A new plan for Iowa agriculture seeks to increase the state’s production of food rather than ethanol and animal feed, the Iowa Food System Coalition announced at a Monday press conference.

The plan, known as Setting the Table for All Iowans, outlines the coalition’s policy goals which include producing more locally grown food, getting more young people to become farmers and providing more financial assistance to farmers.

Chris Schwartz, executive director of the coalition, said the plan is an opportunity to positively impact farmers, the economy and the local community.

“There’s room to grow and strengthen our agricultural tradition as well as our collective health and our economy,” Schwartz said at the press conference.

Director of Grinnell Farm to Table food hub Tommy Hexter said many commodity farmers are struggling because most of the profits are going toward the middlemen like seed, equipment and marketing companies. 

However, Hexter said selling produce locally cuts out most middlemen and leads to more money going into farmers’ pockets.

“Setting the Table for All Iowans provides an opportunity to build that system where Iowa’s farmers and small business owners can truly thrive,” Hexter said in the press conference.

Iowa leads ethanol production

According to data from the Iowa Farm Bureau, about 50%-70% of Iowa’s corn production is used to make ethanol compared to the national average of about 35%-40%. Iowa alone accounts for nearly 30% of the nation’s ethanol production.

In 2023, Iowa produced about 4.6 billion gallons of ethanol.

The plan also focuses on how to retain and attract farming talent to Iowa through investments in obtaining refrigerated trucks, increasing the number of rural grocery stores and providing needed equipment to small businesses.

“This plan provides us a pathway to collaborate and really support one another,” Senior Program Director at Iowa Valley RC&D Giselle Bruskewitz said.

President of the Iowa Farmers Union Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation family farmer, said investments like those are vital for the Iowa agriculture industry where there are more farmers above the age of 65 than below the age of 35.

“We know that the oldest generation of Iowans owns over two-thirds of Iowa’s farmland,” Lehman said. “We need to invest in those opportunities for a more diverse and younger set of leadership opportunities for people in farming.”

Over the past two years, the Iowa Food System Coalition has organized a Food and Farm Day at the Iowa Capitol and invited legislators and state agencies to a food policy summit.

One of the next steps for the coalition is to educate legislators about the plan so it can be used as a guide to create state policies, Schwartz said.

We returned from our three-week sojourn to Alaska to find our property overrun by Japanese Beetles. Dang! Just what I didn’t need, along with everything else that required immediate post-vacation attention: a weedy garden, a tub full of mail, plants to water, bills to pay, laundry to warsh, groceries to buy because there was nothing to eat in the house, Buddy and Stormy to pick up at the vet boarder, phone calls to return, sleep to catch up on, and an Alaska high to come down from. Japanese Beetles pulled me back to reality real quick.

The beetles seem to be a little early this year. I thought they were more of a mid-July nuisance. It must be the weather. And I thought that maybe I had gotten rid of the annual Japanese Beetle infestation by spreading grub control on our yard, since they come up out of the ground near by. Guess not.

I decided this year I would spray them. Last year I set up these Japanese Beetle traps around the property, and they were effective. I must have captured 10 jillion Japanese Beetles, and gave them to a neighbor to feed her chickens. However, I ran into another neighbor who thanked me for keeping the Japanese Beetles away from his property.

He told me that the pheromone the traps use attracts beetles in a 5 mile radius. I didn’t want to do that again. But I hate using insecticide because it also kills the insects you don’t want killed, like butterflies, bees and praying mantises. Then birds eat the dead insects. Hmm. The dilemma. But I had to do something fast. Literally, a major chunk of our vegetation was being destroyed before our eyes: the aronia bushes, grape vines, fruit trees, rose bushes, hydrangeas, even our rhubarb, asparagus, and pin-oak tree. I went for the insecticide.

This year, I have a sprayer that attaches to the rear of the tractor. I use it for spraying weeds and fertilizing the lawn. It’s a lot faster than using a water-hose sprayer that I have to drag all over our yard. The tractor sprayer made short work of the Japanese beetles.

It got me to thinking about locusts. Where are the locusts? This was supposed to be the year of the two different kinds hatching at once. I have seen or heard nary a locust on the Empty Nest farm. I’ve seen a few in past years, but none this year. I know other areas of the state are seeing the swarm (ha, ha) of locusts. Pictures are all over Facebook, I mean, Meta, excuse me. I have fond memories of locusts as a kid.

We lived on a tree-lined street, and the evening air would be filled with the buzzing of locusts. It was a comforting sound, one that I remember going to sleep to, in the days before air conditioning, when we left windows open at night. Some of the locusts would even visit during the night, and be clinging to the screen when I woke in the morning.“Wake up, sleepy head!” I collected their empty shells and stuck them on my finger like a ring.

The field across the road from us has something green and grassy looking growing in it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Finally, while getting the mail, I walked over to the field and had a look-see. What in tarnation? I pulled a stem of the plant, laden with bearded heads pointing down. It was something I didn’t recognize. I took it into the house and showed Ginnie.

She has an app on her phone that identifies plants, flowers, shrubs and trees. She held the plant up to her phone. Voila, it’s oats! Gee willickers, I haven’t seen oats since I was a kid. Back in my day, most of the farmers raised oats. There was what we called, “Kennedy Oats.”

It was part of the Soil Bank program (a forerunner of CRP). But oats have taken the back seat to the dual powers of corn and beans. I’m wondering what the farmer is going to do with these oats, sell’m, feed’m or seed’m? Hmm.

Japanese Beetles, locusts and oats. More rain and we’ll all float boats.

Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526, or email him curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.

Aiden Anderson

GOWRIE — Southeast Valley High School senior Aiden Anderson has been elected secretary for the North Central Iowa District of Future Farmers of America (FFA).