Top Stories
NASA technology helping farmers from space
Interest in NASA and America’s return to the Moon has surged again following the Artemis missions and the growing focus on deep space exploration. But while much of the public attention is focused on rockets and astronauts, NASA says some of its most important work is helping farmers right here on Earth. During Washington Watch 2026, the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network spoke with NASA Director of Earth Science Karen St. Germain about how satellites, crop modeling, and advanced monitoring...
Confluence of factors has led to frustrating year for hog producers
2023 has not been smooth sailing for anyone in the hog production industry. From increased production costs, to demand factors still affected by the lingering effects of the Covid pandemic, and policy decisions that mandate how hogs are raised there have been a lot of...
What’s real in regard to Iowa Land Values?
Some eye popping sale prices for land in the State of Iowa, no question about that, including a record set above $30,000. Yet what’s the average and how does that impacts most of us in a more realistic situation? Great question, so I asked it of Fallon Savage with...
Lower corn price pressuring farmers
The University of Illinois Farm Policy News website says the price of corn recently hit a three-year low mark. Supplies from Brazil and the U.S. surged while demand stagnated because of the high prices. Corn has traded around $4.50 a bushel recently after reaching...
Bankers are going to bat for farmers over the Farm Bill
A disaster was narrowly averted over the Farm Bill when Congress decided to extend the 2018 for another year. The biggest piece of agriculture and food security legislation is in desperate need of modernizing. Because of this, Congressional members started preparing...
New gene discovery will help combat SCN
Four years of research from a team of scientists at the University of Missouri, the University of Georgia, and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has led to the discovery of a new gene- GmSNAP02- that the soybean industry will be able to use to combat...
SAF powers first trans-Atlantic flight
It was a first for sustainable aviation fuel this week as a 100 percent SAF trans-Atlantic test flight flew from London to New York. Virgin Atlantic says its flight to New York’s JFK International Airport was powered by fuel from plant sugars and waste fats and...
Video
More Ag News
HPAI detected in commercial chicken flock in Sioux County
The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) have detected a case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Sioux County, Iowa. The affected site...
Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul seeing catastrophic flooding
Last year, when I had the opportunity to go to Brazil, I spent the first days in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. It’s in the Southern part of Brazil, still many hours from the ports along the ocean. While there, I saw some of the lushest regions of agriculture...
Bullish Cattle on Feed report creates market optimism
Just before the Memorial Day Weekend, the livestock markets got some homework in the form of the latest Cattle on Feed report. There was plenty of time for the markets to digest the neutral numbers, and today both live and feeder cattle climbed higher. Even though the...
Biobased products key to the future of agriculture
Biobased products, including fuels, lubricants, construction materials, and more are the future, and were the subject of several House farm bill amendments last week. Iowa’s Zach Nunn offered and withdrew his biobased products amendment after Chair Glenn Thompson...
Determining the profitability of cover crops on livestock operations
A recent report by the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service studied whether incorporating cover crops into livestock systems is more profitable than livestock operations that do not use cover crops. Maria Bowman, research ag economist with...
