The new Honey Creek Resort at Rathbun Lake was opened Friday with a ribbon cutting ceremony at the resort complex. Pictured are Rep. Dave Loebsack, Iowa Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge and Iowa Department of Natural Resources director Rich Leopold.

The state park resort complex, located on the north shore of Rathbun Lake in southern Iowa, is being called the new “centerpiece for Iowa tourism and a destination for many audiences to experience the outdoors.” A formal grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Friday.

Residents of the Rathbun Lake area have been working since the early 1970s to fulfill the original vision of a resort lodge at the lake. The $62 million project is the culmination of a cooperative effort between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and dozens of local public and private organizations and citizens. Approximately $4 million of the total cost was raised by donations from local private citizens, businesses and public utilities.

One of our goals at the DNR is to connect people to the natural world around us,” said Iowa Department of Natural Resources director Rich Leopold. “We hope Honey Creek Resort will entice new people of Iowa’s state parks, expanding their appreciation and therefore their stewardship of our natural resources.”

The resort complex features the main lodge with its 105 guest rooms, convention center, restaurant and aquatic center, as well as an 18-hole golf course and RV park. The park will give visitors a new way to enjoy the 11,000 acres of Rathbun Lake overlooks the 11,000-acre Rathbun Lake, along with thousands of acres of public  wooded areas and natural prairies.

The Ames event is one of three such town meetings nationwide to be conducted by the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration. The meeting will allow the public to provide comments and recommendations about the implementation of the 2008 Farm Bill related to the swine and poultry industries.

A USDA press release states that GIPSA will use comments and recommendations gathered at the three forums to write the regulations needed to implement several new sections of the farm bill dealing with livestock.

The farm bill, which became law earlier this year, includes an all-new livestock title designed to help protect livestock producers from unfair market manipulation.

Specifically, the forum will seek input on Section 11005 and Section 11006 of the farm bill. Section 11005 provides protection for poultry and swine producers, allowing them to decline contract arbitration as the only means of settling contract disputes. Section 11006 is designed to protect against undue preferences in livestock markets and bolster regulation.

The Ames event will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16 in Ames at the Iowa State University Scheman Building. The only other GIPSA town hall meetings will be held in Arkansas and Georgia.

Nationwide corn production for the year is estimated to reach 12.2 billion bushels, up 1 percent from last month’s report. Corn yields are expected to average 154 bushels per acre.

If the crop estimates hold true after this year’s harvest, it would result in the second-largest corn crop in history. This huge crop is expected despite the devastating flooding throughout Iowa and the Upper Midwest earlier this year.

Corn prices, which had skyrocketed to record highs during the flooding in May and June, have now dropped to just above $4 per bushel, causing worry among farmers who had banked on high grain prices to offset their historically high operating costs.

Soybean production is also forecast to be higher than earlier projections. Nationwide soybean production is expected to reach 2.98 billion bushels, up 2 percent from a month ago and up 11 percent from last year.

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.

The increase in land values has affected much of Iowa.

RLI consultant Troy Louwagie conducted the survey. In an interview with the Iowa Independent, Louwagie said, “The number one factor is high commodity prices.”

“We have $5 corn and $12 beans, and that has pushed up farm profitability levels. Farmers have made money the last couple of years and cash rents have gone up,” he said.

The report also says that expansion of the renewable fuels industry, good crop yields, and “positive attitudes about agriculture” have also helped boost land values.

But the report also warns that certain factors could negatively affect farmland values in the future. Such factors include an increase in fuel and fertilizer costs and decreasing returns in the livestock industry.

The RLI report shows a continuation of a trend toward higher farmland values that has been ongoing for the last few years. Iowa State University’s 2007 land value report, released last December, showed an average increase in value of approximately $700 per acre for Iowa farmland last year.

Louwagie said that a lot of the sales have involved large farms getting larger rather than small farms simply changing hands.

