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(Radio Iowa) – The Biden Administration has rejected dozens of oil refinery requests to be exempt from ethanol blending requirements, while proposing to dial back ethanol production targets. The moves are getting mixed reaction from the biofuels industry. Ron Lamberty of the American Coalition for Ethanol says it appears oil refiners won’t have to make good on ethanol blending goals.

“The numbers for 2021 seem to be lower than what we’re actually selling now, so we could take a hit there,” he says, “and the 2022 numbers look to be what they are supposed to be by law, so you know kind of hard to give anybody a pat on the back for that.” American Renewable Fuels Association president Geoff Cooper says there’s a lot to digest.

“Obviously we have some significant concerns with some of it,” he says, “but on balance we think this is probably overall a modest step in the right direction toward getting the RFS back on track.” The Renewable Fuels Standard calls on the E-P-A to set yearly ethanol blending requirements for the oil industry, but the Trump Administration did not meet last December’s deadline to set a target for this year.

The Biden Administration has now set the ethanol production goal for 2022. Republican elected officials from Iowa are blasting the decisions to retroactively reduce ethanol rules for 2020 and 2021. Governor Kim Reynolds calls the package a slap in the face to Iowa farmers and renewable fuels producers. Congresswoman Cindy Axne of West Des Moines, the only Democrat in Iowa’s congressional delegation, says denying oil industry waivers for ethanol blending obligations is the right path for the future, but dialing back previous ethanol requirements rewards oil companies that have failed to follow the Renewable Fuels Standard.

National Corn Growers Association president Chris Edgington — a farmer from St. Ansgar, Iowa — says denying oil refinery exemptions for 2022 is an important step forward, but the move to change previous ethanol blending requirements should be reversed.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig has released a video to announce he will seek reelection in 2022. “Agriculture benefits all Iowans. That’s why we’re looking ahead to ensure that the future is bright for the next generation of Iowans who choose to go into agriculture,” Naig said. “We’ve worked to expand markets for Iowa farmers and our rural communities, working to meet the food and renewable fuel needs of consumers here and around the world.”

Naig, who is a Republican, grew up on a farm in the northwest corner of the state, near Cylinder. In March of 2018, Ag Secretary Bill Northey resigned to take a U-S-D-A job and Governor Reynolds appointed Naig to serve as secretary of agriculture. In November of 2018, Naig was a full four-year term as the state’s top agriculture official. “Agriculture is the backbone of our state and our economy,” Naig says. “I’ll continue to stand up for Iowa’s hard working farm families and ag communities.”

Naig is Iowa’s 15th secretary of agriculture. In 2018, Naig finished three percent ahead of his Democratic challenger. No Democrat has formally announced they intend to challenge Naig in 2022.

(Des Moines, Iowa) –  Officers with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) responded to four deer hunting incidents over the weekend – one related to property damage, one minor injury, one serious injury and one fatality – and one related to pheasant hunting.

• An individual was shot in the midsection by a member of his party who was shooting at a running deer in southern Muscatine County. He was transported to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. The investigation is ongoing.
• An individual was treated and released from the hospital in Waukon after a slug grazed his right hand and forearm during a deer drive near Lansing, in Allamakee County.
• A house was struck by an unknown shooter near the Howard County town of Elma.
• A hunter was killed after being struck in the torso while hunting the Red Rock Wildlife Area in Marion County. It’s the first hunting related fatality of 2021. The incident remains under investigation.
• A pheasant hunter received four pellets to the neck and face area while hunting in Calhoun County. He was transported to the hospital in Sac City where he was treated and released.

The first of Iowa’s two shotgun deer hunting seasons will end on Dec. 8. Second shotgun deer season runs from Dec. 11-19. An estimated 120,000 hunters are expected to participate in one of the two seasons. Jamie Cook, hunter education coordinator for the Iowa DNR, said these incidents underscore the importance of putting together a hunting plan that identifies the role and location of each member of the hunting party and then following the plan when in the field. “The hunting plan is a step by step playbook for how the hunt will unfold that includes reviewing safe hunting practices, avoid target fixation, and drives home the point of not just identifying the deer, but what is beyond the deer, before taking the shot. It’s the most essential part of every hunt,” Cook said.

