The Des Moines Register du lieu suivant : Des Moines, Iowa • Page 50

DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER 0 OCTOBER 12, 1980 IF MWSTIII PHOTO BY BOB NANDI-L Help for the family farm ence in farming, or the farm enter COUNTRY LIVING prise involved, and must farm the land involved themselves rather than lease it to others. There is no age limit. Loans will not be made to persons who have a net worth in excess of $100,000. The Limit on loans will be $500,000 for farmland, and $125,000 for depreciable property. Borrowers must be unable to obtain conventional financing, and must show an ability to repay the loans.

Other details of the loan program By DON MUHM IMHir Farm EdHvr A small group of Iowans will meet again this week to discuss the best way to distribute millions of dollars in loans intended to help families get started in the farming business. The Iowa Legislature this year authorized the sale of bonds to generate up to $150 million, a pool of money from which young or beginning farmers could draw. But the lawmakers didn't specify who will be eligible for the loans, or how the money will be allocated. That job was left to the Iowa Family Farm Development Authority, also known as the Family Farm board. The Iowa board members are trail-blazers.

The legislature assigned them a destination helping the family farm without providing a road map. Further, no other state has a program similar to Iowa's from which to copy. The first goal, then, is to determine exactly what a family farm is. The U.S. Department of Agriculture only recently noted that "the small farm has been a valued component of American agriculture since the earliest days of the Republic.

Over the years it has provided a home to millions, nr-rAraA oianifirant mlAntitlpe flf Lit I LJ 1J itifftjffi. f. i I "Sk; JF 'ft The empty offices of the defunct Prairie Grain Co. of Stockport You have to give them credit must be worked out by the board, which will ask for public comment at hearings in December. For more information, write the Iowa Family Farm Development Authority, 550 Liberty Building, Des Moines, 50309.

The board at its September meeting hired the Des Moines law firm of Belin, Harris, Helmick and Lovrien as its bond counsel. The board will consider hiring bond underwriter at its meeting this week. McNarney of the Iowa Housing Finance Authority told a farm group recently that "there may be some skepticism by people in tying up money for 40 to 50 years through the sale of bonds" to raise loan funds. Also, he suggested that if interest rates rise again, as they did earlier this year, lower-yielding bonds may not be as attractive to potential buyers. The bond issue could be jeopardized also by any U.S.

Internal Revenue Service ruling that would eliminate the tax-exempt status of the interest on the bonds. It is the tax-free status of such bonds that attracts the investors needed to raise the funds. The bonds sold by the Family Farm authority would be similar to tax-free bonds sold by municipalities for such projects as industrial parks, conventional centers and schools buildings. The members of the Family Farm board are George Schneidermann of Rock Rapids, a banker, Lois Schnoor of Maquoketa, clerk of court; John Soorholtz of Melbourne, a farmer, Edward Engstrom of Kanawha, a farmer, Steven Basler of Sharpsburg, a farmer, A.J. Walter of Guttenberg, a teacher, M.

Linda Nichols of Onawa, a realtor, Gene Geissinger of the Iowa Conservation Commission, an accountant who also is a member of the Iowa Housing Finance Authority board, and Dwight Seegmil-ier of Hills, a banker. Iowa Agricul The Family Farm program is being established under this same housing authority, although William McNarney, director of the Iowa Housing Finance Authority, reports he will hire people "who have expertise in agricultural finance and farming" to handle the new farm lending chores. As the farm program is envisioned, no state tax funds, and only Limited federal funds, will be used. Board members suggest that existing federal loan programs might be used to "stretch" Family Farm funds. Further, Iowa Treasurer Maurice Barringer, an unofficial member of the Family Farm board, said Last week that "we are investigating ways we can work with existing lending agencies and banks in order to provide more money to borrowers." Barringer said there is "tremendous interest" In the Family Farm program.

