Courtesy of Jackie King, ISU News Service.

• Chad Hart, assistant professor of economics and grain markets specialist, spoke with Julie Ingwersen of Reuters about crop basis levels through the summer and fall. He also spoke with Ed Clark of Farm Journal Media about crop basis, barge numbers, and flooding. And he spoke with Ray Bowman of the Food and Farm radio program about the farm bill.
• An associate scientist in economics and staff member in ISU’s Regional Economics and Community Analysis Program, Swenson was interviewed today by Matt Kelley, Radio Iowa, regarding Swenson’s research for the Leopold Center looking at the regional impacts of small meat processing facilities in Iowa.
• Swenson was interviewed Friday by Arthur Sulzburger III of The New York Times about examples of rural to urban legislative power shifts in Iowa. Sulzburger also spoke with Liesl Eathington, director of RECAP and an assistant scientist in economics, to get a good demographic representation of population shifts from rural to urban areas.
• Swenson was asked last Thursday by Jason Clayworth, a political reporter with The Des Moines Register, to review the League of Cities', the Association of Counties', and the Governor's estimates of the revenue impacts associated with a reduction in commercial and industrial values by 40 percent phased in over a five-year period.  Swenson found that all of the estimates either had errors or made assumptions that distorted the impacts, and that legislation should rely on nonpartisan estimates from the Legislative Services Bureau instead of estimates produced by special interests.