Thanks to farmers’ efforts, things are going swimmingly in northeast Iowa creek

These are good times to be a brown trout in northeast Iowa’s Tete des Morts Creek. And it’s also a good time to be a trout fisherman.

That’s because farmers in the area have voluntarily stepped up to improve the water quality in the beautiful stream which meanders through the hilly countryside in Iowa’s Jackson and Dubuque counties, passing near the historic Luxembourger town St. Donatus,  before  spilling into the Mississippi River.

 Over the past few years farmers in the watershed have planted buffer strips and grassed waterways to catch sediment and keep it from reaching the 16-mile-long stream.  A growing number of area farmers have sown cover crops to hold the soil in place over the winter months. Livestock farmers have constructed monoslope barns to control manure runoff and keep their animals away from the water. And farmers are installing a number of other conservation practices, including sediment basins, stream bank stabilizers and rotational grazing systems as part of the water-quality improvement project.

“The landowners are really stepping up and volunteering to put their practices in place, nobody is forcing them to do it,” according to Michelle Turner of the Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District, who is coordinator of the Tete des Morts Creek watershed project. “You would be hard pressed to find a field that doesn’t have some type of conservation practice applied, such as farming on the contour, using minimum tillage, or conservation crop rotations.”

Voluntary conservation efforts, like those by farmers in the Tete Des Morts Creek watershed, are the key to the success of the ground-breaking Iowa Nutrient Reduction strategy, designed to provide farmers with scientific and technical information to help them determine the types of conservation practices that work best on their farm to save soil and reduce losses of nitrogen and phosphorus.

These conservation investments like those on the Tete des Morts are not cheap. Over the life of the project, farmers there have invested more than $600,000 to help improve water quality in the creek and his tributaries, Turner said. When government cost share is added to that, more than $1.7 million has been spent on conservation improvements, she said. And many farmers in the watershed are also doing conservation projects on their own to save time and red tape.

 But the conservation work is paying off in cleaner, clearer water. To date sediment reaching Tete des Morts Creek has been reduced by more than 5,300 tons per year and the project is well on the way to its objective of a reduction of 7,500 tons of sediment per year.

But perhaps the best signs of progress in the Tete des Morts project are swimming below the surface. That’s where brown trout are thriving and reproducing in the stream, said Dan Kirby, a fish biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. .

The IDNR spent years stocking trout in Tete des Morts Creek without much success at establishing a sustainable population, Kirby said. But a few years ago, as the work from the watershed project started to take hold and water quality improved, the biologist found that the trout were beginning to thrive and reproduce. The fish are becoming large and numerous enough that the area is becoming a destination for anglers, he noted.

“It’s really exciting to see that,” Kirby said. “It shows that we are making progress when we see fish that are mature enough to reproduce and eggs that can survive in the stream. And it really gives you tangible proof that we are seeing improvement in Tete des Morts Creek.”

 Written by Dirck Steimel
Dirck is the news services manager for Iowa Farm Bureau

 

Court ruling could force farms to close gates to visitors

Farms in Iowa are almost synonymous with hospitality. Pretty much every farmer I know is more than happy to host visitors, whether they are from a local school, a civic group or from countries half-way around the world.

The visits, farmers know, are a great way to help urban folks get a better feel for today’s agriculture. And visits help urban dwellers to build a connection between a real farmer and the food on their supermarket shelves.

But in Iowa those farm visits are in serious jeopardy, thanks to a recent ruling by the state Supreme Court.

The ruling by Iowa’s top court dramatically reduced any liability protection for landowners who allow visitors on their land to hunt, fish or just learn how the farm works. Unless action is taken in the Iowa Legislature to restore the farm liability protection, legal experts say landowners now have little choice but lock the farm gate and severely restrict visitors.

This is a drastic change from how things have worked for decades in Iowa. Back in the early 1970s, the Iowa Legislature enacted a “recreational use” statue which provided private landowners an incentive to open up their property for recreational purposes. The statute offered landowners limited liability protection, giving them the peace of mind that they could allow visitors on their farms without the fear of a financially-crippling lawsuit.

Agri-tourism spots, such as apple orchards and pumpkin patches, also had liability protection as long as they did not charge a fee for folks to visit.

But the Iowa Supreme Court basically tossed out that protection with its ruling.

The court said that a northeast Iowa dairy farm could not claim liability protection in a suit that was filed by a chaperone injured during a kindergarten field trip. The court ruled the dairy farm, which had been hosting kindergarteners for 25 years, was liable for the injuries because the chaperone was not engaged in an activity specifically covered in the state statute. The activity in question: frolicking in the hayloft.

