(Radio Iowa) – The archery season for deer continues and will run right up to the first shotgun season on December 6th. Iowa D-N-R deer biologist, Jace Elliott says western Iowa’s deer populations continues to struggle. “We’re still going through a sustained population decline as far as harvest and population trends show, and that’s been going on for 10 or 15 years. We’re working proactively with regulations to try to reverse that trend,” he says. Elliott says central Iowa is trying to rebound from recent hemorrhagic disease outbreaks.

“In some cases, very severe impact on local deer numbers in the 2023 and 2024 season, so it’s possible that numbers are going to be a bit lower this year than they were over the last decade or so in central Iowa,” Elliott says. “But then in eastern Iowa, in many cases we have very strong deer numbers… in some cases we have the strongest deer harvest that we’ve had in in 20 years.” Elliott says the hemorrhagic disease outbreaks have eased off. “This year shows to be exceptionally mild. We’ve only just had one off cases reported across the state, very few of them compared to the last couple of years, so that should offer some relief in populations that were impacted recently,” Elliott says. Elliott says the wet weather before things started getting dry in September has given deer plenty to eat.

“During the growing season, that’s a really nutrient expensive time for deer, whether we’re talking about bucks that are growing antlers, that takes a tremendous amount of resources and minerals and nutrients in order to grow antlers,” he says. “And whether we’re talking about does, they’re lactating, and that’s also. Its own nutrient demand, so it’s important to have a lot of vegetation on the landscape.” Hunters have taken around eight thousand deer in the ongoing bow season and the now completed early muzzleloader season.

(Radio Iowa) – President Donald Trump says the U-S may buy beef from Argentina to bring beef prices down for consumers. Bill Bullard is C-E-O of R-CALF USA, the largest trade group for cattle producers. He says the president’s attention is welcome because the U-S cattle market has been broken for decades. “The share of the consumer’s beef dollar flowing back to the producers has been reduced,” Bullard said, “while at the same time the share captured by the packers and retailers in this highly concentrated industry have been increasing.”

Bullard says importing more beef in the U.S. absolutely the wrong thing to do. “It has been imports that have displaced our domestic cow herd over the last several decades, bringing us to the brink of having the lowest, smallest herd size in the history of our industry,” Bullard said. Bullard says the Trump Administration needs to focus on concentration in the meat packing industry.

Four companies are buying 85 percent of the cattle that are slaughtered in the U-S, plus the Food Industry Association says meat sales in mega-retailers like Walmart are growing, while the amount of meat sold in local grocery stores is falling. “We have a handful of packers, a handful of retailers that are interfering with competitive market forces and they are exploiting producers on end of the food supply chain and consumers on the other,” Bullard said.

Bullard says Trump could help cattle producers by placing a quota on imported beef and impose higher tariffs on beef imports once that quota is reached.

(Radio Iowa) – World Food Prize events are underway in Des Moines as several thousand government officials, researchers and food producers from around the globe gather for panel discussions and recognition of this year’s World Food Prize winner. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is C-E-O of the World Food Prize Foundation. “We are welcoming the world to Iowa and we are lifting up issues involving food, agriculture, and the serious challenge we face in terms of food insecurity here at home and around the world,” Vilsack said. Vilsack says the annual event is meant to showcase innovation and research that allows farmers to be more productive.

“An opportunity to have some really substantive conversation about food and food security,” Vilsack said. Tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) schedule includes a discussion of hunger hotspots and a panel of people from the American Soybean Association. Vilsack says there’s a chance tariffs will be discussed. “But I think the focus is going to be, as it needs to be, on innovation and on science and on the extraordinary work that’s being done by researchers,” Vilsack said. “As Dr. Borlaug often said tell the farmer, give it to the farmer, give the tools the farmer and the farmer will respond by being extraordinarily productive. You know, we want to make sure that we’re true to that legacy.”

Cresco, Iowa, native Norman Borlaug won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work improving wheat yields. He founded the World Food Prize in 1986 to recognize breakthroughs in improving the quality or quantity of food. The concluding event this week will honor this year’s World Food Prize laureate. “Dr. (Mariangela) Hungria has done extraordinary research that has led to ways in which soybeans can basically create this sort of self-fertilizing if you will so that you don’t have to have as much synthetic fertilizer, which is good for the environment,” Vilsack said, “and certainly good for the bottom line for farmers.”

