(Radio Iowa Special feature) — This week, Radio Iowa’s Campaign Countdown has been providing snapshots of the statewide candidates Iowans will vote upon November 6th. An incumbent who’s been in the post for seven months faces two challengers in the race to be Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture for the next four years.

Iowa’s long-time State Ag Secretary Bill Northey resigned in March to take a job in the USDA. Governor Reynolds appointed Mike Naig to the post. Naig defeated four competitors at the GOP’s state convention in June to win the Republican nomination for ag secretary. “During this campaign I’ve laid out my vision for the future of agriculture and that is in attracting and inspiring the next generation of Iowans to consider careers in agriculture,” Naig told convention delegates. Naig is a native of the northwest Iowa community of Cylinder.

Tim Gannon, the Democratic Party’s nominee for state ag secretary, is a Mingo native who’s part of his family farming operation in Jasper County. “I’m running because I don’t want to see Iowa become a place where our big cities, our metro areas are doing really well, providing economy opportunity, but all our small towns and rural areas are struggling to keep up,” Gannon said at the Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention in June. Gannon worked for Tom Vilsack in the governor’s office and in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Libertarian Party’s nominee for state ag secretary is Rick Stewart. “We’ve got 82,000 farmers who know who to farm,” Stewart said on The Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair. “What the secretary of agriculture needs to know is how to stop the government from telling the farmers how to do their job.” Stewart is a retired businessman from Cedar Rapids.

w/Denny Heflin.

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(Radio Iowa) — A top ethanol industry official is echoing Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley’s concern about the timeline the Environment Protection Agency has proposed for moving to year-round sales of E15. The recently published agenda by the EPA shows E15 rule making would begin in February. American Coalition for Ethanol CEO Brian Jennings says the process needs to start much sooner than that.

“A proposed rule in February, taking into consideration the comment period, probably a public hearing, how long it has taken EPA to conduct other rule making — it doesn’t appear as if they will be able to get this done in time for the 2019 summer driving season,” Jennings said. Grassley, in a call with reporters this week, said it will “look like the president wasn’t serious in his announcement” if the EPA doesn’t ramp up its timeline.

“We don’t need this sort of bureaucratic red tape with something that’s been discussed in Washington for four or five years and discussed within this administration, and specifically with EPA, and specifically face to face with the president for about a year now,” Grassley said. According to Jennings, it’s up to the Trump Administration to follow through.

“We really need the administration to speed this up,” Jennings said. “We can’t have EPA slow-walk this after the president made such a big splash in announcing it.” Current law restricts the sale of E15 and higher ethanol blends from June 1st to September 15th. President Trump traveled to Council Bluffs two weeks ago and announced he directed the EPA to make E15 available all year.

(Thanks to Amy Mayer, Iowa Public Radio, and Mark Dorenkamp, Brownfield Ag News)

JACKSON COUNTY, Iowa – Officials with the Iowa DNR report that at around 9-a.m. Saturday, Sabula Fire and Rescue were dispatched to Browns Lake near Green Island Wildlife Management Area in eastern Iowa’s Jackson County, for a hunter in the water holding onto a capsized kayak. An Iowa DNR Conservation Officer already on the water patrolling responded to the area immediately, as well as another DNR Conservation Officer utilizing a mud boat and a DNR Wildlife Technician in the area.

Authorities say DNR officers and first responders dealt with major challenges during the rescue operation due to the extremely windy conditions and high waves. The hunter, identified as Jared Porter of Madison, Wisconsin, was eventually located in a flooded timber area holding onto a tree. A DNR Conservation Officer, along with the Sabula Fire Department were able to rescue the hunter and his dog from the water and bring them to shore. Porter was transported to a local hospital and released; his dog didn’t require any medical attention.

