National Ag Day 2015

2015

Agricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayNational

A special supplement of The Standard Newspaper, Waukon, IA

Agricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayAgricultural DayMarch 18A special supplement of The Standard Newspaper, Waukon, IASustaining Future Genera o_n s

National Ag Day is a day to recognize and celebrate the abundance provided by agriculture.Every year, producers, agricultural associations, corporations, universities, government agencies

and countless others across America join together to recognize the contributors of agriculture.

National Ag Day 3/18/15March 11, 2015Page 2

Drones now used down on the farmby David M. Johnson

Not that long ago when an individual used the word drone, one would relate to it as a positive connotation. There would be the visual concept of drone bees building up the hive and surrounding the queen bee with a colony that was strong against the elements.

Today, use the word drone and one might more often think of something pernicious, the military-related Raptors and Predators roaming the skies and raining death on those targeted in the Middle East. But the use of drones has evolved beyond military use and is now becoming a positive instrument in business and agriculture.

The military use of drones has a history dating back to World War II. Drone use in the civilian sector has a more recent history, going back

only some ve or six years. News segments can be seen depicting companies delivering take-out dinners or mail ordered goods to the front door of their patronizing customers. Then there are the hobbyists who use it in addition to the radio controlled ying craft that has been a xture of the past.

The use of drones is now beginning to creep into use by farmers to improve their agriculture operations. The future is looking very bright for the drone industry and its introduction and use by business and for farming. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International predicts that the drone, or UAV, industry could generate up to 100,000 new jobs and an estimated 82 billion dollars

DronesContinued on page 10

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Doug Zieman of Luana displays the four-rotor drone he uses for crop inspection and other purposes on his northeast Iowa farm.

National Ag Day 3/18/15Page 3March 11, 2015

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Farm to School efforts providing markets for farmersby Darin LeachPublic Information Coordinator with USDA Rural Development in Iowa

The United States Depart-ment of Agricultures (USDAs) most recent Farm to School Census indicates nearly half of the school districts in the state of Iowa are or plan to be participating in some sort of farm-to-school program. One way schools make this farm connection is through the pur-chase of local foods for student lunches.

School can be a tremendous place to learn about healthy lifestyles and making good food choices, said Bill Men-ner, USDA Rural Development State Director in Iowa. There are many USDA programs in place to that can help schools develop programming and ser-vices to connect todays youth

to the many exciting aspects of agriculture.

Thanks to the efforts of the Northeast Iowa Food and Fit-ness Initiative and the North-east Iowa Food and Farm Co-alition, schools in northeast Iowa are embracing the farm-to-school connection.

Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness particularly focuses on schools as a site to in uence broader community shifts to-ward healthy living and has spent much of its efforts on instituting active school well-ness teams, encouraging phys-ical activity, building school gardens, and providing nutri-tion education for students in the classroom, said Teresa Wiemerslage, regional pro-gram coordinator, Iowa State University Extension and Out-reach in northeast Iowa, who coordinates the work of the co-alition.

The mission of the coalition is to create opportunities for farmers to engage in the food system. The coalition views schools as one of those op-portunities in the rural area, which consists of school dis-tricts ranging in size from 300 to 1,500 students.

The coalition has now been working to provide local foods to school districts for six years. The efforts started out small and have grown signi cantly. This past fall, nearly 20 school districts representing more than 12,000 students in northeast Iowa worked with Iowa Food Hub to purchase food from lo-cal farmers, while many other school districts made local food purchases directly from farm-ers.

Types of local foods pur-

Farm to SchoolContinued on page 6

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Farmers battle against pests and weeds that attack their cropsby David M. Johnson

To farmers, things that go bump in the night do not in-clude the lurking boogeyman or some other creature hiding in the shadows, but, instead, can be found in the weeds and bad bugs that smother and destroy their planted future harvest.

Since the rst man left the cave and dug up the earth to plant food for sustenance, nature has provided a deter-mined, dogged adversary that shows no surrender. As man advanced with knowledge and science, humans began to beat back this onslaught with tilling practices and later with chemi-cals that increased yields while playing a holding action against the negative forces of the earth.

