A five-minute summary of AAI, regulation, and industry activities for members of the largest state agribusiness association in the nation. | |
EPA and Army Host Midwest-Focused Virtual Regional WOTUS Roundtable | |
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of the Army (Army) will host a virtual Midwest-focused regional roundtable on “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) on May 23, 2022, from 3:00 PM to 5:30 PM central daylight time. The virtual roundtable hosted by the agencies was organized by the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation and is one of ten roundtables selected to highlight diverse perspectives and regional experience on WOTUS implementation.
Regenerative Agriculture Foundation (Midwest)
May 23, 2022, from 3:00 PM-5:30 PM CDT—View Livestream Here
The remaining eight roundtables will be held later this month and next month, including one additional Midwest roundtable on June 6.
Full List of EPA Roundtables: WOTUS Roundtables Page
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Joint Cybersecurity Advisory Warning:
Weak Cybersecurity Controls and Practices Routinely Exploited
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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published a joint Cybersecurity Advisory that identifies commonly exploited controls and practices used by cyber actors to gain initial access or as part of other tactics to compromise a victims’ system.
In partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and numerous international partners, it includes best practices to mitigate the malicious tactics and weaknesses.
The CSA, “Weak Security Controls and Practices Routinely Exploited for Initial Access”, provides several recommendations and technical details that organizations can take to reduce their risk of becoming a victim to malicious cyber activity, such as:
- Control access, including adopt a zero-trust security model that eliminates implicit trust in any one element, node, or service, and control who has access to your data and services.
- Implement credential hardening, including apply multifactor authentication (MFA) on all virtual private network (VPN) connections, external-facing services, and privileged accounts.
- Establish centralized log management, including ensure that each application and system generates sufficient log information.
- Employ antivirus programs, including monitor antivirus scan results on a routine basis.
- Use detection tools and search for vulnerabilities, including implement endpoint and detection response tools.
- Maintain rigorous configuration management programs, including always operate services exposed on internet-accessible hosts with secure configuration.
- Initiate a software and patch management program, including prioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities.
Along with our interagency and international partners, CISA encourages all organizations to review the advisory for more details on the malicious actors’ commonly used techniques for initial access, recommended practices, and apply the recommended mitigations in this advisory.
In addition, we encourage all organizations to review CISA’s Shields Up webpage to find recommended guidance and actions for all organizations, corporate leaders and CEOs, steps to protect yourself and your family, and a technical webpage with guidance from CISA and Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) industry partners.
Full details, resources, and documentation from CISA:
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Take A Swing At Summer Fun
AAI Golf Outings Registration Now Open
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Warm up your clubs and get ready for the 2022 Agribusiness Association of Iowa Golf Outings! Join your colleagues and industry friends for two great days on the golf course as you enjoy conversations, fresh air, and competition.
AAI Golf Outings
July 21
Emerald Hills Golf Course - Okoboji, Iowa
September 7
Amana Colonies Golf Club - Amana, Iowa
This year's event at Emerald Hills will include a morning kick off session featuring AAI CEO Bill Northey as he shares an update on AAI, his vision for the future, and time for interaction and conversation about the industry.
The Amana event will provide time for interaction and conversation with both the AAI board and the CEO.
Click below to register!
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Double Eagle Level Sponsors | |
Golf Sponsorship Opportunities | |
Make sure your agribusiness peers know you support the association as they gather for social time, entertain clients, and enjoy a great day at the golf course.
Available Sponsor Options:
Luncheon Sponsor | Golf Cart | Hole-In-One Sponsor | Snack Cart Sponsor
| Pin Prize Sponsor | Champions Sponsor | Hole Sponsor
Full details available here:
AAI Golf Sponsorships
Every sponsor receives the following additional benefits with their sponsorship:
- Recognition in our weekly e-newsletters distributed to over 1,400 members!
