Leopold Center - College honors two Leopold Center staff members

Good things really do come in small packages. Two members of the Leopold Center’s seven-person staff were honored during the spring convocation of the Iowa State University College of Agriculture.

Associate director Mike Duffy received the College’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Extension. Marketing initiative leader Rich Pirog received the Professional and Scientific Staff Award for Achievement and Service. They were among 15 faculty and staff in the College of Agriculture recognized at the annual awards ceremony.

Duffy’s work at ISU spans almost two decades, including nearly 10 years at the Leopold Center. Currently, he works half-time as associate director and leads the Center’s agricultural policy initiative. He balances this with his time as ISU Extension economist supervising 11 extension farm management field specialists, and is professor-in-charge of the ISU Beginning Farmer Center.

Duffy also conducts the annual Iowa Land Values Survey that began in 1941, the only survey that collects information in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. He is state leader for the Farm Financial Planning Program. Initiated in 1984 as a response to the farm crisis, the program has been used by more than 10,000 Iowa farm families to evaluate their farm businesses.

Duffy has earned a reputation as the “go-to” guy for information on land values trends, decreasing profit margins in farming and possible options for Iowa farmers, the best ways to handle transfer of a farm from one owner to another, and changes that need to be made in farm policy to best support Iowa’s midsize family farmers. He helped establish ISU’s first long-term organic research plots and helped convert the university’s Allee Research Farm to operate on a farming systems project basis.

Since 2000, Duffy has taken the lead in dealing with a wide range of the Center’s administrative and financial responsibilities. He also acts as a liaison between the Center and Extension administrators and staff regarding funding by the Center for Extension projects.

Pirog joined the Leopold Center in 1990 and is well-known for his work on “food miles.” His 2001 research paper outlined some of the environmental costs attached to transporting food products hundreds of miles from their growing site to point of sale.

Pirog’s authorship of two other research papers has been extremely helpful to two Iowa horticultural industries – apple and grape growers. His writing has helped spark interest in local production and the potential markets for both crops within the state.

Pirog was the principal writer on a $650,000 funded grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for the Value Chain Partnerships for a Sustainable Agriculture project, which he directs. He also holds minor appointments with ISU Extension and Practical Farmers of Iowa.

Prior to 2001, Pirog supervised the Center’s educational workshop and conference grants program. In 2001 he organized a pork niche marketing conference that resulted in the formation of the Pork Niche Market Working Group (PNMWG). The group united more than 35 organizations representing producers, university staff and faculty, agribusinesses and commodity groups who are working to enhance marketing opportunities for Iowa family farmers who want to raise pork in a manner that is profitable and sustainable.