(Atlantic, Iowa, via Atlantic FFA Reporter Maddy Anderson) –  Each year the Southwest district and Iowa FFA officers plan and facilitate Chapter Officer Leadership Training (COLT) Conferences for FFA members in the Southwest district. Atlantic High School welcomed almost 200 FFA members and advisors from 28 FFA chapters from all over the Southwest district on Tuesday June 4th, 2024.

While at Atlantic, on Tuesday, district and state officers lead four interactive workshops for FFA Chapter leaders, many of which are officers, for the annual COLT Conference. The workshops facilitated were local FFA Chapter programs focused in the areas of advocating for the agriculture industry, connecting with stakeholders, recruiting for the local chapter, and working as a cohesive team. FFA leaders also received training relative to their specific officer duties within the local chapter.

Atlantic FFA President Lola Comes said, “The chapter officer leadership training camp was a great opportunity that gave me new perspectives from other officers all around Southwest Iowa. This experience taught me several critical career skills, including professionalism, teamwork, and provided me with additional insight on the agriculture industry. My team and I plan to use these new skills to strengthen our chapter and increase community service time.” Atlantic FFA Officer team will spend some time together working on providing opportunities for the members, recruiting new members into the chapter and coming up with new activities for the chapter.

Left to right
Lilian Johnson, Joaquin Walies, Frank Freund, Lauren Comes, Hayden Kleen, Maddy Anderson, Lola Comes

Southwest District Secretary and Atlantic FFA member Lauren Comes said, “I had a lot of fun facilitating Colt and meeting new members all across the Southwest District. I loved seeing all the different personalities in one room and learning new things about the members I will be serving this year!”

Iowa FFA President, Colin Bauer, stated, “COLT conference provides a chance for FFA members to learn more about their responsibility as a local leader and is a conference for members to meet and connect with state, district and other chapter officers.”

COLT conference programming is designed as a two-year rotation of local leaders training. The focus areas of next year’s program include agriculture literacy, time management, professionalism, and self-confidence. The goal is to engage FFA members in learning about the tools that would allow them to be successful in anything they are part of through high school and beyond.

COLT conference is made possible with support from Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance of Iowa through the Iowa FFA Foundation.

Jim Field visits with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Field Agronomist Aaron Saeugling about the Armstrong Research and Demonstration Farm Field Day from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm on June 27.

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(Radio Iowa) – Bird flu is confirmed at a third dairy in northwest Iowa as state and federal officials are trying to find out how the virus spreads between farms and livestock. On Wednesday, Iowa’s ag department confirmed avian influenza at a dairy farm with 17-hundred cows in Sioux County. State veterinarian Jeff Kaisand says most cows recover within a few weeks, unlike infected poultry, which are euthanized.

“We do have a USDA epi strike team that’s on the ground in Iowa right now that we requested,” Kaisand says. “They’re trying to help us understand some of those connections between farms to try and reveal some of those connections as best we can.” It’s the second case in Sioux County and the third in the state after the virus was first found in an Iowa dairy in O’Brien County last week. Kaisand says one priority is trying to figure out how avian influenza spreads between farms and livestock.

“We don’t know how it moves through the whole herd,” he says. “Does it go through all at once, or are there pockets that it doesn’t go through? And also trying to understand how it goes through a dairy herd or a poultry herd or vice versa.”

The Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship recently started testing dairies within a 12-mile radius of infected poultry farms.

(Radio Iowa) – Blaming partisan politics and a packed legislative calendar, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s no longer optimistic a Farm Bill will pass Congress this session. “I may often be the first to say that we probably won’t be getting a Farm Bill this year, but I’m also the first to say that farmers need the Farm Bill this year,” Grassley says, “because they need the certainty that comes with a five-year Farm Bill instead of a one-year extension.” The legislation is typically reviewed and renewed every five years, but it had to be extended last year into this fall, and Grassley fears another repeat is looming.

“Farmers today are operating off of the 2018 Farm Bill,” Grassley says, “a five-year Farm Bill which is now a six-year Farm Bill and I think soon-to-become a seven-year Farm Bill.” Grassley, a Republican, suggests the Farm Bill won’t pass this year because of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat who’s created the framework for this session. “That’s my feeling. It’s not on the list of 17 bills that Schumer wanted to get done this year,” Grassley says, “and also, there’s just such few legislating days left before the 2018 Farm Bill sunsets, September 30th.” Grassley says there needs to be “more farm in the Farm Bill,” noting that 85-percent of the U-S-D-A’s spending outline is for food stamps. He says farmers in Iowa and nationwide will have a difficult 2025 if Congress -again- fails to update the important legislation.

“It’s not adequate from the standpoint that a one-year extension will still use 2018 prices,” Grassley says, “So it doesn’t reflect the inflation we’ve had in diesel, seed, fertilizer, chemicals and interest, and those are all things that should be added to the safety net for farmers.” He says the Farm Bill being drafted by Senate Republicans includes a 15-percent increase in commodities supports, stronger crop insurance, a doubling of funds for foreign market assistance — or exports, along with a healthy boost in spending on ag research.

(Radio Iowa) – Some Iowans own just one chicken, while the state’s large operations may house thousands of the birds, and for everyone in between, there’s what’s being called Murray Fest Midwest. Coordinator Tom Watkins says the event in Webster City later this month is designed for keepers of backyard chickens, hobby farmers, and budding homesteaders. Watkins works at the Murray McMurray Hatchery, which hatched the idea for a festival.

