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Ernst builds on USDA food safety center announcement
Following up on last week’s announcement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture about establishing a National Food Safety Center in Iowa, more details are emerging about what that move means for the state and the broader ag industry. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is planning to locate the new center in Urbandale, creating a hub for administrative, technical, and support functions as part of a broader effort to modernize the agency and better align it with production...
Foreign U.S. farmland ownership grows, shrinks for China
Foreign ownership of U.S. farmland grew last year, according to a recent USDA report, but not for a key U.S. adversary. Foreign entities bought nearly 3-and-a-half million acres of U.S. farmland and forest in 2022, up more than eight percent to more than 43 million...
Growing opportunities in the field of precision agriculture
Precision agriculture, just like farming as a whole, has come a long way in recent years and will continue to develop quickly. And as the average U.S. citizen becomes further removed from the farm, modern farm technology might be surprising to a lot of people. Matt...
Ag economists’ 2024 expectations
Geopolitical factors, elections, and many other surprises await the agricultural economy in 2024. Farm Journal and Purdue University’s December Economists’ Monthly Monitor shows views slightly more optimistic than they were a month ago. The economists talked about...
Naig looks back at 2023 & ahead to 2024
It has become almost cliché to say that the year that is ending, has been a “strange one.” Ever since the Chinese Trade War, we have been saying that in agriculture. We were just fortunate to have the pandemic fall in 2020, and it gave us a reason to say that the...
Making “cents” of soil health practices
We all know that soil health practices make sense from a conservation perspective, but do they also make “cents” (or dollars) from a financial point of view? This will be one of many topics of discussion at the Practical Farmers of Iowa 2024 Annual Conference, which...
2024 will be a big year for dairy policy
Many opportunities for change and improvement in U.S. dairy policy have been delayed until 2024 or are in the formal rulemaking process. Danny Munch, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the farm bill extension has delayed work on some of the...
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More Ag News
New year farm bill funding boost not a given
Increased funding for the farm bill next year is not guaranteed. There is also no certainty that increased funding can be counted on for political support for a new five-year farm and nutrition bill. A streamlined budget process known as “reconciliation” allows the...
Iowa crop progress and condition report
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig commented on the Iowa Crop Progress and Condition Report released by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. The report is released weekly April through November. Additionally, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and...
USDA continues to learn about H5N1 vs HPAI
It feels like we have had a broken record going around and around during the spring and fall of the past few years. We have talked at length about High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). The main difference between the two is that when the virus jumped the species...
Make sure to heavily consider yield potential before replanting
The plentiful amount of rain we have received so far this crop season has been a blessing for the drought conditions across the state. In fact, Iowa is now entirely drought-free. However, receiving so much rain in a relatively short period of time also has some...
Middle East chefs and culinary students educated on U.S. beef
U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) Corporate Chef Germán Navarrete is based in Mexico City, but his talents are employed throughout the world. With support from USDA and the Beef Checkoff Program, Chef Navarrete recently conducted training sessions for chefs and...
