(Radio Iowa) – After ten years, Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill is stepping down as head of the state’s largest agricultural organization. Hill’s successor will be chosen as Farm Bureau members meet in Des Moines starting today (Tuesday) for their annual state conference. Matt Schuiteman of Sioux County, district director for northwest Iowa, says three names will be on the ballot. “Joe Heinrich, who is the current vice president, is from Jackson County over in far eastern Iowa,” Schuiteman says. “Then there’s Brent Johnson who is from near Manson in Calhoun County, and Tim Kaldenberg is also running. He’s from southern Iowa in Monroe County near Albia. Each one of them would be a fine choice.”

Schuiteman says it may take more than one vote to determine the next Iowa Farm Bureau president.”It’s hard to say. It very well could take a couple of votes just because there’s three guys running so typically, in that situation, somebody needs to get over 50% and a lot of times when you have three people running, that doesn’t happen the first time,” he says, “not to say that it’s going to be contentious at any point.” Schuiteman says Farm Bureau members won’t be establishing any new planks in the platform during the conference.  “We’re not going to work on establishing any policy in this meeting,” he says. “In terms of the delegate body, there’s more internal things that we take care of that are pertinent to the organization.”

This year’s theme for the state conference is “Our Farms, Our Future.”

(Des Moines) Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Thursday, signed a proclamation extending the weight limits and transportation of grain. The proclamation continues through January 1, 2022.
It allows vehicles transporting corn, soybeans, hay, straw, silage and stover to be overweight (not exceeding 90,000 pounds gross weight) without a permit for the duration of the proclamation.

The proclamation applies to loads transported on all highways within Iowa (excluding the interstate system) and those which do not exceed a maximum of 90,000 pounds gross weight, do not exceed the maximum axle weight limit determined under the non-primary highway maximum gross weight table in section 321.463 (6)(b) of the Iowa Code by more than 12.5 percent, do not exceed the legal maximum axle weight limit of 20,000 pounds, and comply with posted limits on roads and bridges.

(West Des Moines, Iowa -December 2, 2021) – Iowa Select Farms and the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation have announced the locations of Operation Christmas Meal, a free pork loin giveaway for families who aren’t planning a Christmas meal due to insufficient funds. This year, Operation Christmas Meal will give away 17,000 boneless pork loins roasts at 13 different events across Iowa, plus an additional 1,500 through the Ignite the Spirit Program aimed at increasing awareness of hunger locally and helping even more families during the holiday season.

Operation Christmas Meal will kick off Friday, December 3rd at 5:00 a.m., at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, and end on Thursday, December 16 at 6:00 p.m. in Algona, at the Bomgaars parking lot. Over the course of five days, Operation Christmas Meal will also travel to Creston, Osceola, Humeston, Ellsworth, Hampton, Osage, Aplington, Hubbard, Iowa Falls, Sac City, and Storm Lake.  (See details for area sites/times, below)

“During an especially difficult time for families in need, Operation Christmas Meal helps create a happy holiday for all Iowans, no matter their circumstances or level of income,” said Jen Sorenson, Communications Director of Iowa Select Farms. “The event is free and open to anyone in need.” Now in its 11th year, Operation Christmas Meal has provided more than one million Christmas meals to Iowa families. The event has become a holiday tradition for the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation with hundreds of Iowa Select Farms employees volunteering to brave the cold to hand out the pork loins year-after-year.

An additional component of Operation Christmas Meal is aimed at increasing awareness of hunger locally and helping even more families during the holiday season. The Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation and Iowa Select Farms is awarding cases of pork loins and $250 cash to over 50 local FFA, 4-H, and school-based organizations throughout the counties where Iowa Select Farms has employees and farms. The donations will help student organizations host a community meal, organize and distribute holiday food baskets, or come up with their own idea for providing a meal to families in need. “This is a great opportunity for students to better understand hunger, plan their own unique project or event while also partnering with organizations that provide different areas of support to local families,” said Sorenson. FFA and 4-H clubs will also be provided event kits with insulated totes, aprons, t-shirts, and meat thermometers.

Operation Christmas Meal information for two area communities:

• Creston, Iowa – Old Walmart Parking Lot (next to Tractor Supply), 614 New York Ave.; Tuesday, December 7, 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
• Sac City, Iowa – Sac County Fairgrounds, 416 Park Ave.; Thursday, December 16, 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Additional information can be found HERE.

