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USDA Rural Development Invests $5.2 Million to Protect Water Resources in Iowa

U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Iowa State Director Mike Sexton today announced that the agency is investing $5,273,000 across three projects that will safeguard clean water and improve wastewater systems in rural Iowa communities.

“Every day at USDA, we are working to ensure that Iowans have access to the resources they need to thrive,” said Sexton. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, projects like these are being built to enhance infrastructure and expand growth opportunities for rural Iowa communities across the state.”

Project details:

  • City of Allerton received a $27,000 grant through the Special Evaluation Assistance for Rural Communities and Households program to help complete a preliminary engineering report prepared by professional engineers to address wastewater system needs. This project will evaluate the city’s sewers and include alternatives, recommendations, and costs for improvements. This project will be the first step in providing better, essential wastewater service to residents of this rural Wayne County community.

     

  • City of Lake City received a $4,804,000 loan through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant program to improve its wastewater system. This project will line sewers, seal manholes, maintain lagoons, and replace the main lift station and force main. Once completed, the project will reduce infiltration and inflow in the collection system, help the city comply with water standards, and promote health and sanitation for residents and visitors of this rural Calhoun County community.

     

  • City of Randolph received a $442,000 loan through the Water and Waste Disposal Loans and Grant program to provide additional funding to improve its aged water system. This project will add storage capacity, replace the distribution system, install new meters, improve the treatment plant, and put in a backup generator. The current system lacks capacity and is unable to meet maximum daily demands and volume requirements. Once completed, the project will protect water services, comply with water standards, and promote the health and safety of residents, businesses, and visitors to this rural Fremont County community.

For more information on USDA Rural Development investments in rural America, visit the Rural Data Gateway. The Rural Data Gateway is an online tool that strengthens USDA Rural Development partnerships with rural people, entrepreneurs, government officials and Congress by making investment data accessible to the public.

To learn more about these programs, call 515-284-4663 or visit www.rd.usda.gov/ia. If you’d like updates from USDA Rural Development, visit our GovDelivery subscriber page and follow us on X at @RD_Iowa.

Source : usda.gov

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Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators