• Meeting On-farm Energy Needs through Conservation, Efficiency and Renewable Energy
• On-Line Learning: Using Webinars to Teach about Succession and Enterprise Development Issues
  
  

Renewed Competitive Grants

• Grass-based Livestock Working Group
  
• Sustainable Economic Development through Organic and Grazing Dairy Farm Establishment and Transition
  

This project will create a statewide Farm Energy Working Group. The group will support the implementation of a variety of energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy practices for small and midsize farms in Iowa. The group will meet quarterly and offer mini-grants for research, education and on-farm case studies.

Kamyar Enshayan manages UNI's Center for Energy and Environmental Education and directs several community-wide projects including Buy Fresh Buy Local and the Yard for Kids community health education program. He also works with UNI's Energywi$e, a program to reduce energy waste on campus. He is an agricultural engineer and teaches environmental studies as an adjunct faculty at UNI.

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On-Line Learning: Using Webinars to Teach about Succession and Enterprise Development Issues, $25,500, 1 year, Teresa Opheim, Practical Farmers of Iowa; and Mike Duffy, ISU Beginning Farmer Center [XP2009-02] STATEWIDE

Activities in this project include development of four webinars on success planning: Whole Farm Planning for Farm Succession; Legal Issues in Succession Planning; Succession or Estate Planning; and Fitting New Enterprises into the Whole Farm. Four webinars also will be offered on enterprise development: Which Enterprise? Doing Basic Research to Identify Markets; Enterprise Budgets: Can I Produce Enough? Farmers Speak on Products, Pricing, Placement, Promotion, People; and Financing Your Enterprise: Which Governmental Programs Can Help.

Teresa Opheim is executive director for Practical Farmers of Iowa. She is a fourth generation Iowan, raised in Mason City, and has a variety of experience in sustainable agriculture. For three years she was executive director for the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and Sustainable Agriculture Coalition that worked with 40 member groups. She also was communications director at the Iowa Environmental Council and editor for the National Wetlands Newsletter, The Environmental Forum, the EPA Journal, and the Environmental Information Service. She has a law degree from the University of Iowa and was admitted to the Minnesota bar in 1985.

Mike Duffy received his Ph.D. in Agriculture Economics from Penn State in 1981 and joined Iowa State University in 1984 as extension area farm management specialist. Currently, he is Extension Economist in farm management and director of the Beginning Farmer Center at ISU. Duffy conducts the annual land value survey in Iowa and is responsible for preparing cost of crop production estimates and the Iowa farm costs and returns publication. Formerly Associate Director at the Leopold Center, Duffy's research interests include determinants of farm profitability, small farms, soil conservation, integrated pest management, and sustainable agriculture.

Over the next several years, this group meet quarterly to build community and facilitate information exchange between all kinds of grass-based livestock producers and marketers, as well as their supporters in academia, state government, and not-for-profit organizations.  The working group also will provide small grants to interdisciplinary teams of researchers and outreach professionals for projects that will address topics of concern in grass-based livestock production, marketing, ecology and policy arenas. 

Paul Brown is assistant director for Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension at Iowa State University. His research interests include agricultural development strategies that integrate people, natural resources, infrastructure and rural communities.

Andy Larson is an ISU Extension small farms specialist. Larson began work as extension program specialist in small farm sustainability in May after graduating from ISU’s College of Business with an MBA and graduate minor in Sustainable Agriculture. He had worked as graduate assistant on the VCP project for the Leopold Center.

The study is looking to increase the number of grass-based dairy farms in Iowa, and will target beginning (younger) and organic farmers in eastern Iowa, along with conventional producers transitioning to organic. The project will increase the technical assistance to producers and consultants/advisors they work with such as lenders, nutritionists, veterinarians and suppliers. Also as part of the project investigators will develop training activities and resources for farm advisors and extension personnel. The goal is to help producers understand market outlet options for new and transitioning operations, and help lenders understand that organic and grazing dairy farmers can be profitable alternatives to conventional systems.

Larry F. Tranel has held extension faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin and at Iowa State University. During his tenure in Wisconsin, he was also a successful dairy producer. He has gained valuable international dairy experience through his involvement with International Mission and Dairy Development Projects in Nicaragua, Moldova, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico.