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CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Iowa Agribusiness Network!
CLICK HERE for the latest market quotes from the Brownfield Ag News Network!
The Cass County Local Food Policy Council voted this week to provide $1,300 in funding to Cass County farmers’ markets, to encourage residents to visit local farmers markets and eat locally-grown produce. Most of the money will provide coupons which can be redeemed throughout the 2019 season for produce sold at farmers’ markets in the county, including Produce in the Park and the Atlantic and Anita farmers’ markets. These coupons will be widely distributed with the goal of making fresh and healthful local produce affordable for more county residents. The coupons will be distributed at Head Start and county food pantries, in addition to other channels.
A portion of the funding will also be used to purchase local produce to provide free taste tests for children visiting Produce in the Park. This effort will help children explore a variety of fresh produce items they can try at no cost to their parents. The final piece of the funding will be used by guest chefs at Produce in the Park to purchase locally grown ingredients. Then, when market visitors try a sample from the guest chef, they’re also getting a chance to try local-grown foods they can purchase right at the market.
The Cass County Local Food Policy Council encourages you to visit one of the three Cass County Farmers’ Markets during the summer of 2019:
· Produce in the Park is held in the Atlantic City Park on Thursday evenings from 4:30-6:30 PM June 6th through September 26th. For more information contact ProduceInTheParkAtlanticIowa@gmail.com or follow Produce in the Park on Facebook.
· The Atlantic Farmers Market is held in the Orscheln’s Farm and Home parking lot on Saturdays from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM starting June 1st and on Tuesdays from 5:00-7:00 PM starting June 4th. The markets will conclude on Sept.24th and Sept. 28th.
· The Anita Farmers Market is held in the Anita Bandshell Park on Main Street on Mondays from 4:30-6:30 PM June 3rd through August 26th. For more information on the Atlantic and Anita markets, contact Donna Brahms at (402) 677-2460.
The City of Atlantic’s Parks and Recreation Dept. Board will meet 5:15-p.m. Monday, in the Council’s Chambers at City Hall. Action items/New Business/Updates on their agenda includes:
Other discussion/Old Business will cover Commercial bids to spray the City park in preparation for RAGBRAI. In his report to the board, Interim Parks Director Bryant Rasmussen will talk about:
He’s also expected to mention the Sunnyside Pool is filled now, and that there is a Community build set for the Schildberg playground June 21st-22nd. He’s expected to note also, that the 4th Annual Block Party will take place at Sunnyside Park June 1st, from 4-until 6-p.m., and Little League Opening Day was held May 13th.
MADRID, Iowa (AP) — Iowa farmer Tim Bardole survived years of low crop prices and rising costs by cutting back on fertilizer and herbicides and fixing broken-down equipment rather than buying new. When President Donald Trump’s trade war with China made a miserable situation worse, Bardole used up any equity his operation had and started investing in hogs in hopes they’ll do better than crops. A year later, the dispute is still raging and soybeans hit a 10-year-low. But Bardole says he supports his president more today than he did when he cast a ballot for Trump in 2016, skeptical he would follow through on his promises. “He does really seem to be fighting for us,” Bardole says, “even if it feels like the two sides are throwing punches and we’re in the middle, taking most of the hits.”
Trump won the presidency by winning rural America, in part by pledging to use his business savvy and tough negotiating skills to take on China and put an end to trade practices that have hurt farmers for years. While the prolonged fight has been devastating to an already-struggling agriculture industry, there’s little indication Trump is paying a political price. But there’s a big potential upside if he can get a better deal — and little downside if he continues to get credit for trying for the farmers caught in the middle. It’s a calculation Trump recognizes heading into a reelection bid where he needs to hold on to farm states like Iowa and Wisconsin and is looking to flip others, like Minnesota.
A March CNN/Des Moines Register poll of registered Republicans in Iowa found 81% approved of how Trump is handling his job, and 82% had a favorable view of the president, an increase of 5 points since December. About two-thirds said they’d definitely vote to re-elect him. The poll had a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. A February poll by the same organizations found 46% of Iowans approved of the job Trump was doing — his highest approval rating since taking office — while 50% said they disapprove. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.
Many farmers are lifelong Republicans who like other things Trump has done, such as reining in the EPA and tackling illegal immigration, and believe he’s better for their interests than most Democrats even on his worst day. They give him credit for doing something previous presidents of both parties mostly talked about. And now that they’ve struggled for this long, they want to see him finish the job — and soon. When the trade war started last summer, China targeted its first round of tariffs on producers in agricultural and manufacturing states that were crucial to Trump’s 2016 victory, such as Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. Particularly hard hit were producers of soybeans, the country’s largest farm export.
The most recent round of trade talks between the Trump administration and China broke up earlier this month without an agreement, after Trump accused China of backing out on agreed-to parts of a deal and hiked tariffs on $200 billion of imports from China. China imposed retaliatory tariff hikes on $60 billion of American goods, and in the U.S. the price of soybeans fell to a 10-year low on fears of a protracted trade war. U.S. officials then listed $300 billion more of Chinese goods for possible tariff hikes. As China vowed to “fight to the finish,” Trump used Twitter to rally the farming community. Trump has promised an aid package, some $15 billion for farmers and ranchers, following $11 billion in relief payments last year.
