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!
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!
(Radio Iowa) — A return to cool, wet weather put the brakes on planting in most areas of the state. Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says the weekly U-S-D-A crop report showed less than two suitable days for field work last week. “It has definitely been a challenge this spring for producers all across the state,” Naig says. Naig says less than half the projected corn acres are planted. “We’re at 48 percent planted in corn, which is four or five days behind average. Soybeans are at 13 percent statewide — and that’s nearly a week behind average — so there’s obviously a concern out there on the part of our farmers,” according to Naig.
The U-S-D-A report says this is the smallest percent of corn planted by May 12 since 2013 when just 15 percent of the expected crop had been planted. It is the fifth time in 40 years that less than half the expected crop has been planted by May 12. The soybean planting is six days behind both last year and the five-year average. Naig says farmers are anxious — but this is not new. “This also something that our producers are very used to dealing with, is the weather each spring,” Naig says. “We know if we can get some sunny weather and some warmer temps, this crop can get in the ground pretty quick.”
He says farmers still have some time before considering a move from corn to beans. Naig says as you get to the end of May and Memorial Day they start to think of all of their options, but he says producers like to wait as long as possible to make those decisions. Cool temperatures are also a problem for corn that is already planted, as only five-percent of the corn is emerging. “Northwest Iowa up where we farm up there in Palo Alto County, we have really struggled to get those soil temps to stay above 50 degrees with any consistency,” Naig says. “It is interesting as you travel the state north to south — even just how the trees are leafed out and the difference.”
Northeast Iowa is lagging most in corn planting — at only twenty-four-percent. West central Iowa has the most corn planted at 67 percent
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — China’s announcement Monday of higher tariffs on $60 billion of American exports — retaliation for President Donald Trump’s latest penalties on Chinese goods — hit particularly hard in the farm belt. China’s vast consumer market has been a vital source of revenue for American farmers.
Since December, when U.S. and China negotiators called a truce to tariffs and began signaling that an agreement might be reached, soybean farmers had been holding out hope that sales to China would resume, said Todd Hultman, an Omaha-based grain market analyst with agriculture market data provider DTN. In the meantime, the farmers had been storing a record stockpile of nearly 1 billion bushels.
The latest news of a new round of tariffs, with no agreement in sight, spooked the financial markets and some farmers who had been tentatively optimistic. In a statement Monday, the American Soybean Association reacted with frustration edged with anxiety. “The sentiment out in farm country is getting grimmer by the day,” said John Heisdorffer, a soybean farmer in Keota, Iowa, who is chairman of the ASA. “Our patience is waning, our finances are suffering and the stress from months of living with the consequences of these tariffs is mounting.”
A slowdown in soybean sales, and the huge stockpiles that result, has a ripple effect. Farmers in many parts of the corn belt have suffered from a wet and cooler spring, which has prevented them from planting corn. Typically when it becomes too late to plant corn, farmers will instead plant soybeans, which can grow later into the fall before harvest is required. Yet now, planting soybeans with the overabundance already in bins and scant hope for sales to one of the biggest buyers in China, could raise the risk of a financial disaster. “This is the fifth year of low prices, basically, for crops,” Hultman said. “I think time is just wearing us out.”
To Brent Gloy of Grant, Nebraska, many farmers like him appear to be facing only bleak alternatives for planting. On Monday, Trump told reporters that a new program to relieve U.S. farmers’ pain is being devised and predicted that they will be “very happy.” The administration last year handed farmers aid worth $11 billion to offset losses from trade conflicts.
Trump seemed to suggest that the aid will make up for, or partially cover, the $15 billion that he said represented “the biggest purchase that China has ever made with our farmers.” In fact, U.S. farm exports to China approached $26 billion in both 2012 and 2013 and equaled $19.5 billion in 2017 — before his trade war began taking a toll on agricultural sales to China.
Gloy, an agriculture economist and a partner in the online research website Agriculture Economic Insights, said he fears there may be no end in sight to the Trump administration’s trade dispute with China. And he noted that most crops that farmers could plant aren’t profitable right now. He said worries that the entire agriculture sector could face severe trouble if the dispute lasts indefinitely.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A fifth farmer has pleaded guilty to his role in an organic grain fraud scheme that involved at least $140 million in sales of grain.
John Burton, of Clarksdale, Missouri, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.
Burton, 52, admitted that grain grown on his non-organic fields was marketed and sold as organic and that unapproved substances were used on fields certified as organic. Federal prosecutors are seeking to require that he forfeit $2.2 million that was traced to the scheme.
Burton’s plea comes months after one of his associates, 61-year-old Randy Constant of Chillicothe, Missouri, pleaded guilty to charges alleging he masterminded the scheme.
Constant made many of the fraudulent sales through an Iowa grain brokerage that he owned. Three other Nebraska farmers have also pleaded guilty in the case.