Farmland values have remained high despite an all-out crisis in other real estate markets — particularly housing — across the country. CNN reported last week that the pace of new home sales nationwide fell to a 17-year low in August. And that decline in sales continued despite a drop in average home prices.

From CNN:
Sales fell as prices continued to drop. The median price of a new home sold in August was $221,900, down 5.5% from $234,900 in July and down 6.2% from $236,500 a year earlier. Prices for new homes on the market were at their lowest level since September 2004.

This decline probably doesn’t accurately capture the weakness in prices for new homes, as about three out of four builders have reported having to pay buyers’ closing costs or offer other incentives such as expensive features for free in order to maintain sales.

Even Iowa farmland that is close to urban areas, which one might expect to be developed for non-agricultural purposes, is lagging compared to rural land.

“In my opinion, we have seen farmland around the urban area soften,” said Louwagie. “Usually, they move in correlation, but we’ve actually seen those levels soften while farmland that’s strictly for agriculture has continued to increase. That’s unique, we have not seen that in a long time.”

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 earlier this year. The groups urged the USDA to immediately re-interpret the provision.

Country of origin labeling (COOL) is scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 1 this year.

According to a press release from the National Farmers Union, the organization is concerned that “large meat processors intend to circumvent both the intent and letter of the labeling law.”

NFU president Tom Buis stated in the press release that the law clearly states that products from livestock that are born, raised and slaughtered in the U.S. are to be labeled as a product of the United States. But despite the clear language in the law, USDA’s rules will allow meatpackers to label exclusively American products with those from other countries, said Buis.

This might make the labels less meaningful to American consumers.

“USDA has created a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, violating the spirit, letter and intent of the law and deceiving consumers who have consistently shown support for buying U.S. products,” Buis said. “This is about truth in labeling.”

The COOL law will create four labeling categories:

• Products exclusively born, raised and processed in the United States would be labeled as a U.S. product;
• Products from animals that were not exclusively born, raised and processed in the United States and not imported for immediate slaughter be labeled with all countries in which the animal may have been born, raised or processed;
• An animal that was imported for immediate processing may be labeled as a product of the importing country and the United States; and
• Animals that were born, raised and processed in a foreign country will be labeled as a product of the country of origin.

The labeling law was first passed in the 2002 Farm Bill, but was never implemented by USDA. Buis said both producers and consumers have waited far too long for COOL to become a reality.

Obama’s statement was reported Wednesday in an article by Jerry Hagstrom for DTN Ag News:

In a telephone call to a National Farmers Union reception in Washington, Obama said he has supported the RFS and federal programs for renewable fuels since he became a senator from Illinois. He also noted that the weather-related disaster program, hospitals, the recruitment of doctors and high-speed internet service are important to rural America.

“I will keep on fighting for you as president,” Obama said. “These are the legislative priorities I am going to tackle with you.” Obama received the Golden Triangle from the NFU, a Democratic-leaning group.

The article also quotes Iowa Republican senator Chuck Grassley as saying that his party’s platform is “inconsistent” on renewable fuels issues.

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.

Conservation Reserve Program (Photo: usgs.gov)

Nationwide, there are 1.1 million acres in CRP contracts that will expire this month. Landowners holding those contracts will be weighing their options, making a judgment on whether to renew or to pull their acres out of the CRP program.

The number of CRP acres up for renewal jumps to 3.8 million acres in 2009, and then 4.4 million acres in 2010, according to a statement from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer in July.

Typically, the type of land that is enrolled in the CRP program is environmentally sensitive and erodible. The program was designed to keep those lands out of production to conserve soil and protect water resources, as well as to improve wildlife habitat. With millions of acres of farmland in CRP, the program also tends to protect against the overproduction of crops and can help maintain steady grain prices.

CRP has long had its detractors. Those critical of the program have called it a wasteful handout to landowners, paying farmers not to farm. Since its creation in the early 1980s, however, the program has been renewed every five years as a part of the federal farm bill. In 2005, the USDA spent approximately $1.7 billion in CRP payments to landowners.

