JOHNSTON, IOWA – When COVID-19 hit the United States and most Americans were opting to stay home as much as possible, Iowa biofuel producers were badly hurt by the decline in fuel demand. Today Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds announced the state is dedicating over $15 million of relief funding for Iowa renewable fuels producers, making Iowa the first state in the nation to provide direct aid to the biofuels sector.

“Governor Reynolds has provided a much-needed lifeline for Iowa’s renewable fuels producers,” said Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw. “At its peak, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the idling of roughly 50 percent of Iowa’s biofuels production capacity. Even today fuel use has not returned to normal and biofuels producers are struggling to simply breakeven. IRFA members from across the state are deeply grateful for Governor Reynold’s leadership as they work to recover from the financial blow wrought by the pandemic.”

The relief funding will be awarded based on the number of qualifying gallons produced in the first quarter of 2020. IRFA continues to work with members of Congress on possible federal relief.

“We appreciate the work done by our federal legislative champions on language for the next COVID relief package,” Shaw said. “Ethanol and biodiesel producers across the country are suffering from suppressed fuel demand and still need comprehensive, in-depth relief from the federal government. Today’s action by Governor Reynolds will help Iowa’s biofuels producers keep going until Congress and the Trump Administration act.”

JOHNSTON, IOWA – Today Secretary Mike Naig unveiled the details of the $7 million Iowa Renewable Fuels Recovery Program that Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds first announced on June 30. The new program, which utilizes the state’s CARES Act funding, provides grants to Iowa fuel retailers that add E15, B11, and higher biofuel blends to their stations.

“IRFA members want to thank Governor Reynolds and Secretary Naig for seeing the many benefits biofuels provide to the state of Iowa and prioritizing their growth,” said Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Policy Director Nathan Hohnstein. “Iowa fuel retailers and biofuel producers have both been struggling under the weight of demand destruction from COVID-19. These grants will help retailers stay competitive by adding low-cost, home-grown biofuel blends and provide a demand boost for Iowa’s biofuels producers.”

These new grants are separate from Iowa’s existing biofuel infrastructure program, the Renewable Fuels Infrastructure Program (RFIP), and RFIP funds cannot be used on the same equipment or costs.

The program will provide up to $30,000 per approved project, and applicants may submit both ethanol and biodiesel-related applications for a single site for a maximum funding of $60,000 per site. Funds will be awarded to projects completed by December 30, 2020 or for purchasing equipment delivered by December 30, 2020 and installed at a later date. The retailer must commit to selling the qualifying biofuel blend for a minimum of 60 months. To provide flexibility, the 60-month commitment may begin anytime within 24 months of project completion.  Forty percent of the funds are being initially reserved specifically for Iowa’s smaller fuel retailers, those with ten fuel stations or less.

To apply for a grant or learn more about the new program visit: https://iowaagriculture.gov/grants

DES MOINES – Gov. Kim Reynolds announced today that she has allocated approximately $100 million of federal CARES Act relief funds for a range of agricultural programs to offset the impact of COVID-19 on farmers, producers and agricultural industries.

“Iowa is at the foundation of our global food supply chain and the epicenter of the renewable fuels industry,” said Gov. Reynolds. “COVID-19 and a devastating derecho dealt a major blow to everything from the demand for ethanol to the supply of meat on grocery store shelves. But just as important are the livelihoods of thousands of Iowa farm families, agricultural industries and the communities they support. Today’s investment reflects the critical role Iowa’s ag industry has in our state’s overall economic recovery.”

“Iowa exported more than $16 billion in manufactured goods and agricultural products to 199 countries last year alone,” said IEDA and Iowa Finance Authority Executive Director Debi Durham. “The critical assistance Gov. Reynolds announced today will support the continuation of Iowa’s long-standing legacy of agricultural excellence in our communities and throughout the world.”