- Company logo on front page of AAI Golf site linked to the URL of your choice
- Company logo displayed at each sponsored event, including recognition in programs
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Regulatory Posters Available for Order | |
The posters are:
- Worker Protection Standard
- Agrichemical Shipments - D.O.T. Shipping Information
- Restricted-Use Pesticides
Click here to order: Order Asmark Posters
Questions or concerns, please call Reilly Vaughan 515-868-0311.
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Dicamba Cutoff Date in Iowa: June 20 | |
Label amendments from EPA restrict the use of over-the-top dicamba in Iowa and Minnesota. The revised labeling prohibits over-the-top dicamba application on dicamba-tolerant crops after June 20 in Iowa.
The EPA requires all growers nationwide (not just in Iowa and Minnesota) using dicamba products to check the applicable following links within seven (7) days of application in case their state has made any local label updates:
Growers using dicamba products must have all relevant labeling in their possession at the time of application.
View the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Press Release
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May 27
AAI Main Office Summer Hours Begin
Office Closes a Noon on Fridays May 27-September 2
May 30
AAI Main Office Closed for Memorial Day Holiday
June 21
Executive Committee Meeting
AAI Main Office
June 29
Agronomy & Environment Committees Joint Meeting
10:00 AM | AAI Board Room
June 30
AAI Board of Directors Meeting
AAI Board Room
July 21
AAI Golf Outing - Emerald Hills
Okoboji, Iowa | Click Here to Register
September 7
AAI Golf Outing - Amana Colonies
Amana, Iowa | Click Here to Register
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WATCH THE AGRIBUSINESS REPORT | |
Ag Retailers Invited to Attend Ag Aviation Calibration Clinic June 1 & 2 | |
The Iowa Agricultural Aviation Association (IAAA) is inviting ag retailers to attend their annual Operation Safe fly in and calibration clinic on June 1-2.
Aviators in attendance will be making sure their equipment is properly calibrated for the growing season. Ag retailers are invited to watch the process and interact with the aviators.
The event is weather dependent, so it is advisable to call ahead if there are questions about the weather. June 1 is the primary date with June 2 as a backup if June 1 does not work.
IAAA Operation Safe Calibration Fly In
June 1-2, 2022
Webster City Municipal Airport
Webster City, Iowa
Contact Quinten Childs with questions:
Email: qchilds@insmgmtgrp.com
Phone: 515.229.1856
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World Food Prize Foundation Live With the Laureate May 26 | |
Live With The Laureate
Join us too for a special conversation on May 26, in which our 2022 Laureate will be interviewed by Andrew Revkin, one of America’s most honored and experienced environmental journalists, and the founding director of the new initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
Register for this Digital Dialogue “Live with the Laureate”:
Live with the Laureate Registration
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Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s 2022 Agricultural Symposium:
Help Wanted in Agriculture - May 23-24
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Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Visit the symposium website for registration and additional information:
2022 Agriculture Symposium
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AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting - June 12-13 | |
Location: Altoona, Iowa
A conference related to driving digital connectivity in global agriculture and related industries. Visit the website for additional information and registration:
2022 Mid-Year Meeting
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StoneX Commercial Grain Accounting Seminar - June 14-15 | |
Location: Sioux Falls, South Dakota
An event for grain professionals, accountants, and CPAs focused on the basics of grain origination and merchandising, and the intricacies of grain industry accounting practices. Visit the website for additional information and registration:
Commercial Grain Accounting Seminar
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With a gallon of milk up about 25% since before the pandemic, and retail bacon 35% higher, it’s hard to imagine how U.S. food inflation could get any worse. But evidence suggests that even higher prices are on the horizon.
Consumers have actually been shielded so far from the full brunt of soaring expenses that are facing producers, distributors and small businesses like restaurants. But they can only hold back for so much longer.
Take the case of Jeff Good, who co-founded three restaurants in Jackson, Mississippi. Around 18 months ago, a 40-pound box of chicken wings cost him about $85. Now, it can go as high as roughly $150. Expenses for cooking oil and flour have nearly doubled in the past five months, he said. But it’s not just ingredient prices going up. He’s paying more for labor and services, too. Even the company that maintains his air conditioners has tacked on a $40 fuel charge per visit. To cope, he’s raised menu prices.
