By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

The USDA is predicting the average corn yield in Iowa this year will be 202 bushels an acre. That’s just a couple of bushels short of last year’s record.

Iowa State University ag economist Chad Hart says drought conditions had a mixed impact on yields.

“The western side of the state faced more of those drought problems. As we move over, especially into east central Iowa, we saw some record yields from some producers there,” Hart says, “and so when we add it all up for Iowa, it was actually a pretty good production year.”

Commodity prices are strong and the USDA predicts farm income nationwide will be about 5% higher than in 2021. “Agriculture’s in a pretty good spot right now. We are seeing good revenues when we look across the board. The challenge is we are starting to see those input costs rising,” Hart says. “…Eventually those costs will catch up to the prices we’re capturing today.”

Initial USDA projections for 2023 suggest Iowa farmers will plant more acres of corn next spring. “That tells me that USDA is saying farmers are still chasing after the higher prices or higher returns that corn produces,” Hart says, “even though corn is the higher cost crop to produce.”

Hart says lingering drought conditions have been a concern for farmers in each of the past two growing seasons and will be again in 2023.

“The longer we’re in this pattern, the most likely we are to see more dramatic impacts on our production,” Hart says, “and do some true economic harm to Iowa agriculture.”

Officials in Texas say drought there is causing billions of dollars in losses for cotton farmers. In the American west, drought conditions have persisted for 22 years and ag operations are fighting to maintain access to dwindling water supplies.

By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

Iowa State University economist Peter Orazem says while there have been gains, the number of Iowans who are working continues to lag pre-pandemic levels.

“If you look at Iowans under the age of 45, labor force participation rates actually went up. It’s Iowans over 45 where labor force participation rates went down and they really went down for people over 55,” Orazem says. “…We don’t think that they’re coming back and so that’s going to be holding back the Iowa economy in terms of its ability to make up for for its lost labor.” Iowa had one of the oldest labor forces in the country prior to the pandemic and Orazem says it appears many who opted to retire in the past 18 months are not going to return to the workforce.

“We’re lagging the rest of the U.S. in terms of recovery of employment and that’s holding back, actually, the Iowa economy,” Orazem says.” Ten days ago, the Iowa Workforce Development agency announced the state had added back all the jobs that were lost due to the pandemic. Orazem says the total number of employed Iowans still remains about one percent below pre-pandemic levels — and the labor participation rate is about two percent below what it was in February of 2020.

“We’ve had three straight quarters of negative Gross State Product, which would meet the classic definition of a recession,” Orazem says. Orazem made his comments during a weekend appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.

By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

Looks like we’ll have a brown Thanksgiving. National Weather Service meteorologist, Dylan Dobson, says the rest of our snow should melt away by Thursday.

“So, we’re gonna expect it to warm up here through the week, with the warmest day actually being Wednesday. Highs on Wednesday we’ll be in the low 50s,” he says. Dobson says Thanksgiving Day will cool off some.

“Just a little bit not a whole lot with highs on Thursday being in the mid-40s, and then Friday and also in the mid-40s,” Dobson says. “But then we’ll warm back up through the weekend back into those more seasonal 40s and 50s.”

Most of the state should see good driving conditions. “We might have a few chances for some scattered showers — mainly in eastern and southern Iowa — but other than that it should be fairly quiet for Thanksgiving this year,” he says.

Dobson says the melting of the snow we had helps the temperatures warm up.