The Trustee in the bankruptcy case of G & R Feed and Grain Company, Inc., in Portsmouth, provided another update on the matter Thursday evening. According to Deborah L. Petersen, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has accepted bids for the sale of all stored grain. Each producer with a warehouse receipt for stored grain will receive a letter in the next couple of weeks from the USDA. Producers can expect to receive a check for their stored grain from the USDA within 4 – 6 weeks after all grain is removed. At this point, there is no action for producers to take with the USDA.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture has sent letters to producers who sold grain to G & R. The letter indicates that holders of signed credit-sale contracts do not qualify for payment from the Iowa Depositors and Seller Indemnity Fund, but you may qualify for other partial payments. Producers who sold grain for cash or who sold grain on an unsigned contract, who were not paid, may qualify
for the Indemnity Fund and may receive up to 90% of their claim, with certain limits. These producers may proceed to file their claims with the Iowa Department of Agriculture, as well as with the Bankruptcy Court.

G & R filed complete schedules in the Bankruptcy Court and all creditors and contract holders should have received a notice from the Bankruptcy Court. The Notice contains information on how to file a claim with the Bankruptcy Court. If you have a claim for a deferred price contract, or other amount due you, you should take action to timely file a claim. If you have a contract for future delivery of grain, you will soon receive notice of rejection or assumption of that contract, as the Trustee will not be fulfilling those contracts, but may have offers to purchase them.

Once the decision is made, the Trustee will file the necessary notice with the Court and all holders will receive notice of the Trustee’s action. Contracts that are rejected, once approved by the Court, will have no further action required. If contracts are assumed or sold, then the producer will be required to fulfill the contract. The Trustee is gathering other information and working on liquidating all assets as soon as possible, as well as collecting all accounts due G & R. The Trustee has a recorded message that will be updated regularly. You can hear this message at 712-328-8808, option 8. If you have legal questions, including how to file a claim, the Trustee advises that you should contact an attorney of your choice.

Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources say the annual $25,000 Winterfest Ice Fishing Derby is set to take place one-week from this Saturday, near Council Bluffs. The event will be held at Lake Manawa State Park, Saturday, January 26th from 7-a.m. to 1-p.m., with derby participants fishing for the biggest fish they can catch, as well as tagged fish worth up to $25,000.

Numerous door prizes will be given away as well as prizes for the biggest fish in youth and adult categories of bluegill, catfish, crappie, drum, walleye and wiper. Prizes will also be given for a chili cook-off and ice house decorating contest.

Volunteers are busy preparing for the derby and excited that the ice is seven to eight inches in most places on the lake! Shannon Meister, chair of the Winterfest Ice Fishing Derby Committee, says while several hundred people have registered so far, there is still plenty of room for more. Registration will be open the morning of the derby from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. for $20 per person.

“Recycled Fish” will host an Ice Bash Friday, January 25th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. for food, ice fishing tips, seminars and door prizes at the Hy-Vee on Broadway. For more information and ice conditions, surf the web to www.winterfestderby.com.  Or, contact the Lake Manawa State Park Office at (712) 366-0220.

w/ Max Dirks

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More people spent time last year camping in an Iowa State Park compared to 2011. Jim Lawson, with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says the parks were unusually busy in March of last year because there was no snow and temperatures climbed into the 70s.  “Our camping during March and April was probably up 25-percent over the previous year,” Lawson said. “So, we started off very strong and continued strong throughout the summer.” The DNR is reporting “total camping guest days” in Iowa State Parks at 709-thousand-five-hundred-ninety-five (709,595) in 2012. That’s up from 684-thousand-four-hundred-seventeen (684,417) in 2011.

The busiest campground in the state last year was no surprise. “Year after year, our top camping area is the Gull Point Complex in the Great Lakes region,” Lawson said. Okoboji’s Gull Point was followed in popularity by Rock Creek in Kellogg, Viking Lake near Stanton, Lake Ahquabi in Indianola, Clear Lake in Clear Lake and Lake Anita in Anita. Lawson pointed out that three state park campgrounds were closed last year for renovations; Emerson Bay in Okoboji, Wilson Island near Council Bluffs and Lake Darling in southeast Iowa. The Emerson Bay and Lake Darling campground areas are scheduled to reopen this year.
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Top 10 busiest Iowa State Park campgrounds in 2012:
Gull Point Complex – Okobojii area
Rock Creek – Kellogg
Viking Lake – Stanton
Lake Ahquabi – Indianola
Clear Lake – Clear Lake
Lake Anita – Anita
Ledges – Boone
Brushy Creek – Lehigh
Backbone – Dundee
Lake Manawa – Council Bluffs

(Radio Iowa)

After an hour-long second public hearing, and 5-minutes of discussion, the Cass County Board of Supervisors Wednesday approved a last-minute amendment to a proposed ordinance pertaining to permitted uses, structures and parking requirements for Light Industrial Zones, and adopted the ordinance as amended, on the second reading.