(Radio Iowa) – A southwest Iowa company has hired a Hartland, Wisconsin company to design its proposed 500-thousand square foot beef processing plant. Cattlemen’s Heritage lead developer, Chad Tentinger, says the plant will be built in northern Mills County just south of Council Bluffs. “A couple of things that will be different — from the front of it, it won’t look like a processing plant — it will look like an office building. Design is very important to us,” according to Tentinger. “It’ll also have state-of-the-art equipment in it. A lot of new equipment that maybe wasn’t available five years ago.”

E-S-I Group was chosen to design and construct the facility. He says a new plant like this hasn’t been built in a long time. “Certainly in the Midwest, it’s been decades. And what you see in plants is they use the existing footprint and figure out how to fit all the stuff into,” he says. “But we have the ability from a brand new facility to lay out how the equipment should look, how it should lay out, have this proper room, spread out, and then design the building around that.” He says the design process will take several months. He says they hope to have a final design this spring and begin construction and get the operation underway by the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.

The plant is expected to employ 750 people, and Tentinger says there is a good workforce in the area. “We are going to start out with aggressive pay. The wages will be at the very high end of the wages for this field. We will also have onsite daycare, onsite banking, and some limited onsite medical,” Tentinger says. The plant is expected to process 15-hundred head of cattle each day. “Midwest beef that is primarily small family-farm raised — which is very important to us. So that we know the quality of the cattle, the quality of the caretaking, the source of the cattle — all that is very important to use down to the traceability — so that we know that anything that is coming through the plant is very high quality,” according to Tentinger.

The company says an estimated 33-hundred workers will be needed to construct the plant.

(Radio Iowa) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has missed this week’s deadline to set new annual amounts of ethanol that small oil refineries must blend into gasoline. The E-P-A hasn’t set new volume levels since 2020. Monte Shaw is executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. He says, “While this is not uncharted territory for us, it’s about what is that opportunity cost? What is not happening? You know, E-10’s being sold, you kind of get stuck in the status quo of blending.”

The E-P-A has proposed extending the ethanol blending deadlines for oil refineries. The agency has scheduled a virtual public hearing on the issue this Friday, December 3rd.

(Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Katie Peikes)

w/Kate Olson.

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(Radio Iowa) – Iowa farmers who attended the “COP 26” climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland say agriculture is finally being welcomed to the discussions. Ray Gaesser of Ankeny represented the group, “Solutions from the Land,” as one of the nearly 40-thousand official participants. Gaesser says after years of fighting to get into the meetings, farmers are being given a seat at the table.  “We’re having a presence finally of agriculture at the UN meetings,” Gaesser says. “The climate discussion started out ten or 15 years ago with no agriculture involved and it’s really important that we share our story and how we will make a difference for the climate and still feed people.”

U-S-D-A officials contacted the group prior to the 26th annual COP, or Conference of the Parties, asking members to meet with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Gaesser says they provided input on how agriculture can help to slow climate change. “The message that USDA is sharing has been the message that we’ve had from Solutions from the Land for several years, about farmers being a part of the solution,” he says, “that one-size-fits-all regulations are inadequate, that we are very diverse in agriculture, not only within our state but within our nation.”

Gaesser says agriculture is utilizing nature’s energy sources in solar and wind as well as biofuels. He hopes those elements will be integrated into U-S-D-A’s climate change mitigation and a possible climate bank.  “We have made an impact because their message is very similar to what ours is,” he says. “It’s about agriculture being part of the solution. It’s about farmers making a difference and providing opportunities, and it’s about all the innovations that we’re doing in agriculture in the United States.”

Still, he says farmers at COP 26 faced more aggressive anti-meat rhetoric about how methane emissions from livestock globally have grown over time and production should be eliminated. Gaesser says much of the animal agriculture message was just not accurate.

(Radio Iowa) – Clearfield Mayor Chris Knox is hoping an egg production facility that was heavily damaged by fire this weekend will be able to recover. Knox says he noticed the plant burning at around 7:30 Saturday morning — and most of the facility’s employees were standing outside when he drove by. The mayor says the gusty winds made for what he called “a scary deal.”

“The wind did pick up pretty strong there Saturday afternoon,” he says. “It was blowing right towards town at that particular time, and there was a pretty big concern about starting a cornfield on fire right to the east side of where the fire was. From there, it could have carried into the town of Clearfield.” Knox says the facility was bought from Iowa Cage-Free last month and is now known as Hen Haven Fire crews brought the fire under control by about 6 p-m Saturday–but not before it caused considerable damage.

