Iowa

The Midwest lost 1.06 percent of its farmland in the two decades ending in 2021; development accounted for half of the loss, said three Ohio State University analysts on Monday. "The role of large urban areas is paramount, as 81 percent of land lost to development in the eight states occurred within metropolitan statistical areas," which are regions with a core city of at least 50,000 people and strong ties to its surrounding communities.

"Congress needs to take the plunge" in the new farm bill and "insist on conservation practices where it has, up until now, asked for cooperation while dangling a bit of cash," said the Des Moines Register, published in the No. 1 corn and hog state. USDA's soil and water conservation programs traditionally have relied on voluntary cooperation from farmers, aided by cost-sharing funds, but progress is unacceptably slow, said the newspaper in an editorial.

A dairy herd in northwestern Iowa is infected with the H5N1 avian flu virus, said state agriculture secretary Mike Naig on Wednesday. He called on dairy and poultry farmers to “harden their biosecurity defenses” against the virus.

Bird flu was confirmed at an egg farm with 4.2 million hens in Sioux County in northwestern Iowa, the first outbreak in the state this year, said agriculture officials. The Sioux County farm is one of the largest egg farms in Iowa, the No. 1 egg-producing state.

The vast 3rd Congressional District of Nebraska and the 4th Congressional District of Iowa, separated by the Missouri River, are the top farm districts in America, based on the value of their crops and livestock, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday.

In FERN’s latest story, published with The New Republic, Tom Philpott makes the case for replacing corn grown for ethanol, in Iowa and elsewhere, with fields of solar panels. “For all the backbiting and vitriol, the main candidates in the recent Iowa GOP presidential caucus agreed on a lot …

Former president Donald Trump won 60 percent of the rural vote in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses, well above his statewide total of 51 percent. But his victory Monday in the first-in-the-nation test of voter support for presidential candidates was built on the vote in towns, where most Iowans live, said a Daily Yonder analysis.

Pointing at China, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds asked state lawmakers for stronger enforcement of laws that limit foreign ownership of farmland. “Let’s make sure that American soil remains in American hands,” she said during an annual address to the legislature.

Agricultural land values in the Midwest rose by an average of 5 percent during the past year, the smallest gain in three years, said ag bankers taking part in a Chicago Federal Reserve Bank survey. While Indiana notched a 16 percent increase, land values in Iowa were stagnant and one lender expressed surprise that land values did not decline in the Hawkeye State, said the Chicago Fed's quarterly AgLetter.

Navigator CO2 said it canceled its 1,350-mile carbon pipeline because of "unpredictable ... regulatory and government processes" in the five Midwestern states the pipeline would cross. The Heartland Greenway pipeline was among three projects proposed to capture carbon dioxide, mainly from ethanol plants, and transport it through pipelines for injection thousands of feet underground.

High commodity prices and low interest rates helped drive farmland values in Iowa to an average of $11,411 an acre, up 17 percent from 2021, when they rose 29 percent, said Iowa State University’s annual Land Value Survey.

Two Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee, Reps. Tom O’Halleran of Arizona and Cindy Axne of Iowa, are in uphill fights for re-election against Republicans, according to political handicapper Sabato’s Crystal Ball.