Now that global demand is strong and commodity prices are high, many farmers may choose against renewing their CRP contracts to plant more corn and other grains. The CRP rental rates simply are notas lucrative as planting a field of corn.

In an interview last week with the Iowa Independent, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said farmers are going to have some difficult decisions to make regarding CRP. Northey said some farmland may now be worth significantly more in cash rent than in CRP. For those farmers, he said, “it’s got to be really hard to keep it in CRP. You’ve got to really believe in [CRP] to keep it in, when you could be getting almost twice as much by farming it.”

With CRP rental rates not keeping up with the value of farmland, landowners will consider the bottom line.

“I run into some farmers out there that ask about it. I can see that they’re thinking about it,” said Northey. “They’re trying to figure out what to do.”

Opponents of alternative fuels such as ethanol have pointed to federal renewable fuels incentives as the reason farmers may choose to opt out of CRP. The demand for corn has increased because of ethanol, but landowners will consider other factors as well.

The penalties for taking land out of a CRP contract before the agreed-upon time can be steep. A farmer typically must return all payments received during the entire period of the CRP contract in order to be released early from the contract.

A simple lack of flexibility in the program may be what turns some farmers off. The USDA attempted this year to release CRP land for haying and grazing under its critical feed use program, but that action was mostly thwarted by a lawsuit filed by the National Wildlife Federation. Because of that lawsuit, it is now more difficult for the USDA to use its discretion and release CRP for feed uses when farmers really need it.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey

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.

Northey said he was disappointed in the GOP platform plank that calls for an end to the renewable fuels standard. “There’s certainly plenty of Midwestern folks that believe in ethanol, and it would’ve been nice to actually have discussion over it,” he said, noting that the truncated first day of the convention made it impossible for debate on the platform.

Given the popularity of ethanol and biodiesel in Iowa, the lack of support by the GOP at the national level has the potential to turn off some rural Iowa voters who might normally vote Republican. But Northey said there is still time for the Republican ticket to make its case for the agricultural vote.

McCain has repeated his opposition to “ethanol subsidies” numerous times, though his running mate is more of a mystery. “I don’t know that I’ve heard anything specifically on ethanol from Gov. Palin,” said Northey. “She probably hasn’t had that much exposure.”

Northey said that McCain has recently been talking “in positive tones about renewable fuels,” but added there is still a question about how McCain would go about supporting renewable fuels. “I think he’s going to have some time to talk about that, and I think Iowans are going to want to know,” said Northey. “I know he has indicated concern about subsidies, and wanting to deal with market issues. But certainly ethanol and biodiesel need support to be able to get started, and I think that’s awful important.”

So what exactly does McCain mean when he says he’s opposed to ethanol subsidies?

“I’m not sure that that’s always been clear,” said Northey. “I guess the assumption has been that he’s opposed to the tax credits. Early on, last year, we walked through an ethanol plant together. At that point, he talked about how important it was for renewable fuels to be a part of the mix. And that maybe we ought to be looking towards the future in how we slowly ratchet away from the tax credits on ethanol blending. I think that’s not near as scary to folks than it is to think that he’s going to pull a full court press on stripping the subsidies out right away. But really, it does matter a lot what he means. And I’m not sure we always have a great feel for that.”

But despite the questions about the top of the ticket, there’s still a lot of support for ethanol at the Republican convention. Northey said that he was tapped to speak at an agriculture breakfast at the convention, alongside Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

“All of us ended up talking about renewable fuels and how important they are,” said Northey. “Saxby has a new ethanol plant, a Fagen ethanol plant in Georgia. And he was talking about how valuable it was to be able to have that plant and how they’re new believers in ethanol. And so certainly there was lots of pro-renewable fuels discussion. As I talked about Iowa, Sen. Thune talked about South Dakota getting to nearly a billiion gallons of ethanol production this year.”