A researcher was awarded the 1993 Nobel Price in physics and medicine for genetic research is scheduled to speak tomorrow (Tuesday). Sir Richard Roberts — knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2008 — is currently the chief science officer at New England Biolabs.

(Winfield, Iowa) — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is investigating a hog manure spill into a Louisa County creek near Winfield, following a pumping incident. According to a DNR news release, a crew from the manure application business Catnip Ridge was applying manure to a field Thursday when a break in a line caused an unknown amount of manure to spill into a tributary of Roff Creek.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources is investigating a hog manure spill into an unnamed tributary in Louisa County. (Photo courtesy of Iowa DNR)

DNR said the applicator team took “immediate action” to stop pumping and to clamp the line once the tear, which DNR later discovered was from friction against an iron fence post hidden in some vegetation, was discovered. The spill occurred in a road ditch northeast of Winfield at the intersection of Q Avenue and 65th Street. The Catnip Ridge crew placed dams in several areas along the tributary and plugged a nearby culvert to keep the manure from entering the creek, DNR reported.

Fresh water was added to the spilled area to help the crew flush the tributary and pump out the spilled manure. When DNR staff assessed the scene Thursday, initial water monitoring tests showed elevated levels of  ammonia, but staff did not observe any dead fish.

According to the release, when staff returned Friday morning to the site, “a small number of dead fish were observed” in the tributary, but the plugged culvert had prevented further downstream migration of the manure. The DNR said it will continue to monitor the cleanup efforts and investigate the incident to determine if further enforcement action is necessary.

It was the second manure spill reported the DNR reported last week, the first was also contained to an unnamed tributary in Carroll County.

(Radio Iowa) – Congressman Randy Feenstra — a Republican who’s planning to launch a campaign for governor soon — supports the federal tax credits that could go to the developer of a proposed carbon pipeline, but Feenstra opposes the Iowa Utilities Commission’s decision to give Summit Carbon Solutions authority to seize land from unwilling property owners along the pipeline route.

Republicans have been divided on the issue since Summit announced in early 2021 that it planned to build a pipeline to capture carbon from ethanol plants in Iowa and other Midwestern states. This spring, a dozen Republicans joined Democrats in the state senate and passed a pipeline-related bill. Governor Reynolds wound up vetoing that bill, which would have limited the use of eminent domain for construction of carbon pipelines. Feenstra hasn’t indicated whether he would have done the same.

That’s the same eminent domain position taken by the three Republicans who’ve already launched campaigns for governor this year. Feenstra has long argued that homegrown Iowa ethanol will help make the U.S. energy independent and that carbon capture would enhance Iowa’s ethanol industry and support Iowa’s corn growers.

The proposed pipeline was an issue in Feenstra’s 2024 re-election campaign when a G-O-P challenger got the votes of nearly a third of the Republicans who voted in the fourth congressional district primary.

(Radio Iowa) – A pitch competition — like what you see on the “Shark Tank” T-V show — is scheduled in Des Moines next Wednesday — and it will feature start-up companies from Argentina, India and Nigeria. World Food Prize Foundation C-E-O Tom Vilsack says the foundation is putting up 65-thousand dollars in prize money. “We’re really excited about the inaugural Innovate for Impact challenge,” Vilsack said. “We were sort of taken aback by the response. We had 387 applications from 62 countries.”

Executives from each of the three companies will make their pitches to a panel of judges, who will award 50-thousand dollars for first prize, 10-thousand dollars for second and five thousand dollars for third prize. The event will be held in downtown Des Moines as part of the annual World Food Prize Dialogue that starts Monday. “There’s an opportunity, I think, for us to learn a little bit more about innovation that’s taking place and the entrepreneurship that is alive and well in this field of agriculture,” Vilsack said. Vilsack says the three companies have the potential for worldwide impact. APOLO Biotech in Argentina uses R-N-A technology to produce an alternative to traditional pesticides.