OAKLAND, IOWA – Community members are invited to a conversation about water quality on Thursday, May 16, in Oakland, Iowa. The event will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the Oakland Community Center, 614 Dr. Van Zee Rd., Oakland, Iowa 51560. Hosted by the Center for Rural Affairs, the event is free, and members of the public are invited to attend. Community members are invited to share their experiences with water quality and flooding in the region.
Center for Rural Affairs staff Cody Smith and Cora Fox will provide context and analysis about the legislative framework of current water quality laws and regulations. Other confirmed attendees include USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service staff, Conservation Districts of Iowa staff, and Golden Hills Resource Conservation & Development. “After the flooding we’ve seen in recent months, water quality continues to be an important part of the recovery conversation,” said Cody Smith, policy writing assistant with the Center for Rural Affairs. “Attendees will have an opportunity to share concerns they may have about water quality in their communities and we’ll explore strategies to move forward.”
Proposals brought forth during the 2019 Iowa legislative session will also be a focus of the community conversation. For more information, visit cfra.org/events.
The Iowa DOT has joined Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) in support of their unveiling of the preferred route for the Great American Rail-Trail— a proposed multi-use trail that would go through 12 states, including Iowa, and connect more than 1,900 miles of existing trails with more than 1,700 miles of trail gaps to create the nation’s first contiguous cross-country trail that stretches 3,700+ miles between Washington, D.C. and Washington State.
The preferred route was developed over 12 months with input from RTC’s GIS analysis of more than 34,000 miles of multiuse trails; review of state and local trail plans; and in close partnership with Iowa DOT as well as hundreds of additional local trail partners and state agencies representing the trails along the route.
Support for the route effort aligns with the Iowa Transportation Commission’s priorities, key issues listed for bike and pedestrian considerations as part of the State Long-range Transportation Plan as well as the Iowa Bicycle and Pedestrian Long Range Plan’s overarching goals for a connected network and recommendations to “expand connected bicycle and pedestrian networks in rural areas to increase access and improve safety” and the “use of abandoned railroads for rail-to-trail conversions.”
(Radio Iowa/Brownfield Ag News) — An eastern Iowa farmer was in Washington this week to tell congress farmers need action from the federal government. Dave Walton of Wilton testified at a hearing in a U.S. House committee. “We’re suffering right now for a variety of reasons — the trade issue, some infrastructure issues and other government- controlled things are hitting us pretty hard right now and it’s kind of all at once,” Walton says. Walton says more farmers are finding it difficult to get credit.
“If this doesn’t turn around soon, those farmers may be done this year,” Walton says. The U.S. Commerce Department recently reported farm income fell 12 billion dollars in the first three months of this year. “Because of the government’s manipulation in our market, we need to have some sort of relief here,” Walton says. “Another round of Market Facilitation Payments would be well-received by farmers right now.”
Walton is secretary of the Iowa Soybean Association’s board of directors. His family started farming in Cedar County in 1835.
(Reporting by Ken Anderson of Brownfield Network)
(Radio Iowa) — Despite international trade tariffs and a series of other challenges, Iowa livestock producers are seeing hog prices rise in recent weeks, which comes as a welcome surprise to many. Lee Schultz, an ag economist with the Iowa State University Extension, explains the rollercoastering of pork prices on the commodities market. “I think what was driving the lower prices in the early part of 2019 was impacts of retaliatory tariffs and impacts on the trade that we expected,” Schultz says. “And then really, through late March and April, we really saw the impact of the ASF situation in China.”
That’s African Swine Fever which has reportedly spread to every region of China and several surrounding countries, dropping the hog population in China by nearly 40-million head compared to last year. Shultz says U-S pork producers are also seeing the potential for significant growth in global protein demand. “Recently, I think it has been the markets, the supply situation weighing on it a bit as well as the new news of the delay in the trade negotiations talks,” he says, “I think it’s all been working on the market and why we’ve seen such volatility lately.”
Now that we’re well into spring and the warmer weather will soon bring us to summer grilling season, Schultz says we are entering a key period of demand for pork, which should keep prices higher.”We have three big holidays in front of us with Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and Father’s Day,” he says. “While a lot of purchases have already been made for Mother’s Day, we’re looking still at several holidays in front of us and demand is very strong.”
Schultz says profitability levels are higher for the pork producer than what has been seen for the last few years and he remains optimistic for the remaining months of 2019 and into 2020.
LENOX – During a routine inspection Tuesday morning, DNR inspectors noted a manure spill approximately three miles southwest of Lenox. The owner, Steve Kerns, said the spill occurred Monday morning after a malfunctioning plug caused manure to overflow from shallow below-building pits. An unknown quantity of manure flowed to the barns and then overland to an unnamed tributary of the East Fork of the One Hundred and Two River.
Field tests showed elevated ammonia levels in the tributary. The DNR inspector did not see signs of a fish kill. Water samples are being sent to a laboratory for analysis.
DNR will follow up with the Steve Kerns West Finishing site to ensure manure is cleaned up, an outdoor storage pit is pumped down and any future spills are reported within six hours.
The DNR will consider appropriate enforcement action.
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
RSS