Weeds and bugs have al-ways been enemies to farmers, insects being the major cause

of crop damage and yield loss. In the last few decades, science has become an important fac-tor in both agricultural-related businesses and the academic community to providing relief from the pests that have inun-dated the farming sector. Engi-neering has evolved the man-ufacturing aspect of agriculture with more ef cient machinery. Chemical advances have pro-duced an industry where the farmer has tools along with his other strategies for an integrat-ed pest management program to sustain his ght against in-sects and plant diseases.

What followed is the Bt con-cept, or crops that have been modi ed to produce a protein that is toxic to various forms of insect larvae. Crops are geneti-cally engineered to carry the Bt trait so to control the damage done by insects. This was con-

sidered a major breakthrough for the farmer and a boon for companies selling their chem-ical products and seeds. But, nature has a way of not being suppressed for too long.

A recent Iowa Farm and Ru-ral Life Poll was taken, a poll that has been conducted ev-ery year since 1982 and is the Iongest running survey of its kind in the nation. The poll is a cooperative project between the Iowa State University Agri-culture and Home Economics Experiment Station, ISU Ex-tension Service and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. It most re-cently reported that among the top concerns for Iowa farmers are those items related to the growing resistance to pesticide

FarmersContinued on page 5

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FarmersContinued from page 4management. A total of 889 farmers were surveyed and the poll reveals that they feel they are witnessing the increase of resistance to their employment of insecticide practices and the absence of any relief in the fu-ture to this problem.

Research released by the University of Arizona was pub-lished in the journal Proceed-ings of the National Academy of Sciences which reported that GM, genetically modi ed, crops are becoming less and less successful in combating crop pests. The study concluded that GMO crops are increasing-ly and quickly losing the ability to outsmart the pests and this could lead to a complete failure in future GMO use and its con-tinued implementation.

Farmers in Allamakee Coun-ty and in northeast Iowa are no strangers to these problems. So, what are they to do? Brian Lang, an ISU Extension Agron-omist, has been involved with

this issue over a number of years. When asked about the concern of the possible resis-tance of pests to the manage-ment practices to control them, Lang observed that its nothing new, it has been going on for thirty years, weeds and oth-er pests are going to adapt to management practices.

He has witnessed different results with the Bt issue but that depends on its use. The Bt European corn borer program has been tremendously suc-cessful with a high dose trait. A moderate dose trait will allow survivors, which leads to sur-viving genetics, added Lang. He understands the complexity and nuances that farmers face each year when deciding on the appropriate strategies and tactics that would be conducive to battling the pests that harm their crops. He acknowledges that alternative tactics are not that simple and that if there is no signi cant change in opera-

tions to counter any resistance, there will be problems in the fu-ture that will be more dif cult to handle because of the decision not to change.

This agronomist points to the strategy most farmers use when facing the corn rootworm problem, using a three-year rotation, a rotation that works extremely well. Farmers ex-periencing the threat from root worm infestation usually adopt a three-year rotation with soil insecticides and mechanical tillage applications employed during the three-year rotation. Then the elds are planted with something else other than corn after the third year to eliminate the rootworm problem. This is cited by many agronomists as one of many practices to assist with pest control.

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chased included apples, wa-termelon, broccoli, squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, pears, yogurt, sweet corn, cu-cumbers, frozen strawberries, cantaloupe, pork and turkey. Wiemerslage said this fall some of the larger school dis-tricts were purchasing as much as 200 pounds of pork, 800 ap-ples and 300 pounds of water-melon for just one meal.

The recent establishment of National Farm to School Month in October expands what used to be just a week each fall promoting homegrown school lunches.

The Decorah Community School District has been work-ing with the coalition for ve years and so far this school year has purchased more than $10,000 in food, according to Chad Elliott, culinary specialist with the school district, and he says students are enjoying the local food options.