“This has been a tough year for the agriculture community. I’m grateful that Gov. Reynolds has been a strong advocate for the farmers and agribusinesses in our state,” said Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig. “The programs funded by the CARES Act will help our farmers, renewable fuels retailers and producers, and small meat processors respond to market disruptions and continue on the road to recovery.”

The allocations are as follows:

• $60 million — Iowa Livestock Producer Relief Fund — Using the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s (IEDA) existing small business relief program infrastructure, this program will provide grants of up to $10,000 to eligible producers of pork, beef, chicken, turkeys, dairy, fish or sheep to serve as working capital to stabilize livestock producers. (Administered by IEDA)
• $15.5 million — State Biofuel Grant Program — Biofuels producers were excluded from receiving aid under other parts of the CARES Act; this program will provide relief to those Iowa ethanol and biodiesel producers based on gallons produced. Grants will also be awarded through IEDA’s existing small business relief program and are capped at a maximum grant of $750,000 per producer. (Administered by IEDA)
• $7 million — Renewable Fuel Retail Recovery Program — Announced previously, this funding supports a program that helps expand retail fueling infrastructure for higher blend renewable fuels, including E15 or higher & B11 or higher. (Administered by IDALS)
• $6 million — Iowa Beginning Farmer Debt Relief Fund— COVID-19 has negatively and disproportionately impacted a large number of beginning farmers in Iowa, creating the potential for longer-term generational damage to Iowa agriculture. This program will provide eligible beginning farmers with a long-term debt service payment of up to $10,000, to be paid directly to their lender. (Administered by IEDA)
• $2 million — Meat Processing Development and Expansion Program — Designed to aid small meat processors, this program is focused on expanding processing capacity across the state to meet protein demand. (Administered by IDALS)
• $500,000 — Farm Produce and Protein Program — This innovative program is designed to help specialty ag producers in Iowa as well as the schools that purchase them. In addition to supporting local growers of fruits and vegetables to expand their capacity, it provides grants to schools that buy produce and other local crops and protein sources. (Administered by IDALS)
• Up to $9 million — Iowa Disposal Assistance Program — The disruption to the meat supply chain due to COVID-19 forced producers to euthanize and dispose of livestock due to lack of market access. This program, announced initially in May, provided direct payments to producers to recoup those expenses. (Administered by IDALS)

Producers can apply for IEDA-administered programs at iowabusinessrecovery.com beginning on Aug. 31, 2020 and can apply for IDALS-administered programs at iowaagriculture.gov/grants beginning today, Aug. 24.

All of west central Iowa is currently under a moderate to extreme drought. The drought conditions are causing major concerns for both crop and livestock producers. To compound this situation the Derecho weather event has caused significant damage to crops and infrastructure across the area. To help address those concerns, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach will be hosting a Virtual Ag Coffee Meeting on September 9^th at 9:00 am. This event will be a live webinar presentation and have 11 in person viewing locations across West Central Iowa.

The meeting will be split into two segments with Mike Witt, ISU Field Agronomist, discussing the agronomic impacts of the drought and the Derecho. Specific agronomic topics that will be discussed are: harvesting downed corn strategies and expectations, managing fields that are unharvestable, ideas for residue and fall cover crop, grain quality and grain storage issues. Tim Christensen, ISU Farm Management Specialist, will be discussing the financial impacts and strategies for fall 2020. Specific farm management topics to be discussed are: crop insurance conversations, new USDA/FSA programs, considerations for handling drought and low yield crops with markets and handling farm stress. The meetings will last approximately 90 minutes.

The Virtual Farmers coffee will be a meeting that features both in person and virtual discussions. If you do not have internet access or would like to attend the meeting in person rather than home there are seats available at the 11 county extension offices. The speakers will be live via Zoom and able to answer question during and after the presentation. Each county office will be limited in their seating due to Covid-19 restrictions. Pre registration is required to attend the meetings in person and is on a first come, first serve basis. Walk-ins will not be accepted unless confirmed by individual county offices the day of the meeting. At home or virtual viewing of the meeting can be done by registering at the website www.aep.iastate.edu/coffee. This registration will provide you with a personal link to the meeting.

