A five-minute summary of AAI, regulation, and industry activities for members of the largest state agribusiness association in the nation. | |
USDA Announces Amendments to the U.S. Standards for Soybeans | |
Effective September 1, 2023, Soybeans of Other Colors will be removed as an official grade-determining factor under the U.S. Standards for Soybeans.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the change today. USDA established the soybean standards under the U.S. Grain Standard Standards Act to help market soybeans and historically included “Soybeans of Other Colors” (SBOC) as a grading factor for determining soybean quality.
USDA received numerous requests from representatives of U.S. soybean producers and grain traders to remove SBOC as a grade-determining factor for describing the quality of yellow soybeans (e.g., U.S. No 1, U.S. No. 2 etc.). In response, on March 31, 2023, USDA published a proposed rule in the Federal Register, inviting public comment on the proposal to remove SBOC as a grade-determining factor. USDA received 14 comments in total, and all were in favor of the change to the standards.
This change is effective September 1, 2023. SBOC will remain available for informational purposes only upon request.
The final rule was published in the Federal Register on July 14, 2023. Any questions should be sent to Barry Gomoll, Grain Marketing Specialist, at Barry.L.Gomoll@usda.gov.
View final rule here:
U.S. Standards for Soybeans final rule
| |
Advisory Council July Meeting Includes Ag Education, Prop 12, and AAI Updates | |
Proposition 12, ag in education, and industry updates were on the agenda for the July meeting of the Agribusiness Advisory Council. Members of the group met this week at the AAI Main Office for their semi-annual meeting to connect with some current industry topics and reconnect with agribusiness peers.
Providing educational materials that clearly and accurately portray agriculture in an academic setting has been an ongoing goal of the Iowa Ag Literacy Foundation (IALF). Kelly Foss, Executive Director of IALF, gave an overview of the activities of the organization which included how they engage teachers to provide classroom ready materials that meet core curriculum requirements, and how they work with teachers through hands-on training at farms and ag businesses to provide continuing education. More information at https://www.iowaagliteracy.org/
The Advisory Council also heard from Eldon McAfee, Brick Gentry Law Firm, and Ben Nuelle, Iowa Pork, about the US Supreme Court ruling on California's Proposition 12. McAfee provided background on the California law, and outlined some of the implications for Iowa. He said the law sounds straight forward, but the enforcement mechanisms and some aspects of what the rules restrict are unclear. Additionally, the way the law is written affects international movement of pigs into the US from Canada (and elsewhere), which brings up additional legal questions. McAfee and Nuelle both said there is more to come from this issue.
In addition to the special guest presentations, AAI staff provided overviews of recent educational events, Showcase statistics and plans, upcoming events, and the past legislative session.
The Agribusiness Advisory Council is composed of past board members and retired agribusiness leaders who desire to maintain a connection with the industry and stay informed of the activities of the association. If you would like to become a member of the Advisory Council, contact Sally Thompson at sally@agribiz.org.
| |
Okoboji Golf Outing Winning Team | |
|
Congratulations to the SoilView team who won the AAI Golf Outing at Okoboji on July 13!
Thanks to everyone who golfed and enjoyed a great day out on the course. And special thank you to our Okoboji Sponsors:
- Lunch Sponsor - Nutrien Ag Solutions Wholesale
- Cart Sponsor - Mosaic
- Golf Ball Sponsor - Iowa CCA Program
- Snack Cart Sponsor - Nationwide Agribusiness
- Champions Sponsor - CoBank
- Pin Prize Sponsor - Farm Credit Leasing
- Hole Sponsors - Oakland, Bayer Crop Science, Gardiner + Company, Calcium Products, Associated Benefits Corporation, StoneX, Vive, and StateLine Cooperative
The next AAI Golf Outing is on August 24 at Amana.
| |
Upcoming Golf Outings - Register Now For August 24 and September 13 | |
|
July 13 - Okoboji, Iowa
Emerald Hills Golf Course
| |
|
Aug. 24 - Amana, Iowa
Amana Colonies Golf Course
| |
|
Sept. 13 - Ames, Iowa
Coldwater Golf Links
| |
|
Golfer Benefits
- Delicious lunch
- Entry into prize raffle
- Prizes for the longest and closest shots
- Trophy and prizes for the winning team
- Four Hole In One opportunities on every course! Win cash or prizes!