It’s been six years since farmers did better than break even on corn, and five years since they made money off soybeans. U.S. net farm income, a commonly used measure of profits, has plunged 45 percent since a high of $123.4 billion in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reflecting American farmers’ struggle to return to the profitability seen earlier in the decade. Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings for farm operations in the upper Midwest have doubled since June 2014, when commodity prices began to drop.
Patty Judge, a Democratic former Iowa lieutenant governor and state agriculture secretary, agreed people in Iowa haven’t rushed to move away from Trump. But she thinks voters will be ready for a change in 2020 — and a president who better understands the country’s role in international trade. “It’s very important to us and to have gone into a trade war without a plan, without an exit strategy, is dangerous and wrong and I think Iowans are going to understand that before the next election,” she said.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Historic flooding has left parts of the Mississippi River closed for business. The river is a main conduit of shipping everything from agriculture products and construction material to petroleum and coal. Flooding also has affected shipping on the Missouri River and other waterways that feed into the Mississippi.
The shipping woes come at a time when farmers would normally be sending soybeans, corn and other grain from more than a dozen states in the Mississippi River basin down the river. And fertilizer shipments that normally travels up the river to communities from St. Louis to St. Paul, Minnesota, still haven’t made it through.
The interruption is hitting an agriculture industry that’s already suffering, including from trade disputes that have helped drive down commodity prices.
(Radio Iowa) — Iowa State University researchers say the largest population of monarch butterflies in more than a decade could be headed to Iowa and the Midwest later this spring, prompting a good news-bad news scenario. Steve Bradbury, an I-S-U professor of natural resource ecology, says some 225-million adult monarchs may arrive in the next month or so and they’ll need more milkweeds on which to breed. “If these numbers coming up are as high as we think they might be, we could be overwhelming the amount of milkweed we have in the upper Midwest and Iowa,” Bradbury says. “What we want to do is build our habitat bank, if you will, in Iowa, up to the point that we can maintain those high numbers of monarchs.”
Iowans in rural and urban areas are encouraged to create milkweed habitats, as that’s the only place the important crop pollinators will lay their eggs. “It’s very helpful if folks in Des Moines and Sioux City in their gardens are getting habitat patches started and county parks and city parks, Iowa renewable fuel facilities, getting their patches in,” Bradbury says. “It all combines and is important.”
If the state wants to maintain higher numbers of monarchs, it will need to add a half-million to a million acres of habitat over the next ten to 20 years. Habitat loss and pesticide use have caused monarch populations to drop over the past decade. In recent years, Iowa’s cities, farmers and individual Iowans have joined to create or preserve habitat that’s vital to monarchs, including the cultivation of nectar plant gardens. “Getting new habitat in the ground is picking up the pace,” he says, “and people being really careful about the habitat that’s already on the landscape and protecting it.”
Bradbury says expanding monarch habitat in Iowa will play a major role in the recovery of the species.
(Thanks to Katie Peikes, Iowa Public Radio)
(Radio Iowa) — A western Iowa wildlife area reopened this week after being forced to close due to flooding two months ago. DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge usually sees visitors year-round, but it closed in mid-March as Missouri River levels rose. Park Ranger Peter Rea says a maintenance team from DeSoto and other nearby refuges repaired two sections of paved road that the floodwaters washed out.
“A lot of fill had to be hauled in to fill that and right now, instead of being repaved, they’ve just been covered with gravel,” Rea says. “They’re kind of gravel patches as a temporary Band-Aid before we can get it completely fixed.” Rea says the flooding has brought some animals to parts of the refuge where they normally wouldn’t venture.
“There’s a lot of birds feeding in those flooded areas because it’s shallow water and there’s a lot of fish that are trapped,” Rae says, “so it’s kind of easy picking as far as feeding goes.” They even had a couple of unusual sightings, including a blue heron, which is typically found in the Southeastern U-S. Though the refuge is open to the public, the boat ramps are closed and some hiking trails are still partly flooded.
(Thanks to Katie Peikes, Iowa Public Radio)
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A monthly survey of rural bankers in parts of 10 Plains and Western states shows they’re rapidly losing confidence in the region’s farm economy. The Rural Mainstreet survey for May, released Thursday, shows the survey’s overall index dropping from 50 in April to 48.5 this month. Any score above 50 suggests a growing economy, while a score below 50 indicates a shrinking economy.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss, who oversees the survey, blames trade tensions and tariffs, saying they’re contributing to losses suffered by grain farmers — although livestock producers are faring better. Still, Goss says, bankers believe “the negatives far outweighed the positives.”
The survey’s confidence index, which gauges bankers’ expectations for the economy six months out, plummeted from 50 to 38.2 — its lowest level in almost two years.
Bankers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming were surveyed.
SIOUX FALLS, Iowa (AP) — Arkansas-based meat processor Tyson Foods is suing a federal agency for $2.4 million, saying it had to destroy 8,000 carcasses because a federal meat inspector lied about checking hogs at a plant in Iowa. Tyson Foods says Yolanda Thompson, who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service, signed certificates suggesting she checked slaughtered hogs at the Storm Lake plant in March 2018. It says video footage indicates Thompson never entered the plant and actually approved inspections while sitting in her automobile.
The Sioux City Journal reports that the meat processor filed suit Tuesday in Sioux City’s U.S. District Court alleging the agencies knew of Thompson’s inadequate inspection practices and physical difficulties walking around the plant. USDA and Tyson officials declined to comment.
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