A five-minute summary of AAI, regulation, and industry activities for members of the largest state agribusiness association in the nation. | |
New Survey Shows Farmers, General Public Support Crop Protection Tools | |
Modern Ag Alliance found that U.S. farmers and the general public strongly support crop protection tools amid litigation targeting these products. Additional key findings include extremely low levels of trust in trial lawyers and opposition to litigation that threatens U.S. agriculture, food prices, and food security.
At the state level, Iowans strongly support maintaining farmers’ access to critical crop protection products like glyphosate. This support extends across party lines, with majorities of Republicans and Democrats siding with farmers on nearly every question asked. Trial lawyers have extremely low levels of trust among Iowans. Meanwhile, farmers enjoy high levels of public trust.
View the full press release and survey results
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Iowa Learning Farms Webinar: Facilitating Fertilizer Planning for N Management with N-FACT | |
The Iowa Nitrogen Initiative team worked with agricultural organizations including the Agribusiness Association of Iowa and farmers across the state in development of the new N-FACT tool. Learn more about the tool at the webinar below.
DATE: Wednesday, March 12, 2025
TIME: 12:00 p.m. CDT
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Shortly before 12:00 p.m. CDT, click the link below or type the web address into your internet browser: https://iastate.zoom.us/join
Webinar ID: 999 3709 5398
In the webinar, “N-FACT: A New Decision Support System for N Fertilizer Management from the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative,” Mike Castellano, lead, Iowa Nitrogen Initiative and professor, Iowa State University, will introduce and provide an overview of the N-FACT (Nitrogen Fertilizer Application Consultation Tool) decision support system that leverages data from on-farm nitrogen rate trials with cropping systems modeling. He will highlight the functions and features that were designed for usability and to promote understanding of practices for management of N fertilizer in Iowa crop systems. He will demonstrate how operators can use N-FACT to help manage costs and productivity. Castellano encourages attendees to explore the tool before the webinar.
View the N-FACT tool
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Full Reimbursement Available to AAI Member Companies For May 22 ISU PCQI Training Class | |
The Agribusiness Association of Iowa will provide full reimbursement of class registration for member company employees who complete the Animal Food PCQI Training at Iowa State University. The reimbursement is made possible through grant funding provided to AAI for our members.
The PCQI class is a blended interactive course leading to the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance designation as a Preventive Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI) in compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Preventive Controls for Animal Food rule.
Important Dates and Information:
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Part 1 of the class is online and must be completed by May 15. Participants must provide a Part 1 completion certificate by the May 16 registration deadline.
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Part 2 of the class is May 22, 2025 from 8 AM to 5 PM in Ames, Iowa at the Iowa State University Kent Feed Mill and Grain Science Complex
- Participants fee for online portion is $200. Participant fee for in person portion is $400 per participant. Breaks and lunch are on site and included in the fee. Both fees are eligible for reimbursement.
Reimbursement is limited to 33 participants. AAI members can click below and enter code "AAI25" when completing the registration:
ISU Animal Food PCQI Training Registration
Reimbursement is available only to member companies which have renewed dues for the 2025 membership year. Iowa State University will provide AAI with a list of qualifying participants once the course is complete.
Contact Ben Drescher at 515.509.0940 or bdresche@iastate.edu for class information and details. Contact Heath DeYoung, AAI Membership Director, for questions about reimbursement at 515.868.0311 or hdeyoung@agribiz.org.
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Thank You For Your Membership! | |
As a member of AAI, you support the industry that is Creating Opportunities In Ag. Thank you for your membership and your commitment to the success of agribusiness in Iowa.
The following companies have recently joined or renewed their membership for the 2025 Membership Year.
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- Cargill
- CHS Agronomy
- Flying Farmer Aerial Application
- Lynch Family Companies
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- Nutrien Ag Solutions
- Syngenta
- Verdesian Life Sciences
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Not currently a member? Send us an email so we can follow up with your company and help you get connected to AAI. | |
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Iowa Nitrogen Initiative Quarterly Partnership Meeting
Attended by: Julie Kenney, AAI CEO; Ben Gleason, INREC Executive Director
Iowa State University Day at the Capitol
Attended by: Julie Kenney, AAI CEO
Member and Industry Visits
Visits by: Heath DeYoung, AAI Membership Director
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Register for the Next Certified Crop Adviser Testing Window | |
The Iowa Certified Crop Adviser (CCA) board would like to provide reminders of the testing timeframes for taking the CCA exams.
