The Agribusiness Association of Iowa (AAI) is seeking to employ three (3) part-time individuals to serve as regionally-based liaisons between local ag retailer and agronomy companies and the association, including the newly-formed Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council (INREC).

Current AAI members will receive a full description of these open positions this week. Please look for our communications in your inbox. If you have questions please call 515-262-8323. 

A northwest Iowa farmer who serves as Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture has expressed an interest in becoming Iowa's next Lieutenant Governor.

Spirit Lake farmer Bill Northey says he would be willing to serve as Kim Reynolds' Lieutenant Governor, once she takes over as Governor replacing Governor Terry Branstad, who has been nominated by President-Elect Donald Trump to become Ambassador to China. [...] READ MORE.

Some assembly required. Those three words strike fear in the hearts of parents as Christmas approaches. It's always tempting to open the box of your child's new toy, set the instructions aside and start putting it together. More often than not, I've found that hasty approach leads to a critical failure at some point, forcing me to start the assembly process over - this time with instructions (and a frustrated and impatient child) directly in front of me.

It reminds me a little of Iowa's water quality challenges. There are some who want immediate results in the form of regulations that don't consider the differences affecting farms in different landscapes. It would be a little like attaching the wheels to little Johnny's new bike with a hammer because you didn't have a wrench handy. Farmers are using various tools to do their part in improving water quality - planting record acres of cover crops, installing bioreactors and planting saturated buffers. But not every tool will work on every farm. [...] READ MORE.

by: Iowa Public Radio

This week, just days before he says goodbye to his job, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack landed one last punch in a brawl that's gone on at his department since he got there eight long years ago.

He announced new  regulations that are intended to protect small farmers from mistreatment at the hands of meat packers, swine dealers, and poultry companies. Advocates for small farmers, including the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA,  praised it as an important step toward ending abuses of power by the handful of companies that dominate the meat industry. The National Pork Producers Council, on the other hand, was furious [...] READ MORE.

by: Wired

On Wednesday, the incoming chief executive showed his willingness to make good on his promises to keep ag exports booming and gut environmental regulations on farms. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Trump's pick to serve as ambassador to China, has been promoting trade between his state's massive hog and soybean farms and China since the 1980s, when Branstad served the first of his two stints as governor. Then there's Scott Pruitt, Trump's choice to run the EPA. The Oklahoma attorney general is most famous for his  climate change skepticism and  ties to the oil industry, but he's also tightly aligned with his state's farm interests.

Here's a quick rundown of why Trump's big Wednesday personnel choices amount to twin gifts to Big Ag [...] READ MORE.

Cropland in the Midwest is losing its value as the downturn in the agriculture economy continues, according to a number of surveys by agricultural economists. Record-high crop prices contributed to record-high land values in 2012 and 2013, but now, that party is over.

"Now what we have is [an] overproduction, oversupply issue," says Wendong Zhang, an Iowa State University economist.

During the boom years, Zhang says, farmers ramped up production so much that even considerable demand hasn't been enough to prevent a drop in commodity prices. That fall contributed to the bursting of the farmland bubble. [...] READ MORE.