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CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Brownfield Ag News Network!
(Radio Iowa) – The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors has unanimously adopted an ordinance that would require a proposed carbon pipeline to be at least 16-hundred feet outside of cities in the northwest Iowa county. Buffer zones also would be required around homes, schools, medical facilities and public parks. Bonnie Ewalt, of Milford, says the ordinance is needed to protect the health and safety of Dickinson County residents.
“Summit drew up the route for this hazardous CO2 pipeline without any regard for topography or proximity to high risk areas,” Ewalt said. Summit Carbon Solutions has proposed a pipeline through Iowa and four other states, to ship liquefied carbon to underground storage in North Dakota. Scott O’Konek, a Minnesota-based project manager for Summit, says ordinances like this could stymie development of the pipeline and harm the ethanol plants that plan to connect to it.
“The whole project is up to 57 plants and this ordinance has the ability to take that competitiveness away from Green Plains Superior.” Green Plains Superior is an ethanol plant located in Dickinson county. Summit has sued five other counties with ordinances similar to the one in Dickinson County.
(Iowa News Service) – The chair of the Federal Trade Commission will be in rural Iowa this weekend to hear from farmers and other residents about the proposed sale of Iowa Fertilizer to Koch Industries. The sale is pending FTC approval. Iowa spent $500 million to build an Iowa Fertilizer factory in Waverly to create competition in an already consolidated industry. Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said he plans to tell FTC Chair Linda Khan a sale to Koch Industries would backtrack on any competitive progress the state has made.
“Our concern is that an industry that already lacks competition and has all sorts of monopoly problems would only get worse if this sale is allowed to go through,” Lehman explained.
Koch and other corporate ag conglomerates have said consolidating allows them to provide better products to farmers more efficiently. The hearing is set for Saturday on Main Street in Nevada. In addition to reducing competition for fertilizer, Lehman argued the sale would increase prices for farmers, and ultimately mean higher food prices for Iowans. He wants Khan to hear stories firsthand, from the people on the ground in Nevada. “We know that we might not be able to have a dialogue with the people who are investigating this situation, because they need to be impartial,” Lehman acknowledged. “But our farmers need to tell their story about how the industry is already in a monopoly state.”
Some 18 other ag organizations have joined the Iowa Farmers Union calling on the FTC and the Justice Department to investigate the proposed sale.
The Southwest Iowa Fishing Team started up their spring tournament season in the AgriVision Elite boat series. Seventeen student angler teams launched their boats early on Sunday morning and navigated the lake looking to hook the five biggest fish. Atlantic Trojan anglers Joaquin and Jake Wailes of Wiota reeled in the winning bag in Powerade High School Series at the AA Tree Service TBF bass fishing tournament on Lake Anita. The brothers found the fish early and late to bring their limit of 5 fish weighing 10.32 pounds. The rest of the Top places were highly competitive Cam Cougars Owen and Brentyn Hoover finished in the runner up spot with a total of 8.68, third place went to Atlantic Trojan’s Colton and Colin Rudy with 8.32, West Central Valley Jordon Robison / Nathan Bentler were fourth with 8.20 and rounding out the top five Atlantic Trojans Gavin Dougherty and Harlan Cyclones Cody Swank 5.55.
Robinson hooked a 4.80 to win AM Cohron & Son Big fish for the Powerade High School anglers.
In the Fairlife Junior division Colton and Adien Krueger from Riverside weighed in their winning bag of 5 fish totaling 6.03. Runner up spot went to Talan Vanarsdol and Tim Donovan Tri Center with 5.43, Grayson Molgaard / Owen Miller Atlantic Trojans finished third 4.65, fourth was Colton and Kaden Frieze from Griswold, 4.34,and rounding out the top five was Mater Heigenberger / Liam O Banion with 1.29.
Other winners from the tournament were.
The next event for 4th Annual Strike King Iowa SAF/TBF/MLF Bass State Championship in Okoboji on Saturday April 26th. High School anglers will be trying to qualify of the SAF/MLF High School National Championships and the Juniors will be trying to qualify for the TBF Junior World Championship in July.
For complete details and updated information visit www.swifishingteam.com
For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow SWIFT’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Thanks to all the sponsors, boat captains, parents, volunteers, and anglers for making an awesome event.
04/14/2024 Lake Anita
Powerade High School Teams
Place Team Weight
Fairlife Junior Teams
Place Team Weight
Photo credits to Jill & Callie Rudy, and Hade DeVore.
(Radio Iowa) – The U-S-D-A crop report shows four percent of corn was planted last week as farmers slowly got into the fields. Some farmers attended I-S-U Extension’s “Planter University” earlier this year where field agronomist Meaghan Anderson says they learned how to best use their equipment. “Talk about more of the theory behind some of the technology and differences between them as well as really in-depth into the maintenance aspects that are going to be across all colors of planting equipment,” Anderson says. She says planter technology has advanced along with tractors through the years — leading to changes in things like speed across a field.
