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!
Deer hunters invest time and money honing their skills and buying the latest gear to pursue Iowa’s trophy whitetails. Hunters can protect their investment by helping to monitor for the presence of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in wild Iowa deer. Chronic wasting disease is a brain disease that can infect deer, elk, reindeer, and moose. The disease is always fatal, and at least one study has shown that it can have a population level impact on deer in Wisconsin, which has a similar landscape and deer population to Iowa.
State wildlife experts are working to make the sample collection process as easy and quick as possible. Hunters can call their local DNR wildlife expert who will meet them either in the field or at their residence to collect two lymph nodes from the head of the animal and a little information on where the deer was killed. That’s it.
Matt Dollison, wildlife biologist for the Department of Natural Resources in southwest Iowa, says “The only reason we need the location of the kill is in case the deer would come back as positive for CWD, we would know its location to create our surveillance focus zone.” The DNR has a goal of collecting 4,500 samples each year from across the state, with increased quotas from surveillance areas in counties that have had positive samples in pen raised deer, and in Allamakee County where positive samples have been found in wild deer. Hunter participation is voluntary.
In southwest Iowa, Dollison has an increased sample quota of 150 deer for northeastern Pottawattamie County and the very northwest portion of Cass County, where CWD has been found in a captive deer breeding pen. Unfortunately the DNR has struggled each year to reach half that number. Only adult deer are sampled and trophy bucks will not be sampled unless agreed to by the hunter and after it has been caped. Fawns will not be sampled.
Dollison says “We are working with the DOT to collect samples from road killed deer, but we need hunters to help us reach our targets. Disease monitoring isn’t exciting but it is important to help protect the herd and it’s something simple and easy hunters can do that directly benefits them and what they enjoy doing.” Dollison has placed fliers in local gas stations, meat lockers, and restaurants in an effort to get the word out.
“We want as many samples as possible,” Dollison said. “It’s imperative that hunters let us know as soon as possible after they recover the deer. The clock starts once the deer is down and time is our enemy on this. The sooner we can collect the sample, the better.”
Hunters in Pottawattamie, Cass, Mills, Montgomery, Fremont and Page counties can call:
FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) – Webster County officials are seeking changes to Iowa’s process for reviewing hog confinement operations, arguing the current process has few restrictions and almost no local control. The Messenger reports the request comes after a large number of new hog confinement applications in the county prompted county supervisors and residents an update to the animal confinement rules.
Recommendations for changes include an increased distance from confinements to residential properties and waterways, as well as a three-mile distance from cities or subdivisions. The Webster County Board plans to present a list of recommendations to Republican state Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink at this week’s Iowa State Association of Counties legislative meeting.
The director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says he’ll be forced to layoff employees and reduce services “significantly” if there’s not an increase in the fee for an Iowa fishing license. The 19-dollar annual fee hasn’t been changed since 2003. Those license fees go into the state’s Fish and Wildlife Trust Fund, which is used to run the state-run fish hatcheries and other related services, but the D-N-R’s Chuck Gipp says that budget’s becoming “a challenge.”
“There is no such thing as ‘status quo’ expenses. That continues to go up as health costs go up, as employee salaries and things like that go up,” Gipp says, “so we’re struggling when it comes to having the personnel there.” Gipp has met with groups that represent Iowa hunters, fishing enthusiasts and others to discuss the situation. “It isn’t grandma down the street that doesn’t hunt and fish that’s going to be impacted by revenue increases,” Gipp says. “It’s going to be the actual person that purchased the license that is getting the benefit of the fish hatcheries,” Gipp says.
Gipp’s department operates seven fish “hatcheries” in Iowa that raise 150 MILLION fish each year, for stocking Iowa lakes and rivers. The Fairport Fish Hatchery on the Mississippi River near Muscatine is nearly 100 years old and “should be closed down,” according to Gipp. “The newest facility we have is a fish hatchery at Rathbun,” Gipp says. “But that’s 25 years old and the liners of those fish ponds that grow the fish are now 25 years old and need replacements, so you’re looking at $1 million or more just to replace that type of facility.”
Gipp made his comments Tuesday, during a budget presentation in the governor’s office. Governor Terry Branstad says he’s “neutral” on the idea of raising the fishing license fee. “The fishermen, if it’s something they really want, then I think they’re going to have to visit with their legislators about it,” Branstad says. “I’m not advocating for it. I’m not opposing it.”
Nearly 400-thousand people purchased an Iowa fishing license this past year. State officials say while there’s been a decrease in the number of hunters, the number of people who fish in Iowa has held steady.
(Radio Iowa)
Iowa’s secretary of agriculture is touting a water quality plan House Republicans advanced earlier this year. Bill Northey says the plan would dedicate “significant” state resources to address water quality concerns. “A real commitment, no new taxes…is a great pattern to work from and we’d certainly be very supportive of that.”
This past January, Republican Governor Terry Branstad proposed diverting some sales tax money levied for school infrastructure projects to water quality initiatives. House Republicans came up with their own plan, using water usage fees and gambling taxes for water quality projects. Neither idea was debated in the Senate, where Democrats controlled the debate agenda. “We recognize that there’ll be good conversations this year at the legislature this year about water quality funding,” Northey says.
