend a workshop for, Hallie Peck, with Montgomery County Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, says they are always open to ideas and would love to hear your interests!

Peck says a special “thank you” goes to Johnson Controls and their program, Blue Sky Involve, where they helped with funding the program, in addition to the volunteers who helped to make this day camp possible! For any other questions regarding 4-H contact Hallie at the Extension Office (712) 623-2592 or email hpeck@iastate.edu.

No injuries were reported to the drivers of two vehicles that struck cattle on the road in Union County, late Wednesday night. The Sheriff’s Office says at around 11:35-p.m., a 2002 Chevy pickup driven by 64-year old Dwight Ingram, of Winterset, hit a cow on N. Cherry Street (Union County Road P-33), causing $1,500 damage to the vehicle. The cow, owned by Richard Downing, of Creston, was valued at $3,000.

About 10-minutes later, a van driven by 21-year old Jonathan Zollman, of Bedford, was traveling on the same road at about the same location, when it struck three black angus cattle on the road. Damage to the 2002 Dodge Caravan was estimated at $3,500..or, a total loss. The cow and two calves were valued at $3,000.

An avian influenza support prayer supper was held in northwest Iowa’s Buena Vista County last night (Wednesday). Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey was among the attendees, sharing in a picnic of pulled pork sandwiches and salads in support of impacted poultry producers. Northey told the group of about 175 people that it’s vital for a community to pull together during difficult times like these.

Of the 77 confirmed cases of bird flu in Iowa poultry operations, 14 of them were in Buena Vista County. More than 31-million chickens and turkeys have been euthanized in Iowa in recent months due to the bird flu epidemic. The USDA provides an indemnity for euthanized birds and will cover some costs of disposal, but the federal government doesn’t give aid for loss of income. Some called the 2014-2015 Avian Flu Outbreak the biggest animal health emergency in U.S. history.

While attending the grand opening of an agronomy center in Buena Vista County on Wednesday, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey discussed the ongoing lawsuit between Des Moines Water Works and three counties in northwest Iowa. The water utility says Calhoun, Buena Vista and Sac counties aren’t proactive enough in preventing agricultural runoff. Des Moines Water Works says it’s causing an excessive financial burden on the city to remove nitrates from the water supply. Northey says while he doubts a lawsuit is the answer, he also says the agricultural community needs to find a long-term solution.

“Society is going to demand that of us,” Northey says. “We want those nutrients to stay there. We’re motivated by it. We’re going to learn things that are going to make us better producers as we learn how that nitrogen mineralizes in the soil.” According to the Des Moines Water Work’s petition, in the summer of 2013, fall of 2014 and winter of 2015, nitrate levels in the Raccoon River reached record peaks.

Bill Stowe, CEO and general manager of Des Moines Water Works, alleges the drainage districts in the three northwest Iowa counties are violating the federal Clean Water Act. Stowe says the system to remove the nitrates costs $7,000 per day to operate.

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The former bookkeeper of a western Iowa farming cooperative is admitting she embezzled roughly $1.4 million over six years. Kathy Joan Cullen, who worked 27 years for the 21st Century Cooperative in Cass County, pleaded guilty Wednesday to filing a false tax return.

Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, she admitted that she wrote nearly $1.4 million in checks to herself from 2008 to 2013 and deposited the funds in her personal bank account. The plea agreement says the state and federal government lost $553,000 in tax revenues as a result. In 2009 alone, she embezzled $300,000 from the cooperative, which she didn’t report as income.

The agreement calls for her to pay restitution to the cooperative. Cullen was released after Wednesday’s hearing in Des Moines. Sentencing is Oct. 1st.  Filing a false tax return carries a maximum term of three years imprisonment, up to a $100,000 fine, and up to one year of supervised release.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

w/ Kate Olson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A bird flu outbreak in the Midwest has actually resulted in cheaper chicken meat in the U.S. because exports have been restricted, leaving a plentiful domestic supply. In a monthly poultry market report published Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says importers halted shipments even though chickens remain unaffected by bird flu. Wholesale prices in the Northeast are 32 percent lower than a year earlier. Drumsticks are down 33 percent.