(Radio Iowa) – The weekly Iowa crop and weather report shows only half of the state’s corn crop and just 56 percent of the state’s soybeans are rated in the good to excellent categories. Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says that’s the lowest rating for corn this season.

“It’s down nine points this week and it’s down 20 points over the last two weeks, Naig says, “so conditions are definitely getting tough out there.” Naig says it’s caused by a combination of drought conditions, particularly in western Iowa, plus the August 10th derecho hit fields where strongly yields had been projected.

“You think about what this crop could have been,” Naig says, “and it’s always disappointing to go out there and harvest yields that you’d rather not have, so there’s a lot of frustration and just so much uncertainty for folks as they head into the next few weeks.” Drought conditions are now reported in nearly 88 percent of the state right at the time the kernels on an ear of corn and the beans inside soybean pods are filling out.

“A little historical perspective here: that’s the widest drought coverage of the state since 2013,” Naig says. And it comes at a critical time as corn and soybeans finish developing. “Corn is right now filling out that ear, filling out those kernels,” Naig said. “You’ve got beans that are filling pods.” Naig says high temperatures over the next several days will create more stress on the 2020 crop.

Pasture conditions for livestock have deteriorated over the past week. Federal officials are giving some farmers in the driest parts of the state permission to use conservation reserve acres for hay or as grazing land for cattle and other livestock.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Four state parks will remain closed until at least August 31, 2020 following the derecho that left major storm damage across much of the state on August 10. The Iowa DNR reports Palisades-Kepler State Park (LINN COUNTY), Pleasant Creek State Recreation Area (LINN COUNTY), Lake Macbride State Park (JOHNSON COUNTY) and Wapsipinicon State Park (JONES COUNTY) will remain closed through the end of the month as staff continue to focus on clean-up efforts of storm damage at these parks.

For the latest on any park closures and alerts, visit: https://www.iowadnr.gov/Places-to-Go/State-Parks/Alerts-and-Closures.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s largest manufacturing employer is reporting another down quarter.  Quad Cities-based John Deere reports net income for the third quarter of 811-million dollars. That’s down from 899-million a year ago. Worldwide net sales and revenues dropped 11-percent for the quarter and 12-percent for the past nine months. In a news release, Deere CEO John May says, “Although unsettled market conditions and related customer uncertainty are expected to have a moderating effect on key markets in the near term…Deere is well positioned to help make our customers more profitable and sustainable.”

The Derecho that struck the Midwest on August 10th, brought hurricane force winds of up to 140-miles per hour to parts of Iowa, caused millions of dollars in property damage, and a loss of at least 43-percent of the State’s corn and soybean crop. It also disrupted lives by knocking out power to more than 200-thousand homes and business. As of this (Friday) morning, approximately 14,500 power customers remained in the dark, with the bulk of those (over 12,000) residing in eastern Iowa’s Linn County.

“Zorro,” the baby raccoon. Photo courtesy Dr. Alan Farnsworth, DVM,

The major wind event was not kind to animals, either. In Adair, Veterinarian, Dr. Alan Farnsworth, found a female baby raccoon that he is nursing back to health. The Vet says he found the little critter the afternoon of August 15th.

Farnsworth gave the female raccoon subcutaneous fluids, which perked her up. He then began feeding her with a kitten milk replacer out of a little pet nursing bottle.

Doc Farnsworth says she’s drinking about 25-cc’s of milk replacer four-times each day. The goal, he says, is to eventually release “Zorro,” as he calls her, back into the wild in less than two months. She currently resides in a cage at his veterinary office in Adair, and is frequently visited by people who bring their animals in for care, or who just wanted to take a peek at the guest bandit.

