Almost 1,000 pivots have been installed in counties statewide in the past four years as a result of higher crop prices and the demand of seed corn companies, an almost 20 percent increase in overall irrigation that equals the use of more than half a million people each year.
“If I was going to invest in farm ground, if some of these climate scenarios come true, then having irrigation might be something that would pay off in the long-term,” Roadcap said.
Since the 2012 drought, the number of irrigation pivots in Champaign County has more than doubled. Brad Uken, the manager of the Champaign County Farm Bureau, said that one of the driving factors behind the recent growth in irrigation has been seed corn companies moving toward growers that have inst
The drought of 2012 was the worst since at least 1988, spanning the entire Corn Belt, from Ohio to Wyoming, and costing the agribusiness industry billions of dollars.
While Illinois is not currently facing a water crisis, highly populated areas with high growth – namely Chicagoland and Champaign County – are starting to see some levels of water conflict, and agricultural irrigation is playing a major role.
The State Water Survey projects that in the coming decades, Illinois will require 20 to 50 percent more water. But planning for the increase has been inadequate, largely due to a halt in planning because of the ongoing state budget crisis.
One of the more dramatic suggestions for the Iowa Democratic Party's next presidential precinct caucuses is letting people who cannot attend still register their preference for president. Whether that becomes the game plan for the 2020 caucuses is to be determined.
“She emptied her revolver into the elk and laid him low at her horse’s feet,” a Massachusetts newspaper described how an Iowa woman named Maggie Foreman brought down the “king of the mountains.” It was the summer of 1879; and Maggie, a Chariton, Iowa, resident was visiting her sister and brother-in-
Button making factories could be found in towns all along the Mississippi River in 1909. Muscatine was known as the “Pearl Button Capital of the World.”
A University of Iowa’s Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research and College of Education project will help Iowa school teachers apply Next Generation Science Standards in class that let students decide for themselves if climate change exists.