He also stressed the importance of wearing more than the minimum amount of blaze orange than is required for the deer gun seasons. Iowa law requires one of the following pieces of external clothing of solid blaze orange: vest, jacket, coat, sweatshirt, sweater, shirt or coveralls. “You can’t have too much blaze orange on. If the color has started to fade, it’s time to replace it. You want to be seen from all sides,” he said. Cook said it’s also each hunter’s responsibility to know and understand their limitations as a hunter and the firearms capability and to stay within those.

“This is especially true when utilizing a rifle for the first time during the shotgun season. Hunter’s need to exercise good judgment when taking a shot and remember that when using a higher capacity magazine that they could be shooting over a longer period of time and possibly covering a larger area so they need to be even more aware of what’s going on around them and not get fixated on the target,” he said.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department Director Bryant Rasmussen reports, due to the chance of winter weather around the corner, the Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department will begin closing all the Sunnyside (Park) Roads Friday morning, December 10, 2021.

He says “The closed roads do not mean then end of fun at Sunnyside Park. Stay tuned for all the winter recreation available and other updates on our Facebook page.”

(Radio Iowa) – Thousands of workers at Tyson meatpacking plants in Iowa will get year-end bonuses. Tyson has plants in Council Bluffs, Independence, Columbus Junction, Perry, Storm Lake and Waterloo. Tyson executives have announced year-end bonuses will range from 300 up to 700 dollars. The size of the bonus will depend on how long the employee has worked for the company. Soaring meat sales have pushed Tyson profits.

The company reported net income grew 47 percent in its recently concluded fiscal year. The company is providing about 50 million total in year-end bonuses to its nationwide workforce.

(Radio Iowa) – After ten years, Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Hill is stepping down as head of the state’s largest agricultural organization. Hill’s successor will be chosen as Farm Bureau members meet in Des Moines starting today (Tuesday) for their annual state conference. Matt Schuiteman of Sioux County, district director for northwest Iowa, says three names will be on the ballot. “Joe Heinrich, who is the current vice president, is from Jackson County over in far eastern Iowa,” Schuiteman says. “Then there’s Brent Johnson who is from near Manson in Calhoun County, and Tim Kaldenberg is also running. He’s from southern Iowa in Monroe County near Albia. Each one of them would be a fine choice.”

Schuiteman says it may take more than one vote to determine the next Iowa Farm Bureau president.”It’s hard to say. It very well could take a couple of votes just because there’s three guys running so typically, in that situation, somebody needs to get over 50% and a lot of times when you have three people running, that doesn’t happen the first time,” he says, “not to say that it’s going to be contentious at any point.” Schuiteman says Farm Bureau members won’t be establishing any new planks in the platform during the conference.  “We’re not going to work on establishing any policy in this meeting,” he says. “In terms of the delegate body, there’s more internal things that we take care of that are pertinent to the organization.”

This year’s theme for the state conference is “Our Farms, Our Future.”

(Des Moines) Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Thursday, signed a proclamation extending the weight limits and transportation of grain. The proclamation continues through January 1, 2022.
It allows vehicles transporting corn, soybeans, hay, straw, silage and stover to be overweight (not exceeding 90,000 pounds gross weight) without a permit for the duration of the proclamation.

The proclamation applies to loads transported on all highways within Iowa (excluding the interstate system) and those which do not exceed a maximum of 90,000 pounds gross weight, do not exceed the maximum axle weight limit determined under the non-primary highway maximum gross weight table in section 321.463 (6)(b) of the Iowa Code by more than 12.5 percent, do not exceed the legal maximum axle weight limit of 20,000 pounds, and comply with posted limits on roads and bridges.

