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In its first foray into the public policy arena, the Leopold Center is announcing competitive grants that will launch five new projects in Iowa.
The projects will focus on research that explores alternative policies or looks at the impact of existing policies on midsize operations, sustainable practices, and land use. The Leopold Center grants for the projects, which will get underway in early 2004, total $147,144.
“This is a new area for the Leopold Center,” said initiative leader and agricultural economist Mike Duffy. “We decided that policy was too important to ignore.”
Duffy said the Leopold Center will not take a position on specific bills or become involved in advocacy efforts.
“We’re interested in research that will help policy makers and the general public make more informed decisions,” he said. “Our hope is that our work in this area will stimulate creative thinking about potential policies and the consequences of those policies.”
The five projects are the result of a May 2003 request for proposals issued by the Center’s Policy Initiative. Nearly 30 submissions were evaluated in a competitive process that included external reviewers and members of the Leopold Center’s advisory board.
In addition to the projects that were funded, three other projects were accepted but not funded at this time. Two of these projects concerned the Conservation Security Program, which has not been funded by the USDA. Therefore, the Leopold Center projects have been put on hold until the program details are announced. The other project is being slightly revised and, pending successful completion of the alterations, it will be funded at a later time.
Policy Initiative 2004 Grants
- Cooperation: A survival strategy for small- and medium-sized farms, $26,479, R. Ginder, ISU economics (P03-16) This project will create a database of small- and midsize farms in the Midwest that have used cooperative agreements to remain competitive, and evaluate the effectiveness of eight of those producer groups.
- Defining farm types: Policy research considerations, $25,950, Beginning Farmer Center, Iowa State University (P03-5) Most current farm programs categorize farms according to gross annual sales. This project will identify other ways to segment farms such as by acreage, harvested cropland or animal units, and use a simulation model to assess the impacts of a given policy on various sizes and types of farming operations.
- Determination of the impact of USDA’s National Organic Program on organic farms in Iowa, $20,000, K. Delate, Iowa State University. (PO3-8) Investigators will survey an estimated 400 Iowa organic farmers to determine the impact of the USDA’s new National Organic Program on their operations. The new standards went into effect October 21, 2002.
- Forming agricultural bargaining units for a sustainable and equitable agriculture, $32,630, R. Ginder and D. Jarboe, Iowa State University. (P03-10) This is a case study of a cooperative marketing and bargaining association in the Upper Midwest, the Organic Farmers Association for Relationship Marketing (OFARM). Specifically, investigators will look at how the organizational structure could be used by other farmer groups in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
- Taking the next step: Building a platform for performance-based stewardship payments, $42,085, C. Flora, North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (P03-15) This is part of a larger project to quantify the usefulness of conservation incentives in making significant environmental improvements. The Leopold Center grant will merge predictions from a simulation model and an economic analysis in a southeast Minnesota sub-watershed to determine if and how the real cost of land use change is supported by stewardship payments. The project also will work with the Rathbun Lake Watershed Alliance in Iowa to make policy recommendations.
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