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.
DTN Ag News has obtained what it claims is a draft of Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin's commodity title for the 2007 Farm Bill.
The 128-page document, written in legislative language, would put a cap on total commodity subsidies at $250,000 per farm household. It would exclude farm spouses from receiving payments and would exclude any farm household from receiving subsidies if the household makes more than $500,000 per year in income.
Update: Harkin's Senate Agriculture Committee spokesperson Kate Cyrul told Iowa Independent in an e-mail that the document is not an official draft.
She then told Iowa Independent the same thing that she told DTN: "It should come as no surprise that staff for Chairman Harkin have been putting onto paper policies, a number of which he has been discussing for many months — especially a fairer, smarter counter-cyclical program that provides better income protection for farmers. These policies have been incorporated into a working draft document and shared with policy experts off of Capitol Hill for comment. We had hoped this process would be confidential, so that we could incorporate ideas before the Chairman releases his full proposal. Legislative language will change as discussions with the committee go forward."
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