Meet our Leopold Scholars
Erin Tegtmeier
Xiaofan Niu
Karie Wiltshire
Providing hands-on experience and an opportunity for students to learn about sustainable agriculture has always been important in the work of the Leopold Center. The Center has employed a summer intern for more than 10 years. Each year the Center has supported dozens of graduate students who work with university professors to conduct research funded by competitive grants.
In 2000, the Leopold Center Advisory Board moved its commitment to a new level. The board approved funds for up to three years for a graduate assistantship in Iowa State UniversityÕs newly created Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture (GPSA). For each of the past two years, the Center has helped sponsor a new student entering the GPSA program at ISU.
Currently, the Center provides partial support for three outstanding Leopold Scholars:
- Xiaofan Niu, Shenyang, China, who began Fall 2001, advised by X.B. Yang, plant pathology;
- Karie Wiltshire, Indianapolis, who began Fall 2002, advised by Kathleen Delate, agronomy and horticulture, and
- Erin Tegtmeier, Chicago, who began Spring 2002, advised by associate director Mike Duffy, economics.
Each student brings a unique perspective to the new GPSA program, one of the first of its kind in the United States. And, we're pleased to admit, we're learning as much from them as they are learning from us!
Erin Tegtmeier: An inside look at the World Summit
This past spring, the Iowa United Nations Association (UNA) sponsored a paper competition for student groups to submit plans for creating "Sustainable Futures for Iowa." I was a member of one of the five winning teams and was offered the opportunity to attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg as a delegate of the Iowa UNA. Support for my trip was provided by the Leopold Center with additional help from the Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture, the Iowa UNA, Global Agriculture Programs at ISU and the Women, Food and Agriculture Network.
I traveled with fellow team member and graduate student Pernell Plath in South Africa and Swaziland for two weeks prior to our meeting the other Iowans in Johannesburg to observe the Summit.
South Africa, only eight years removed from Apartheid, is struggling to find a new image and continues to be a country of stark socioeconomic contrasts and racial divides. It is a place striking for its surreal mix of first and third worlds. Witnessing life there is like being in a sort of snow globe where time and space seems jumbled. Images of black poverty and physical toil tumble over those of wealthy, mostly white modernity. This is especially so around Johannesburg where new, single-occupant Jaguars and BMWs tool along the freeways followed by worn minivans packed with 16 or more black commuters or flatbed trucks carrying black laborers wearing bright blue work coveralls.
Housing also reveals a range of conditions. Middle class to wealthy homes are comparable to those in the United States. However, "armed response" security systems are rife everywhere and walled communities topped with electric fencing and guarded by 24-hour gate security surround Johannesburg. These are contrasted with township shanties and modest homes with no electricity and where thousands share communal toilets and water taps. A number of squatter camps are recent additions around major cities, housing immigrants from neighboring countries looking for work in the relatively strong economy of South Africa.
Our trip began in Capetown, the cosmopolitan city by the sea. The Dutch East India Company settled this port town in the 17th century and it sits in a stunning setting of oceans and mountains. There are many tourist sights to keep travelers busy including a tour of Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were kept, and visiting the world-renown Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
Ecovillage draws interest
One of our off-the-beaten-path excursions took us to Oude Molen (Old Mill) Village on the grounds of what was a hospital complex in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Artisans are renting spaces as homes and workshops to transform the area into an eco-village. Grant funds have recently been awarded to install a number of solar panels to provide an alternative energy source. An organic farm on the site grows food for residents and neighbors, delivering by horse-drawn cart. The organizing committee for Oude Molen envisions this eco/artisan community acting as an educational and recreational resource for urban residents of Capetown. It also provides an alternative use for this site, which may otherwise be razed and developed commercially.
After our time in Capetown, we headed north and rode a train for 30 hours across the Karoo. This semidesert plateau is so large it accounts for about one-third of South Africa's land area. We spent a few days in the tiny kingdom of Swaziland, nestled in the northeast corner of South Africa. We also enjoyed seeing some wildlife before it was time to join the other delegates at the Summit.
