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(Anita, Iowa) – Anita is hosting a mobile food pantry on Wednesday afternoon, August 16. A mobile pantry is a traveling food pantry that delivers food directly to families in need for a one-day distribution. People from surrounding towns and communities are welcome. Mobile food pantries are available free of charge. Anyone in need is welcome, and no documentation is required. Each car can take food for up to two households at a time. Full details about the August 16 Mobile Pantry, as well as dates for upcoming mobile pantries in 2023, are listed below:
Anita August 16 Mobile Food Pantry
Where: Anita Food Pantry (208 Chestnut St., Anita, IA 50020)
Time: 4-6 p.m.
2023 Dates: October 18
Upcoming Pantries:
Atlantic 2023 Mobile Food Pantries
Where: Cass County Community Center (805 W. 10th St., Atlantic, IA 50022)
Time: 4-6 p.m.
2023 Dates: October 11
Massena 2023 Mobile Food Pantries
Where: Southwest Iowa Egg Coop (74877 Clarke Ave. Massena, IA 50835)
Time: 4:30-5:00 p.m.
2023 Dates: October 11
Mobile pantry dates, times, and locations are subject to change. For the latest information on mobile pantries in Anita and Atlantic, visit https://foodbankheartland.org/food-resources/find-food/. For the latest information on Massena pantries, call (712) 779-3447. For information on upcoming events and local food, farmers markets, and food access activities, follow the Cass County Local Food Policy Council’s Facebook page @CassCountyLocalFood.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – One final reminder: The Cass County Iowa State University Extension office will host their annual farmland leasing meeting this Thursday, August 10, beginning at 9:00 a.m. at the Cass County Community Center, 805 West 10th Street in Atlantic. The meeting will last approximately 2 ½ hours and will be facilitated by Tim Christensen, farm and agriculture business management specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach.
The discussion will focus on various methods to determine a fair 2024 cash rental rate and the importance of good tenant/landlord communications. Emphasis will be placed on recent returns to Iowa Cash Rented Land and the 2023 Iowa Cash Rental Rate Survey.
Pre-registration is requested to ensure availability of materials, and a $20 per individual fee is payable at the door. Participants will receive a 100-page booklet and meeting handouts designed to assist landowners, tenants and other agri-business professionals with issues related to farmland ownership, management, and leasing arrangements.
Contact the Cass County Extension office at (712) 243-1132 with questions or to pre-register. A flier with more information is available online at www.extension.iastate.edu/cass.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Conservation Department reports Nishna Valley Trails is holding a Kids Bike Ride August 12th, 2023 10:30 AM at Schildberg Recreation Area west parking lot, in Atlantic. Check-in and start the ride at the West Parking lot.
Three age groups ride a length of the trail according to age. The event is FREE, and all ages welcome. After the ride check out Atlanticfest going on in the downtown area!
The Kids Bike Ride is co-sponsored by Atlantic Parks and Recreation, Cass County Conservation, Fareway, and West Side Diner, in Atlantic. For questions, call Cass County Naturalist Lora Kanning, at 712-769-2372.
(Radio Iowa) – A setback today (Friday) for Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions’ plan for a pipeline to carry liquid carbon from ethanol plants in Iowa and other states to underground storage in North Dakota.
All three members of North Dakota’s Public Service Commission have voted to reject the proposed 320 mile route for the pipeline in their state. Summit issued a statement saying it plans to address the commission’s concerns and resubmit its application in North Dakota. Summit and two other companies have proposed carbon pipeline routes that would run through Iowa. North Dakota’s Public Service Commission said Summit had not addressed legitimate concerns from some North Dakota landowners and had not sufficiently pursued an alternate route around Bismark, the state capitol.
The IOWA Utilities Board plans to start its hearing on Summit’s pipeline route through Iowa on August 22nd. The hearing could last for months. The company has said it wants a decision by the end of the year on the application to build its pipeline along a 680 mile route through Iowa.
(Radio Iowa) Organizers of the “Rooster Tail Ride” are hoping their event next weekend will encourage bicyclists to venture farther on the Wabash Trace Nature Trail. There’s a 20-mile ride on the trail from Council Bluffs to Mineola on Tuesday nights in the late spring through late October when the weather cooperates. Rebecca Castle, who’s on the Southwest Iowa Nature Trails board, says the 35 mile Rooster Tail Ride extends to Shenandoah and combines bicycling and live music in each of the towns riders pass through. “We’ve also added a couple of stops, so now we have live music on the Silver Creek bridge, which is a nice, about halfway point between Silver City and Malvern,” Castle says, “and then we also have music in Strahan, which is a ghost town about halfway between Malvern and Imogene.”
Castle says the towns and musical acts along the route break up the ride into nine mile segments. “For those people that maybe aren’t experienced riders, don’t have a lot of long distances under their belt, this is still a good ride for them,” Castle says. There is a pre-party in Mineola on Friday, August 12th, but the ride starts Saturday morning, August 13th in Mineola. “You’ll bring your luggage there to Mineola and then that morning we will haul from Mineola down to Shenandoah, to Sportsmen’s Park. That’s where the camping is,” Castle says. “And then there’ll be showers not only at the pool, whilc they’re open, but at Pork Belly Events. They will be bringing their shower trailers that they use for RAGBRAI and other events for later showers also.”
There’s a 45 dollar registration fee, plus Castle says the Rooster Tail Ride has local sponsors and a state grant to help pay the musical acts and cover other expenses. A band called Silver Bullet that plays Bob Seger tunes and a Tom Petty tribute band from Kansas City are booked to perform in Shenandoah for the riders. The Wabash Nature Trail for biking and hiking is on the former Wabash rail line. It starts in Council Bluffs and ends 63 miles later in the tiny town of Blanchard, in Page County.
