Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture - Duffy to leave Leopold Center July 1

Associate director Michael Duffy left the Leopold Center July 1 to pursue teaching and research opportunities in the ISU Department of Economics on a full-time basis.

For most of the past 13 years, Duffy had been balancing his time between the Center and the department, where he has been a professor of agricultural economics the past 20 years and professor-in-charge of the Beginning Farmer Center.

Duffy said he hopes to develop an economics course for the university’s Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture and work on undergraduate instruction in land appraisal. He will continue to conduct the annual Iowa Land Values Survey and keep his extension appointment, which includes working with area farm management specialists and ISU Extension’s Farm Financial Planning Program.

“This was a very difficult decision for me,” Duffy said. “I believe strongly in the mission of the Center and I have a great deal of vested interest in its success.”

Duffy added that his primary interests are research, outreach and teaching, and that the amount of administrative work at the Center has left him with little time for those things. He concluded: “I fully intend to keep working with the Center, only in a different way. The upcoming debate on the new farm bill will make policy work more important than ever, and I would like to be a part of the Center’s efforts to address these issues.”

Duffy’s work at the Center began in 1992, when he joined agronomy professor Jim Swan as a part-time associate director. In 2000, he became half-time associate director, handling a wide range of administrative and financial responsibilities and serving as liaison between the Center and extension administrators and staff on funding for extension projects. He also led the Center’s Policy Initiative, managing a number of grants and special projects.

Most recently he convened a group of economists and policy leaders to examine possible directions for the next Farm Bill, and has helped plan the College’s national agricultural policy summit in July. His research has focused on midsize family farmers, land value and land ownership trends, decreasing profit margins and alternatives for Iowa farmers, and the best ways to handle transfer of a farm from one owner to another.

Under the directorship of Dennis Keeney, Duffy worked on a number of competitive grants and helped establish the Center’s long-term organic research plots. He received the College of Agriculture’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Extension in 2004.

Leopold Center director Fred Kirschenmann recognizes Duffy’s many contributions to both the center and sustainable agriculture.

“Naturally we will miss the great leadership and professional insights that Mike has brought to the Center all these years,” Kirschenmann said. “He has been a mentor to me in so many ways but we celebrate Mike’s decision to be more fully involved in the research and teaching that he loves so deeply.”

Kirschenmann said he is pleased that Duffy has agreed to be available to the Center for advice and consultation. “We look forward to working with him in this new role and wish him well in his new endeavors,” he said.

The Center is assessing staff needs and will announce plans to handle the responsibilities that had been managed by Duffy. In the interim, Kirschenmann will lead the Policy Initiative.