(West Des Moines, Iowa -December 2, 2021) – Iowa Select Farms and the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation have announced the locations of Operation Christmas Meal, a free pork loin giveaway for families who aren’t planning a Christmas meal due to insufficient funds. This year, Operation Christmas Meal will give away 17,000 boneless pork loins roasts at 13 different events across Iowa, plus an additional 1,500 through the Ignite the Spirit Program aimed at increasing awareness of hunger locally and helping even more families during the holiday season.

Operation Christmas Meal will kick off Friday, December 3rd at 5:00 a.m., at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, and end on Thursday, December 16 at 6:00 p.m. in Algona, at the Bomgaars parking lot. Over the course of five days, Operation Christmas Meal will also travel to Creston, Osceola, Humeston, Ellsworth, Hampton, Osage, Aplington, Hubbard, Iowa Falls, Sac City, and Storm Lake.  (See details for area sites/times, below)

“During an especially difficult time for families in need, Operation Christmas Meal helps create a happy holiday for all Iowans, no matter their circumstances or level of income,” said Jen Sorenson, Communications Director of Iowa Select Farms. “The event is free and open to anyone in need.” Now in its 11th year, Operation Christmas Meal has provided more than one million Christmas meals to Iowa families. The event has become a holiday tradition for the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation with hundreds of Iowa Select Farms employees volunteering to brave the cold to hand out the pork loins year-after-year.

An additional component of Operation Christmas Meal is aimed at increasing awareness of hunger locally and helping even more families during the holiday season. The Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation and Iowa Select Farms is awarding cases of pork loins and $250 cash to over 50 local FFA, 4-H, and school-based organizations throughout the counties where Iowa Select Farms has employees and farms. The donations will help student organizations host a community meal, organize and distribute holiday food baskets, or come up with their own idea for providing a meal to families in need. “This is a great opportunity for students to better understand hunger, plan their own unique project or event while also partnering with organizations that provide different areas of support to local families,” said Sorenson. FFA and 4-H clubs will also be provided event kits with insulated totes, aprons, t-shirts, and meat thermometers.

Operation Christmas Meal information for two area communities:

• Creston, Iowa – Old Walmart Parking Lot (next to Tractor Supply), 614 New York Ave.; Tuesday, December 7, 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
• Sac City, Iowa – Sac County Fairgrounds, 416 Park Ave.; Thursday, December 16, 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

Additional information can be found HERE.

(Radio Iowa) – A southwest Iowa company has hired a Hartland, Wisconsin company to design its proposed 500-thousand square foot beef processing plant. Cattlemen’s Heritage lead developer, Chad Tentinger, says the plant will be built in northern Mills County just south of Council Bluffs. “A couple of things that will be different — from the front of it, it won’t look like a processing plant — it will look like an office building. Design is very important to us,” according to Tentinger. “It’ll also have state-of-the-art equipment in it. A lot of new equipment that maybe wasn’t available five years ago.”

E-S-I Group was chosen to design and construct the facility. He says a new plant like this hasn’t been built in a long time. “Certainly in the Midwest, it’s been decades. And what you see in plants is they use the existing footprint and figure out how to fit all the stuff into,” he says. “But we have the ability from a brand new facility to lay out how the equipment should look, how it should lay out, have this proper room, spread out, and then design the building around that.” He says the design process will take several months. He says they hope to have a final design this spring and begin construction and get the operation underway by the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.

The plant is expected to employ 750 people, and Tentinger says there is a good workforce in the area. “We are going to start out with aggressive pay. The wages will be at the very high end of the wages for this field. We will also have onsite daycare, onsite banking, and some limited onsite medical,” Tentinger says. The plant is expected to process 15-hundred head of cattle each day. “Midwest beef that is primarily small family-farm raised — which is very important to us. So that we know the quality of the cattle, the quality of the caretaking, the source of the cattle — all that is very important to use down to the traceability — so that we know that anything that is coming through the plant is very high quality,” according to Tentinger.

The company says an estimated 33-hundred workers will be needed to construct the plant.