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North Iowa Farmer Wants More Stability In Federal Agriculture Programs

Pam Johnson farms with her family in North Iowa near Charles City. Here she is driving a grain cart for the soybean harvest.
Pat Blank
/
IPR
Pam Johnson farms with her family in North Iowa near Charles City. Here she is driving a grain cart for the soybean harvest.

This week’s crop report from the U.S Department of Agriculture says Iowa farmers are making great progress with the harvest.

North Iowa farmer Pam Johnson is in the field this week combining soybeans. She said 2020 has been a challenge on many levels.

COVID has not only affected farmers, but also rural communities and all of America but beyond that, we’ve had a trade war and we’ve had the gutting of the renewable fuel standard which supports both renewal fuels and jobs in rural America,” she said.

North Iowa farmer Pam Johnson's family is busy combining soybeans this week near Charles City.
Pat Blank
/
IPR
North Iowa farmer Pam Johnson's family is busy combining soybeans this week near Charles City.

Johnson, who is a past president of the National Corn Growers Association, said farmers need more stability from the federal government.

She farms with her family near Charles City and said she’d like to see what she calls “less chaos” in the agriculture sector.

“We need a rural action plan that’s laid out there so we can get back some kind of focus and we can get back to some kind of certainty with our markets whether that is livestock or ethanol or with trade," she said. “Trade wars are not easy to win.”

Pat Blank is the host of All Things Considered