Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Now that the 2007 Iowa State Fair is in the history books, plans are already underway for a big new addition for the fair in the future.
Preparations are going full steam ahead for the construction of a new climate-controlled livestock exhibition center at the fairgrounds.
The Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation is developing the plans and raising funds for the project, which is expected to cost approximately $20 million.
"What it will ultimately be is a pretty major transformation to the southwest corner of the fairgrounds," said Bridget Anderson, Blue Ribbon Foundation special programs manager. "The ag exhibition center will actually be an indoor arena that will really open us up to more national livestock shows and rodeos that can occur not only during the fair, but throughout the year."
Anderson said that the new Ag Exhibition Center will be built on the present location of the West Arena, an open-air livestock arena just west of the horse barn at the fairgrounds.
"That West Arena facility will be moved to the east side of the swine barn," said Anderson "So we'll still have the open-air warm-up arena, it will just be relocated."
The entire project is expected to be completed in three phases, which will take approximately three years in total. The first phase, moving the West Arena to its new location, will be completed before next year's fair. "Then Phase 2 will consist of adding parking lots. There will be a lot of new parking and street areas for the new exhibition center," said Anderson. Phase 3 of the project will be the actual construction of the exhibition center, which should be completed by 2010.
The new arena will be approximately 80,000 square feet, somewhat larger than the existing Livestock Pavilion at the fairgrounds. "One of the great things about this new arena is it will have stadium seating, and it will be a climate-controlled facility so it will provide a comfortable atmosphere. For people that are very interested in agriculture or for people who are just learning about livestock, it will be a comfortable place to watch those shows."
She said the the historic Livestock Pavilion at the fairgrounds is still quite useful and will remain an important part of the fair.
It's all part of the continuing mission of the Iowa State Fair to serve as an agricultural education experience for fair-goers.
Iowa State Fair marketing director Lori Chappell said that the fair this year served that purpose well. "Agriculture is certainly the backbone of the fair, and the fair was built on the mission of ag education. Even as many rural people have migrated into the urban and suburban areas, we still are very much based on agriculture. For example, we have one of the world's largest livestock shows. This year we had more than 25,000 animals that were on the grounds, either as part of a contest or display or exhibiting, which is one of our largest years ever."
Chappell said that one of the biggest draws at the fair this year was the new Paul R. Knapp Animal Learning Center, which is essentially a maternity ward for animals. "It was very popular at all hours of the day," said Chappell. "Some fair-goers that may not have any connection to rural or farm life were just in awe of what they were seeing, and then you'd see other people who probably had grown up on a farm that were caught in the amazement of the miracle of birth."
Over 1 million people came through the gates to enjoy the 2007 Iowa State Fair, despite several days of very hot and humid weather.
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