News and notesA new directory of community supported agriculture (CSA) farms is now available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To find CSA farms in your state, write to CSA/CSREED, 1400 Indepdendence Ave., SW, Stop 2207, Washington, DC 20250-2207, or go to the website at www.sare.org/san/csa/index.htm. An updated fact sheet on composting dead livestock has been published as a result of recent changes to Iowa Department of Natural Resources requirements on the practice. The revised publication, Composting dead livestock: A new solution to an old problem (SA8), is online at the Leopold Center's web site or available from Iowa State University Extension's publication distribution center, (515) 294-5247. The fact sheet is based on work done by Tom Glanville from ISU's Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, a portion of which was supported by the Leopold Center. ISU Extension's sustainable ag program has a new web site with a calendar of events, news items, and contacts. Visit the site at http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/sustag/. Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) presented its Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award to Mark Honeyman, associate professor of animal science at Iowa State University, during their annual meeting in January. Honeyman is a member of the Center's swine systems (hooped buildings) initiative and directs the ISU Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station's 11 research and demonstration farms. Education coordinator Rich Pirog represents the Leopold Center on the 100-member Iowa Watersheds Task Force. Task force work groups began meeting last summer to look at various aspects of Iowa watersheds. They will issue their recommendations for soil conservation, water quality protection, flood control and natural resource issues in an interim report this spring. "We had more campers this year than ever before and one of the best outdoor education staffs ever assembled," wrote Shelly Gradwell, who coordinated the three-day Youth and Family Camp last June at the Des Moines YMCA Camp. Now in its fifth year, the camp focuses on building bridges between rural and urban youth, and teach them about sustainable agriculture. The camp is supported by camp fees, Practical Farmers of Iowa's Field to Family project, the Leopold Center and Iowa State University's sustainable agriculture program. Locally grown meals were served, along with dinnertime activities that explained where the food came from. The camp had the smallest amount of food waste of any group at the YMCA last year. Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI), a long-time Leopold Center partner, had one of 23 organic farming research projects funded in 1999 by the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) of Santa Cruz, California. PFI received $7,630 to study control of gastrointestinal parasites in livestock with organic management and materials. Since 1990, OFRF has awarded nearly $630,000 to support 114 organic farming research and educational projects. Jerry DeWitt, former Leopold Center Advisory Board member and coordinator of Iowa State University Extension's sustainable agriculture program, chaired the OFRF committee that evaluated the grant proposals. Leopold Center Advisory Board member Neil Hamilton was appointed to a 19-member Advisory Committee on Small Farms by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Hamilton, director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University, is the only Iowan on the committee, which builds on the work of the National Commission on Small Farms. * * * A report that gives an Iowa perspective on the grape industry will be available from the Leopold Center in late March. Information in the report is being collected by education coordinator Rich Pirog, who also looked at apple production and its implication on local food systems last fall. Watch the Center's web site (http://www.leopold.iastate.edu), where the report will be posted as soon as it's available (hard copies of the report may be requested from the Center). Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge also has formed an Iowa Viticulture Advisory Council to encourage grape and wine production in the state. Progressive Farmer named Aldo Leopold one of the "100 most influential people in agriculture" over the past century. An article in the January 2000 issue also mentioned the Leopold Center as a place where "Leopold's ideas are preserved and fostered." Return to Spring 2000 Leopold Letter index |