(Des Moines, Iowa) – Officials with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), Tuesday, announced more than $450,000 in cost share funding was awarded to nine conservation districts for water quality improvement projects, including in Adams and Union Counties. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the Iowa Soil and Water Conservation Districts will use the funding to help private landowners implement practices like cover crops, sediment control basins, grassed waterways and other proven practices that will improve water quality in eight publicly owned lakes.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said the water quality improvement efforts go toward “ensuring these lakes remain vibrant and healthy destinations.” “We are fortunate to have some beautiful public lakes in our state that significantly enhance the quality of life for many Iowans and provide valuable recreational opportunities and wildlife habitat,” Naig said in a release.  The announcement is part of the Publicly Owned Lakes program administered by IDALS and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. This round of funding is more than double what was allocated through the program in 2024. The installation of these practices up a watershed can help to keep sediment and nutrients from trickling down into Iowa lakes, which in turn, keeps the lakes cleaner and better protected for Iowans to recreate.

Three Mile Lake is one of several lakes the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has restored through its Lake Restoration Program. (Photo contributed by Iowa DNR)

Three Mile Lake had the highest allocation, of more than $133,000 to be managed by conservation districts in both Union and Adair counties. Three Mile Lake has undergone lake restoration projects for the past several years, though DNR said the restorations are considered near completion. Lake restoration projects at Casey Lake, which was also awarded funding, are also considered nearly completed. The rest of the funding went to conservation districts monitoring the watersheds of Hawthorn Lake, Pleasant Lake, Lake Miami, 12 Mile Lake, Lake Icaria and Lake Geode.

Funding for the program comes from IDALS’s soil conservation cost-share budget, and the watersheds are chosen by the DNR based on priority. Landowners in the selected districts are then eligible for additional cost-share funding for water improvement projects.  Many of the water quality improvement strategies surrounding Iowa lakes are dependent on voluntary participation by private landowners in the watersheds.

(Radio Iowa) – Hundreds of workers at a J-B-S plant in Ottumwa were given 90 days to find new work authorizations after the Trump administration revoked their legal statuses. Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice spokesperson Elena Casillas-Hoffman says workers at other plants across the state are facing the same pressures.  “With the limited options that they have, what you’re going to see is that many individuals are going to be pushed to an undocumented status, potentially. So, you know, J-B-S in Ottumwa is one example of many, as more and more statuses are pulled and individuals are trying to find, what are their next steps?,” she says. Casillas-Hoffman says her organization has also heard of status terminations impacting workers in Marshalltown, Storm Lake and Sioux City.

“They’re now potentially going to face the idea that they and their families could become undocumented,” Casillas-Hoffman says. She says they’re trying to find new ways to legally remain in the country. “The increasing terror, the increasing surveillance and the increasing possibilities that come with being an undocumented person in the United States is a very real threat to many,” she says. The move affects Haitian, Venezuelan, Cuban and Nicaraguan immigrants who lived and worked in the United States under a special humanitarian parole program.

Individuals under humanitarian parole work in a variety of different fields, but Casillas-Hoffman says a large number work in meatpacking.

Farm tenants and landowners are invited to attend the August 13 meeting in Atlantic

Atlantic, Iowa – Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in Cass County is hosting a farmland leasing meeting on Wednesday, August 13 at 2 PM. The meeting will be presented by Tim Christensen, Farm Management Specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach at the Cass County Community Center, 805 West 10^th Street in Atlantic. The annual meeting is offered to address questions that landowners, tenants or other interested individuals have about leasing farmland. The 2025 annual survey of cash rental rates for Iowa farmland shows that rates decreased, on average, by 2.9% in 2025 to $271 per acre. This is the first decline in cash rents since 2019, after a peak of $279 per acre the previous two years of the survey.

Topics will include land values, market outlook, and cash rent trends, cost of production, methods for determining a fair rental rate, legal updates regarding leases and communicating with tenants or landowners. Farm Management Field Specialists will also address common questions when a lease is impacted by a farm estate or succession plan.

“More than half of Iowa’s farmland is rented, and strong landlord/tenant relationships are important for the long-term viability of Iowa’s valuable farmland,” said Ann Johanns, program specialist at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. “While the trend in rental rates is fairly steady, individual agreements vary and attending a workshop is a great way to learn more or ask questions on specific aspects of farm lease arrangements.”

Tim Christensen, ISU Farm Management Specialist, speaks with an attendee at a previous meeting in Atlantic. (Photo credit: Lisa Scarbrough)

The two-and-a-half-hour workshop is designed to assist landowners, farm tenants and other agri-business professionals with current issues related to farmland ownership, management and leasing arrangements. Attendees will gain a better understanding of current cash rental rate surveys and factors driving next year’s rents such as market trends and input costs.

