Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
An editor of The Rural Blog, a University of Kentucky professor with close ties to community newspapers in U.S. farm country, says Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s positioning on farm issues could provide a major opening for his likely Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.Al Cross, a veteran Kentucky newsman and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, covered politics for the Louisville Courier-Journal before moving on to become director of The Institute For Rural Journalism and Community Issues. Cross says McCain may find himself on flimsy footing in heavily rural states like Iowa, which may be key in the election.
“His recent statement in Iowa that he would veto the new Farm Bill as now written helps firm up his reputation for independence from lobbying interests, but puts him more at risk in swing states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri, and maybe Indiana — or even the critical state of Ohio, which people often forget is in the Corn Belt,” Cross told Iowa Independent. “Perhaps he expects that his national media campaign will mention his opposition to ethanol and other subsidies, probably not a bad idea at a time of rising food and fuel prices.”
McCain’s opposition to farm subsidies and hostility to ethanol are well-chronicled. Here is The Associated Press from earlier this month reporting on McCain’s visit to Des Moines and comments on the Farm Bill:
“I do not support it. I would veto it,” McCain said. “I would do that because I believe that the subsidies are unnecessary.”
McCain was in the heart of farm country, a place where subsidies for corn and ethanol fuel are wildly popular.
His long-held opposition to subsidies has cost him in Iowa, the state that traditionally begins the presidential nominating process and is a potential swing state in the fall. Yet the Arizona senator didn’t hesitate to bring up the issue.
“I just thought I’d start out with that non-controversial statement,” he said as he began the town hall-style meeting.The nearly $300 billion bill would pay for farm and nutrition programs for the next five years.
Given Obama’s “weakness with rural Democrats,” perhaps McCain, an Arizona senator, figures he has some room to run in farm country, Cross said.
“But he (McCain) had better beware those swing states,” Cross said. “Farm prices may be high, but farmers and their economic allies are in the squeeze, too.”
Obama touted his support of renewable fuels during campaigning in Iowa and frequently mentioned his farm country constituency in Illinois — which has many of the same interests as Iowa producers.
For his part, McCain is now being swept up in the “food versus fuel” debate that many in farm country regard as nothing more than a straw man for big oil.
Ethanol is far from the only energy source to be propped up with government subsidies as evidenced by a Texas state comptroller’s report released this week.
And in Grand Island, Neb., this week — an area where corn and livestock and biofuels are vital — Rick Tolman, chief executive officer of the National Corn Growers Association, told the Grand Island Independent newspaper that a “massive disinformation campaign” against ethanol was started by the oil industry which doesn’t want the competition.
It also may have been started by those, such as the meat industry, that want corn to return as a low-cost feed for livestock, he said.
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