We see students trying

more fruits and vegetables, Elliott said. Some students have even helped pick or plant these products and they seem to have more interest in trying something they grew them-selves. Local has a new tone among the students today, they know they are getting a fresher piece of fruit or being social-ly responsible by consuming these vegetables.

Elliott said district staff en-joys preparing meals with the local food products and intends on working with the coalition for many years to come. Food service directors really started to embrace the farm-to-school connection and we saw they wanted to expand their pur-chases past the one week, said Wiemerslage. At the same time, the USDA was launching Farm to School month, so the timing for all of this coming to-gether has been perfect.

A report issued in November 2014 by the Leopold Center

Farm to SchoolContinued from page 3


for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University suggests sales of local foods to grocery stores, restaurants, schools, residential food service oper-ations, food hubs and other high-volume markets are rap-idly eclipsing direct-to-consum-er sales at farmers markets and from community support-ed agriculture arrangements. All of this activity spells good economic news for rural com-munities and farm-based busi-nesses in Iowa, said Leopold Center associate scientist Cor-ry Bregendahl, who coordinat-ed the data collection project. Schools all across Iowa are nding the bene ts of purchas-ing local foods.

Northeast Iowa Food and Farm Coalition members have learned many lessons over the years. Here are a few of those lessons:

Calhoun Creamery Salutes area farmers for the great job they do producing corn and soybeans.These crops are vital parts of a dairy cows diet that enable them to produce natures most perfect food. MILK!Thanks to corn and soybean producers from Americas Dairy Industryand especially CALHOUN CREAMERY!

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chased included apples, wa-termelon, broccoli, squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, pears, yogurt, sweet corn, cu-cumbers, frozen strawberries, cantaloupe, pork and turkey. Wiemerslage said this fall some of the larger school dis-tricts were purchasing as much as 200 pounds of pork, 800 ap-ples and 300 pounds of water-melon for just one meal.

The recent establishment of National Farm to School Month in October expands what used to be just a week each fall promoting homegrown school lunches.

The Decorah Community School District has been work-ing with the coalition for ve years and so far this school year has purchased more than $10,000 in food, according to Chad Elliott, culinary specialist with the school district, and he says students are enjoying the local food options.

We see students trying

more fruits and vegetables, Elliott said. Some students have even helped pick or plant these products and they seem to have more interest in trying something they grew them-selves. Local has a new tone among the students today, they know they are getting a fresher piece of fruit or being social-ly responsible by consuming these vegetables.

Elliott said district staff en-joys preparing meals with the local food products and intends on working with the coalition for many years to come. Food service directors really started to embrace the farm-to-school connection and we saw they wanted to expand their pur-chases past the one week, said Wiemerslage. At the same time, the USDA was launching Farm to School month, so the timing for all of this coming to-gether has been perfect.

A report issued in November 2014 by the Leopold Center



for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University suggests sales of local foods to grocery stores, restaurants, schools, residential food service oper-ations, food hubs and other high-volume markets are rap-idly eclipsing direct-to-consum-er sales at farmers markets and from community support-ed agriculture arrangements. All of this activity spells good economic news for rural com-munities and farm-based busi-nesses in Iowa, said Leopold Center associate scientist Cor-ry Bregendahl, who coordinat-ed the data collection project. Schools all across Iowa are nding the bene ts of purchas-ing local foods.

Northeast Iowa Food and Farm Coalition members have learned many lessons over the years. Here are a few of those lessons:

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Start small. If a school is new to local food, shoot for two or three measurable goals such as sourcing all fresh apples lo-cally from August to December, or hosting a local foods night each month.

Measuring success. What will success look like, is it a pur-chasing goal of 20 percent local foods, or is it a speci c dollar amount for local foods? Make sure the food service provider is supportive of the goals.

De ne Local. Determine the de nition of local to start identifying potential suppliers. A larger radius may be needed to source greater quantities of product.

Identify local products you would like to serve. Schools should identify the foods they would like to serve and quantities needed per month. Identify potential farm-ers for those products and have discussions with potential sup-pliers about availability.