Each registrant will receive a 100-page workbook with resources regarding land leasing agreements such as surveys, sample written lease agreements and termination forms, along with many other publications. The workbook may be included in the registration fee in some county meetings and available for purchase in others.

Attend a local meeting

Registration is $25 per individual and includes materials. Pre-registration is encouraged as an additional $5 fee may be added if registering less than two calendar days before the meeting date. To register contact the Cass County Extension office at 712-243-1132 or email keolson@iastate.edu.

The leasing meetings being held across Iowa are facilitated by farm management specialists with ISU Extension and Outreach, for other locations, visit the Ag Decision Maker events page at https://go.iastate.edu/AGDMEVENTS.

The Ag Decision Maker website provides useful materials for negotiating leases, information on various types of leases, lease forms and newly updated Decision Tools.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The 2025 Cass County Fair wrapped up on Tuesday, July 29^th with the annual livestock auction. A total of 333 head of livestock were auctioned off, capping many months of work for Cass County 4-H and FFA livestock project members. Market beef, sheep, goat, swine, rabbit and poultry exhibitors participated in the sale, gaining a little extra reward from local community supporters for their hard work.

Including the Bucket of Junk participants who took part in the Monday night auction, 99 total youth will be receiving proceeds from the sale to help support their future project and educational activities. The Monday night fundraising auction also featured a sale of pies baked by local celebrities and fair supporters. Over 90 local community supporters chipped in to help support the youth members, with proceeds from both sales totaling $288,303 according to officials with Rolling Hills Bank & Trust, who volunteer their services to clerk the sale each year.

For more information about the Cass County Fair or the Cass County 4-H program, call the Cass County Extension Office at 712-243-1132 or visit www.extension.iastate.edu/cass.

(Radio Iowa) – A group called the Nishnabotna Water Defenders will meet Sunday in Red Oak to review the recent settlement for last year’s fertilizer spill at Red Oak co-op that killed hundreds of thousands of fish. Last week, Iowa’s attorney general announced NEW Cooperative in Red Oak has agreed to pay a 50-thousand dollar penalty to settle the case, plus another 50-thousand dollars will go to environmental conservation efforts in Montgomery County.

Nishnabotna Water Defenders co-chair Terry Langen says that’s woefully inadequate given the spill’s impact on the river.”The DNR’s initial findings were close to a million fish that were killed, not to include frogs, mussels, snakes that they visibly saw dead and floating at that time,” he says, “but then continued to die.” Iowa officials say over 750-thousand fish died along a 50-mile stretch of river and Missouri officials say along 10 miles of the river in their state nearly every fish was killed.

March, 2024 fish kill on Nishnabotna River (Photo by Mike Peterson, Shenandoah)

The spill happened in March of last year when a valve on a fertilizer tank was inadvertently left open for two days. An estimated 265-thousand gallons of liquid nitrogen flowed through a drainage ditch into the East Nishnabotna River. Langen says it does not appear the settlement requires the 50-thousand dollars worth of conservation measures be focused on the river. “That is a payment to the Montgomery County Conservation Board to be used for projects including habitat and prairie restoration, controlled burn equipment purchases, habitat management, and native tree planting — so none of that is even outlined into the order to have to go to the Nishnabotna River at all,” Langen says.

“That’s up to the Montgomery County Conservation Board’s discretion on where those monies will be spent.” Nishnabotna Water Defenders Secretary Jodi Reese says the settlement lacks safeguards for the river’s future.  “No mention of monitoring, anything like that in the future which really concerns our group which was really formed to speak for the water and the people who use the water,” Reece says, “which is actually all of us.”

Shortly after the spill last year, NEW Cooperative officials announced they’d been working with the state officials to speed up a response to the spill, including building a series of dams and excavating a considerable amount of soil from the creek that goes into the river to prevent further contamination.

Cass County: Corn $3.74 Beans $9.33
Adair County: Corn $3.71 Beans $9.36
Adams County: Corn $3.71 Beans $9.32
Audubon County: Corn $3.73 Beans $9.35
East Pottawattamie County: Corn $3.77 Beans $9.33
Guthrie County: Corn $3.76 Beans $9.37
Montgomery County: Corn $3.76 Beans $9.35
Shelby County: Corn $3.77 Beans $9.33

Oats: $2.81 (same in all counties)

(Prices are per bushel; information is from the area Farm Service Agency [FSA] offices)

(Radio Iowa) – Trees weren’t the only thing knocked down by the derecho that blew through Iowa last week. Gary Knight sells sweet corn at stands in Cedar Rapids and Marion, and tells K-C-R-G T-V he knew some of his corn would have damage. “You know I’m almost afraid to go look at the corn the next morning to see what happened,” Knight says. Over 60 mile and hour winds ripped through the farm, knocking down ten percent of Knight’s sweet corn. “The most vulnerable corn is the corn that’s just ready or ripe, and it has the heavy weight on it. So when it blows down, it’s not going to come back up again,” he says. Some of the corn from those fallen stalks is salvageable, but Knight says he can’t harvest the corn with a machine because of the damage and will have to use the old-fashioned method of picking.

