Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Director: How does the Leopold Center remain relevant to Iowa agriculture?

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2009

By JERRY DEWITT, Leopold Center director

How does the Leopold Center remain relevant to Iowa agriculture?

Iowa agriculture in 2009 is far different from what it was some two decades ago when the Leopold Center was created by the Iowa Groundwater Protection Act. When the Leopold Center opened its doors for business in 1988, Iowa agriculture was represented by the “Big Four” – corn, soybeans, cattle and hogs. These are still the mainstays of Iowa farming, but with many adjustments in production, technology and practice.

Our farms are larger, our farmers fewer. Our cattle numbers have declined, and we do not have as many pork producers. We have invested in precision technology and GMOs permeate production agriculture. Our machinery gets bigger and so do our fields when fence posts and fence rows are pulled out.

But we still watch the soil move from our fields and into our waterways, lakes and rivers, creating hypoxic zone problems thousands of miles away. Many farm families struggle with their anguish over the loss of sons and daughters who grow up and do not return to the farm to supply another generation on the land.

The mandate for the Leopold Center 22 years ago was to identify and study those agricultural practices that degrade Iowa’s natural resources and impair profitability of its farm families. We also were charged to find practical alternatives that can retain profit and protect the state’s soil and water.

So, why am I asking the question about the relevance of the Leopold Center today? These comments are my response after I became aware of an opinion expressed recently by members of an Iowa farm organization. The observation was that “the Leopold Center is irrelevant.”

This statement certainly caught my attention! And I began to ponder our role, our progress in helping farmers and what we have learned after investing nearly $18 million in more than 420 competitive grant-funded research projects.

For more than 20 years we have looked at Iowa agriculture and asked: What can we do? What changes are possible? How can we make a difference? What have Iowa farmers gained from our work?

A few relevant observations
It only takes a visit to our Web site, a review of our publications, or a trip to a field day by one of our partners to discover that the work of the Leopold Center is very, very relevant to Iowa agriculture. I offer the following observations:

  • The landscape has changed, thanks to research and demonstrations showing riparian areas and strategically-placed buffers strips around corn and soybean fields. Our research confirms that Iowa farmers can dramatically reduce nitrate and soil loss in fields while still growing corn and soybeans.
  • Iowa pork producers can compete financially by finishing pork in low-cost hoop structures. More than 5 percent of Iowa pork is produced in alternative systems, and Iowa has more than 2,500 hoop structures, thanks to Leopold Center studies and demonstrations.
  • One of the current research projects that we are funding discusses ways to tie up residual amounts of atrazine to prevent it or its metabolites from migrating out of crop fields into the state’s waterways.
  • Another funded research project has provided new insight: cattle grazing in or around streams spend less than 2 percent of their time in the water. We now know that harmful bacterial contamination of the water from cattle wading in the stream is not a major factor affecting water quality.
  • We are funding work to evaluate and improve the design of biofilters at the end of tile lines in corn and soybean fields. These simple structures can remove nitrates from tile drainage water before it leaves the field and enters surface waters and streams.
  • We also see the need to help young families enter dairying. We have been supporting work in northeast and southeast Iowa to retrofit confinement facilities for grass-based dairy operations, and promote other strategies for profitability.
  • Years of research early in our history demonstrated that nitrogen use can be reduced by using the late-spring soil test and more efficient application methods.

Relevance in Center goals
These are just a few ideas that come to my mind when I am asked, “Is the Leopold Center still relevant to Iowa agriculture?”

My response to my good friends in conventional agriculture in Iowa is this: We at the Leopold Center passionately work to reduce nitrogen loading in our water, to save soil, to place young families (your sons and daughters) on the land, to lessen the hypoxic zone, to help return profit to the farm, to embrace new technologies that enhance sustainability, and to honor and build a resilient Iowa agriculture.

Those goals seem mighty relevant to farming in 2009. Do you really know the Center and what it does? Tell me how we can be more relevant. I will listen.

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2009