Work in Iowa communities key to meaningful change

The Leopold Center needs to work with Iowa communities to use what has been learned about sustainable agriculture over the past 12 years to bring about meaningful change.

That's the advice for the Leopold Center as new directions for future activities are hammered out during a yearlong planning process. The advice comes from seven professionals in the fields of ecology, marketing and public policy, who were invited to attend a two-day workshop in July on the Leopold Center's three proposed initiatives. The initiatives were discussed and developed at six “community conversations” conducted by Center staff with more than 200 Iowans last spring.

"Sustainable agriculture is an abstract idea until you relate it to a community," author Richard Manning told the group. "We need real people, trees and a watershed to help us grasp these concepts, otherwise they just don't make sense."

Manning, who visited nine countries to write Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution, said an important aspect of community work are the connections made with non-rural residents. "We've lost community and sense of place in our lives," he said. "A family farm has a strong sense of place, and we need to capture the Iowa story."

The Leopold Center's new initiatives focus on activities in the areas of ecology, marketing and public policy. Professionals at the July workshop were asked to suggest short-term and long-term strategies and activities in each of the initiative areas.

Other participants included: Mark Edelman, economics, Iowa State University; Dick Levins, agricultural economics, University of Minnesota; Joe Lewis, USDA research entomologist, Tifton, Georgia; Theresa Marquez, marketing director, Organic Valley Family of Farms, LaFarge, Wisconsin; Chris Mundt, research botanist, Oregon State University; and Michael Shuman, public policy and marketing consultant, Alexandria, Virginia.

Work during the past year to develop future directions for the Leopold Center has been funded by a grant from the Cavaliere Foundation. For a summary of the workshop, contact the Leopold Center or check the Center's web site.