Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge will offer several agriculture programs, the first starting Jan. 14. Program topics include;

• Farm commodity marketing and the USDA farm program will be held Jan. 14 from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Iowa Central in Fort Dodge in the Career Education Building Room 108. Presenters will be Virg Robinson, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, and Tom Abbas, Hamilton County FSA. Topics will be 2009 corn and soybean supply and demand, year-end stocks, and setting up a corn and soybean marketing plan. The USDA farm programs to be discussed include the ACRE program, DCP program, SURE program, and commodity and facility loans.

• Cropping challenges for 2010 and beyond will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Jan. 26, Feb. 2 and Feb. 9 in ICCC’s Career Education Building Room 108. Bob Streit, private crop consultant, will discuss crop plans for 2010, soil fertility, crop and soil management, fungicides and diseases, and seed traits plus new products and services available to farmers.

• A Crop Fair will be held from 9 a.m. to noon Feb. 18 in the Career Education Building rooms 108 and 110 with a noon lunch provided. The fair is sponsored by the Iowa Corn Growers Association and Iowa Corn Promotion Board. Presenters will be Elwynn Taylor, Iowa State University meterologist, discussing the “2010 crop season weather forecast;” Tim Coonan, lobbyist for rural electric companies, who will discuss cap and trade legislation and how it will affect farmers and agriculture; and Bill Horan, area crop producer, who will discuss the process of growing identity preserved corn for pharmaceutical purposes and ways to product value-added corn products.

• A field tillage systems workshop will feature Dennis Schulte, Webster County NRCS, and a panel of farmers who will discuss their tillage systems. The program will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Career Education Building Room 108. The panel will discuss ridge-till, strip-till, no-till and conservation tillage. Included in the discussion will be the number of trips over the field, machinery costs, planting equipment needed, weed, insect, and disease control, and pros and cons of each system.

• A computerized farm record keeping workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to noon on March 9. Kent Vickre, Iowa Farm Business Association in Ames, will be the presenter. He will use the PCMARS accounting system to illustrate farm transactions. He will show how to create farm income and expense codes, make a vendor list, track farm loans, set up bank accounts, payroll, track various farms separate from the others, print checks, enter farm/personal income and expenses into the system, generat reports, and balance a checkbook.

To pre-register, call ICCC at (800) 362-2793, extension 1277, or call locally at 574-1277. All of the programs are free of charge.

Program sponsors include Anderson Implement, Brokaw Supply, CS Bank, Diehl’s of Dayton, D&K Implement, Labre Crop Consulting, Northwest Bank, Omnistar and Pioneer Hi-Bred International.