- Complimentary soft drinks and snacks on the course
That's all in addition to the fun to be had with your colleagues as you support the success of the agribusiness industry in Iowa.
| |
Summer Crops Workshop - August 3 | |
Showcase Attendees: $50
Non-Attendees: $75
LOCATION:
Jeff & Deb Hansen Agriculture Student Learning Center
Iowa State University | 2508 Mortensen Rd | Ames, Iowa
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM | Lunch included
UPDATED - Summer Workshop Sessions & Speakers
Batch & Build: Implementing Edge of Field Practices with Conservation Agronomists
Heartland Co-op
Biological Seed Treatments
Marcus Jones | Land O Lakes, Senior R&D Manager
Seed Corn Pollen Harvesting
Sarah Pirolli | Power Pollen, CCO
Jason Cope | Power Pollen, Co-founder
Panel Discussion: Cover Crops and Related Equipment
Dean Sponheim - John Nelson - Nate Legler
See &Spray Equipment and Technology
John Deere
Biological soil testing
Prasanna Kankanala | Trace Genomics, Director of R&D
| |
|
National Laboratory for Ag and Environment Stakeholder Meeting
In Attendance:
Ben Gleason, INREC Executive Director; Renee Hansen, Sukup, AAI Board of Directors
| | |
|
August 3
Ag Professional & CCA Summer Workshop
8:00 AM | Hansen Ag Student Learning Center, Ames, Iowa
August 24
AAI Golf Outing - Amana Colonies Golf Club
9:00 AM Shotgun Start | Amana, Iowa
September 13
AAI Golf Outing - Coldwater Golf Links
10:00 AM Shotgun Start | Ames, Iowa
| |
INREC Hiring Project Coordinator for Batch and Build Projects | |
The Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council (INREC) is partnering with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa Pork Producers Association, Iowa Select Farms, and other partners on a “batch and build” project. The Pig Farmer Batch and Build Project targets bioreactor and saturated buffer implementation by pig farmers and landowners who utilize manure as a fertilizer source in targeted watersheds. These conservation practices are very effective at reducing nitrate loss from tile drainage.
INREC is seeking candidates to apply for a project coordinator position, who will serve as the primary contact and organizer for project implementation activities including recruiting farmers and landowners, surveying sites, planning construction, and enrolling participants in financial assistance programs.
Download the position description: INREC Project Coordinator
For more information or to apply, contact Ben Gleason, INREC Executive Director, at bgleason@agribiz.org.
| |
EPA Seeks Nominations for the Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee | |
EPA is accepting nominations for membership on the Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC). Established in 1995, the PPDC is a diverse group of stakeholders chartered under the Federal Advisory Committee Act to provide feedback to EPA on various pesticide regulatory, policy, and program implementation issues.
To maintain a broad representation of members for the PPDC, nominees will be selected from among the following:
- Federal, state, local and tribal governments;
- Pesticide industry and trade associations;
- Pesticide users;
- Grower and commodity groups;
- Environmental and public interest groups;
- Farm worker organizations;
- Public health organizations;
- Animal welfare groups; and
- Academia.
Nominations must be emailed or postmarked no later than August 10, 2023, and can be submitted by email to the Designated Federal Official (DFO) listed below with the subject line “PPDC Membership” or by mail to:
Jeffrey Chang
PPDC Designated Federal Officer
Office of Pesticide Programs
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20460
For additional information, read the Federal Register notice on nominations for the PPDC or contact the DFO, Jeffrey Chang (chang.jeffrey@epa.gov) or call (202) 566-2213.
Additional information about PPDC
| | |
 |  | The herbicide glyphosate is used on an average of 87% of U.S. corn, soybean, and cotton acres. It has proven to be an effective, cost-efficient weed control tool that’s enabled farmers to add conservation practices like no-till and cover crops—which reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions—to millions of additional acres year after year. However, a recent series of challenges in the U.S. Court of Appeals and ongoing public debate has led many to question what a future without glyphosate would look like. Aimpoint Research, a global strategic intelligence firm, recently released a new report, “A Future Without Glyphosate," exploring the complexities of glyphosate’s impact on our agricultural system, farmers’ livelihoods, the economy, and the environment if the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. was no longer available. Ultimately, the report concluded that U.S. farmers and the agricultural system would eventually adapt, but the near-term consequences to the economy, environment, and farmers would be costly and far-reaching.