When officers later talked with Porter, the man explained he was trying to locate a place to hunt but was unable to due to the higher than normal water levels and when he left for the hunt in the morning, there were no winds and the water was very calm. Porter said his kayak capsized while he was on his way back and got out onto the open waters and hit a large wave about 50 yards away. Porter was able to remain on his cell phone with dispatch the entire time because of his water proof cell phone case.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Lawyers have clashed in court over whether Black Hawk County had the power to approve a 35-turbine wind farm project on agricultural land. The county Board of Adjustment voted April 24 to give Washburn Wind Energy a special permit for the 70-megawatt project south of Waterloo. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that a lawyer for a farmer who sued the Board of Adjustment said in court Tuesday that Iowa law prevents the county from regulating what happens on land historically used for farming purposes.

The board’s lawyer, Brent Hinders, says the county can, however, regulate ag land when the owner wants to use it for non-farming purposes such as wind turbines. The judge will issue a decision later on farmer Harold Youngblut’s request that the judge rule the board’s action was invalid.

w/Kate Olson.

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(Radio Iowa) — Iowa farmers got a lot of harvest work done last week, following three weeks of little activity due to nearly non-stop rain and muddy fields. The USDA crop report released Monday shows 29-percent of Iowa’s corn is out of the ground and 37-percent of the state’s soybeans are harvested. The corn harvest figure increased from 17-percent a week ago, while the soybean harvest jumped from 19-percent. Iowa State University Extension plant pathologist Daren Mueller says the wet weather in September and early October has resulted in reports of poor seed quality in soybeans. “Most fungi like moisture to grow and obviously the rains provided that,” Mueller says. “We’ve received a lot of calls on seed decay and other reports of discolored seeds, and I think this is either frog-eye leaf spot or cercospora leaf blight.”

The new USDA report rates 65-percent of Iowa’s soybeans in good-to-excellent condition and 35-percent between very poor and fair condition. Mueller says some farmers are reporting pod shatter in soybeans.
“Definitely that, and we’re also getting reports of seeds starting to germinate – both in corn and soybeans,” Mueller said. “I would say, in soybeans, having pods shatter would be the tricky thing (if) you’re not able to get into that field.”

Sixty-eight-percent of Iowa’s corn is rated in good-to-excellent condition. The USDA report notes the state’s corn harvest is three days ahead of last year, but four days behind the five-year average. Iowa’s soybean harvest is 12 days behind average and it’s also the smallest percentage of the crop harvested by October 21st since 1985.

Iowa’s unusually wet fall has created a unique situation where floodwaters are reaching fields and causing issues regarding what waterfowl hunters can and can’t do in these areas. According to federal regulations, hunters are allowed to hunt standing crops or flooded standing crops unless that field has been manipulated. That means hunters cannot hunt flooded sunflower fields that were mowed as part of the dove season, nor can they knock down or clear standing crops to create an open area for ducks to land. A complete list of federal baiting regulations is online at www.fws.gov/le/waterfowl-hunting-and-baiting.html

“Typically these fields aren’t flooded so it’s a nonissue, but it’s been an unusual year,” said Brad Baker, state conservation officer with the Iowa DNR. “It’s something that hunters need to be aware of this fall.”

Iowa duck season opened in the north zone on Oct. 13. The south duck zone opens on Oct. 20, followed by the Missouri River zone on Oct. 27.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — China’s propaganda machine has taken aim at American soybean farmers as part of its high-stakes trade war with the Trump administration. The publication last month of a four-page advertising section in the Des Moines Register opened a new battle line in China’s effort to break the administration’s resolve. U.S. farmers are a key political constituency for Trump, and Beijing has imposed tariffs on American soybeans as retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on hundreds of billions in Chinese imports.

China regularly disseminates propaganda in the West through its China Daily newspaper to try to influence public opinion in the United States and elsewhere. But the advertorial in the Register was unusual for deploying not a national publication in New York or Washington but a newspaper in the farm state of Iowa.

The Cass County Conservation Service says “Due to lack of site sign-ups” they are “regretfully cancelling the Lighted Halloween Campground including the Birthday Party. You may turn in the Birthday geocache tokens into our Office on both October 25 and 26^th during office hours,” or call the CCCB to make other arrangements.