Northey, a farmer from Spirit Lake, has been Iowa’s secretary of agriculture since 2007. Northey says farmers in Iowa have been “very active” in trying to control and reduce farm chemical run-off from cropland. Critics say the voluntary approach isn’t working and it’s time for the federal government or the courts to force changes in farming practices.
(Radio Iowa)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The head of Iowa’s agriculture department is once again asking state leaders for financial help to better prepare for potential animal diseases like bird flu. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey says his request (on Monday) for $500,000 would be used to train livestock farmers to increase bio-security efforts when responding to outbreaks involving foreign diseases like bird flu, which hit the state in 2015. The disease killed 48 million birds nationwide, including 24 million Iowa laying hens.
The request, made during an annual budget hearing with Gov. Terry Branstad, mirrors Northey’s request one year ago to combat the same issue. Branstad didn’t include it his budget recommendations last January, citing limitations to the state budget. A Branstad spokesman says the governor will evaluate the latest request.
The Shelby County “Fire Danger” index continues in the “Moderate” category, this week. Emergency Management Coordinator Bob Seivert says the public should continue to call-in and report their planned burns. Doing so reduces unneeded emergency responses, and allows local chiefs to be more aware of activities in their area. The “Moderate” rating will continue until at least Thursday, Dec. 1st.
A former state legislator in the 1980s and ’90s who worked on environmental issues is suggesting current lawmakers should impose the state sales tax on farm chemicals. David Osterberg, a University of Iowa professor said “I’m taxed if I go down to my Ace Hardware and buy some 10-10-10 fertilizer to put in my garden, but if you buy tons of it, you don’t pay any tax.”
Osterberg represented Mount Vernon in the Iowa House for a dozen years. He’s the founder of an Iowa City-based think tank that recently issued a report that concluded the voluntary approach to reducing farm chemical run-off isn’t working in Iowa. “The ag community ought to be doing a whole lot more than they are,” Osterberg says. “Cost-share is good, but I think that we ought to get some of the funds for that cost-share program from a tax on fertilizer.”
Billions in state and federal tax dollars have been dedicated to on-the-farm projects that prevent both soil and farm chemical run-off. Other groups are lobbying legislators to raise the state sales tax by a fraction, to finance water quality and outdoor recreation projects. Republican House Speaker Linda Upmeyer of Clear Lake says taxing farm chemicals or raising the state sales tax for ALL purchases won’t happen in a Republican-led legislature. “I have not heard any conversation about increasing a tax,” Upmeyer says.
Upmeyer suggests there are ways to redirect already-existing taxes toward water quality initiatives. “It’s a topic that’s important for Iowans. We’ll continue to look at that. We’ll have a variety of ideas moving forward,” Upmeyer says. She says there may be more federal tax dollars available for farmland conservation projects. And she says the state is already spending about 300-million dollars on water quality activities. Republicans will control the debate agenda in both the House and Senate in 2017.
(Radio Iowa)
Improving water quality in the state has been a big topic of discussion this year, and there are already several projects underway testing different methods to improve the runoff from farm fields. Shane Wulf is the project coordinator of the Miller Creek Watershed project in southern Black Hawk and Northern Tama County. It’s one of the eight initial demonstration projects funded by the state Water Quality Initiative.
“We are trying to show off these practices working with some proactive producers who put these practices on the ground in high visibility areas, and then it’s an opportunity for us to have field days, workshops at these practices to show them off to some of your more traditional producers,” Wulf says. He says they have three categories they work with.”Management practices — something like putting a cover crop out there — no till, strip till, some of these different practices that are actually out there in the field,” Wulf says. ” Then we also work with some nutrient management practices like nitrogen application management, nitrification inhibitors, which slow down the process of converting over to nitrate which eventually can be lost through the water. And also, edge of field practices which I would probably argue are among the most innovative new practices that are out there.”
One of those edge of field practices is called a “denitrifying bioreactor.” “It sounds kind of complicated, but it’s essentially just a big pit of wood chips that tile is re-routed into and water flows through and basically comes out on the other end with a reduce number of nitrate concentration,” Wulf explains. Wulf says the goal is to explain how the processes work. He says all the practices are pretty straightforward, but some of the producers are what he calls “pretty darn traditional.” and it’s a big change in their operation. “So that’s why we want to make sure we demonstrate as well as we can and work with them to show that the practices are effective for reducing nitrates and phosphorus, but also to be cost effective as well,” Wulf says.
Wulf says many of the things they are using have been tested at Iowa State University and they are following up to be sure they work in the fields. “We are doing local water monitoring with the Iowa Soybean Association. So bi-weekly I go out and grab tile samples, water samples from in stream and then also from those edge of stream — the bioreactors and buffers — you can collect directly from those practices as well,” Wulf says.
The Miller Creek watershed covers some 42-thousand acres and is 81 percent planted in row crops.
(Radio Iowa)
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