Broadband continues to reach more rural areas.
Focus on Rural America founder and former Iowa Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge says billions in taxpayer dollars are being distributed across the country to bring high-speed internet access to the nearly one in five rural Americans still on the wrong side of the digital divide.
“A really substantial amount of money into the projects of getting those last miles, those people without any opportunity right now to be part of this digital explosion.”
While deployment has been slow, Judge tells Brownfield she’s encouraged by the various ways broadband can be accessed.
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The latest Rural Mainstreet Index has sunk below growth neutral for a sixth straight month.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says lower agricultural commodity prices has been the biggest factor. “It’s the top risk at least according to the bankers. “Now they’re not farmers but they got close ties to the farmers and when we ask them about the biggest risk for the farmers they listed that one.”
The index is a monthly survey of ag bankers in 10 states including Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
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The USDA has released the results of the 2022 Census of Agriculture and it shows a continued decrease in the number of U.S. farming operations.
“I’m concerned about the state of agriculture and food production in this country,” Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday.
Vilsack says the decline is significant. “In 2017 when we did this survey, there were 2,042,220 farms,” he said. “Today, the survey reports we have 1.9 million farms.
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Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Minnesota this week to highlight USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program.
Governor Tim Walz accompanied Vilsack during a stop to a farm near St. Charles in the southeastern part of the state and tells Brownfield REAP is creating value-added opportunities.
“We were at a farm that put up a wind turbine, and they talked about REAP helping them on the front end and how they got a return on the investment and started to see a profit after two years.”
He says Minnesota leads the country in REAP grant recipients.
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Farmers in northeast Missouri are concerned they might have to follow the European Union’s production standards if they want to market their soybeans locally this year.
Drew Lock from Adair County in northeast Missouri says Archer Daniels Midland has held several meetings in recent weeks to notify farmers nearby elevators will only take soybeans at harvest enrolled in the company’s new re:source program.
“It’s a deforestation program ADM is trying to enact from the EU.”
Lock says the program would go into effect for the upcoming harvest season and ADM is offering a financial incentive to enroll.
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The American Farm Bureau Federation says tax reform in 2025 could be more complicated if Congress fails to pass a farm bill this year.
Managing Director of Government Affairs Ryan Yates tells Brownfield, “We’re not looking forward to having those two issues overlap in the next Congress, but if that’s what Congress chooses to do, so be it,” “We’ll be there to tell our story,” he says.
Tax policy could return to 2017 levels if the Tax Cut and Jobs Act expires.
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An analysis from Senate Agriculture Committee’s GOP staff says including the Inflation Reduction Act’s conservation funding in the next farm bill could provide a boost to its baseline over time.
There’s $13 billion available in conservation funding and Senate Ag Committee Ranking Member John Boozman tells Brownfield “I think we could capture most of it.”
Boozman says lawmakers are willing to put guardrails around the money to keep it in the conservation title of the farm bill.
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Ethanol production trickled lower last week, while stocks got a little tighter.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration says production averaged 1.024 million barrels a day, the lowest since late January and a decline of 33,000 on the week, but a rise of 10,000 on the year.
Iowa State University’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development says operating margins for the average Iowa plant moved closer to the breakeven line, indicating a lower profit or even a loss for some producers.
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