In its ruling, the court set some pretty high hurdles for landowners to be able to claim recreational liability protection. For example, landowners can be protected only if they open up their land to the general public, basically turning their private land into a quasi-park for anyone who wants to stop by. It also said landowners are only protected if the recreational activity occurs outdoors, not in a barn or shed.

And strangely, the Supreme Court ruled landowners lose liability protection if they act as tour guides on the farm. So, under the court’s logic, farmers are better off letting children and visitors run around the farm unsupervised, instead of guiding them and making sure they stay out of danger.

Iowa farmers who ask visitors to sign waivers won’t have much protection either, legal experts say. The waivers, they say, offer only limited liability from lawsuits filed by adults, while a separate Iowa Supreme Court ruling said waivers signed by a parent for a child’s activities are unenforceable.

So don’t be surprised if you find locked gates at your favorite fishing hole or if your child’s annual field trip to the farm is cancelled this year. Unless lawmakers correct the Supreme Court ruling, Iowa farmers really have little choice but to keep most visitors away.

Written by Dirck Steimel
Dirck is the news services manager for Iowa Farm Bureau

Culinary adventures close to home

It was Spring Break and while our friends planned exotic beach vacations or saved for cruises, we knew we would be spending our time right here, in Iowa.  How bad could it be?  Last year at this time, we set a record high and Iowa was actually warmer than many traditional Spring Break vacation spots.  

That’ll teach me.   It snowed nearly every day.  Even my dogs didn’t want to go outside.  So, I made a vow with my teenager that we wouldn’t just sit inside and sulk away the hours with Netflix; we’d find ways to experience something new, right here in Iowa.  We would go on a ‘culinary adventure.’

Iowa is known for its many family livestock farms and the area restaurants menus are a salute to passionate, picky carnivores; it’s easy to find amazing steaks, juicy pork chops and flavorful poultry dishes.  Iowa is so passionate about meat, it has festivals dedicated to its consumption, (BaconFest, anyone?) which sell out, in minutes. 

So, imagine my surprise to find 25 sushi restaurants in Des Moines!  Consumers want choices; choices in steak, pork, sure, but apparently they want choices in seafood, too.  I began with a couple tame versions of ‘California rolls’, and then went bold: scallops, nestled on a bed of couscous, and….something black?  My daughter, wizened by the culinary adventures on cable TV, watched me pick at my plate with a raised eyebrow.  “Mom, that’s squid ink; I saw Andrew Zimmerman eat that on his ‘Bizarre Foods’ show!”  Seriously?  Squid ink, in Des Moines?  Well, since I always preach the value of embracing choices, and this was to be a ‘culinary adventure,’ I had to eat it. 

In the end, I learned two things: trying new things teaches you a little bit more about yourself and that’s a good thing.  Second, I learned that Iowa restaurants, just like Iowa farmers, are surprisingly diverse.  You want a grass-fed steak? They raise it.  You want affordable, juicy pork chops?  Organic heirloom tomatoes? They’ve got that, too.  In fact, there are even some creative Webster City farmers raising striped bass in a former hog farrowing barn. http://tinyurl.com/clqmkc6 .  Choices you want; choices you got, along with a great opportunity to learn more about the men and women who provide diverse food options for your family.  After all, it’s not just about the food, it’s about the people you share it with and the stories of the farmers who grow your food, are learning opportunities that will last you a lifetime.  

  Written by Laurie Johns
Laurie is Public Relations Manager for the Iowa Farm Bureau.

A necessary safety net for erratic weather

It’s certainly been a crazy, topsy-turvy 12 months of weather here in Iowa, hasn’t it?

Last weekend, as I watched snow blow around my yard, my mind went back to a Sunday afternoon exactly a year earlier when I was on a long bike ride wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Last year I worried about sunburn, this year the primary concern was frost bite.

And then there was last summer. After years of serious flooding, Iowa was scorched by the worst drought in decades. The hot, dry weather scorched lawns, withered crops and made life pretty miserable all around.

While we talk about the weather all the time, for most of us it’s not really a factor in our daily lives or how we make a living. About the only weather-related adjustments most of us need to make is which coat to wear and whether to grab an umbrella as we head to work.

But weather is a big deal for farmers. Their economic fortunes are tied directly to the weather, no matter how unpredictable it can be. They invest more dollars every year to plant and nurture their fields. So when a drought or flood damages crops, it hits farmers’ right in the pocketbook.

That’s why the risk protection offered by the crop insurance program is so important for farmers and, really, for all of Iowa.

Farmers rely on crop insurance to protect them from disasters like the 2012 drought. They pay insurance companies premiums up front, just like everyone does when they insure their car or house. And like a car or homeowners coverage, crop insurance only covers farmers’ losses when the harvest falls well short of expectations.

