Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Pubs & Papers

Research can take many forms and lead to many different outcomes. The ultimate goal is sustainability – for the landscape, Iowa’s people and natural resources. Below is a list of intermediate outcomes of Leopold Center-supported projects, partnerships and activities. Included are extension publications, in-house research projects, informative presentations and other reports – all with some link to the Leopold Center.

All Pubs & Papers are PDFs, which require a free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Click on the image or title to view the PDF.

Leopold Center Document These materials were written, reviewed or presented by Leopold Center staff. All other materials are related or based on projects supported by the Leopold Center.

Pub & Papers here are sorted by date with the newest at the top. You can filter the list by selecting a topic area below and clicking "Apply." To see all again you can select "<Any>" as the topic, or click here. There is also an alphabetical listing available.

This is a synopsis of presentations at the 2013 Iowa Local Food Conference. Breakout sessions focused on three challenges related to local foods -- Business Incentives, Beginning and Minority Farmers, and Food Incentives -- and offered success stories from national and Iowa-based speakers.

May 2013
Leopold Center Document Sharing the Lessons Learned from the 2013 Iowa Local Food Conference
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Is local food more expensive than its non-local counterpart? The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative conducted consumer market research in June, July, and August 2009 to examine what Iowa consumers pay for locally grown products and how these prices compare to non-local market channel prices. This handout explains the comparisons [PDF]  Read news release about this project.

December 2009
Leopold Center Document Is Local Food More Expensive? A Consumer Price Perspective on Local and Non-local Foods Purchased in Iowa
Rich Pirog, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and Nick McCann, Iowa State University graduate student

Consumers who participated in this Internet survey would like to see farmers receive a higher share of the profits for retail food products. See related grant project 2004-MSP05.

October 2005
Leopold Center Document Consumer perceptions of place-based foods, food chain profit distribution and family farms
Thomas E. DeCarlo, ISU College of Business, Veronica Jean Franck, Drake University College of Law, and Rich Pirog, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

This report details the assumptions and calculations used to estimate the food miles for a container of strawberry yogurt.

March 2005
Leopold Center Document Calculating Food Miles for a Multiple Ingredient Food Product
Rich Pirog, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and Andrew Benjamin, ISU Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

This study included focus groups and telephone surveys of Iowans about their understanding and knowledge of regional food systems and related concepts.

January 2005
Leopold Center Document Examining Awareness of and Support of Regional Food Systems in Iowa: Establishing a baseline of consumer knowledge about regional food systems and communication preferences
Kay M. Palan, Regional Food Systems Working Group

This chart shows the declining level of diversity of crop and livestock produced on Iowa farms since 1920.

December 2004
Leopold Center Document Number of Commodities (crop and livestock enterprises) Produced for Sale on at least 1 percent of all Iowa Farms, 1920 to 2002
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

This paper provides an overview of how Geographical Indicated Products are defined, regulated and used for marketing in the Netherlands.

September 2004
Leopold Center Document Geographical Indicated Products in The Netherlands
Laura Mout, Wageningen University and Research Center

This study looked at the positive role that ecolabels could have in product promotion among consumers, and their willingness to pay 30 percent more for locally grown products with environmental attributes.

May 2004
Leopold Center Document Ecolabel Value Assessment Phase II: Consumer Perceptions of Local Foods
Rich Pirog, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, with the ISU Business Analysis Laboratory

This survey of 1,600 consumers in Iowa, the Midwest and metro areas on the East and West coasts showed preference for the term locally grown and family farms.

November 2003
Leopold Center Document Ecolabel Value Assessment: Consumer and Food Business Perceptions of Local Foods
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and ISU Business Analysis Laboratory

This analysis found that locally grown produce traveled an average of 56 miles from farm to point of sale, compared to an average of 1,494 miles for 30 types of produce from conventional sources.

July 2003
Leopold Center Document Checking the Food Odometer: Comparing Food Miles for Local versus Conventional Produce Sales to Iowa Institutions
Rich Pirog, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and Andrew Benjamin, ISU graduate student