(Pictured: WFP CEO Tom Vilsack – Radio Iowa/IA PBS credit)

Capsber Agriscience in India is already working with over 150-thousand small-scale farming operations to use microbes that are native to the soil rather than fertilizers to boost crop yields. The third business — Vet Konect in Nigeria — has created a digital platform that has connected tens of thousands of farmers in eight countries to information about raising livestock. Tickets are required to attend the pitch competition and can be purchased on the World Food Prize website.

OTTUMWA, Iowa (KCRG) – John Deere announced that some jobs at the Ottumwa and Des Moines plants would soon be relocated to other facilities in Iowa and Illinois. Deere says its product verification and validation testing from both Ottumwa Works and Des Moines will be moved to “reduce overhead expenses and improve efficiency.”

It’s unclear how many positions will be impacted at this time, but the company said some employees will have the option to relocate. The changes will take effect in fiscal year 2026.

In September, John Deere also announced that 101 workers in Waterloo will be laid off, citing decreased demand and lower order volumes.

(Radio Iowa) – A Midwest biosecurity expert says bird flu was spread from farm-to-farm in 85 percent cases identified during the 2015 outbreak, but only 15 percent of current bird flu outbreaks have been traced to nearby poultry operations. Abby Schuft, a poultry education trainer for University of Minnesota Extension, says that means it’s time to dig deeper into biosecurity measures.

“We are now beyond having clean boots and clean clothing when we enter the housing where our birds are,” Schuft said. “There are so many other environmental…factors that are playing into this on how the virus is spreading and being introduced to farm sites.” In September, Iowa officials confirmed Canadian geese in ponds in Dubuque County had bird flu.

Last week, U-S-D-A officials confirmed bird flu had hit a commercial operation in Calhoun County with 42-thousand turkeys. Schuft says poultry operators and people raising chickens in their backyard need to consider outside factors that could introduce bird flu to their flock. She notes standing water after a heavy rain can be a resting spot for migrating birds and harvested fields nearby offer a food buffet to wild birds.

“That’s a challenge then for our poultry producers when there’s wild waterfowl in lots of different places,” Schuft says, “which simply means then there’s opportunity for the virus to really just be everywhere.” Schuft suggests farm vehicles driven near poultry barns be washed frequently to prevent the spread of bird flu.

“Even as the weather’s cooling down, we don’t necessarily want to have to power wash our vehicles outside or our farm equipment, but we still need to be diligent about that truly until we absolutely can’t when the water might be freezing in the hoses,” Schuft said, “really ensuring that you’re not taking any shortcuts when you notice some of those seasonal changes that are happening.”

Federal records show eight poultry flocks in Iowa had been hit by bird flu this year — but last week’s Calhoun County site was the first since April. Bird flu has recently been confirmed in poultry at 13 commercial sites in Minnesota, in three commercial flocks in South Dakota and at two commercial operations in Wisconsin.

(Radio Iowa) – State and local officials joined executives from one of the world’s largest meat processing companies at the groundbreaking for a new sausage plant in Perry. J-B-S expects the plant will start production by the end of next year and eventually employ 500. Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham notes Perry has been through a rollercoaster after a tragic school shooting in early 2024 and the closure of the Tyson pork plant in mid-2024.

“This community embodies the idea that you are more than your circumstances,” Durham said. “With every unforeseen challenge, unthinkable tragedy or business setback, you show us what you are made of – hard work, heart and optimism.” Nearly 13-hundred people were laid off when Tyson closed its Perry plant on June 28th of last year. Perry Mayor Dirk Cavanaugh says the new plant will help his community recover from last year’s set backs.

Groundbreaking for new sausage plant in Perry on Oct. 14, 2025. (Photo courtesy of JBS USA)

“It will bring good jobs back to Perry so our residents don’t have to commute to work. It will attract new businesses and residents to our community. It will also give a boost to our existing businesses.” J-B-S operates plants in Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa and the new plant in Perry will be the company’s first sausage production site in the United States.

J-B-S recently purchased a shuttered Hy-Vee facility in Ankeny, where it plans to produce ready-to-eat bacon and sausage — and some of the raw ingredients for that sausage will come from the Perry plant.