A 15-piece order of chicken wings, a signature dish at his Sal and Mookie’s pizzeria, went for $13.95 before Covid hit. Now, wing costs can vary so much they’re labeled at “market price,” like some restaurants do with lobster. At peaks, the menu price can be about $27.95 — but that represents a barely-there margin — and Good estimates the “real cost” is closer to about $34. He's trying to decide whether to keep raising prices or take wings off the menu.
“We have never, ever seen anything like what we’re seeing right now,” said Good, who opened his restaurants nearly 30 years ago.
[...] Read Full Story
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In a report released today, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis has found that meat processing and packing companies worked closely with allies in the Trump administration to help keep facilities open in the early weeks of the pandemic, even to the detriment of employee health and safety. The subcommittee’s report argued that food-shortage claims were more manufactured than genuine, thus amplifying the urgency for workers to stay on the job and the industry to be deemed “critical infrastructure” in an executive order by President Donald Trump.
Specifically, the report said that executives from large ag companies such as Smithfield Foods and Tyson Food spoke directly with members of the Trump White House to ensure that they would remain open.
In response, the North American Meat Institute says the report “distorts the truth about the meat and poultry industry’s work to protect employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The Meat Institute and its member companies voluntarily provided hundreds of thousands of pages to the Committee,” said Julie Anna Potts, President and CEO of the North American Meat Institute. “The report ignores the rigorous and comprehensive measures companies enacted to protect employees and support their critical infrastructure workers.”
Even with the steps that had been taken, tens of thousands of processing and packing facility employees contracted COVID, and scores deaths associated with the virus were recorded.
[...] Read Full Story
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In more bad news for farmers, a fertilizer that’s key for corn production will remain expensive for at least two years.
That’s according to CF Industries Holdings Inc., the world’s largest nitrogen fertilizer company. Prices have been skyrocketing as the war in Ukraine puts a large portion of the world’s fertilizer supplies at risk, since Russia is major producer. Costs of production are also skyrocketing with inputs like European natural gas rising on a potential fuel crunch. It’s all contributing to worries about food inflation, since fertilizer shortfalls could lead to smaller harvests.
However, CF isn’t seeing farmers shy away from buying in the US just yet, said senior vice president of sales and market development Bert Frost.
“We don’t see demand destruction,” Frost said at a conference in New York on Wednesday. “We see demand deferral.”
If farmers aren’t applying maximum fertilizer, they’re “just not that intelligent,” as crop prices are soaring, he said. If US farmers don’t buy all the nitrogen the company has, the company can ship it elsewhere, he said.
[...] Read Full Story
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Source: Progressive Farmer
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A Wyoming company will capture carbon dioxide from an Archer Daniels Midland corn-processing plant in Columbus, Nebraska, and transport it across Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming on a now-former natural gas pipeline.
Tallgrass announced in a news release on Thursday that the agreement is to transport about 10 million tons of CO2 annually through a 400-mile pipeline from ADM's plant.
CO2 will be transported to Tallgrass' eastern Wyoming sequestration hub for permanent underground storage.
"By utilizing a converted natural gas pipeline for CO2 transportation, Tallgrass minimizes the need for new pipeline infrastructure while enabling ADM, a global leader in sustainable products, to further decarbonize its global operations and strengthen Nebraska's agriculture industry," Tallgrass said in a news release.
Tallgrass recently announced plans to develop a commercial-scale CO2 sequestration hub in eastern Wyoming expected to be in service in 2024.
[...] Read Full Story
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THE AGRIBUSINESS REPORT
Follow host David Geiger on Twitter:
@geigerreports
Watch daily broadcast live:
KCRG-TV Cedar Rapids
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Watch online any time:
https://agribiz.org/report
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