“Fourth of July falls in the middle of the week, so we’re not actually able to ship chicks that week, so we said, ‘Let’s have a quick sale’ and that kind of evolved into how do we get people into town to purchase chicks?” Founded more than a century ago, the hatchery offers all sorts of tiny feathered creatures via mail order, including chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants, quail and turkeys. “In this kind of market, we say chickens are the ‘gateway animal’ that gets you started,” Watkins says, “and then you end up with a goat and a cow or some other critters well.”

Watkins says a range of speakers and demonstrations are scheduled for the three-day fest. “We’re trying to cover all the bases,” Watkins says. “It’ll be a lot of chicken information but it’ll be a lot of gardening information, we have speaker on sheep, we’ve got milk cows, we’ve got pigs, we’ve got dog training and stuff like that, just a little bit everything.”

Watkins says there are multiple live music acts that will be performing during the fest which runs June 29th through July 1st at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds in Webster City.

Jim Field visits with Julie Murren who is directing the Andrew Lloyd Webber presentation “School of Rock – The Musical” at the Wilson Performing Arts Center in Red Oak.  The two-week run includes evening shows on Friday June 14 & 21 and Saturday June 15 & 22 at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees on June 16 & 23 at 2:30 pm.

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w/Kate Olson.

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(Radio Iowa) – State Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig is asking the U-S-D-A to compensate dairy operations struck by bird flu. Naig says it’s a typical move when there’s an animal disease outbreak that leads to the loss of livestock or production. “You see a loss of milk production when a herd is affected, so we think it’s right that those producers, kind of like a crop insurance type concept, would be compensated for those losses,” Naig says, “and we are finding that some animals do have to be culled or sold off of the farm.”

Modern dairy operations have all sorts of ways to monitor cows, including how much they eat and how much milk is produced daily. Naig says those sick cattle are then isolated from the rest of the herd. “Their milk, then, is also captured and siphoned off and so that milk, from the sick pen, does not make it into normal production,” Naig says. “I think this is the good news is that there were already very well established food safety protocols on dairy farms and those certainly serve us well in normal times, but in times like this where there’s a developing situation with an animal disease, those protocols really are important.”

Bird flu has been confirmed among cows at dairy operations in Sioux and O’Brien Counties. A team of U-S-D-A veterinarians is in Iowa this week, trying to determine what might be the connection among poultry and dairy operations that recently have been hit by bird flu.  “We requested those resources,” Naig says. “We’re going to probably request some additional resources to really, really run down these leads and really figure this out.” Naig says it will hopefully identify how the virus is moving and help develop new biosecurity strategies for poultry and dairy operations.

When bird flu was first confirmed at poultry farms and in backyard flocks nine years ago, testing was done in nearby poultry operations to try to contain the virus. Now, both dairy farms and poultry operations near a bird flu outbreak are included in testing protocols. “What you’re trying to do, again, is to prevent the spread,” Naig says. “You’re trying to identify early whether there may have been a connection between farms.”

Dr. Jeff Kaisand — the State Veterinarian — says they don’t yet know how bird flu is transmitted from cow to cow within a herd, but there is a key sign a dairy operation has cows infected with the virus.  “In certain animals, they’ll see very serious drops in milk production. The milk may have a yellowish color or colostrum like color to it…but it does not usually cause major issues in the dairy farm,” Kaisand says. “We have had some reports that there is for a period time, about four or five days, a marked decrease in milk production.”

Kaisand briefed a state legislative committee at the Iowa Capitol Tuesday. The state vet says once bird flu has been confirmed in a dairy operation, workers are advised to wear protective gear, like face masks and public health officials ask the owner of the dairy to monitor the health of their employees. “We don’t know for sure how it’s being transmitted to people,” Kaisand said. “We don’t know whether it’s milk or other body secretions from the animals.”

While no cases of bird flu in humans have been reported IN IOWA, three dairy workers in other states recently have been infected with the virus after working around sick cows.

Jim Field visits with Elvis Hass about the “Special Friends Fishing” event held on Sunday, June 9, 2024 at Lake Anita.  Many volunteers and supporters gathered to help those with special needs enjoy a day on the lake.

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(Radio Iowa) – A nationwide study finds the number of drownings rose significantly in recent years, and with temperatures in Iowa expected to hit the 90s this week for the first time this year, anyone in — or on — the water needs to take precautions to stay safe. Kelly Hilsabeck, the trauma injury prevention coordinator at Gundersen Health System, says Iowa parents should make it a priority to get their kids in for swimming lessons. Hilsabeck says, “Enroll your kids as soon as they seem physically, emotionally, developmentally ready to start learning those basic swimming skills and water survival skills.”

The C-D-C study found about four-thousand deaths nationwide in 2019 from drowning, but the numbers rose by about 500 each year in 2020 and 2021. Due to the pandemic, Hilsabeck says many people may have simply not taken swimming lessons during those years, and she notes, those lessons aren’t just for kids. “You’re never too old to learn,” Hilsabeck says. “The new study that came out actually found that about 54% of U.S. adults have never had a swimming lesson, so it’s really important to know there’s not an age limit on swimming lessons.”

Whether swimming in a backyard pool or a municipal pool, drowning is always a risk, but the risk may be even greater on lakes and rivers due to hidden drop-offs, currents and murky water. Hilsabeck says drowning is typically a silent tragedy. “It’s been portrayed as a very loud and noticeable event in movies and TV shows,” Hilsabeck says, “and often it’s just really not that way. The swimmer possibly could have already been distressed and just isn’t going to be making a lot of noise and it can just happen so quickly in 20 to 60 seconds.” Anyone on a pleasure boat, kayak, canoe or innertube should also strive to be safe by wearing a life jacket — and she says to make sure it’s one that fits.

Gundersen Health System has clinics in Calmar, Decorah, Fayette, Lansing, Postville and Waukon, and a hospital in West Union.