Northey said that renewable fuels are an important issue for agriculture, but other important issues, such as free trade and environmental regulation, will also be on the minds of farmers when they head to the voting booth this fall. “I think certainly trade is a huge issue,” said Northey. “And while we look at ethanol production and the growth of domestic uses of grain, very quietly we are seeing record exports.”

Iowa has seen a tremendous jump in export sales of agricultural products, from $4 billion in exports in 2006 to $5 billion in 2007. “Exports are huge. We’re having record exports, and if we did not have those exports we would have a significantly lower price for our corn and soybeans. And also for hogs and cattle. We’re seeing livestock exports grow. And I’ve certainly heard concerns about Obama on trade agreements, and how he would not support most of the trade agreements that are out there.” South Korea, he said as an example, could be a very important destination for Iowa meat products with the right trade policies in place.

Northey said that farm voters will also consider the candidates’ views on environmental regulation.

“What’s the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) decide to do with an Obama presidency versus a McCain presidency? I think folks would certainly expect a McCain presidency to have an active EPA, but there’s concern among some in the ag community that an Obama presidency could have a very, very active EPA that really disrupts agriculture,” said Northey. “So that regulatory environment, that role of government, really potentially matters and it can dramatically impact agriculture.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer visited the 2008 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa on Thursday.

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.

“We have prioritized the programs, and some programs come to us with certain timelines and deadlines,” said Schafer. “We’re working through methodically to produce the rules and regulations. And, importantly, we understand that we will not get this farm bill fully implemented before the end of this administration. So it will go off into the next administration.”

One of the major tasks that Schafer’s department must complete soon is the implementation of the new country-of-origin labeling program for retail food products. Country-of-origin labeling was passed into law in 2002, but was never implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The new farm bill that passed this year mandates that the labeling law be implemented by Oct. 1. Schafer said that the USDA is on track to do so and has published its interim final rule for the program.

“I believe we came up with a set of regulations that are understanding of people’s concerns, of producers’ concerns, and the cost to the consumer,” he said. “I like the regulations the way they came out. There’s a lot of controversy all the way around, but I think we struck a good balance with this, and we are in the position to deliver it on October 1.”

Schafer said he anticipates “bumps in the system” regarding regulation of the program. He said the USDA will allow a six-month implementation period in which the department will work with retailers and producers for a smooth transition. During the six-month period, he said, the USDA won’t be “coming in with the hammer or the summons book, but we’re coming in to say this is the new law, this is how we work through it. So we’ll have that grace period to work through so we can get it implemented properly.”

Other aspects of the farm bill will cost more to implement than the USDA has been given, he said, noting that the department cannot implement some of the new programs with the hardware and software currently in place. He has requested an additional $179 million from Congress to fund the shortfall. “One difficulty that we’re facing is we required and asked for $200 million for implementation for the new farm bill, and we received about $55 million, so we simply don’t have enough money.”

Schafer also discussed the Conservation Reserve Program, which has been in the news recently following a lawsuit filed by the National Wildlife Federation. Schafer said he would like to see legislation passed that would bring more flexibility to the program and allow the USDA to change CRP contracts. “The conversation has definitely not stopped,” he said. “It is being pursued legislatively on the hill, which is where the final answer is going to rest.”

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.

The funds will be distributed to help landowners repair soil and water conservation structures, remove flood debris, and restore fences. Funding will also be used to carry out water conservation measures in other states that have suffered drought.

“This funding will allow farmers and ranchers to repair the unusually harsh damage to conservation efforts caused by the disaster conditions, notably flooding and drought,” said Schafer in a news release. “USDA has worked shoulder to shoulder with producers when weather turns against them, and we remain involved to help in the weeks and months of recovery afterward.”

A statement from the USDA explains that for land to be eligible for the funds, the natural disaster must create new problems that if untreated will impair and affect the land’s productive capacity, among other criteria.

USDA Farm Service Agency county committees will conduct on-site inspections of damage to determine land eligibility.