Farnsworth said distemper and parvo-virus are the most common-type of maladies that affect raccoons in the wild. He says if you find a young raccoon in the wild, it’s best to leave it alone, because the mother will often come back for them. But this case was different.

Because raccoons are social creatures among their own kind, Farnsworth brought her a little stuffed animal she enjoys holding. The Vet says he’s trying hard not to become attached to her, because he knows she has to leave eventually.

Farnsworth has served the area as a Veterinarian for the past 43-years.

(Radio Iowa) – A University of Iowa study finds it takes much longer for farmers who are hurt on-the-job to get specialized trauma care at a hospital versus workers in practically every other industry. Study co-author Corinne Peek-Asa, a U-I professor of occupational and environmental health, says the primary problem with the delay is the distance involved. “The main reasons are that farmers are just injured more remotely, so sometimes, it takes a little while to discover the injury,” Peek-Asa says. “If a farmer is severely injured in the field and they’re not able to call for help, it’s going to take some time just to realize they’re injured and to get help to them.”

The study found it takes farmers an average of two hours and 46 minutes to arrive at a definitive trauma care center, compared to one hour and 48 minutes for people who suffer rural, non-farm work injuries. That extra hour of time, she notes, can make a significant difference in a person’s recovery time, or even in their life or death. Some might point to emergency medical service providers for the time lapse, but Peek-Asa says they’re not to blame. “It has nothing to do with training or the time the EMS responder takes at the scene, or the decision that they make on which hospital to take you to,” Peek-Asa says. “The delay is due to the distance and some of the complications of where farmers are injured. It’s important to us to really point out that our rural EMS providers are doing a great job.”

Peek-Asa says advancements in safety are frequently being made, for instance, in the use of G-P-S technology to locate an injured farmer. “There are some very innovative things going on to help reduce tractor rollovers,” Peek-Asa says. “If a tractor rolls over, it alerts someone so help is sent right away so the delay of recognizing and discovering the injury is reduced.”

The study was based on figures from the Iowa State Trauma Registry on some 750 Iowa workers who suffered traumatic on-the-job injuries between 2005 and 2011, about one-fifth of whom were farmers. The study was published in the journal Injury Epidemiology.

(Radio Iowa) – Schools at all levels have shifted courses online, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is now offering a virtual workshop to teach how to hunt, field dress and cook waterfowl. The Jamie Cook, a program coordinator for the D-N-R, says the course will target Iowans who have little to no waterfowl hunting experience — and they’ll make it work during the pandemic.

“We will take every measure to make camera angles really, really good and high index,” Cook says. “I field dressed a dove last night on my computer screen and had it to where it looked really good and did everything to accommodate as much as we could.” While these types of skills usually require hands-on training, Cook says they’re making the switch to using Zoom webinars with a panel of expert instructors for the two-part workshop series next month.

“Immediately following, probably within a week of the courses, we’re going to send them an email that’s going to have detailed information, it’s going to have recipes, it’s going to have a link to a PDF of the hunting regulations,” Cook says. “We’ll also send some video clips along to them that we’ve used over the years for these courses.” Ideally, Cook says they’ll invite the participants on a hunt during the upcoming season with experienced hunters from Delta Waterfowl.

People who take part in the free workshops will learn basic strategies for hunting waterfowl, things like proper equipment, where to hunt, safe shooting practices, decoys and calling, and how to field dress, clean and cook waterfowl. Cook says participants will have plenty of chances to ask questions. “Last night, with our Learn to Hunt Dove course, we had about 30 questions that came in. We were able to answer those both live and privately through the question-and-answer feature,” Cook says. “We have a lot of positive feedback from the participants.”

Course One will be held September 3rd and will cover waterfowl habitat and identification, hunting regulations and calling techniques. Course Two will be held September 10th and will cover hunting equipment, decoy spreads, cleaning and cooking. Participants can sign up for either or both courses.