Lately some articles in the media have speculated that Iowa farmers are making unfair profits on crop insurance. That’s not what I see.

Actually, most years the premiums Iowa farmers pay to purchase crop insurance far exceed what they ever get back in payouts. Even after the drought last year, the farmers I talked with received some of the first insurance payouts in their farming careers. Others didn’t get any payouts after all because their crops produced more grain than expected and it allowed them to break even.

And the dollars from those insurance payments aren’t lining farmers’ pockets. Farmers use them to buy seed, feed and other farm supplies, along with groceries, clothes and all of the other goods every family needs. And that helped propel Iowa’s overall economy forward in 2012, even with the devastating drought.

In an era of erratic weather crop insurance provides farmers, and all of Iowa, a vital and necessary safety net.

 Written by Dirck Steimel
Dirck is the news services manager for Iowa Farm Bureau

 

 

 

 

 

Every day is ag day for farmers

March 19 is officially National Ag Day, set aside to celebrate farmers and food production in America. Different organizations have planned breakfasts, dialogues and other programs for National Ag Day. But most farmers celebrated agriculture like they do every day of the year- they put their boots on and went outside to care for their livestock.

You see, farmers don’t get days off, even National Ag Day. They can’t call in sick to work if they feel ill or take a vacation day without considering first the needs of their livestock and their entire farm.

Though National Ag Day is celebrated only one day per year, I think about farmers more often than that. As I think of my daily routine, I think of the many people, several of them farmers, who play a part in growing the food I consume, the cotton for the clothes I wear, and the corn that goes into the ethanol that fuels my car and takes me to and from work. And I’m grateful for the farmers, like my parents, who work even if they feel ill and consider the needs of their livestock before arranging a well-deserved vacation.

Ag day or not they will be out there doing their work.

Written by Bethany Pint.
Bethany is an Ag Commodities Writer for Iowa Farm Bureau.

The Iowa Farm Bureau has always believed in the importance of Iowa’s young people. They are the life blood of our communities and a promise for our future. For years, we’ve supported student achievement in academics, the arts and athletics while encouraging the leaders of tomorrow through our sponsorship of the Iowa High School Athletic Association, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and the Iowa Hall of Pride.

One of the best places to see the leaders of tomorrow is at the state’s high school basketball tournaments, held each March in Des Moines. Check out these shots from the 2013 state tournaments from Iowa Farm Bureau’s award-winning photographer, Gary Fandel.

For more information on IFBF’s support Iowa’s youth, click here.

Maple syrup, a sure sign that spring is coming in Iowa

After a late February surprise winter storm blanketed the state in fresh snow, I’ve been on the lookout for any signs that spring is indeed on the way.

While I haven’t seen a robin in the snowdrifts yet, we are getting closer to maple syrup season in Iowa, one of the first sure signs of spring.

Starting in March, several maple syrup festivals kick off across the state, where Iowans can eat their fill of pancakes while also learning more about how maple syrup is made.

Maple syrup production dates back to pioneer times here in Iowa. Native Americans were the first to tap Iowa’s maple trees, and many of these same maple trees still exist in pockets of eastern Iowa.

Iowa is home to more than 50 maple syrup farms, producing about 953 gallons of maple syrup annually, according to the most recent 2007 Census of Agriculture.

For many Iowa farmers, tapping maple trees in the early spring provides an off-season income before they’re back out in the fields planting corn and soybeans.

Iowa farmers collect maple syrup much like our ancestors did, using hand-powered drills to tap into the trees and wood-fired evaporators to boil the clear sap into amber-colored maple syrup.

Maple trees are ready to tap when the daytime temperatures rise above freezing, but the nighttime temperatures dip back below freezing.

Maple syrup varies in color depending on when it was tapped, from light brown in the late winter to deep brown in early spring. The syrup is graded according to its color, not its quality. Grade A syrup is light amber, while grade B syrup is darker and thicker.

Although maple syrup is a sweetener, it does offer nutritional benefits. Maple syrup contains calcium, potassium and small amounts of iron and phosphorus, according to the University of Vermont.

You can also use maple syrup as an alternative to sugar in your favorite recipes. Cornell University recommends replacing 1 cup of granulated sugar with 1 cup of maple syrup. Light-colored maple syrup will add a mild flavor to a recipe, while dark-amber syrup will add more noticeable maple flavor.

If you’re looking for a maple syrup recipe to try at home, Midwest Living magazine has a great collection of recipes on its website: http://www.midwestliving.com/food/comfort/maple-syrup-recipes-midwest/.

 Written by Teresa Bjork
Teresa is a features Writer for the Iowa Farm Bureau