The UN's purpose at the World Summit on Sustainable Development was to gather delegates and establish goals concerning development and the global environment. The final document of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit was Agenda 21. This document was re-evaluated in Johannesburg and new statements and targets were negotiated.
The Summit was a logistical challenge with some 40,000 delegates and others descending upon Johannesburg. There were three official venues for meetings, conferences and exhibits and more than 500 related events throughout the city and country. Considering that Johannesburg is one of the largest cities in the world, getting from site to site was an ordeal!
We stayed at the prep school campus of St. Stithian's College, also a venue for alternative conferences and gatherings. Friends of the Earth hosted The People's Earth Summit, and Biowatch South Africa presented The South-South Biopiracy Summit, which I attended.
Biopiracy and the WTO
The hot topic at the biopiracy summit was intellectual property rights of biological resources. One document offered this simple definition of biopiracy: "Legally speaking, biopiracy is the appropriation of biological resources without prior informed consent of owners or local people or government."
Deciding who is a biopirate depends on your perspective. Corporate or research institutions that have spent millions of dollars on development of a plant or seed for commercial use may see seed-saving or traditional use as piracy. The farmer who has saved seeds for years may see the corporation as a pirate for genetically modifying a life form and then attempting to control its use.
There also was a fair amount of debate about the future of intellectual property rights of biological resources and how they are affected by world trade. The World Trade Organization (WTO) established the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in 1995, which requires member states to allow patenting of certain life forms.
But implementing WTO obligations is complex. Countries have inconsistent patent laws and guidelines for determining which life forms are patentable. In addition, patenting any form of life contradicts the cultural values of some countries and groups. Of great concern is the continuing trend in which genetic, biological resources from the developing world actually benefit the corporations and research entities of developed countries.
I was fortunate to hear Indian physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva speak on several occasions. During a panel discussion at the Biopiracy Summit, she suggested that TRIPS, based on U.S. patent law, is structured to protect commercial interests and not communities concerned about their biological and natural resources. She promoted a sharing-growing "earth family" paradigm rather than the current system of biopiracy and a "genetic mine." She advocates reshaping governance systems so that communities are at the center of decisions about resources.
This call for a stronger community-level voice was echoed at many summit-related events. It also seemed to affirm our efforts with the UNA of Iowa to create our own sustainable futures here at home. I hope to be an active contributor to such efforts upon my graduation from ISU, and I thank the Leopold Center and its supporters for the opportunity to witness the deliberations on sustainability in Johannesburg.
For more information about the Summit:
Erin Tegtmeier has a geography degree from the University of Illinois and is interested in consumer behavior. She has been working with associate director Mike Duffy to determine the external costs of ag production on a national scale. She became interested in sustainable agriculture as a shareholder in an organic vegetable farm, where she interned for a year.
Xiaofan Niu: Following her family's footsteps
Xiaofan Niu always wanted to follow in her grandmother's footsteps. But little did she know that it would take her to Iowa soybean fields halfway around the world.
Niu's grandmother was a plant pathology professor, one of the first 60 female professors in China. She also raised Niu while her parents pursued their advanced degrees -- her father in analytical chemistry and her mother in foreign affairs. Both work at Shenyang Agricultural University, located in a city of 6 million people in the heavily industrialized area of northeast China.
"Although she died when I was in high school, my grandmother was one of the most important people in my life," Niu said. "My grandmother had visited America twice and she really wanted me to go to graduate school here. I had followed my grandmother's career so I had heard about ISU because it's one of the top three schools for plant pathology in the United States."
Niu also was concerned about environmental pollution and the problems it has created, especially for farmers.
"After farming for 4,000 years, the Chinese people are now facing severe environmental pollution and a lack of resources," Niu said. "Making this situation worse is our large population so it's extremely difficult to make any changes. As a plant pathologist I want to learn how we can manage our pests without continuing to pollute our water and soil, which will be a huge challenge."
