Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Leopold Notes November 2011

Notes from the Leopold Center Archive

PRAIRIE CONSERVATION STRIPS
The Leopold Center has created a resource for landowners interested in a new type of conservation practice that’s showing a lot of promise. A Landowner’s Guide to Prairie Conservation Strips answers common questions about this system, the topic of Leopold Center-supported research at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Jasper County.

News release and link to printable pub

MULTI-PURPOSE LANDSCAPES
Check out our newest On the Ground video with managers at Whiterock Conservancy are learning how native grasslands can provide both environmental benefits and nutritional forages for grazing cattle. It’s a unique project funded by a grant from our Ecology Initiative.

View the video, Grazing Native Grasslands at Whiterock

GROWER’S MANUAL
Here’s a template for farmer networks looking for ways to meet food safety standards and improve their post-harvest handling practices. The Leopold Center and GROWN Locally, a producer cooperative in northeast Iowa, have developed a Grower’s Manual that outlines personnel procedures, general handling, cleaning, sanitizing, packaging, labeling and transporting and how to plan a mock recall.

News release and link to printable pub

AGRICULTURE FOR LIFE: CULTIVATING DIVERSITY
That’s the theme for the 2011 annual conference of the Iowa Environmental Council November 3 at Drake University in Des Moines. Keynote speakers are author Frances Moore Lappé and Ricardo Salvador, former ISU professor now leading food system programs for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Leopold Center is an event co-sponsor.

Details and a link to Lappé’s interview on our calendar

FARM TO FORK
Producers, consumers and others interested in local foods are invited to a panel discussion Tuesday, November 8 hosted by the Farm to ISU program and local chapter of Buy Fresh Buy Local. The panel will follow a question-and-answer format, beginning at 7 p.m. in the Campanille Room of the ISU Memorial Union.

Details about the event on our calendar

OUT TO THE LAKES
A new video from Iowa Learning Farms offers a provocative look at water quality and everyone’s relationship with lakes and other bodies of water. The video highlights Black Hawk Lake in west central Iowa. A related new resource – also free – is the book, Water Quality Matters to Us All, that examines how farmers, urban residents, soil and water district commissions and “the experts” view water quality. Request either by contacting Iowa Learning Farms at ilf@iastate.edu, or by mail: Iowa Learning Farms, 219A Davidson Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011.

Iowa Learning Farms website

KIRSCHENMANN LECTURE
Leopold Center Distinguished Fellow Fred Kirschenmann will present the annual Moos Family Lecture on water and the environment on November 10 at the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus. The lecture will be archived at the Freshwater.org website.

Details about the event on our calendar

TRI-STATE SYMPOSIUM
Fruit and vegetable growers are invited to attend a December 2 gathering in Sioux City planned by Flavors of Northwest Iowa and extension staff from Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Details on our calendar

AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR
ISU Dining director Nancy Levandowski is featured as “food service director of the month” on a website for 40,000 noncommercial food service facilities at colleges, schools, healthcare and other institutions. The Leopold Center supported her work to initiate the Farm to ISU program in 2007, which now generates more than $900,000 in local food purchases.

Read article on Food Service Director website

BOO! From the Crew at the Leopold Center!
 

Back to Notes from the Leopold Center Issues