Farmers: Respond to bid requests. Schools have pro-curement rules they need to follow. If they contact you ask-ing for prices and quantities, be sure to share. They cannot buy from you if you do not respond. You may consider sending them your price list at the be-ginning of the year.

Wiemerslage said the coali-tion continues its research into light processing for schools. The fruit and vegetable pro-cessing project is funded by a USDA Farm to School grant and funds from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agricul-ture.

We are working with two commercial kitchens in the area to investigate costs and logistics of providing shred-ded cabbage, cubed squash, diced sweet potatoes and fro-zen strawberries to schools, Wiemerslage said. We also worked with a sweet corn grow-er to provide a husked sweet

corn product for schools.The price studies for this work

are still being evaluated and coalition members continue to collaborate with local farmers and a new food hub to scaleup production and investment in aggregation infrastructure to meet school needs. They are also working with the four rural school districts to expand their Farm to School programming in hopes of increasing their local food purchases by 200 percent in the coming year.

Working with the Iowa Food Hub we believe we have cre-ated a school-food program model that has the potential to be replicated in other parts of the state and across the country, Wiemerslage added. Food service directors are us-ing more local products in their meals, students are more ex-cited about healthy, local foods and farmers and the communi-ties we are working in are more interconnected.

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FarmersContinued from page 5issue that farmers once again cultivate their corn as a man-agement practice as well as using the rotary hoe and eld border management plus more aggressive scouting of their elds, for infestation and crop damage, as positive adapta-tions to ghting pests. In Alla-makee County, especially with a large number of dairies and beef producers, cover crops, such as alfalfa, rotated in plant-ing strategies are bene cial. But even the cover crops are not immune to threats like their row crop cousins.

Insects like the potato leaf hopper can damage the de-velopment and yields of alfalfa stands. If there is an infestation or possible threat of the pota-to leaf hopper, Lang endors-es a grass mix in the seeding and also suggests in seeding a darker green alfalfa, which seems to be less attractive to the hopper pest.

Other crop specialists have a laundry list of different options to assist the farmer in con-trolling and overcoming the re-sistance of pests to pest man-agement practices. Besides the rotation of crops, farmers need to be in constant communica-tion and in partnership with crop specialists, ag retailers and networking with neighbors and other farmers, many times up-to-date information is shared that can be extremely valuable. This communication allows the farmer to gain knowledge that will assist in pest management and shows that farmer that he is not alone, that there are oth-ers out there facing this same problem.

The Agricultural Biotech-nology Stewardship Technical Committee, a consortium of ag-ricultural biotechnology compa-nies and associations, provides a multi-year monitoring of in-sect populations, providing in-

formation that alerts those con-cerned with if and when these populations are expanding and what areas are being affected. If there is a surge, then crop specialists and scientists can analyze the data to determine if there is a serious threat that will expand or if it is just an anom-aly.

In the immediate future, the National Academy of Sciences Keck Center in Washington, D.C. conducted a workshop March 4. The workshop fo-cused on comparing environ-mental effects of pest manage-ment practices across cropping systems. The major goals of the meeting, involving a panel of experts, were to examine trade-offs in pest management approaches for weeds, insects and diseases, and compare


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FarmersContinued from page 8

environmental effects between different cropping systems, in-cluding genetically engineered (GE) and non-GE systems.

According to the press re-lease provided by the Keck Center, the variety of topics included growth of organic, traditional and genetically en-gineered (GE) crops; integrat-ed pest management practic-es; cover cropping plus weed management and herbicide resistant weeds; insect ecology in agro-systems; and disease resistant GE crops. The work-shop is related to a separate ongoing study being conduct-ed by the National Research Council summarizing GE crops.

Then there is the establish-ment of refuge areas. In the United States, refuge areas are required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when planting Bt products, but the EPA has been lax in requiring pest refuges to be established

in crop elds to mitigate the spread of pest resistance.

