2020 December Stewardship Advocate

Posted on December 21, 2020 at 12:41 PM by Iowa Corn

MONTHLY UPDATE FROM BEN GLEASON, IOWA CORN SUSTAINABLE PROGRAMS MANAGER

Merry Christmas! Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season and a great New Year!

The new year brings a couple of deadlines for conservation programs. Iowa’s $5/acre crop insurance discount for planting cover crops has a January 15^th deadline. Go here for details: www.cleanwateriowa.org/covercropdemo.

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) will be open for general sign ups from January 4^th to February 12^th. This is a great opportunity to put unprofitable acres into habitat in exchange for CRP rental payments. Click here for more information. In addition to the general sign up, USDA has announced higher incentives for continuous CRP. Sign up is open year-round for continuous CRP and targets specific practices like buffer strips. This is another good option for unprofitable acres, especially in the floodplain.

2021 will continue the virtual meeting trend for the near-term future. Iowa Corn is hosting a series of virtual farm hall meetings this winter to keep you up to date on our programs and policies including the January 22^nd farm hall covering our conservation programs and talking to your landlord. Click here for the full slate.

The close of 2020 brought a key decision regarding the status of the monarch butterfly. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has decided that the declining population of the monarch meets criteria for listing as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. However, other species face higher threats for extinction, so the monarch will be a candidate for listing with annual reviews for several years until higher priority species work is completed. Iowa Corn is a member of the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium which promotes a voluntary, all-hands-on-deck approach to monarch conservation. Click here for more information.