“Go out there by hand, walk through it, bend over, pick them and get them in the wagon. So it’s just a whole lot more work, and hard to find people who’ll go out and do that,” Knight says. The farm lost a total of five acres from the storm that’s now been classified as a derecho. “I’m going to call it ‘monsoon weekend,” Knight says.

That loss of product means some stands are closed for now. As they work to pick up the damage and the crops he said they do still plan to have sweet corn available through September.

(Radio Iowa) – A group of researchers drew strong reactions from a large crowd in Des Moines as they reviewed their report on water quality in the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers. Jerald Schnorr is a long time professor in the University of Iowa’s College of Engineering. He says data from 2000 U-S rivers indicates these two Iowa rivers are in the top one percent when it comes to nitrate levels.

“You might ask: Well, where’s all the nitrate coming from? It’s a good question,” Schnoor said and the crowd laughed. “Most of it is from agricultural land, roughly 80% and, of that, 40% is coming from fertilizers applied directly to the land; about 20% is coming from manure that’s applied onto the land.” Soybeans also produce nitrates that wind up in ag drainage tiles and that accounts for the remaining nitrate levels connected to agland runoff. About 18 percent of nitrates in the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers comes from rain and snow according to the report.

Elliot Anderson, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Iowa, says each year about 50-thousand tons of nitrogen winds up in the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers. “About 10 years ago or so, the state government decided to fund one of the most extensive, world-renowned nitrate monitoring networks that’s ever been in existence…Starting in the next year, we’re set to contract this network from about 80 sensors that we’ve had down to about 20,” he said and the crowd booed. “With this there’s a lot less that we can say about nitrate in the state.”

Last (Monday) night’s event was hosted by the Harkin Institute and by Polk County, which paid 16 researchers who published the 277-page assessment of central Iowa water quality. Adam Shriver of the Harkin Institute says the report is the best objective, factual information about Iowa’s water quality that is available to the public. “Even if those facts contain bad news or are uncomfortable for certain groups,” he said, to extended cheers from the crowd. When a moderator asked if nitrate problems had reached a point where regulations were needed, the crowd and the researchers on stage joined in shouting “yes.”

Matt Helmers, director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center at Iowa State University, told Axios the main cause of the Des Moines metro’s nitrate problems this year has been persistent wet weather that increased leaching from farm fields into rivers.

(Des Moines, Iowa; Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Corn across the state is a couple of days ahead of schedule, with 53% of corn acres reaching the dough stage and 9% entering the dent stage according to the latest crop progress and condition report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Eighty-nine percent of soybean acres have bloomed across the state and 65% have set pods as of the July 28 through Aug. 3 reporting period.  Both crops continue to rate well, with 85% of corn and 80% of soybeans rated good to excellent.

USDA figures compiled by the National Corn Growers Association show an estimated 5% more corn in the ground this year than last, meaning the crop this year is on track to be the “largest on record.” USDA also projects a $4.20 per bushel farm price for corn in the 2025/2026 marketing year, which is down from this year and the previous year. Hay and pasture continue to rate well across the state, both rated more than 80% good to excellent for the reporting period.

Most farmers have wrapped up the second cutting of alfalfa hay and 39% of alfalfa hay acres across the state have had a third cutting. Oats are ready for harvest across the state, with 64% of acres already harvested.  Soil moisture conditions were similar to the week prior with 31% of topsoil and 27% of subsoil rated surplus for the reporting period.

Corn silking in central Iowa August 4, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

According to State Climatologist Justin Glisan, Iowa continued to see above-average precipitation, with parts of the state receiving between 1 and 3 inches above the normal. A derecho swept through parts of northern and eastern Iowa July 28, with wind speeds up to 99 miles per hour recorded. According to Glisan’s report, there were two “spin up” tornadoes in the same storm that damaged some crops in Lyon County.

Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Clay, Dickinson, Lyon, Palo Alto and Worth counties to help with damages from the storm systems. Later in the week, temperatures dropped to 5-10 degrees below average, and smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted across the state causing hazy skies and degraded air quality.

The average precipitation for the week was 2.18 inches, which was more than double the normal, according to Glisan. The average temperature for the week was 71 degrees, just 1.5 degrees below normal.