In Europe, it is nothing un-usual to see this practice widely used. Yves Carriere, a profes-sor of entomology at the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a lead author on the study of refuges, has stat-ed that, our simulations tell us that when 10 percent of acre-age is set aside for refuges, resistance evolves quite fast, but if you put 30 to 40 percent aside, you can substantially de-lay it.

Farmers have known that there has always existed a threat to their crops and it is not getting easier to combat that threat. There are a number of farmers who have become re-laxed with their management decisions and have depend-ed on one or two chemicals or a limited pest management practice. Besides weather, pro-duction costs and regulations,

nature is increasingly making the farmer work a balancing act between being environmen-tally friendly and economically sound. He or she must make decisions that protect their crops and protect bene cial insects and wildlife from being harmed.

The integrated pest man-agement practices chosen by the producer are becoming increasingly more dif cult to choose. Finding that right t that is positive for the producer has always been a challenge, but as in the past, the elements that hurt the farmer have time and again been defeated. This is something the farmer realiz-es and accepts as part of his profession, a profession where technology has become more part of the landscape, but a landscape where the trials and tribulations have not changed from one generation to the next.

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in economic activity between now and 2025. It also has been estimated that there would be nearly a half billion dollars in tax revenue realized by 2025, much of it from agriculture. The drone industry believes the prospects for Iowa corn and soybean farmers would see 1,200 more jobs and an economic impact topping 950 million dollars within the next decade.

Drone use on the farm and on ranches has many applications. Ranchers out West, with their huge expanses of pasture ground, may use their drones to check on herd activity and pasture rotation strategy. More and more crop farmers are employing drones, by purchasing their own drone, to monitor compaction, their use of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides, and a disease outbreak after their crops have been planted.

Instead of walking the elds or ying overhead with a fast moving airplane, the drone provides the farmer with a tool that enables him to use tactics that put more dollars in his or her pocket by reducing overuse or encouraging more use of a particular product to enhance overall yields of planted crops. There is the added advantage for the environment as the drone gives the farmer valuable information to avoid the run-off into the local water resources by possible overuse of chemicals or fertilizers, the drone showing the farmer physical evidence to avoid this overuse.

Drone use in the private sector has produced some concerns, especially when considering privacy. For the farmers in rural settings, the privacy and safety issues that are part of the urban landscape have not become a problem for agricultural use. Due to the lack

of congestion in rural areas, the general population is less apt to be alarmed with drone use when the farmer is primarily using this tool over open crop elds. For the farmer, state and federal governments have given space for the use of drones on the farm.

For now, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has no rules or regulations for the use of drones when utilized for agricultural use. There is an active review of the use of drones by farmers by the FAA and there may be rules for drones weighing less than 55 pounds in the future, which would include the majority of drones used by farm producers. Farmers and ranchers are free to y their drones over their own land as long as they y under 400 feet and dont go ying

DronesContinued from page 2


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near or over airports or y over or near occupied areas outside their private property. The use by people or companies for business purposes is not allowed, and the commercial application by operators other than farmers will lead to licensing in the future.

Luana farmer Doug Zieman has been implementing drone use in his farming operation since July of 2013. This 44 year-old producer has been familiar with all farming practices that are implemented in his community, but his introduction to owning and operating a drone was similar to navigating uncharted waters.

I was on the internet and saw videos of its use and thought to myself, I need to have one, observed Zieman. He looked at the different models available and went with the basics, a helicopter drone with four rotors and an

eight-minute battery, costing $2,000. Ziemans drone is just one model of many, some helicopter units have not only four rotors, but six and eight rotors. On the market there are also the xed-wing drones that y faster and are able to cover more territory.

Then the operator needs to consider how he will operate his drone, either having a drone that is manually operated using radio controls or employing computer software to plot the course of their drone. There is also the selection of cameras and sensors to be mounted on the drone. Infra-red cameras give the operator the imaging desired to detect the health of his crops. Healthy plants re ect more infrared radiation, which alerts the producer to make the appropriate decisions to deal with unhealthy sections or elds that require management to correct the problem.