He said the board has received 1,200 to 1,500 loan inquiries already, coming from two primary groups: "beginner-farmers," who want loans apparently because they are unable to get financing for their new farm operations any other way, and "old pros," who have substantial farming operations and are looking for what Barringer called "a cheaper way to get their sons started in farming." "As a state board, we have to be extremely cautious," Barringer said. "We are not interested in further increasing the size of family farm operations that already involve four to five people." As a result, Barringer said, "we will be making some important decisions in the next few months concerning this program, and how it will operate." The nine-person state board is scheduled to hold its third monthly meeting Wednesday at the Wallace Building in Des Moines. Some of the loan requirements likely to be adopted at that meeting are: Borrowers must be Iowa residents, with the property involved in the loan request located within the state. Would-be borrowers must have some education, training or experi Continued from Page One ceivable have never been higher. One agricultural chemical dealer said one of his customers vowed to collect only certified checks for the grain he sold this year.

When the dealer suggested that the customer pay him the same way and refuse pi UUUVVU wl lllv wl a ww food and played an important part in the life of rural America." The USDA went on to define such a family farm as one in which family members provide most of the labor and management; family net income from all sources is less than the median non-metropolitan income of the state, and the family relies on farming for most of its income. Under that definition, more than half (52 percent) of the nation's 2.3 million commercial farm families qualify as "small, family farmers." The number of those farms is dwindling each year. Inheritance taxes make it hard for farmers to pass on their farms to their children, and young farmers often find it im-; possible to come up with the money to get started. That's not surprising, con-' sidering that land may cost thousands of dollars an acre, and buildings and machinery tens of thousands of dollars more. The Family Farm board hopes to have its administrative rules approved by December, to offer the bonds for sale by January 1981, and to begin making loans by March 1981.

The Iowa Family Farm act Is patterned somewhat after the Iowa Housing Finance Authority, which was passed in 1975 and which involves the sale of bonds to provide housing for low-income families. Loans totalling $220 million have been made so far under that program. the customer got angry. "He said, 'you're right. You've got to trust Dietzman was one of the first grain customers at Boley Fertilizer and Chemical Inc.

of Keosauqua, which was accepting grain for storage In three newly erected metal bins for the first time last week. Although the seat of Van Buren County, Keosauqua has never before had a grain warehousing operation, giving it the reputation as the town that always wanted to sell you something but never wanted to buy. Wayne Boley runs the facility, which is In stark contrast to Klugs' fast and modern elevator where grain is dumped through a grate to a holding pit below as fast as a truck can unload. At Klugs', the tall, blue "leg" visible from the edge of Stockport later moves the grain Into a storage tank. It's also possible to suck the grain overhead and dump it into a semi-trailer truck waiting to take it to a river terminal for resale.

With Boley's help, Dietzman slowly emptied a truckload of soybeans into a rubber tire, where the oilseeds were coaxed into a suction pipe that carried them to a large metal bin. "You put down that this is a long-needed thing here. We haven't had anyone buying grain within 12 miles or so," Dietzman directed. The farmer-mayor said having an elevator so close meant that grain wagons could do the job of delivering the crop to market, saving farmers the expense of hiring big semis to haul it further distances. Dietzman was one of the main supporters of Boley's decision to expand his grain hauling operation to include warehousing.

"There's still just a lot In trust, and who you deal with, and that's the way we feel about Wayne," Dietzman said. "He's been in business for quite some time." the dealer said. The story illustrates the stakes involved when farmers get tough with their suppliers and grain buyers. Should they ask for payment on the spot, they risk having their own, often sizable, credit cut off. "There are times when people sell grain that they have to trust someone.

You can't have cash before you unload," reflected Donald "Dutch" Dietzman, the mayor of Keosauqua. ture Secretary Robert H. Louns berry is also an unofficial board member. Earl Willits, head of the farm division for the Iowa Attorney General's office, is chief counsel to the board. The Key to your Future.

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Kathy Helbrecht Great-West life Assurance Co. 60 Osborne Street North Winnipeg, Canada R3C 3A5 directly from the stack. The university researchers are not the only people interested in using cobs to dry corn. Pioneer Seeds has been using cobs to aid in drying its seed corn for several years. Several commercial cob furnaces are on the market today.

