Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Current Competitive Grant

Farmer perspectives on ecosystem service management, land-use targeting and the future of cornbelt agriculture

Project ID: E2011-15

This 2-year grant for $80,745 was awarded in 2011.

Location: Audubon, Dallas, Guthrie, Jasper, Marion counties

Analysis of the economic, agronomic, social and cultural aspects of farmer decision-making regarding ecosystem service management on their farms specifically, as well as for Iowa as a whole (focusing on water quality and carbon) is the goal for this project. Investigators will attempt to characterize pathways for farmer decision-making regarding ecosystem service management and facilitate the incorporation of these pathways into models for decision support systems.

John C. Tyndall

John C. Tyndall John Tyndall is an assistant professor in natural resource ecology and management at Iowa State University. He has broad interests that include environmental and natural resource economics, policy and sociology within forestry and agriculture. He has completed research in the sociology and economics of biomass-based energy systems and natural resource and environmental quality management, especially in rural and urban interfaces.

Co-Investigator(s):

Tricia Knoot and Drake Larson, ISU Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Matt Helmers and Brian Gelder, ISU Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, and J. Arbuckle, ISU Sociology

This competitive grant project is part of the Leopold Center's Ecology Initiative.

Topics: Human systems, demographics and beginning farmer programs, Watershed and ecoregion