“Typically it wasn’t unusual for people to be planting anywhere from maybe three and a half to five or so miles per hour in the past and now there’s technology that allows people to plant more in the maybe eight to 10 are slightly faster miles per hour,” she says. Anderson says issues with the planter can cost farmers money when it comes to harvest time.”There’s certainly some changes and how we need to make sure we’re maintaining them and paying attention to changes in those planters as the season goes on to make sure that that seed gets planted where it needs to be when it needs to be,” Anderson says. She says having the planter ready to go at the start is only part of planting success.
“But in addition to that, being able to make appropriate adjustments on the fly, as farmers move perhaps across fields, as they move from one week to the next during the early part of the growing season when we know that rainfall can be variable and soil differences and residue differences can make such a change in how the seed actually enters the ground,” Anderson says. The Planter University team moves across the state in February so they can offer hand’s-on training in preparation for planting. This is the third year for the program.
(Radio Iowa) – Work is progressing on crafting the new Farm Bill, and Iowa’s Fourth District Congressman Randy Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, says he’s hopeful the legislation that’s so important to the heartland will be finalized soon. “We’ve got the text ready to go, but before we can release the text, we have to know the tax score, what it’s going to cost,” Feenstra says. “The Congressional Budget Office has got to create that score because we’ve got to know, how do we pay for this? That’s what we’re waiting for.”
The Farm Bill is typically updated every five years, but a new version didn’t materialize last year, and Congress passed a one-year extension which will last through this fall. “We’ve been dragging this thing out, but we’re really hoping that by May we can get it out of committee, and then mid-June, get it off the floor of the U.S. House, and then it’s up to the Senate,” Feenstra says. “I know our producers, just talking to them around all of my 36 counties, this is a really big deal.”
Feenstra says there’s a lot of concern over the crop insurance element of the Farm Bill. “With our low commodity prices right now, with soybeans below $12, and corn around $4.30, everybody’s worried because insurance is that safety net,” Feenstra says. “The input costs of putting that crop in, you’ve got to cover yourself and that’s the big, big issue.” He says there’s also a great deal of concern about the export market and finding new free trade agreement areas in which to grow.
(Radio Iowa) – U-S Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican, says it’s time for congress to pass the Expanding Agricultural Exports Act she’s co-sponsoring with an independent senator from Maine and a Minnesota senator who’s a Democrat. The bill would double federal funding for marketing campaigns that promote the sale of U-S agricultural products in foreign countries.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture is predicting at $30.5 billion agricultural trade deficit for Fiscal Year 2024,” Ernst said. “That’s why I’m leading the Expanding Agricultural Exports Act to strengthen the Market Access Program and Foreign Marketing Development program, helping build strong commodity markets overseas and new export opportunities for Iowa farmers.”
Ernst says the Biden Administration should do more to promote the sale of U-S agricultural goods. Ernst’s comments come as Japan’s Prime Minister wraps up a state visit to the United States. “Japan understands the quality and care that comes with Iowa pork,” Ernst says. “They’re our third largest export destination and second leading export market for pork products.”
Mexico is the top export destination for Iowa pork
(Radio Iowa) – Iowa D-N-R spokesman Peter Hildreth says the annual walleye collection was successful. “The goal is to collect enough fish to hatch 154-point-eight million walleye fry that will supply Iowa lakes and fish hatcheries,” Hildreth says. He says the eggs are removed from the walleyes and the fish are returned to the lake where they were caught to make room for the next night’s catch.”Our broodstock lakes have excellent wildlife populations and the timings have been perfect the staff have all the wildlife they need to fill the jars to get one-thousand-738 quarts of eggs,” he says.
Hildreth says they worked on several different lakes. “Spent five nights at Storm Lake, four nights at Rathbun, two and a half nights on Spirit Lake and two nights on Clear Lake. And in those short nights of efforts, like I said they collected all the wildlife they need to meet our goals,” Hildreth says.
The fish will be stocked into Iowa’s lakes after growing to the proper size at the fish hatcheries.
(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Warm soil temperatures and favorable weather have allowed farmers across Iowa to start planting corn and soybeans this week, according to several field agronomists. Wednesday was the earliest planting date for corn to be eligible for federal crop insurance replanting payments, which cover farmers if their young crops are damaged and need to be replaced. The earliest planting date for soybeans was also Wednesday for the southern three tiers of Iowa counties, and it’s April 15 for the rest of the state.
Most of the state’s topsoil has a temperature of at least 50 degrees, according to Iowa State University data. That temperature is a key threshold for seed germination. Soil temps are predicted to rise into the 60s in the coming days before retreating into the 40s by the end of next week. Air temperatures are expected to peak in the 80s in most of Iowa this weekend, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy rainfall in wide areas of the state in March helped alleviate drought conditions that have persisted for more than three years. Still, available soil moisture is far behind what it has been in recent years.
About 51% of the state’s topsoil and 36% of its subsoil have adequate or surplus moisture, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report on Monday. At this time last year, those figures were 78% and 66%. The depleted subsoil is most worrisome for the field agronomists. About two-thirds of the state is suffering from some measure of drought, according to a Thursday report by the U.S. Drought Monitor. That affected area has declined for weeks and was aided again last week by heavy rainfall in southeast Iowa, which delayed planting in that area.
Those rains have alleviated some of the concerns about available water for livestock along the state’s southern border.
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