The nation’s farmers got a big boost Wednesday when the Obama administration issued new biofuels guidelines that could open the way for large increases in the production of corn-based ethanol.

The ethanol industry has weathered a stormy 2009 and is looking forward to a little more sunshine in 2010. Analyzing leading market trends today may help producers improve their bottom line next year.
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All ethanol production is no longer created equal. Several states have rules on the books to require a lower [...]

Iowa has lost a favorite son. The world has lost a great humanitarian.
Norman E. Borlaug, born 95 years ago last March on the family farm near Cresco in northeast Iowa, died Saturday night in Texas. Thus was concluded the life of one of history’s most remarkable men, and a most remarkable career. It can fairly [...]

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller announced Friday he had reached a settlement with Tyson Fresh Meats that would provide protections for hog producers and allow the company to continue its business operations in the state.
The agreement lays out a number of rights for Iowa producers with a contract to provide hogs to the company, a [...]

Iowa farmers could harvest 2.5 billion bushels of corn this season.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Iowa corn farmers could see a yield of 187 bushels an acre, up 16 bushels from last season. Last month Iowa yields were expected to be 185 bushels an acre.
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Sen. Tom Harkin gave up his chairmanship of the Senate agriculture committee today to take over the committee responsible for health care, food safety regulation, labor law and federal education programs. The chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee came open with the death last month of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Sen. [...]

A leading agricultural economist says it is nearly impossible to verify the reasons for why farmers around the world change their land use, much less to blame it on biofuels production in the U.S.
 
“There are just too many variables that go into a land use decision and we simply don’t have that data to make [...]

The recent American Coalition for Ethanol’s 22nd Ethanol Conference & Trade Show in Milwaukee saw an exploration of an issue that remains a hot issue in the biofuels biz: Indirect Land Use.
The concept that the growth of some biofuels feedstocks in the United States, especially corn and soybeans, could cause the cutting down of the [...]

Iowa’s 2009 corn and soybean crop in most of the state is still in good shape, despite two major storms the past couple of weeks. The tremendous hail and wind flattened or cut off plants, pummeling a number of fields in areas of north- central and northeast Iowa.
The storm in late July battered farms and [...]

The combination of plentiful rainfall and a relatively cool summer could produce Iowa’s largest corn crop ever. That is welcome news to the ethanol producers, livestock farms and food companies that will need the grain next year.
The Agriculture Department estimated Wednesday that Iowa will produce 2.47 billion bushels of corn, surpassing the 2007 record of [...]