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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!
Senator Joni Ernst and the rest of the Iowa Congressional Delegation recently sent a letter to President Donald Trump expressing concern about the impact of trade negotiations on farmers in the state. Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, says process for handling trade issues isn’t exactly the way she would do it — but she says she the president does listen. “This president is very, very open and accessible, and more so than the last administration where we had even Democrats, some of my colleagues have stated they had very little if any interaction with the president,” Ernst says. Ernst says she favors a more linear approach to handling the trade issues. “He is juggling a number of trade deals right now, which makes it very complicated,” Ernst says. “Of course I would prefer that he take up a trade deal, we get that deal done and we move on to the next.”
She says in her talks with the president he has expressed confidence he can get the North American Free Trade Deal done by this fall. Ernst says the president says Canada has been the problem in NAFTA, so they’ve encouraged the president to do a bilateral deal with Mexico while continuing to work on Canada. “Trade is so important for us, so while we have all these trade deals up in the air, we need to have some level of optimism moving forward that these deals are going to get done. So, I want to see action on it. I want to see that we do have NAFTA done,” Ernst says. Ernst says they continue to remind the president of the concerns of farmers. “I know they are juggling a lot right now — it’s probably not the preferable way for Joni Ernst — but if we can get these deals done, I think our farmers will be doing well,” according to Ernst. “But I am extremely concerned in the short term on what it’s going to do to our markets.”
Ernst and Senator Chuck Grassley recently met with Terry Branstad, who is the former Iowa governor and now Ambassador to China to discuss trade with that country. “The ambassador did give us good feedback. I won’t discuss it openly today because of course we have a number of ongoing issues with China,” Ernst says. She says they also talked with Branstad about North Korea and while they have trade issues with China — China is important in helping to ensure the de-nuclearization of North Korea.
(Radio Iowa)
A new Iowa State University Extension survey finds much of Iowa’s 30 million acres of farmland doesn’t change hands very often. Iowa State University economist Wendong Zhang conducted the 2017 survey. “About 22 percent of the land is owned in the structure of sole ownership. Another 28 percent is owned in joint tenancy — which is often between a spouse, husband and wife — and eight percent are tenants in common or other sorts of co-ownership structure,” Zhang explains. He says the co-ownership is often among siblings. Twenty percent of the farmland is owned by a trust, with many of them what are called revocable trusts, which means the ownership can be changed. “Typically they last for the lifetime of the owner who set it up…and the beneficiary tends to be the kids or grandkids of the current owner. So, it’s mainly used for the tax planning, estate planning or transition planing purposes,” according to Zhang.
He says 10 percent of the farmland is held in corporations that include families and are also used for tax planning purposes. Zhang says the use of trusts has increased since 1982 when only one percent of the farmland was structured that way. “Declining is sole owners and joint tenancy. So, over time there’s a gradual movement moving away from more individual ownership — especially sole owners to a more institutionalized ownership in terms of trusts and corporations,” he says. Another key finding in the survey is that 82 percent of the owners have paid off the land. Zhang says the amount of debt-free farmland impacts values.”Farm income has declined by almost half off the 2013 peak, but the farmland values have only declined about 15 percent. One of the key reasons is a lot of the owners have no debt — so they are not in a position to sell their land.”
The survey found 20 percent of farmland was owned by the same person for at least 40 years and 55 percent of the land was owned by the same person for more than 20 years. That stability also helps land values. “Farmland tends to be a long-term investment, not a whole lot of people are flipping farmland, so you see a very low turnover and the limited turnover tends to support the higher land values,” Zhang says. The state started requiring a survey of who owns Iowa farmland every five years beginning in 1949.
(Radio Iowa)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the number of pigs on farms has reached a record high for June 1. The agency says in a report released Thursday that the inventory of pigs was 73.5 million, up 3 percent from a year ago and up 1 percent from March 1.
It’s the highest June 1 inventory of all pigs since estimates began 54 years ago.
The USDA says 33.2 million baby pigs were born from March to May, the largest number of new pigs for the same period since 1970 when records began.
Iowa has the most pigs with 22.7 million animals, also a June 1 record for the state. North Carolina is second with 8.9 million and Minnesota third with 8.6 million.
Key members in Iowa’s congressional delegation are expressing frustration about how the Environmental Protection Agency is managing the mandatory ethanol production target. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a slight increase in the amount of biofuels that must be blended into gasoline and diesel fuel next year. However, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley suggests E-P-A Administrator Scott Pruitt may be violating the law by granting waivers to oil refineries so they don’t have to blend ethanol into gasoline. Republican Senator Joni Ernst says Iowa farmers aren’t getting the “honesty and transparency” they deserve from the E-P-A because Pruitt is handing out “an unprecedented number” of waivers. Congressman Dave Loebsack, a Democrat from Iowa City, says those waivers were intended for small refiners in danger of going bankrupt. Instead, Loeback and the others in Iowa’s congressional delegation complain Pruitt has been granting waivers to huge companies that are making huge profits.
Trade groups are raising the same issue. According to the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the E-P-A administrator is granting oil refiners a “back-door” option that has already cost farmers and the ethanol industry more than five billion dollars. One ethanol industry executive says the E-P-A’s proposed ethanol production mandate for 2019 “isn’t a real number” because of the waivers Pruitt is granting the oil industry.
(Radio Iowa)
The Iowa Supreme Court has issued a key ruling on the constitutionality of Iowa’s embattled right-to-farm law. The director of the Center for Ag Law at Iowa State University, Kristine Tidgren, says – in one respect – the decision is a victory for livestock producers. “The plaintiffs really wanted the court to say that the right-to-farm statute was just unconstitutional and they wanted the court to basically eliminate that protection for ag producers,” Tidgren said. “The court did not do that.”