JOHNSTON, Iowa – August 4, 2023 – Applications are open for the Iowa Corn Collegiate Advisory Team (CAT) program, which focuses on increasing college students’ understanding of the corn industry. During the one-year program, students will visit the Capitol, tour industry leaders’ operations and expand their network and knowledge outside of the classroom. Applications are available on Iowa Corn’s website and are due September 29, 2023.
“I would recommend the Collegiate Advisory Team to others because it helped me expand my network of industry professionals before leaving college,” said Austin Miller of Buchanan County and 2022-2023 CAT member. “Through the program, I was able to tour an ethanol plant, learn how policy development is created from the ground up and expand my knowledge of what commodity organizations do.”
“Leadership development is a priority at Iowa Corn,” said Larry Buss, President of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. “Our organization and other commodity groups rely on strong farmer and producer volunteers to guide our organizations now and into the future. The Collegiate Advisory Team, allows us to jumpstart many farmers and ag industry leader’s careers and leadership capabilities.” 
2023- 2024 Schedule of Events:
Any post-secondary student who has completed high school and is attending an Iowa college of university to pursue a career in agriculture is encouraged to apply. If you or someone you know might be interested, please contact Brian Bell, Iowa Corn Director of Leadership and Organizational Development at bbell@iowacorn.org. For more information, visit www.iowacorn.org/CAT.
(Radio Iowa) – Fourth District Congressman Randy Feenstra is introducing a bill that would increase the federal government’s monitoring of farmland purchases by foreign business. Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, says the Farmland Act is aimed at China. “We’re seeing it more and more that China or Chinese businesses are buying our farmland and it’s nearly doubled in the last five years from the land they bought over the last decades to just the last three years,” Feenstra says. “They’ve nearly doubled the amount of land they’re buying. And it really comes from a lot of their businesses and obviously security issues is our biggest concern.”
The bill directs U.S. agencies to cooperate on oversight of these transactions. “The one that’s probably most important right now is just trying to get all the agencies together, the USDA, the DOD, other agencies around the country, to get them all together talking the same language and making sure that we are prohibiting some of these things from happening,” he says. “Right now, there’s a lot of lapses that have happened. I know the USDA has only ever really got involved with six different purchases over the last several years.”
Chinese firms have been purchasing U-S ag businesses, and that’s a concern to Feenstra. “If you think about from the farmland to Smithfield to they bought a seed company, I mean, they’re vertically integrated in the whole system from the land all the way to the production side and to our grocery stores,” Feenstra says. “So this has to worry us significantly. What is the purpose? Why are they doing this? And we’re trying to get oversight on this.” In particular, Feenstra says he’s concerned over Chinese land purchases near military bases. “This is sort of what started in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It was right by our military installation there,” he says. “We have some of our most secure military assets over there and to have that land being bought and overseen by the Chinese Communist Party is a very significant concern.”
Feenstra says the federal government has not enforced laws already on the books that would protect the U.S. from acquisition of farmland by foreign adversaries.
(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa State University professor’s research is part of a large, federally funded project to improve the quality of sweet corn. Alan Myers is a professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology at Iowa State. His research is focused on how carbohydrates are stored in sweet corn kernels. “What I look at directly is the synthesis part,” Myers says, “the growth of the kernel from when it’s first fertilized from pollen and egg into making the mature kernel that we chomp down on when we bite down on an ear of corn.”
Field corn that’s fed to livestock or converted into ethanol has starch granules that make the kernels grainy and really hard. “Those things don’t exist or there are a lot fewer of them in sweet corn varieties,” Myers says. “…That gives it the taste and mouth texture that people like to eat when they eat good, fresh sweet corn.” The carbohydrates Myers is studying give sweet corn kernels that soft and creamy texture.
“And when people bite into it, it tastes good,” Myers says. The I-S-U laboratory that Myers leads and another lab in Ames that’s focused on speeding up development of hybrid varieties are splitting 800-thousand dollars in federal funding for corn-related research over the next four years. It’s part of a project involving researchers in other parts of the country with the goals of boosting the sugar content and improving the shelf life of sweet corn.
The project is being coordinated by the University of Florida. About 20 percent of the sweet corn grown in the U.S. comes from Florida — making it the top sweet corn producing state.
(Radio Iowa) – The latest Drought Monitor report shows a little deterioration in the conditions in the state in the last week. D-N-R hydrologist Tim Hall says that doesn’t reflect the most recent storms. “The rain that came in southern Iowa over the last two days came after the cutoff for the Drought Monitor,” he says. The monitor shows a large part of eastern Iowa has moved from moderate to severe drought. Hall says the rains we’ve had recently will help.
“Over the last month things have remained relatively stable across the state,” he says. “We ended up behind normal for rainfall in July, although we did get more rain in July than we got in June, so that’s good.” Hall says rainfall in mid July did impact the level of drought, but we haven’t seen consistent enough rain yet to get rid of all the concern. “We’re sort of still on the edge of drought that could become much more significant but it hasn’t gotten appreciably worse,” Hall says. He says the recent rains helped with the much needed soil moisture. 
“The other thing that’s working in our favor is that in about another month or so, we’ll get through the peak demand time of the year. So the demand for water will start to drop as we move from August into September. And that certainly helps to preserve whatever waters in the system,” according to Hall. The weather outlook has indicated we could see more rain in August, which would also help the drought situation.
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