Leopold Center - Fred Kirschenmann assumes duties July 1: Farmer chosen as next Leopold Center director

When the appointment of the new Leopold Center director was announced in early June, the leading candidate was in Washington, D.C., hammering out specifics for the USDA's new national organic standards. The next day, he was back in North Dakota to plant an 80-acre field of sunflowers.

On July 1, Fred Kirschenmann will open another chapter in his life-as the next director and first farmer to head the 12-year-old Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. He brings with him a national and international reputation in organic agriculture, more than 20 years of putting theories of sustainability into practice on his own 3,500-acre farm, and service as a faculty member and administrator in four colleges.

Kirschenmann said he is grateful for the leadership provided by the Center's first director, Dennis Keeney, who retired in December. He also was looking forward to working with an "energetic and enthusiastic" ISU staff and faculty.

"The Center has a strong background in science and I want to build on that, but also recognize the challenges ahead of us," Kirschenmann said. "Dennis always used the metaphor of a journey toward sustainable agriculture practices. I see myself as becoming part of that journey."

"This is an opportunity to think about where we want to go with agriculture in the future, and for many farmers, we don't have a lot of time left," he added.

"The principles of sustainability must become actualized in a way that will really work for farms and farm families. There are no easy answers."

Kirschenmann will work part-time at the Center until November when he will become full-time director. The part-time appointment will allow him time to harvest this year's crops and transition management of his farm.

The announcement was made June 7 by outgoing Iowa State University president Martin Jischke. It came after a year-long search by an 11-member committee headed by Leopold Center Advisory Board member Wendy Wintersteen and several other advisory board members. The committee screened 30 candidates, naming five finalists. In April, the Center's advisory board recommended three people to President Jischke. Kirschenmann was at the top of the list.

"Dr. Kirschenmann brings new experience, vision and leadership to this position and I expect that many people at Iowa State and elsewhere will come to appreciate his noteworthy qualities," Wintersteen said. She added that his understanding of the philosophy, science and practical business aspects of sustainable agriculture will make him a good director. "He is an excellent choice to move forward the ideals of sustainable agriculture in Iowa."

Kirschenmann said he has respected Aldo Leopold for a long time. "His notion that we really need to solve our problems ecologically is at the heart of his thinking," he added, "and I couldn't agree more."

About the new director
He is president of the certified organic Kirschenmann Family Farms in Windsor, North Dakota, where he also was president (1990-1999) of Farm Verified Organic, a private organic certification agency. He recently completed a five-year term on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board, and has chaired the administrative council for the USDA's North Central Region's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. He also finished work for the North Dakota Commission on the Future of Agriculture, and was a charter member of the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society in 1979.

He has been a member of the board of directors for the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture since 1994, and was president in 1997.

He earned degrees from Yankton College in South Dakota, Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut, and a doctorate in historical theology from the University of Chicago, where he earned numerous awards including a Rockefeller Fellowship. He was the first chair of the Department of Religion at Yankton College, and was Dean of the College at Curry College in Boston. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles and book chapters dealing with ethics and agriculture.

About the farm
Although his operation is slightly larger than the average 1,500-acre North Dakota farm, Kirschenmann tends fields at several locations, as do his neighbors, within a 22-mile area in Stutsman County in the south central part of the state. About 1,000 acres are native prairie, used for grazing livestock, and the rest is managed in a diversified operation. Kirschenmann raises eight to nine crops each year in three different rotations.

This year Kirschenmann planted durum and hard red spring wheat, rye, buckwheat, millet, flax, canola, also alfalfa and sweet clover for forage and green manure crops. He has 113 cows, and raises calves until they're yearlings.

Becoming a lover of the soil

So why should we be concerned about farm issues? I think we need to be concerned because there are some issues at stake here that go to the very core of who we are as human beings on a planet that nurtures our life. If I really want to answer the question "why should I be concerned about farm issues?" I have to ask more than food safety and environmental protection questions. I have to begin exploring my real connection to the soil, and how that connection, or lack of connection, effects who I become as a person and who I, together with other persons, become as a society ... it is an invitation to all of us to become lovers of the soil again-as a way of healing our soils and our souls.

From an essay by Fred Kirschenmann, "On Becoming Lovers of the Soil,"in a 1997 book, For All Generations: Making World Agriculture More Sustainable. Other writings are linked from the Leopold Center web site www.leopold.iastate.edu.

Farmer chosen as next Center director