“One complete hen house was burned clear to the ground. I would estimate it to be 700-to-800 feet long. It took it completely down. From there, the barn was connected by breezeways to the processing facility, and to the office space, and I believe to the distribution center. The processing, the office space, and the distribution area were all completely damaged, as well,” according to Knox. It’s believed hundreds of thousands of chickens died in the fire. Knox says the plant employs up to 70 people and the fire is a big blow to more than just the facility’s workers.

“It goes to people supplying the facility with feed resources and other resources,” he says. “It doesn’t even affect just the employees, it affects everybody that has ties to that business, as well. It would be really great if we could salvage what we can out of the mess, and continue to have that for the community. It really would.” Knox praised fire departments from surrounding communities for their assistance in battling the fire.

There’s no word on what caused the fire. None of the facility’s employees were injured, but Knox says two firefighters reportedly were treated for smoke inhalation.

(Atlantic, Iowa)  – Beef producers needing to renew or obtain their certification for Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) can attend an in-person workshop held Monday, December 6^th from 6:30 – 8:30 PM.  The training will be held at Cass County Community Center at 805 W 10^th Street in Atlantic.

A majority of packers require cattle sellers to be BQA certified.  BQA is a nationally coordinated, state implemented program that raises consumer confidence through offering proper management techniques and a commitment to quality within every segment of the beef industry.  The Iowa BQA Program is funded by the Iowa Beef Industry Council (IBIC) and the Beef Checkoff.  The education component is delivered as a joint effort by Iowa Beef Center at Iowa State University and IBIC.

There is no cost to attend the training, but pre-registration is appreciated. To reserve a seat at the training, please RSVP by noon on Monday the 6^th by contacting the Cass County Extension Office at 712-243-1132 or emailing keolson@iastate.edu. A light meal will be served to all who RSVP in advance, grilled by the Cass County Cattlemen, starting at 6:00 PM ahead of the meeting.

To learn more about the Iowa BQA Program and other upcoming certification trainings in your area, please visit www.iabeef.org.  BQA certification is also offered online for free at www.bqa.org.  For more information, feel free to contact Erika Lundy-Woolfolk, ISU Extension beef specialist at 641-745-5902 or ellundy@iastate.edu.

AMES, Iowa – The 2022 Crop Advantage meetings will give producers a solid foundation of current research-based crop production information to help make smart, informed decisions for their farming operation. The meetings are an opportunity for farmers and crop advisers to hear current research and crop production information from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Specialists will travel to 14 locations around Iowa (Including Atlantic, Denison & LeMars), from Jan. 4-27, providing updated management options and recommendations on crop production issues facing Iowa growers.

Meetings include continuing education credits for Certified Crop Advisers and pesticide applicator recertification. All sites offer private pesticide applicator continuing instruction, which is included in the registration fee. The Chariton location also offers commercial ag pesticide applicator continuing instruction for an additional cost.

Nearly 2,000 individuals attended one of 14 Crop Advantage meetings across the state in 2020, representing all 99 Iowa counties and surrounding states. Approximately 85% of attendees said information from Crop Advantage would likely save them between $5 and $20 per acre.

Program topics vary by location and are selected for regional issues. Topics on this year’s agenda include: crop market outlook for 2022, precipitation and weather variability trends, corn rootworm management, managing cover crops before corn, fertilizer management for 2022, management of corn and soybean disease issues, tax law changes and many more.

Financial support for this farmer-focused meeting series is provided by the Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Locations, times and program details are available online.

Early registration for each location is $60; late registration made less than seven days prior to the meeting, or on-site, is $75. Registration includes lunch, private pesticide applicator recertification, and CCA credits.

Online registration and additional information is available at www.cropadvantage.org. For questions, contact ANR Program Services at 515-294-6429, or anr@iastate.edu, or contact your regional Iowa State University Extension and Outreach field agronomist.

2022 Meeting Dates and Locations

• Jan. 4 – Sheldon.
• Jan. 5 – Storm Lake.
• Jan. 6 – Burlington.
• Jan. 11 – Okoboji.
• Jan. 12 – Ankeny.
• Jan. 13 – Cedar Falls.
• Jan. 14 – Mason City.
• Jan. 18 – Chariton.
• Jan. 19 – Webster City.
• Jan. 20 – Atlantic.
• Jan. 21 – Davenport.
• Jan. 25 – Coralville.
• Jan. 26 – Le Mars.
• Jan. 27 – Denison.