Iowa is playing host to a national event focused on bird hunting, wildlife conservation and dog training. Mick Klemesrud is a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, a sponsor of the 2015 National Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic — this Friday through Sunday at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Klemesrud notes two days coincide with the State Wrestling Tournament.  “We’ll get a lot of the different vendors from the across the country that are involved in pheasant and dog training. They expect about 25,000 (people to attend) so it would be nice if we had a little bit more than that with the additional people in town,” Klemesrud says.

The annual Pheasants Forever event began in 2005 and was previously hosted by Iowa in 2007 and 2010. Klemesrud says pheasants may not be as plentiful in Iowa as decades ago, but they’re making a comeback. “We are not to the glory years that we were in the 1990s, but we’ve had a few upticks in our pheasant numbers and we expect to have good survival into next year,” Klemesrud says. “So, we’re going build on year-over-year pheasant numbers and if we have a good spring, we’re going to have more pheasants than even last year.”

At this weekend’s event, landowners can meet with DNR conservation officers to discuss ways they can help improve upland bird habitat. Klemesrud says the event will also include a Youth Village.  “In the Youth Village, we’ll have a lot of different entertainment and games for the kids. Our officers will have some air rifle ranges, some 3D archery and we’ll have a snowmobile simulator,” Klemesrud says.

Daily admission to Pheasant Fest is $10 for adults, $5 for children 6-16, while children 5 and under get in free. For a complete schedule of events visit www.pheasantfest.org.

(Radio Iowa)

MISSOURI VALLEY, Iowa (AP) — A federal wildlife refuge north of Omaha is offering opportunities to learn more about nature during winter. The DeSoto and Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuges are offering several different programs in February and March. The refuges are about 30 miles north of Omaha near the Iowa border.

Tours of the area are offered at 10 a.m. on the following Saturday mornings: this Saturday, February 28th, March 7th and March 21st. Tours are also offered at 2 p.m. on February 15th, March 1st and March 15th.

The story of the Steamboat Bertrand and its passengers is retold at 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The 150th anniversary of Bertrand’s sinking will be celebrated on the last weekend of March. Anyone visiting the refuges must have a $3 entrance permit.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) – John Deere has recently laid off hundreds of workers in the Midwest, but it has added jobs at its factory in Dubuque, where the company manufactures huge vehicles for construction and forestry. Last month, the company announced the layoff of 910 workers at five locations in Iowa and Illinois, citing reduced demand for farming equipment as the reason. But the Telegraph Herald reports that John Deer Dubuque Works has added more than 100 jobs since late 2014.

General Manager Byron Taylor says this addition brings the total number of people working at the Dubuque site to 2,500. Taylor says the rollout of new bulldozer models and forestry machines, which hit the market in January, have contributed to the company’s strong growth in a new customer segment.

w/ Denny Heflin

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Officials with DuPont, and the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE), announced today (Wednesday), that DuPont Pioneer awarded more than $45,000 through multiple grants to agriscience educators in Iowa. The grants will fund training and classroom resources to help implement advanced agriculture curriculum.

Teachers who received a grant are implementing Curriculum for Agricultural Science Education (CASE) in their classrooms and will attend training in 2015. Iowa teachers receiving grants include (locally): Kristen Rutherford, Exira-Elk Horn-Kimballton High School; Susie Catanzareti, Mount Ayr Community School District, and Molly Heintz, West Central Valley High School.

Michelle Gowdy, director of Community & Academic Relations for DuPont Pioneer, said “Ensuring there is enough safe, affordable and nutritious food for all will require that more students understand agriculture and become future leaders in food production.” She added, “We are proud to be working with others in agriculture and education to give teachers the best resources to encourage children to learn more about agriculture and consider careers in the industry.”

CASE is a multiyear approach to agriscience education with rigorous educator training requirements and hands-on, inquiry-focused learning activities. The collaboration between DuPont Pioneer and CASE is a special project of the National FFA Foundation. This is the third year of involvement for DuPont Pioneer. Learn more about the program and grant schedule on the CASE grant website.

w/ Extension Program Coordinator Kate Olson

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The budget President Obama sent to Congress asks for more than one-billion dollars to fight antibiotic resistance, with some of the focus on animal agriculture. Under the proposal, the U-S-D-A would get 77-million dollars to find ways to reduce use of the drugs in livestock. Hans Coetzee, a veterinary medicine professor at Iowa State University, says antibiotic resistance can make common medications ineffective, meaning, sick people or sick animals don’t get better.