With an interest in plant pathology and sustainability, Niu thought Iowa State's new Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture (GPSA) would be a perfect fit. She applied to the GPSA and contacted one of the new program's participating faculty members, X.B. Yang, who also grew up in China.
"Dr. Yang is well known in the field of plant pathology both in China and the United States," Niu said. "I was thrilled to be accepted into the program. I will always remember when I arrived in Ames -- July 19, 2001 -- because it was a starting point in my new life."
Niu is working with Yang to chart changes in Phytophthora sojae, the pathogen that causes stem rot in soybeans. Soybean cultivars developed 20 years ago included a gene resistant to this pathogen, and they were 98 percent effective in controlling stem rot. In recent years, however, stem rot again has become a serious problem in Iowa soybean fields because the disease-causing pathogen has developed its own resistance to the gene.
"Developing cultivars that are resistant to diseases is one of the most important strategies used in integrated pest management so that farmers do not have to rely on chemicals to control pests and disease," Niu explained. "Aldo Leopold also put tremendous emphasis on helping farmers switch to more organic methods of agriculture, so in that way my work has the same goals as Leopold."
She plans to complete her master's degree next year and hopes to continue working toward a Ph.D. in plant pathology before she returns to China.
Karie Wiltshire: She fell in love with the prairie
Grinnell College's national reputation in liberal arts education attracted Karie Wiltshire from suburban Indianapolis to central Iowa in 1995. But it was a love of the prairie -- and an interest in pursuing Aldo Leopold's land ethic -- that have kept her here.
Wiltshire is one of 15 students accepted in August to ISU's interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture (GPSA). Her home department is agronomy, where she is a research assistant for Kathleen Delate, ISU's first organic agriculture specialist.
Although Wiltshire has just begun to develop her thesis project, she said she hopes to work with farmers who want to use native prairie grasses and forbs for managed grazing. The GPSA degree will complement her recent work as a prairie specialist, both with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
Wiltshire entered Grinnell College as a biology major, but admitted that she was more interested in social issues. "A summer of prairie restoration as a Nature Conservancy summer intern first sparked my formal interest in ecology," she recalled, "and Aldo Leopold readings also influenced me profoundly during my college years."
A semester with a Costa Rican farm family pointed her toward agriculture as well as social issues. The study-abroad program included work on a project to evaluate the farming practices of cacao farmers who lived in the rainforest. After a semester of interviewing farmers and surveying neotropical migrant bird populations, she discovered another passion -- to be a farmer.
She returned to Grinnell in 1999 to complete her undergraduate degree with a concentration in environmental studies. After graduation she completed an internship with Midwest Soyfood Company Harvest (now known as Wildwood Harvest Foods) in Grinnell.
"Learning about organics and value-added products linked me with new groups and I enjoyed working with farmer-innovators," Wiltshire said. "I also learned about community supported agriculture and became passionate about starting a CSA enterprise in Grinnell."
Working with the Center for Prairie Studies at Grinnell College and diverse community members, she recruited three growers and 35 consumers to create the Compass Plant CSA in 2001. She has been active in the Grinnell Area Local Food Alliance, whose work is currently funded by a Leopold Center grant, and is a board member and project coordinator for the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture (INCA).
For the past two years, Wiltshire had been a private lands and prairie specialist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Bureau and the Knoxville and Oskaloosa offices of the NRCS. Her areas of expertise include warm season grasses, prairie ecology, habitat planning, native species identification and ecosystem management. She has worked with hundreds of landowners in Marion and Mahaska counties to develop plans for native plantings, and has coordinated field days and other educational events.
Wiltshire said her work at ISU will help her to better understand the value of natural ecological processes as they relate to human activities -- ideas that Leopold emphasized.
"I came to ISU to continue a fusion of Leopold-based philosophies that have been fundamental to my pursuits: a land ethic within a sense of place," Wiltshire said. "Central Iowa has been my home, ecosystem, passion and laboratory for seven years now, and Ames and the GPSA only made sense as the place to further my place-based land ethic journey."