MURRAY, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man from northern Iowa died in an accident involving a tractor in eastern Nebraska. The accident occurred Tuesday evening, about 3 miles southeast of Murray. The Cass County (NE) Sheriff’s Office says the man became pinned between a tractor tire and a machine he was trying to attach to the tractor. The sheriff’s office says the man already was dead when deputies and medics arrived. He’s been identified as 61-year-old Richard Kruse. He lived in McIntire, Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) — A delegation of Iowa farmers is in Washington D-C for the National Farmers Union Fly-In, underway through tomorrow (Friday). Iowa Farmers Union president Aaron Lehman (LAY-mun) says getting a new Farm Bill through Congress is their first major goal. “We want to see a Farm Bill taken care of here in the dwindling days of the session,” Lehman says. “We need a strong safety net in place. We need some certainty for our farmers. Negotiations are ongoing but we need to see that work pushed through to a good conclusion.”

He says trade disputes on multiple fronts are costing agricultural producers billions. “Our folks are extremely concerned about the trade situation,” Lehman says. “They want to talk to both administration officials and to members of Congress and let them know how dire the situation is an how we need a long-term solution that’s going to bring some real results to the marketplace.” Lehman says they’ll also be talking to our elected leaders about issues like market concentration in the agribusiness industry. “And we’ll also be talking with folks about our concerns as a lot of farmers in Iowa are impacted by pesticide drift,” Lehman says. “We want to be sure that’s going to be handled in the right way as well.”

Lehman says the best lobbyists for rural America are farmers themselves and that’s why this Fly-In is so important.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A new survey report says the Iowa farmland average values have dropped 1.7 percent in the past six months. The report from the Iowa Chapter of the Realtors Land Institute says the decline over the past six months left the values at a little over $6,800 an acre. But the report issued Tuesday also says the values climbed 1.2 percent higher over the past 12 months.
Values went up in the past six months only in northeast Iowa, rising 0.7 percent. The report blamed the state decline in part on tariffs that affected crop prices and on rising interest rates.