The drone operator may also select the numerous cameras available to take still pictures or videos, the selection of the cameras depending on the numerous bells and whistles desired by the operator. All in all, the drone market with its many models has a price range of $1,500 to $3,500.

Zieman uses radio control for his drone, owning four batteries that allows him more ying time, each battery requiring one-half to two hours charging after use. His unit is tted with a GoPro camera that records action during the ight, video that will later be played on his home computer. His drone can reach a top speed of 50 miles an hour but when surveying elds, the helicopter unit affords the luxury to hover and absorb details at a slower rate



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of speed. This particular unit is own up to 350 feet high and has a vertical and horizontal range of a half mile.

At rst, Zieman practiced around his house until he got used to his newest farm implement. I felt comfortable, it seemed easy to use, re ected Zieman on his rst solo ight. He learned that his drone can be easily lost in the sun and a cloudier day is conducive to more productive results.

But his inexperience cost him when he began to venture out of his backyard and into his elds. When you y it, you have to have it visually in sight and not allow it to y out of range of your controller, added this amateur drone pilot, as he made the mistake of ying his craft out of range of his control unit. When this is done, the drone will continue to y until the battery dies.

Zieman looked and looked

for the drone and it was not found until a year after it was lost. The drone was found about a half-mile away when friends and neighbors were moving a widow neighbors cattle, recalled Zieman, as he was amazed that it was not crushed by a combine or grain cart during harvest; apparently the machinery straddled over the drone unit. I would like to think my deceased neighbor and friend had a hand in that good fortune of not having that drone suffer any further damage, added Zieman.

Disappointed but not discouraged, he went out and purchased another drone. Making a more pronounced effort to become familiar with his new drone, this Luana farmer followed his practice runs by adventuring back out to his elds and has become adept at piloting the craft. With the experience with maneuvering

the vehicle what followed were eye-opening discoveries of the numerous possibilities of using a drone.

I had own over elds in an airplane but the drone showed me things that convinced me of the advantages in owning one, observed Zieman. The drone, with its camera, recorded different details not imagined until its use. Each drone ight showed stand problems, issues with planter performance, fertilizer and spray applications that could be improved, wet spots that might encourage more tiling to relieve drainage, plus how compaction from wheel tracks affects plant development.

Thanks to drone use, Zieman chose to replace his ground drive pump on his planter to a hydraulic drive to

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We Salute e Agriculture IndustryDronesContinued from page 11



Grocery Dept. 563-568-5017 Meat Dept. 563-568-5018

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of speed. This particular unit is own up to 350 feet high and has a vertical and horizontal range of a half mile.

At rst, Zieman practiced around his house until he got used to his newest farm implement. I felt comfortable, it seemed easy to use, re ected Zieman on his rst solo ight. He learned that his drone can be easily lost in the sun and a cloudier day is conducive to more productive results.

But his inexperience cost him when he began to venture out of his backyard and into his elds. When you y it, you have to have it visually in sight and not allow it to y out of range of your controller, added this amateur drone pilot, as he made the mistake of ying his craft out of range of his control unit. When this is done, the drone will continue to y until the battery dies.

Zieman looked and looked

for the drone and it was not found until a year after it was lost. The drone was found about a half-mile away when friends and neighbors were moving a widow neighbors cattle, recalled Zieman, as he was amazed that it was not crushed by a combine or grain cart during harvest; apparently the machinery straddled over the drone unit. I would like to think my deceased neighbor and friend had a hand in that good fortune of not having that drone suffer any further damage, added Zieman.

Disappointed but not discouraged, he went out and purchased another drone. Making a more pronounced effort to become familiar with his new drone, this Luana farmer followed his practice runs by adventuring back out to his elds and has become adept at piloting the craft. With the experience with maneuvering

the vehicle what followed were eye-opening discoveries of the numerous possibilities of using a drone.

