LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – State climatologists say farmers in Nebraska and Iowa should prepare for persistent drought conditions this summer that could devastate their crops. Nebraska State Climatologist Harry Al Dutcher said Thursday that he expects that ranchers and farmers in the western part of his state will suffer crop damage, unless the weather suddenly becomes cooler and wetter. He says that’s unlikely, given the current conditions. 
 
Ranchers in western Nebraska and farmers in north-central Iowa say the weather conditions are the driest they’ve ever seen.  The situation is less dire in Iowa, but State Climatologist Harry Hillaker predicts that June will be warmer than usual. High winds are also causing water to evaporate faster.

w/ Max Dirks

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The Guthrie County Extension council soon will begin the process to fill four seats on the council. The elected council, like the hundreds of others across the country, is the grass roots governing body for the Cooperative Extension System. As part of Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, the Guthrie County council works in partnership with local citizens, Iowa State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to carry the land-grant mission beyond the campus in Ames. Candidates for the council will appear on the general election ballot in November. The duties of a council member include hiring county staff, managing the county extension budget and helping select programming. One hundred ISU Extension and Outreach field offices provide local access to extension programs in all 99 counties.  

The nomination process begins with the appointment of a four-member nominating committee. By law, the current council appoints two men and two women to the committee and it cannot include any current members of the council. The committee must be appointed by Aug. 6t, 2012. The committee is charged with nominating candidates for the council, and geographic distribution of the nominees is one factor that they consider. After nominees have been selected, each nominee must turn in to the county elections commissioner a petition signed by at least 25 qualified voters by 5 p.m. on Aug. 29th, 2012.

For more information, contact: Vicki Frohling, Guthrie County/ISUExtension and Outreach at 641-747-2276 , or e-mail frohling@iastate.edu

w/ Kate Olsen

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Concerns are being raised after the U-S Environmental Protection Agency announced it’s using airplanes to conduct fly-over inspections of large-scale livestock lots in Iowa and Nebraska. Josh Svaty, the E-P-A Region 7 Senior Advisor, says they are focusing on livestock operations that may be violating Clean Water Act regulations. Svaty says, “We don’t want to bother the people that are doing their very best and are in complete compliance but there are hundreds of animal feeding operations in these impaired watersheds and this enables us to more easily find some of the ones that might need a little more attention from us than others.” He says it saves taxpayer dollars to use the aircraft to so this type of surveillance versus driving up and down hundreds of miles of rural roadways to do spot checks of farmers and ranchers.

“Most of them are in compliance and are doing just fine,” Svaty says. “Some of the larger feedlots, in fact, some of them that we’ve worked with in the past, we’ve noticed have made significant, substantial improvements over the years.” The practice is raising concerns from livestock producers and legislators. Members of the Nebraska Congressional delegation recently sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, asking for answers to those concerns by June 10th. Svaty says the EPA only takes still photographs and they avoid houses. He says Nebraska’s Farm Service Agency has been doing compliance flyovers since the 1980s so it isn’t a new concept. Iowa U-S Senator Chuck Grassley says he’ll likely join the Nebraskans in asking for more answers from the EPA.

“I’ll probably sign the letter without any insinuation that anything’s wrong but I sure have a right to know what in the heck they’re doing and what they’re up to,” Grassley says. “I’m more interested in that. Transparency will bring some accountability.” The Nebraska delegation is asking how many flights have been conducted and what statutes authorize aerial surveillance inspections. The delegation also wants to know if the EPA conducted such flights prior to 2010. It asks what images are made, how they are used and how long they are kept. Grassley says this type of flight is nothing new. “Going back to the 1930s and ’40s, we’ve had airplanes fly over farmland in Iowa and take pictures and all of the work at the county offices where measuring fields was done from the photographs that airplanes were taking at that particular time,” Grassley says. “If that’s what they’re up to, we’ve been involved with that for 60 years but I wanna’ know what they’re up to.”

The letter to the head of the EPA notes that farmers and ranchers pride themselves in the stewardship of natural resources, saying, “As you might imagine, this practice (of flyovers) has resulted in privacy concerns among our constituents and raises several questions.” Grassley says the EPA needs to be more upfront.
“Whatever the federal government’s doing, observing on private land, the public has a right to know,” Grassley says. “You’ve also got to remember though that out in California, they use a lot of airplanes to take pictures to see where people are violating the laws by growing marijuana.” Grassley, a Republican, says all farmers know they have to abide by the Clean Water Act. “I don’t think it’s very easy to cover up if you’re killing fish that you’re violating.”

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Much of Iowa has received some rain, but the state could use some more to help ease the dry spots.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture says in Monday’s crop report that corn conditions declined slightly for the second consecutive week. The report shows 75 percent of the corn is rated good to excellent. That’s down from 77 percent a week ago and 81 percent two weeks ago. The first soybean rating puts the crop at 71 percent in good to excellent condition.  The USDA says 46 percent of Iowa’s topsoil and 45 percent of the subsoil is dry.  Last week’s rain totals ranged from 0.35 inches at Bloomfield to 3.7 inches at Akron. The statewide average was 0.84 inches. In Atlantic, rainfall from May 27th through June 2nd amounted to .43″.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Records show an Iowa State University scientist found evidence sick hens at farms owned by an Iowa egg producer were “almost certainly” laying eggs contaminated with salmonella months before one of the nation’s largest outbreaks of food-borne illness. Testing records filed as part of a civil lawsuit show scientists at ISU’s Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory found salmonella in manure at several Iowa egg-laying plants and in the internal organs of dead birds in the months before the August 2010 recall of 550 million eggs.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa farmers have agreed to put nearly 100,000 acres of land into the government’s Conservation Reserve Program. The Iowa Farm Service agency says 99,684 acres were accepted into the program during the general signup period. The CRP preserves land prone to erosion and reduces runoff of fertilizers and other chemicals into streams and rivers. The program also helps establish habitat for wildlife. 
 
Farmers are paid to set aside the land and not use it for crops.  At the end of last year 1.7 million acres of Iowa farmland was enrolled resulting in payments to farmers of nearly $213 million.  The USDA says farmers enrolled 3.9 million acres into CRP this year nationally during general signup. A total of 29.6 million acres of farmland is enrolled.

EAST PERU, Iowa (AP) – Well-known farm news broadcaster Mark Pearson has died at his home in Madison County. Chief Deputy Jason Barnes of the Madison County Sheriff’s Department told The Des Moines Register that Pearson died Sunday at his farm home near East Peru of an apparent heart attack.  The 54-year-old Pearson was host of the “Market to Market” program on Iowa Public Television and co-hosted a program about agricultural news on WHO-AM radio.Pearson had worked as assistant secretary of the Iowa Department of Agriculture.