Stories

A project 30 years in the making has finally been realized with the opening of the resort lodge at Honey Creek State Park.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will hold a forum Thursday in Ames to collect public input on the implementation of several new livestock laws.

Corn and soybean prices dropped sharply Friday following the release of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s October crop production estimates.

A survey released this month by the Iowa chapter of the Realtors Land Institute (RLI) showed a 6.6 percent increase in farmland values in just the last six months. Farmland values rose 17.6 percent in Iowa throughout the course of the last year, and an incredible 70 percent over the last five years.

Agricultural organizations expressed their displeasure today with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s implementation of a new food labeling law.
The National Farmers Union, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association and R-CALF USA joined together to voice their concerns about the USDA’s interpretation of the new Country of Origin Labeling provision that was passed in the new farm bill [...]

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama reaffirmed his support of the federal Renewable Fuels Standard on Tuesday. Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, opposes the fuel standard that mandates a specific amount of ethanol be used in the nation’s fuel supply.

A federal program designed to protect environmentally sensitive farmland may be losing some of its luster.

Thousands of U.S. farmers have a decision to make this month, as they must choose to either keep their acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) or put those acres into crop production.

The GOP started out the week by unanimously approving a platform that calls for an end to the federal renewable fuels standard. And in their convention speeches the party’s standard bearers — Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska — hardly mentioned biofuels as part of the energy mix of the future.

The Iowa Independent conducted a telephone interview on Thursday afternoon with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, a Republican proponent of ethanol and biofuels who was at the convention all week.

Implementation of the new farm bill will ultimately be handed off to the next presidential administration, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said at a press conference in Iowa Thursday.

Schafer told agriculture reporters at the 2008 Farm Progress Show that the implementation of the new farm bill is “going well,” with the work about two weeks ahead of schedule.

A total of $87.5 million in Emergency Conservation Program funds will be distributed between 34 states that were affected by natural disasters, announced U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer Thursday. Iowa will receive $12,208,500, the largest amount of the 34 states.