Next CCA Exam Testing Period - April 2-15, 2025
Deadline for registration - March 24, 2025
The exam can be scheduled to be taken any time between April 2 and April 15. The registration can be completed on the national CCA website:
https://www.certifiedcropadviser.org/exams
The Iowa CCA exam and the exam's performance objectives have been recently updated. The board recommends reviewing the updated performance objectives at Iowa Performance Objectives PDF.
In recent years, the CCA testing has changed from in-person testing to online window testing to on-demand testing. The national CCA board determined that on-demand testing was not the best method for the CCA exam. As a result, it has moved to online window testing. The exam is offered four times per year, and it can be taken at any scheduled time in a two-week window. There is a registration period before each window to schedule the test.
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Tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico became a reality Tuesday as President Trump proceeded with a plan he’s touted for months. As expected, those nations responded with tariffs of their own, raising considerable alarm in the agriculture world.
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall says farmers support the goals of ensuring security and fair trade with other nations, but additional tariffs, along with expected retaliatory tariffs, will take a toll on rural America. He notes the U.S. exported more than $83 billion in agricultural products to the three countries last year. Approximately 85% of the total U.S. potash supply – a key fertilizer ingredient – is imported from Canada.
“For the third straight year, farmers are losing money on almost every major crop planted,” Duvall said in a March 3 statement. “Adding even more costs and reducing markets for American agricultural goods could create an economic burden some farmers may not be able to bear. We ask the president to continue working with our international partners to find ways to resolve disagreements quickly, so farmers can focus on feeding families in America and abroad.”
[...] Read Full Story
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Consumers will find no relief from rising egg prices this year.
That’s the most recent scenario from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s forecast on overall food costs.
This week, the USDA’s Food Price Outlook summary report predicted all food prices will increase and “rise slightly faster than the historical average rate of growth.”
But it’s egg prices that has everyone digging deeper into their wallets.
On the retail level, the USDA report forecasts a 41 percent rise in egg prices this year. If that rate holds, that means eggs could cost nearly $7 a dozen based on January’s Consumer Price Index report price of nearly $5 a dozen.
Egg costs for consumers were 53 percent higher in January 2025 than in January 2024, surpassing previous peak prices in 2023, the USDA said in its forecast report. In January, retail egg prices increased by nearly 14 percent after jumping more than 8 percent from December 2024, based on January’s Consumer Price Index report.
[...] Read Full Story
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The Department of Government Efficiency has canceled 748 leases for office space, including seven in Iowa, a review of federal data shows.
Shrinking the size of the federal government was among President Donald Trump’s campaign promises. He tasked billionaire Elon Musk and the new White House department, known as DOGE, with finding ways to reduce costs. A quick way to do that is slashing the amount of money the federal government spends on leased space.
According to the DOGE web page, as of March 5, the contracts that have been canceled leased nearly 9.6 million square feet of office and other spaces. The canceled leases were for space located in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, a review shows.
The website estimates over $468 million in savings from the lease cancellations, which affected many federal departments including the Internal Revenue Service, National Park Service, Small Business Administration and Bureau of Indian Affairs.
[...] Read Full Story
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Source: Brownfield Ag News
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Attorneys following the Corporate Transparency Act say the on-again-off again deadline to file Beneficial Ownership Information reports is off again.
Iqan Fadaei and Christopher Seamster represent businesses including farms at the Michael Best law firm. Fadaei tells Brownfield even though a U.S. District Court in Texas stayed its prior enforcement order, which would have again required reporting beneficial ownership data by March 21st, the U.S. Treasury’s enforcement division made an announcement Thursday night, February 27th. “That agency is called FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. They published an announcement stating that they are essentially not going to enforce the Corporate Transparancy Act until they give further notice.”
Fadaei says as of now, companies are not required to make filings under the Corporate Transparency Act.
Seamster tells Brownfield the rule probably is not going away, but it appears FinCEN needs more information before requiring the beneficial ownership filings. “They need to provide additional clarity on, you know, the application of the rule, and is it overreaching and the nature of what’s being disclosed so I think there are still some open questions that need to be addressed at this point.”
[...] Read Full Story
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