During the hearing, the sticking point for many who were in attendance, was item 17 of the amendment to Section 3.12 of the Light Industrial Schedule, which stipulated that industrial facilities utilize renewable resources, including, but not limited to, agricultural by-products. The concerns were that any business could be built in a light industrial zone the uses even a fraction of renewable energy, and that it wording was entirely too vague.

The amended ordinance leaves in-tact, item 16, which simply includes “Alternative energy production facilities” in a Light Industrial Zone.It was Kathy Showalter, who represented Amaizing Energy site buyer Ron Fagen, who suggested that in order to expedite the proceedings, item 17 be dropped entirely.

Once the hearing was closed, Board Chairman Mark Wedemeyer thanked everyone for their input.The Board, with Supervisor Chuck Reiken absent to attend a required meeting in Council Bluffs, voted unanimously to approve the amendment and adopt it. It becomes official once publicized in the local papers.

w/ Extension Program Coordinator Kate Olson

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Officials with the Midwest Partnership Economic Development Corporation (MP-EDC) say they have been working closely with Cargill Kitchen Solutions, Iowa Workforce Development and the community to deal with the closing of the company’s Panora plant, beginning in February, and culminating in March. Cargill announced late last October that it would be closing its hard-cooked egg facility, which was a fixture in Panora for 28-years. The company said it planned to consolidate and shift production to their plant in Big Lake, Minnesota. The 55 employees were given the option to apply for positions at the Minnesota plant.

MP-EDC says they are working with Workforce Development and the company on a job fair to be held at the location next Friday. If you have or are aware of possible job opportunities with businesses in Guthrie County or nearby, please call Midwest Partnership in Stuart, at (515) 523-1262.

MP-EDC says also that they have worked closely with the company and state development to start pursuing potential businesses for the facility.

The Adair County Sheriff’s Office reports a service truck belonging to Agriland  F-S in Canby was stolen over the weekend. The vehicle, a white 2012 Ford F-350 with license plate 661 SEM, was stolen from the company’s shop. It was equipped with a flatbed box and had several pieces of equipment mounted on the back.

The doors were adorned with Agriland F-S  decals and unit number 629 was displayed on both front fenders. The pickup was stolen sometime between 10:30-a.m. Sunday and 7-a.m. Monday. Anyone with information about the theft or the location of the truck should call the Adair County Sheriff’s Office at 641-743-2148.

Just because there’s snow on the ground in Iowa doesn’t mean the drought is over. Experts at the National Drought Mitigation Center are keeping a close eye on conditions across the Midwest this winter. Center spokesman Mark Svoboda says dry weather still plagues the region’s producers who desperately need to feed livestock. “Pasture, range and forage for livestock producers all across the heartland here and they’re coming off already two pretty bad summers especially in the Southern plains and there has been no chance for that pasture and range to recover and there hasn’t been precipitation to do that,” Svoboda says. “That doesn’t just pop right back in a couple of weeks. That can take years to recover.”

It’s still too early to know if the drought will continue well into 2013 but Svoboda says there are already some foreboding signs. “We’re not running with an abundance of precipitation over the fall period so that’s strike one,” Svoboda says. “Then you look at snow. Last year was a low snowpack year that fed the Missouri basin which feeds into the Mississippi. We had low snowpack across the Great Lakes where levels are very low, almost historically low, which feeds into the Mississippi. That was strike two, and so far this year, we’re seeing a repeat of that in a lot of ways.”

There has been a good amount of snowfall already this winter in some northern states, but he says we’ll need a lot of rain this spring or we’ll likely have a repeat of last year. Svoboda says the lack of snowfall for a second consecutive year will cause a lot of problems for some farmers, like wheat producers. “You want that snow not just for moisture but for insulating that crop, helping with emergence,” Svoboda says. “Back in the fall, we didn’t get a lot of widespread good rains to help with the emergence, so we had a lot of exposed soil that was blowing around in the fall, that was still a concern. Because of the lack of forage, they were bailing a lot of the cornstalks to get forage and feed. Without that on the field, you have less stuff to capture that snow when it does fall.”

A federal report last week found more than 60-percent of the country is still under drought conditions, including all of Iowa. That report also said it would take a total of eight-feet of snow this winter to overcome the drought by spring. The National Drought Mitigation Center is based in Lincoln, Nebraska.

(Radio Iowa)