Coetzee says, “We recognize that when both MDs and veterinarians are using the same class of drugs to treat disease, that we both have responsibilities to ensure that we’re using those drugs prudently and responsibly.” He says it’s important to develop new animal care strategies to stop the spread of antibiotic resistance.  “It would be prudent for us in production agriculture to find ways to minimize the amount of antibiotics used, to most effectively use the drugs that we have, and then to identify alternatives,” Coetzee says.

The president’s proposal nearly quadruples the U-S-D-A money designated for such research.

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Net income for U.S. farmers is expected to fall by nearly 32 percent this year because of low crop prices and increasing expenses, placing many farmers in an unprofitable situation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released estimates on Tuesday that show 2015 is expected to be the second year in a row that farmers will see their income fall. Income was down 16 percent from 2013 to 2014.

The report estimates net farm income will be $73.6 billion in 2015, down from $108 billion in 2014. It was at a record $129 billion in 2013. The report also anticipates that as income falls, expenses will increase by one-half percent. Government programs that pay farmers when commodity prices are low are expected to increase 15 percent this year.

The Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department’s Board of Directors, Monday, discussed the preliminary site plan prepared by Snyder and Associates Engineers, for the Kiddie Korral shelter, at Sunnyside Park. Parks and Rec Director Roger Herring said once they started tossing about ideas, Herring’s main concern was the location of the new shelter.

Site plan for Kiddie Korral

He feels it needs to be moved 10 to 15-feet south of the current location, and change the orientation of the building to a more southwesterly direction. Herring said the building also needs to be handicapped accessible, and there needs to be some kind of a service road.)

Other plans call for replacing the current fire pit with one similar to that which was recently installed at the Camblin Addition Shelter, a walkway to the shelter and other features for the surrounding area. The Board gave Herring the go-ahead to pursue the purchase of a pre-fabricated arch-beamed, metal roofed 30-by-50-foot shelter, that simply needs to be assembled on a concrete pad.

Snapshot of the proposal shelter for the Kiddie Korral at Sunnyside Park.

The shelter’s pad and electrical systems are not included in the $30,000 cost of the building, which will likely be paid for through the Local Option Sales Tax. A commitment from the Kiwanis and other sources of fundraising will help to defer the remainder of the costs.

In other business, the Atlantic Parks and Rec Board approve the filing of an application for a TAP (Transportation Alternatives Program) grant for the Schildberg Recreation Area Lake number 2 Trail.  There is a little more than $300,000 available for the grant period ending Feb. 27th. Herring says they hope to get $153,000, with a 20-percent local match, which he intends to seek during the next meeting of the Atlantic City Council.

The Nishna Valley Trails group is seeking funds from the City, County and other entities as well as through grants, to bring build a connector trail from the Rec Area to the Atlantic Municipal Utilities’ well heads near the Atlantic Little League Diamonds across from KJAN.

Proposed additional trail around Lake #2 at the Schildberg Rec Area.

Herring said the Lake #2 trail is critical to fulfilling the goal of bringing in hikers and bicyclists to the Rec Area, which can be a destination focal point for outdoor enthusiasts and bring more traffic into downtown Atlantic.

The first-ever statewide non-profit organization to preserve farmland from urban sprawl is launching its operations. Suzan Erem, of West Branch, is president of the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, or SILT. Erem says the new organization will be focused to protecting Iowa farmland to grow healthy food. “We’re going to be targeting land that’s surrounding our growing communities,” Erem says. “Market farmers are having trouble staying close to their markets. They’re under pressure either from development or from commodity farmers. Either way, the land prices go up and it makes it much harder for them to stay close to the community where they’re trying to sell their produce.”

Farmers, she says, are often land rich and cash poor. “If we don’t have a non-profit taking the pressure off of the land from development or commodity prices, there’s no way to keep it from going up and up and up,” Erem says. “Every time somebody buys land, they count on 30 or 40 years from now, selling it at a higher price.” Working with city planners and private developers, she says small farms can be built into a community’s planning process.

“If we can’t take the land out of the equation, we’re always going to have our farmers farming with one arm tied behind their backs with this debt,” Erem says. “The land trust will protect the land and keep it just for local food production which eliminates that competition with the other pressures.” Independent, family farms help to provide a diverse, healthy landscape which she says will increase nearby home values while attracting new businesses seeking a high quality of life for employees.

Learn more at: www.silt.org.