Agriculture

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s cancellation of poultry events has the potential to affect upcoming county and state fair exhibitions, depending on how long the disease plagues the state this year.

Iowa farmers received $243 million in insurance payments for flooded crops from 2001-2020, with $83 million going to five Iowa counties considered “hot spots” for the payments. Instead, that money could have “retired” nearly 12,000 flood-prone acres from farming.

The Buena Vista County flock is the second infected flock in the same county reported so far this year.

Beginning this fall, green 14-ton tractors that can plow day or night with no one sitting in the cab, or even watching nearby, will come off the Deere and Co. factory assembly line in Waterloo.

Nearly 7 million chickens and turkeys in 13 states have been killed this year due to bird flu.

In the past 10 years, Iowa’s state legislators have passed four separate laws intended to discourage activists from obtaining jobs at agricultural facilities for the purpose of conducting undercover investigations into the treatment of animals.

Officials announced Monday that they have identified bird flu in a commercial turkey flock in northwest Iowa, the state's second case of a virus that has been identified in multiple U.S. states.

Red grape varieties developed to survive Iowa’s harsh winters have low levels of tannins, which help prevent oxidation. Aude Watrelot, an Iowa State University enologist, is studying native reds in Iowa to develop best practices for winemakers.