The bird flu outbreak did cause egg prices to increase. Egg prices more than doubled from pre-bird flu prices but in recent days have fallen. Roasting turkey prices are 3 percent higher than a year ago and may increase a little more toward Thanksgiving.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — After a six-day break with no new bird flu cases, the Iowa Department of Agriculture says another egg-laying chicken farm has tested positive. A farm in Wright County with 1 million chickens has experienced increased deaths among the flock and a preliminary test indicates the presence of the bird flu virus.

The frequency of new cases has slowed dramatically with no new cases in Minnesota in 11 days. Iowa’s last reported case was June 9. The bird flu has cost Minnesota, the leading turkey producer, 9 million birds. Egg farms in Iowa, the nation’s leading producer, have lost over 25 million laying hens.

State officials say all 76 previously affected farms have removed the 32 million birds that already died or were euthanized. Disposal of the dead birds continues.

(Corrects info. in Press Release to show Nodaway in Adams Co., not Page County)

A man from Adams County was sentenced last week in connection with conversion of mortgaged property. 34-year old Gary Matthew Johnston, of Nodaway, was sentenced by United States District Court Judge Stephanie M. Rose to five years of probation, and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $113,754, for converting the proceeds from the sales of approximately 176 head of cattle that were
mortgaged by the Farm Service Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Johnston pled guilty on March 5th, to the charge of conversion of mortgaged
property, which was the result of an investigation by law enforcement after Johnston was involved in multiple sales of collateral at livestock auctions that were not reported to the Farm Service Agency as required.

The investigation was conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture, Office of the Inspector General, and the case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

The U-S-D-A crop report released Monday shows about eighty-percent of Iowa’s corn and soybean fields are in good-to-excellent condition. That’s for the crop that has been planted, as only about seventy-five percent of soybean planting is completed in the still soggy fields in south-central and south-west Iowa. In east-central Iowa there’s a new problem — insects. I-S-U agronomist Meaghan Anderson monitors a 10-county area from Independence to Iowa City.

“We’ve seen a number of fields with some army worm issues this spring. Typically, aren’t as wide-spread an issue as they are this spring. But we have a number of growers trying cover crops and that seems to be very attractive to the moths,” according to Anderson. She says they’ve seen army worms in both corn and soybean fields.

“They have the ability to completely defoliate a crop if conditions are right,” Anderson says. The persistent rain is keeping farmers from spraying insecticide to try to control the army worms.

(Radio Iowa)

Members of Iowa’s congressional delegation are urging the federal Environmental Protection Agency to hold a public hearing in Iowa over the agency’s proposed changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard, or R-F-S. It’s feared those changes could hurt the ethanol industry and Iowa is the nation’s top ethanol producer. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he hopes the E-P-A takes the request for a hearing in Iowa seriously.

“They’re going to say they’re in Kansas City but Iowa, anyplace in Iowa, is the center of ethanol production and that’s where they should be,” Grassley says. “Why they aren’t, I don’t know.” A letter is being sent to E-P-A administrator Gina McCarthy that’s signed by all six members of Iowa’s congressional delegation. Members say the decision to drop R-F-S levels set by Congress has left the biofuels industry in an uncertain situation which has slowed investment. Grassley says it’s important for the agency’s leaders to fully understand the impact of their rulemaking.

“It’s to embarrass them into understanding why avoid Iowa?,” Grassley says. “It’s going to embarrass them to come where the information is, make it easier for those that are in the middle of ethanol production and things of that nature. It’s that simple.” Iowa has 42 ethanol plants in operation, producing nearly three-point-eight billion gallons a year, about 25-percent of all ethanol produced nationwide. Iowa plants also produced 230-million gallons of biodiesel in 2013.

(Radio Iowa)