Kernza: Pros and Cons | The Spokesman Speaks Podcast, Episode 217
Published
5/25/2026
Welcome to Episode 217 of The Spokesman Speaks podcast. In this episode, we talk with a central Iowa corn and soybean farmer who’s experimenting with a unique perennial grain: Kernza. Later in the episode, Mykayla Hagaman of the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium explains how Iowa has grown its monarch habitat by more than 10x in just 5 years, while sharing tips for farmers to successfully add pollinator habitat to their fields.
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Resources Mentioned in this Episode
- Register for Iowa Farm Bureau’s Economic Summit.
- Learn more about Kernza.
- Apply for Iowa Farm Bureau’s Grow Your Future Award.
- Learn more about establishing monarch habitat through the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium.
- Learn about funding opportunities for monarch habitat: ISU Natural Resources Stewardship, FSA CRP, NRCS EQIP, NRCS Ag Conservation Easement Program, NRCS Conservation Stewardship Program, IDALS cost share, DNR REAP
- Register for Iowa Farm Bureau’s immersive, two-day farm succession planning workshop.
- Apply for Iowa Farm Bureau’s Market Study Tour of India.
About The Spokesman Speaks Podcast
Since 1934, The Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman has been Iowa’s leading agriculture news source, and today it has the largest readership of any ag newspaper in Iowa. While The Spokesman newspaper is available exclusively to Iowa Farm Bureau members, The Spokesman Speaks podcast is available publicly, providing the ag news and farmer education that matter most. You can find episodes of the podcast here or subscribe and listen in your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Audible, TuneIn Radio, Audacy, YouTube or AgriAmerica.com.
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