(Radio Iowa) – American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall is warning there may be collateral damage in rural America if President-elect Trump follows through on mass deportations and increases tariffs. Duvall is in Des Moines for the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual meeting. “We really need this new administration focused on trade,” Duvall says. “I know that the new administration’s talking about tariffs. We don’t support tariffs. We know that when tariffs are put on that other countries take it out on agriculture and we’re real fearful of what might happen in that area.”

The first Trump Administration paid American farmers 28 BILLION dollars in so-called trade disruption payments to compensate for China’s retaliation to Trump’s tariffs. Duvall says expanding ag exports would help farmers get past the financial strain of inflation. Duvall, who spoke to reporters in Des Moines for nearly half an hour, says the Farm Bureau is very interested in learning the details of Trump’s plan to deport people who entered the country illegally.

“A lot of workers across this country are undocumented that’s working on farms, because there’s no other people who want to do that work,” Duvall says, “and so we’ll be working with the administration to try to make sure that we don’t harm the food system in our country and harm our rural communities and our farmers and ranchers as we move forward.”

A recent U-S Labor Department survey found about 44 percent of American farm workers are undocumented immigrants. Duvall says no one wants criminals from other countries here, harming U-S citizens, but he says the Farm Bureau will argue against deporting migrants who are critical to the ag economy. “What we’re planning on doing is making sure that we take that seat with the president and making sure he understands how valuable this workforce is to our farmers and ranchers,” Duvall says, “and make sure that we try to minimize the collateral damage that might go on in that area.”

American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall spoke to reporters at the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual convention on Dec. 10, 2024. (Photo by Brent Barnett/Brownfield)

Duvall says there may be an opportunity reduce regulations on farmers once Trump takes office and the Farm Bureau is lobbying for the total elimination of the federal inheritance tax. Duvall says he’s extremely disappointed a new Farm Bill has stalled, again, in congress. “We right now are focused on not just pushing for a modernized Farm Bill, but pushing for disaster and economic payments,” Duvall says, “to try to bind our farmers over until we can get a new Farm Bill passed.”

Duvall is a farmer from northern Georgia. On Monday, he drove through areas of his state that were hit by Hurricane Helene in late September. “It looks like a bomb went off for 100 miles,” Duvall says. “I mean it’s really, really bad and the crops that were destroyed, the barns that were destroyed, homes and lives that were lost — it really was difficult to look at when you ride up through there.”

Duvall says just about every part of the country has seen some form of natural disaster this year and congress needs to provide disaster assistance to farmers A-S-A-P. Duvall has been the American Farm Bureau’s president since 2016. He’s the keynote speaker at this week’s Iowa Farm Bureau convention.

(Iowa News Service) – A small turtle made popular in the “Kung Fu Panda” movies could soon be added to the endangered species list. Iowa wildlife advocates are working to restore it to its native habitat and give the turtle a better chance for survival. The Blanding’s turtle is popularized in the long-running, lighthearted animated movies but its fate is anything but funny. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide in coming months whether to list it on the endangered species list. Officially, fewer than 3,000 Blanding’s turtles are left in Iowa.

Karen Kinkead, Wildlife diversity program coordinator for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said they are a cryptic species and hard to count but are easy to identify when you spot one. “They’re kind of this drab, olive green-grey color. Their shell is shaped kind of like a helmet. They are sort of nondescript,” Kinkead outlined. “But then you see this bright yellow chin and the way that their lower jaw is formed it makes it look like this is an animal that is always smiling.”

Decades of habitat loss and predation have already put the Blanding’s turtle on the threatened list in Iowa. A partnership between the state DNR, Iowa State University and the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines just hatched nearly five dozen baby Blanding’s turtles researchers will raise until adulthood, then tag with telemetry gear to track them in the wild.

Endangered Blandings Turtle in the wild

Kinkead pointed out the zoo is “head-starting” the turtles by hatching and keeping them in the zoo over the winter, instead of allowing them to hibernate. “They keep them awake and keep feeding them so they grow larger,” Kinkead explained. “Then when they’re released into the wild the next summer, they’re a bigger size.”

Kinkead added being bigger and more mature makes the turtles less vulnerable to predators once they are released.