Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig visits North Iowa producers

(ABC 6 News) — In a visit to producers in North Iowa, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig spotlighted the farm-to-table efforts of a local Charles City farm, as well as commenting on how the impact of upcoming tariffs are already causing concern among Iowa exporters.

At Upper Iowa Beef in Lime Springs, around 600 head of cattle are processed daily. General manager Ed Greiman said about 15% of his product ends up shipped overseas.

“Some of those items that we export really aren’t very popular here in the United States,” said Greiman, referring mainly to his exporting of beef navel cuts: a large part of Asian cuisine that carries more value to him as an export, with the right buyer.

Greiman said that with China out of the picture, he’s now looking to market these cuts to Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong.

“Exports are important to Iowa,” said Naig. “What we ideally would like to see is more more export opportunities and a fair playing field.”

“I think there’s a a great desire on the part of farmers to say we want better trade deals and we want more options, more market opportunities. Now, tariffs can be very disruptive. Tariffs can also be used correctly in the short term, can be an effective tool. And I think what you’re seeing is the president is using tariffs or the threat of tariffs to do just that, which is to get a better deal.”

Naig’s next stop, Jóia Food & Fiber Farm in Charles City, had concerns a little more local.

Owner Wendy Johnson said that her organic farm was seeking Iowa Department of Ag & Land Stewardship’s “Choose Iowa” grants to help efforts to make and package her produce completely in Iowa.

“We have to travel far places to get our grains dissolved and cleaned and bagged, our wool milled, we need our grains milled and all those value added pieces. Usually I have to go to Minnesota or or Wisconsin to get those value added processing done. I’d love to do it in Iowa.”

“We sell to direct to consumer, direct to the to the eater,” said Johnson. “We aggregate and purchase products from other producers right now and sell them through a virtual farm store. But we also want to be a place of building community.”