I had own over elds in an airplane but the drone showed me things that convinced me of the advantages in owning one, observed Zieman. The drone, with its camera, recorded different details not imagined until its use. Each drone ight showed stand problems, issues with planter performance, fertilizer and spray applications that could be improved, wet spots that might encourage more tiling to relieve drainage, plus how compaction from wheel tracks affects plant development.

Thanks to drone use, Zieman chose to replace his ground drive pump on his planter to a hydraulic drive to

B & K Heating & Plumbing Inc.

(563) 864-3332Owners: Brian Bohr & Ken Klepper

285 E. Greene St.Postville, IA

We Salute e Agriculture IndustryDronesContinued from page 11



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correct fertilizer problems with his planter, because in certain conditions the drive wheel was slipping. In 2014, he planted with a tracked tractor instead of a wheeled tractor, a switch that eliminated the wheel tracks all over the eld seen the previous year.

More and more ights have convinced this area farmer that drones are here to stay. This thing is not that heavy, I can put in on the seat beside me in my pick-up, so it makes it easy to use. I see, with an improvement in technology, drones used to spray elds in 10 or 15 years, believes Zieman, as he sees the local coops purchasing the bigger models for their businesses.

He believes that local high schools, especially the ag departments, should be teaching their students about drone use and drone

technology. Learning about drones and their applications to farming might encourage these students to not only become more interested in farming, but also with other agri-business aspects dealing with drone use.

Its not all work, it is fun, added Zieman, as he not only plays with it around and outside his house yard, but his ying craft has also been used when combining, the drone following the combine and the grain carts. When asked if there is a place for its use by the local livestock farmer, such as evaluating their herds during calving, this crop farmer does not think that it would be as valuable of a tool. He was asked by a neighbor to nd a missing cow but could not nd the animal due to the heavy foliage from the trees and underbrush. As Allamakee and Clayton counties are known for their concentration

of wooded hills, it appears for now that drone use would not be practical for that application.

If anyone is interested, Zieman said he would be happy to share his experiences with his ownership of a drone. He points to using the internet, as he did, to learn more and he directs interested parties to one local area business, Three Rivers Farm Service in Elkader, that sells drones.

As drones become more widely used in other farming communities, more businesses are becoming active in promoting and marketing this technology as another tool to use in farming. As Doug Zieman discovered, this unmanned ying vehicle has opened up many possibilities that can only multiply as the technology improvements advance its use into the next decade and beyond.

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ALLAMAKEE COUNTY STATE OF IOWANumber of Farms 1728 (per FSA 2/2015) 88,637 (per NASS 2012)Average Size of Farm 286 acres 345 acresLand in Farms 289,164 acres 30,622,731 acresLAND IN FARMS BY LAND USECropland 64% 85.7%Pastureland 10.4% 6.2%Other (woodland, etc.) 25.3% 8.0%Per farm average production expenses $170,769 $267,517Per farm average net cash income $66,441 $110,329PRINCIPLE OPERATORSMale 924 81,529Female 87 7,108RACE OF PRINCIPLE OPERATORSWhite 1474 129,209Spanish, Hispanic or Latino 4 584Asian 1 129Native Hawaiian or Other Pacifi c Islander 1 9American Indian or Alaskan Native 0 97Black or African American 0 45More than one race 0 155

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FSA offers the use of Microloans for unique operating needs

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) developed the Microloan (ML) program to better serve the unique nancial operating needs of beginning, niche and the smallest of family farm op-erations by modifying its Op-erating Loan (OL) application, eligibility and security require-ments. The program will offer more exible access to credit and will serve as an attractive loan alternative for smaller farming operations like special-ty crop producers and opera-tors of community supported agriculture (CSA). These small-er farms, including non-tradi-tional farm operations, often face limited nancing options.

Microloans can be used for all approved operating expens-es as authorized by the FSA Operating Loan Program, in-cluding but not limited to:

Initial start-up expenses; Annual expenses such as

seed, fertilizer, utilities, land rents;

Marketing and distribution expenses;

Family living expenses; Purchase of livestock,

equipment, and other materials essential to farm operations;

Minor farm improvements such as wells and coolers;

Hoop houses to extend the growing season;

Essential tools; Irrigation; Delivery vehicles.

