You could say the downtown Marriott made some noise for Gov. Terry Branstad when he spoke at the Iowa Food Leadership Reception Oct. 12, a side event of the World Food Prize. “Someone pulled the fire alarm, so the alarm was going off the whole time,” Branstad told me at a breakfast meeting the next morning. “The organizers (Cultivation Corridor, Iowa State University and business groups) wanted to stay on schedule, so they told me to keep talking and I did my best. I’ve had many disruptions over the years, but none quite like this.” Perhaps that’s why the governor sounded a little hoarse the next day. As he chatted with audience members at a World Food Prize breakfast at Terrace Hill on Oct. 13, Branstad offered his thoughts on several other matters:

— He marvels that farms in his home area in northern Iowa are looking at corn yields as high as 269 bushels an acre; he recalls 40-bushel yields when he was a kid. 
— He thinks the GOP stands a better chance in local elections than in Congress this year.
— He wonders why there is so much opposition to genetically modified crops. “I don’t know how anyone can be against genetic technology.”