Joel Geske, of Sukup Manufacturing a Sheffield, grain bin and dryer manufacturer, said his company started working with corn residue-fueled drying units about a year ago, and now has about a dozen of the units on farms on an experimental basis. "We could see that LP was going to become too expensive for grain drying and thought we had better come up with some other fuel source," he said. The Sukup unit is designed to burn the complete corn residue, including stacks or bales of cornstalks and leaves. "We have been storing the stacks for a year so they will be drier," Geske said. "If you try to burn them too wet, you end up with a lot of smoke." Geske estimated that it would take the stalks from about 15 percent of the total corn acreage to dry the corn using his company's unit Once farmers become accustomed to using cobs as an alternative grain drying fuel, can the cobs be adapted to other heating uses? "Once fanners start, there is no end to what they can do," Buchele said.

"Cobs are already used to produce Furfural, a chemical used in plastics and casting work, and they can be used to produce gas that can be run in a diesel engine. The cob furnaces could be used to make steam and provide the heat for alcohol stills, or for heating farm buildings or even the farm home. "But because present fuel prices are still relatively low, it probably will be another five years at least before cob dryers see much use on Iowa farms." The USDA estimated that biomass residue from all U.S. agricultural land eventually could supply 1 to 2 percent of the country's energy needs. Less than 4 percent of the nation's energy is used on farms.

Minnesota researchers suggested that removing all the residues from fields could cause serious soil conservation problems, but they said half of the residues could be removed without serious consequences if farmers switch to no-tillage conservation practices. Continued from Page One cobs. Researchers said about half of the cobs are required for the corn drying operation. Kline said cobs can be separated in the field by adding a modified residue-saver device to the combine, and then collecting the cobs in a wagon pulled by the combine. "The end product in our tests has been about 99 percent cobs," Kline said, "and I would estimate that we take about half of the cobs from the field." Colvin said the combine had been adjusted so that both the cobs and grain went into the grain tank; the cobs were separated later using a mechanical cleaner.

He noted that most combine manuals explain how such adjustments are made. ISU engineer Buchele said the cobs can be separated also by collecting the residue in a wagon and then running it through the combine again. The researchers agreed that the most efficient collection time would be at harvest. "You already have them off the ground, and if you burn them that season you aren't faced with much of a storage problem," Kline said. "They could be stored and dried for a year, but we have found that they can be burned wet." When the grain has a 25 percent moisture level, the cobs will be about 45 percent to 50 percent moisture, Buchele found.

"A pound of dry cobs will produce about 8,000 Btu British thermal units, a measure of heat," he said. "But, because of the heat needed just to dry out the wet cobs before they will burn, a pound of cobs with 50 percent moisture will put out only 3,450 Btu." Kline said the USDA has experimented with using the heat from the stack or chimney of the furnace to dry the cobs before burning them. But he said it is easier to get a good fire going, and then to let the fire dry the cobs as they are added. "We found that we could get just as much beat by increasing the airflow to the furnace and adding more he said. "We h- in a brick-1 jCI-00 Btu per isg atxiut 300 w.

we were getting nearly 800 wo Biu an hour." Another USDA research team, this one at Purdue University at West Lafayette, has used cobs to generate up to i million Btu per hour, The Positions Establishment of our Denver Home Office has created some excellent career opportunities for actuarial students with at least 3 exams. Creati vc individuals are required in a number of areas including: Individual life, Health and Annuity product design and pricing Actuarial assessment and Interpretation of Financial Results for Individual Lines of Business njl iff" fLVn. Clothed cob the equivalent energy of about seven gallons of fuel oil. But the Purdue experiments don't burn the ccbs they "gasify" them using a two-step process. "Then, when we burn the gases, we get a clean, hot air exhaust with which to dry the grain directly," said engineer John Barrett Jr.

of the USDA's Science and Education Administration. "The gasification helps us obtain the maximum amount of usable energy we can get from the cobs." i Kline said the USDA plans to work with a larger furnace this fall that will burn 600 pounds of cobs per hour. The cob furnaces generally are brick-lined steel furnaces, much like conventional home heating wood stoves. But a fan is attached to blow air through the firebox to aid combustion and move the heat into the bin. The heat for drying usually is taken Great-West Life ASSUNANCt OTA COMHANV An equal opportunity employer..