SIMPLIFIED APPLICATION PROCESSThe application process for

microloans will be simpler, re-quiring less paperwork to ll out, to coincide with the smaller loan amount that will be associ-ated with microloans. Require-ments for managerial experi-ence and loan security have been modi ed to accommodate smaller farm operations, begin-ning farmers and those with no farm management experience.

FSA understands that there will be applicants for the ML program who want to farm but do not have traditional farm experience or have not been

raised on a farm or within a rural community with agricul-ture-af liated organizations. Microloan program applicants will need to have some farm experience; however, FSA will consider an applicants small business experience as well as any experience with a self-guid-ed apprenticeship as a means to meet the farm management requirement. This will assist applicants who have limited farm skills by providing them with an opportunity to gain farm management experience while working with a mentor during the rst production and market-ing cycle.

SECURITY REQUIREMENTSFor annual operating purpos-

es, microloans must be secured by a rst lien on a farm property or agricultural products hav-ing a security value of at least 100 percent of the microloan amount, and up to 150 percent, when available. Microloans made for purposes other than annual operating expenses must be secured by a rst lien on a farm property or agricul-tural products purchased with loan funds and having a securi-ty value of at least 100 percent of the microloan amount.

RATES AND TERMSEligible applicants may

obtain a microloan for up to $50,000, which is a change from $ 35,000. The repayment term may vary and will not ex-ceed seven years. Annual op-erating loans are repaid within 12 months or when the agricul-tural commodities produced are sold. Interest rates are based on the regular operating loan rates that are in effect at the time of the microloan approval or microloan closing, whichever is less.

MORE INFORMATION AND ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Additional information on the FSA microloan program may be obtained at local FSA of ces or through the FSA website at http://www.fsa.usda.gov.

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Century and Heritage Farm owners encouraged to apply

In an effort to help recognize and maintain the efforts of sus-taining family farms through generations, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey encour-ages eligible farm owners to apply for the 2015 Century and Heritage Farm Program. The program is sponsored by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the Iowa Farm Bureau and recog-nizes families that have owned their farm for 100 years in the case of Century Farms and 150 years for Heritage Farms.

These awards are an op-portunity to recognize the hard work and commitment by these families that is necessary to keep a farm in the same family for 100 or 150 years, Northey said. If you consider all the challenges and unexpected obstacles each of them would have had to overcome during their life on the farm, it gives you a greater appreciation of the dedication and persever-ance of each of the families be-ing recognized.

Applications are available on the Departments website at www.IowaAgriculture.gov by clicking on the Century Farm or Heritage Farm link under Hot Topics. Applications may also be requested from Becky Lo-renz, Coordinator of the Centu-ry and Heritage Farm Program via phone at 515-281-3645,

email at [email protected] or by writing to Century or Heritage Farms Program, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Steward-ship, Henry A. Wallace Build-ing, 502 E. 9th St., Des Moines, IA 50319.

Farm families seeking to qualify for the Century or Her-itage Farms Program must submit an application to the Department no later than June 1, 2015. The ceremony to rec-ognize the 2015 Century and Heritage Farms is scheduled to be held at the Iowa State Fair Thursday, August 20.

The Century Farm program began in 1976 as part of the Nations Bicentennial Cele-bration and 18,328 farms from across the state have received this recognition. The Heritage Farm program was started in 2006, on the 30th anniversary of the Century Farm program, and 736 farms have been rec-ognized. Last year 344 Century Farms and 86 Heritage Farms were recognized.

Century and Heritage Farm recognitions at the Iowa State Fair are a great celebration of Iowa agriculture and the fami-lies that care for the land and produce our food, Northey said. I hope eligible families will take the time to apply and then come to the State Fair to be recognized.

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Growing Better Every Day...Growing Better Every Day...Growing Better Every Day...NATIONAL AG DAY MARCH 18

National Ag Day 2015

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Transcript of National Ag Day 2015