“Ongoing public debate about glyphosate has led some to question what the impacts would be if it were no longer available and Aimpoint Research is uniquely suited to develop that future scenario,” said Colonel (retired) Mark Purdy, Aimpoint Research chief operations officer. “We leveraged multiple research methods, including open-source research, economic modeling, subject-matter expert interviews and military-style wargaming techniques to understand the impact of glyphosate on our agricultural system.”
If glyphosate were no longer available:
- U.S. agriculture would see increased tillage and decreased cover crops, potentially leading to the release of up to 34 million tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of 6.8 million cars or nearly 36.5 million acres of forests.
[...] Read Full Story
| |
|
Every year, grain bin and other confinement space accidents send shockwaves through rural communities.
A report released by Purdue University shows a disturbing trend related of accidents in agricultural confined spaces. Last year saw a roughly 40 percent increase in reported cases, according to the university’s 2022 Summary of U.S. Agricultural Confined Space-Related Injuries and Fatalities.
The Purdue University Agricultural Safety and Health Program releases the report annually, summarizing the frequency and causes of confined space and grain entrapment incidences.
Data collected comes from reported cases, so researchers said that it’s important to note that all numbers are approximate. In 2022, 83 cases involving confined agricultural spaces were reported — 24 were fatal, and 59 were nonfatal. The total incidents represent a 40.7 percent increase over the 59 cases reported in 2021.
Of these confinement accident and death incidences, livestock waste handling facilities, entanglement inside confined spaces, falls from confined space structures, and grain dust explosions or fires were indicated.
In addition to the confinement cases, there were 42 reported grain-related entrapment, representing a 44.8 percent increase over 2021. This year had the highest number of reported grain entrapments over a decade.
[...] Read Full Story
| |
|
So-called "push-pull" agricultural practices that aim to improve crop yields by minimizing the use of synthetic herbicides and insecticides increases yields and prevents pests from adapting over time, a study shows.
Researchers on the study, published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, assessed the extent to which the introduction of the push-pull system in western Kenya has impacted variations in crop yields and pest abundance for insects and parasitic weeds over time.
According to the researchers, the push-pull system uses two companion crops alongside a main crop such as maize, with the "push" plant (such as a legume) planted in rows in between maize and the "pull" plant (such as Napier grass) planted as a perimeter around the edges of the maize field.
The "push" plant repels adult female moths when they look for a place to lay their eggs. The females then travel to the edge of the field and are attracted to the "pull" plants, which attract them to lay their eggs but are poor hosts, thereby leading to at least 80 percent of the larvae dying before reaching adulthood.
"The key finding of our study is that push-pull actually gets better the longer it is established," said Tim Luttermoser, the study's lead researcher and a doctoral student at Cornell University's Department of Entomology in the United States.
[...] Read Full Story
| |
Source: Progressive Farmer
| |
When a grocery shopper buys a 5-pound bag of all-purpose flour, paying as little as $2.50, they're paying for much more than the value of the milled wheat inside the bag. A bushel of wheat being harvested in Kansas today is worth $7.80, but 5 pounds of hard red winter wheat is only 1/12th of a bushel. So, if the contents of the bag of grocery store flour were simply whole ground wheat, then 5 pounds of it would be worth only $0.65, and the rest of the price tag ($1.85) would be paying for the retailer's operations, the packaging, and all the various steps of transportation, handling, storage and milling that turned the wheat into flour and got the flour from the mill into the grocery shopper's hands.
It would only take a 72-square-foot patch of ground to grow 5 pounds' worth of wheat -- an area 8 feet wide by 9 feet long, for instance, if the yield is 50 bushels per acre (bpa). The harvesting crews sweeping across Kansas this July can harvest a 5-pound, $0.65 serving of wheat in less than half a second, travelling 4.5 miles per hour with a 30-foot combine header.
All that is to say, when Americans' monthly grocery bills are rising month by month -- and they have been, amid persistent inflation -- well, it's not necessarily the costs of the underlying food commodities that are driving those price tags. The spike in the price of eggs around the turn of the year, for instance, wasn't a response to higher feed costs in the corn and feed wheat markets. Although the grain markets did hit a peak the previous spring, that alone may not have shifted the price of eggs at all, if it hadn't been for the outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza that devastated the nation's flock of egg layers.
[...] Read Full Story
| |
NOTE: If you unsubscribe below you will no longer receive ANY emails from AAI, including important member specific information and notices. To unsubscribe from just this type of email (i.e. newsletter or event marketing), select Update Profile below. | | | | |
