(West Des Moines, Iowa) – Officials with the Iowa Farm Bureau said Tuesday, a sharp downturn in the agriculture economy is causing a ripple effect throughout the state resulting in the loss of up to 11,400 jobs and $1.5 billion in value-added economic activity (GDP) and a $100 million loss to the state and local tax base. The data comes from an exclusive Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF) economic analysis, and says 23 businesses in Iowa announced layoffs for 4,097 individuals working in production agriculture and adjacent industries from the first of the year through Sept.18, 2024, but IFBF’s analysis finds those numbers balloon when taking broader impacts into consideration.

IFBF economics and research manager Christopher Pudenz says “Ultimately, this starts with depressed incomes at the farm gate that have ripple effects on the Iowa economy,” said Christopher Pudenz, Iowa Farm Bureau economics and research manager. “For example, because farm incomes are down, farmers aren’t making the same machinery purchases they’ve made in previous years which means manufacturers, suppliers and retailers slow down production and are forced to lay people off.”

Iowa’s ag-related layoffs have occurred during a prolonged period of economic hardship and uncertainty for farmers. USDA’s September 2024 farm income forecast projects another challenging year for farmers, who are expected to lose nearly a quarter of their income in just two years due to slumping commodity prices and stubbornly high input costs.  Net farm income, a key measure of profitability, is projected to decline 4.4% from 2023, following a record year-over-year drop of 19.5% from 2022 to 2023.

IFBF photo

Pudenz said that the downturn is particularly impactful in Iowa, considering agriculture accounted for more than 22% of Iowa’s total economic output in 2022, according to a study commissioned by the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers. Nearly one in every five Iowans are employed due to agriculture and ag-related industries, accounting for more than 385,000 jobs. “Agriculture is the heartbeat of the Iowa economy, and when agriculture struggles, those pains are felt throughout the state,” Pudenz said.

IFBF President Brent Johnson says “This analysis underscores why a farm bill is so important – farmers need assurances as they try to balance economic uncertainty. A farm bill extends beyond the farm and protection of our food supply; it also provides access to nutritional programs for families facing hunger, advances conservation efforts and spurs innovation through research. If a new farm bill isn’t passed, many critical programs will face significant interruptions.”

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass/Guthrie County Environment Health Executive Director Jotham Arber, Tuesday, presented his monthly report to the Cass County Board of Supervisors. In his report, Arber said the main thing he wanted to note, is “This weird thing going on with a few septic systems” in Audubon and Cass Counties.

He said there are around 9 or 10 septic systems that have the same weird, greasy substance. He said in Audubon County, the septic systems were installed by the same contractor, but in Cass County there were four different contractors, so it doesn’t appear to be an installation issue. Samples will be taken and sent to the State Hygienic Lab for breakdown and analysis, so see if there are commonalities in the substance.

Jotham Arber said also the Environment Health Department is finishing-up water test sampling in Cass County. The test results will be analyzed and made available during the Board of Supervisors meeting in December.

He said there has been a huge increase in people who are taking the opportunity to contact the EHD and getting their private wells rehabbed. That’s something he’s happy to see.

By “rehab,” he means those wells that were installed more than 40-years ago, both shallow and deep, that used technology that incorporated bricks, and which deteriorates over time, as well as those where the pumps ave gone bad, etc. Those issues can be corrected allowing the wells to be accessed safely.

He said “A lot of folks want to keep their wells, and if we can help them keep it, it’s not bad to have good drinking sources of water.” Arber said also, they’ve seen an increase in the number new wells being drilled in Cass County. Most of the newer wells are drilled deep, because more is known now about nitrates and how to make those wells more secure from bacteria.

The Environmental Health Department, he says, can help property owners better position new wells that are less prone to run-off, and in incorporating better structural features.

(Iowa News Service) – A nonprofit group that tracks oil and gas development has created an interactive map to show how close CO2 pipelines in Great Plains states come to environmentally and ecologically sensitive areas. The map includes Indigenous land that hasn’t been included in similar previous projects.

Ted Auch, Midwest program director for the FracTracker Alliance, said it focuses on Indigenous areas but goes further, showing in detail how close proposed CO2 pipelines would come to soybean and ethanol facilities, for example, but also to private land. He said the interactive map is an improvement over existing ones.

“Which is to say that you could look at it as a static image, but you can’t interact with or manipulate the data in terms of, like, scrolling in, scrolling out, finding addresses – you know, that kind of thing,” said Auch. “It’s available as a PDF or a JPG. So, what we’ve done is, we’ve taken that stuff and we’ve digitized it and we’ve included it on this map, so that people can actually – spatially and in real time – interact with the data itself.”

The Great Plains Action Society says CO2 pipelines pose risks that disproportionately affect Indigenous communities and people of color.  Auch said FracTracker is working on another version that takes a deeper look at the proximity of pipelines to the Winnebago reservation south of Sioux City. Energy companies say the pipelines are a safe and effective way to capture carbon from industrial processes, and store it underground, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Auch said the interactive map will give farmers and other landowners near the proposed pipelines what they need to understand what’s happening on their land, leveling the information playing field with corporate interests. “You have these large, multinational corporations, and then on the other side of the ledger are small, medium-sized frontline or Indigenous groups that either have small budgets or no budgets,” said Auch, “and don’t have the capacity, the time, or the expertise to develop maps to inform their organizing activism or advocacy.”

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in Omaha is making a livestream available as it hears oral arguments today in a case involving Iowa landowners affected by CO2 pipeline proposals, some of whom face seizure of their property by eminent domain if the Summit Carbon Solutions project moves forward.