Northey Talks Springtime Planting With Area Farmers

Steve Boender (left) and Sec. Bill Northey (right) talk about the current agriculture situation.

Mahaska County, Iowa – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey stopped at the Steve Boender farm on Friday to talk with area farmers and get a sense of the upcoming agriculture season in the area.

Steve Boender welcomed Northey and area guests to his farm. He thanked Northey for visiting his farm. “We’re thrilled to have company on a spring Friday afternoon. Boender than lead the group in a prayer for safety and for the crops in Iowa.

Northey said that visiting the different counties like Mahaska County and the Boender Farm allows him to see what is going on in agriculture around the state.

“This is a great family here, and it’s great to be able to see farming getting started again this year, said Northey. “You know farmers, this is a pretty optimist time of year.”

Northey said that optimism is facing some pressure from current prices, “and there’s some challenges in agriculture.”

We asked Northey how his office has been working, along with farmers to help bring those prices up. “On the demand side, hopefully we can have some more ethanol production in the future and so we need to be have policy that helps that.”

Northey also explained that exporting corn, soybeans and livestock would be beneficial in helping to raise prices, but admits that it’s not easy to change in the short-term. “Last year was a big production year, not only here, but around the world. So none of us know what weather problem some place or whether we’ll have another bumper yet. But right now, the markets more on the side of having plenty of crop around and therefore lower prices.”

Northey explained that even with the big year in crop production, it was tight financially for farmers because of the input costs and land prices decreasing. “A lot of folks are going through a reanalysis”, with many farmers being as conservative as they can be.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a cost-share and rental payment program under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency and is usually an agreement that lasts 10 to 15 years.

Overall, CRP has declined the past years, but last year seen a small increase in CRP, but the growing trend is in Continuous CRP which is a voluntary, non-competitive enrollment program that is designed to help protect millions of acres of environmentally farmlands. The program is designed to target blocks of land vulnerable to erosion. This would then help prevent polluted runoff and protect wildlife habitat.

CCRP is open to immediate bidding, versus the long term traditional type. “We saw more interest in that,” explained Northey, because the CCRP rental rates may be higher than what current rental rates may be. “It’s really meant for small acreages rather than bigger acreages.”

Northey said that Iowa has more CCRP buffers than any other state. “We’d argue it’s one of those really good conservation practices,” says Northey.

Northey says he does hear from farmers they are nervous about prices, “and folks are sure anxious to get a little bump in the markets so they could sell a little bit and hopefully break even this year.”