The Iowa Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that found the statute protecting producers from nuisance lawsuits was unconstitutional. But, the decision does not prevent ag nuisance lawsuits from being filed in the future and, according to Tidgren, livestock producers may still have to prove they are operating within the law. “This does give (producers) more protection because the court did affirm that the statute can be valid, but it’s not something that can be decided on someone’s judgement, it’s going to have to be after some fact-finding, which is costly,” Tidgren said.
By requiring plaintiffs to provide more proof of negligence or a violation of the law, Tidgren said the ruling may help deter the filing of unsupported claims. The court ruling stems from a case in southeast Iowa’s Wapello County, where three families complained of the odor from two nearby hog farms.
(Radio Iowa)
The U-S Senate is expected to vote this week on the Farm Bill, though Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the Senate version will -not- include a controversial element. Republicans in the House passed a Farm Bill that includes a work requirement for food stamp recipients, something Democrats are rallying against. “I support work requirements for people that can work,” Grassley says. “That would leave out disabled, families with children, elderly people, but if you’re an able-bodied person, I support work requirements.”
Under the House plan, recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits would be required to work or do job-training for at least 20 hours a week, unless they are pregnant or caring for a young child or for a person with significant health issues. Grassley says those requirements have been a big sticking point between the parties. “They are not in the Senate bill,” Grassley says, “and they won’t be in the final bill that goes to the president of the United States because we have to get a bipartisan bill in the Senate and we can’t get a bipartisan bill with work requirements in it.”
The House needs to “back down,” according to Grassley, or the Farm Bill may need to be extended into 2019. One amendment Grassley is adding to the Farm Bill aims to close the loophole which he says enables Wall Street bankers to get federal farm dollars, even if they’ve never had dirt under their fingernails. Grassley says, “Allowing these types of non-farmers to milk the farm safety net for millions of dollars in subsidies each year is ridiculous.” The Senate will be working on Farm Bill amendments today (Tuesday), Wednesday and Thursday and Grassley predicts it’ll go to a vote either Thursday evening or Friday. “The leader of the Senate wants to get it done before we go home for 4th of July and I do, too, want to get it through,” Grassley says. “The extent to which we can give farmers certainty five years ahead of time is really the best farm policy.”
The current five-year Farm Bill, which expires this fall, is worth some 489-billion dollars, though nutrition programs account for about 80-percent of that total.
(Radio Iowa)
The U-S Department of Agriculture’s weekly update on Iowa crops is usually strictly business and released after the grain markets close for the day. Monday’s report had a bit of tongue-in-cheek message. It noted Iowa farmers had only two-days suitable for field work during the past week and says activities included “checking rain gauges and assessing flood damage.” Iowa State University Agronomist, Paul Kassel, says many north and central Iowa corn and soybean fields are under water. “It’s getting kind of serious really. People have had eight-ten–twelve inches of rain in the last ten, twelve days. Kind of the north-central area really,” Kassel says, ” There’s a lot drowned out. So the corn and soybean crop will die from that.”
Once the crops die, the farmers have a decision to make. “And people will be faced with replanting parts of fields and that kind of thing,” Kassel says. He says if things don’t dry out soon, there may not be any option to salvage any kind of crop. “We’re not out of time, but by the time it dries out, it might be too late for that. So, there you’re faced with zero production from those drowned out areas,” Kassel says.
Despite that extensive crop flooding — Monday’s U-S-D-A update continues listing about 80 percent of Iowa’s corn and soybean acreage in good-to-excellent condition.
(Radio Iowa)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The World Food Prize will be awarded this year to two men who have dedicated their careers to improving the availability of nutritious food for pregnant women and children in an effort to reduce the effects of malnutrition in developing countries. Lawrence Haddad, who is a British economist and food policy researcher, and Dr. David Nabarro, who has worked with the World Health Organization and United Nations on health and hunger issues, were named the 2018 prize recipients in a ceremony Monday at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington. The World Food Prize was created by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug in 1986 to recognize scientists and others who have improved the quality and availability of food.
Haddad and Nabarro were recognized for their work to improve nutrition for mothers and children from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday — the most critical time for proper nutrition in a child’s development. Their leadership and advocacy is credited with helping to reduce the world’s number of children stunted from malnourishment between 2012 and 2017. Haddad lives in England and is executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, a Swiss-based nonprofit launched at the United Nations to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. He is credited with using economic and medical research to persuade development leaders to make child nutrition a priority.
Nabarro retired from the United Nations a year ago and is now a professor at the Institute of Global Health Innovation at London’s Imperial College. He is also setting up 4SD, a social enterprise in Switzerland focused on mentoring the next generation of leaders in global sustainable development. His work over 17 years at the UN fluctuated between focusing on expanding nutrition programs to underdeveloped countries and tacking health crises including outbreaks of malaria, bird flu, Ebola and other diseases. Through UN organizations — including the High Level Task Force on Global Food Security and the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement — he pulled together representatives from the UN, government agencies, donor groups and nongovernment organizations to help impress upon leaders in developing countries that children malnourished from the start suffer permanent damage that reduces their ability to reach their best potential, he said. Nabarro said he applied lessons learned in Nepal, India, Iraq and Africa.
The foundation that awards the $250,000 World Food Prize is based in Des Moines, Iowa. Haddad and Nabarro will receive the prize at an Oct. 18 award ceremony at the Iowa Capitol.
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